Sage Sankara:~ The religious Gurus and Yogis are not Gnanis because they identified themselves as holy people.+

Gurudom belongs to religion and yoga. Religion and yoga are not spirituality. Advaitic wisdom is pure spirituality.  

Religious or yogic Gurus propagate that, once a seeker identifies a Guru, he must totally surrender to the Guru and then from there onwards, the spiritual journey is fully the Guru's responsibility, not his... Hence the importance of choosing the right Guru is necessary, but in pursuit of truth, the guru is not necessary, because the truth is not theoretical.  

The ultimate truth has to be ascertained by the seeker on his own through a well-directed inquiry, analysis, and reasoning based on the true self, which will lead the seeker to his destination.  

People who worship the Guru as God in human form and there is a danger that they might establish a regular religious sect in his name.  This is an unhappy development of the religious movement.

It is better to take guidance from a Gnani and try to attain the same realization that he had, rather than spend their energies in deifying him. Let us remember that to deify a Gnani is to defy wisdom”

Hindu religious literature is full of such aphorisms as ' there is no higher deity than the Guru; the Guru is the ultimate Truth and Deity. God and  Avatars (incarnations) are secondary to the Guru in importance ;there is no higher refuge, no higher target, no higher destination than the Guru ; the Guru is God Himself ; God and the Guru are one ; he who makes a  distinction between the Guru and God is ignorant and stupid ; and scores of  similar others. They abound both in Sanskrit and in modern Indian languages.

People born in different sect and they remain as its follower. Most of the sect are founded by some gurus, thus Indian belief system is a Guru Cult, i.e. believes in the worship of the Guru as the Supreme Deity.

When a seeker could not get full enlightenment from his inherited belief system, then only he searches elsewhere. And tries to get enlightened himself further to clear the cobwebs of his understanding and seeks guidance to his progress.

All the Guru Parampara is for religious people.  There is no need for a Guru who wants to tread the path of wisdom.

Even Swami Vivekananda was Ramakrishna Paramahansa's disciple.  Swami Vivekananda himself said: ~   “You have to grow from the inside out. None can teach you, none can make you spiritual. There is no other teacher, but your own Soul.”

There are two kinds of audiences - the ordinary ones who desire the transitory heaven and other pleasures obtained as a result of ritual sacrifices, and the more advanced seeker who seeks to know the ultimate truth or Brahman.  The Guru and guru paramparas are meant for the first audience, to help lead its followers along the way. However, there is no need to follow any parampara and follow any Guru those who wish to realize the truth which is beyond the form, time and space. We should not mix religion with spirituality because religion is based on the ego and spirituality is based on the Soul.   The religion is concerned with its paramparas, not truth whereas spirituality is concerned only with the truth, which is beyond the form, time and space. Religion is not spirituality.

 

The religious gurus and yogis are not Gnanis because they identified themselves as holy people. 

Why worship and glorify the Gurus and Yogis (human form) in place of God when Veda bars such activities and it also warns people who indulge in such activities are enveloped in still greater darkness, in other words, they are extremely foolish, fall into an awful hell of pain and sorrow and suffer terribly for a long time.

Vedas bars human worship: ~ 

Yajur Veda 

Translation:~ "They are enveloped in darkness, in other words, are steeped in ignorance and sunk in the greatest depths of misery who worship the uncreated, eternal prakrti -- the material cause of the world -- in place of the All-pervading God, But those who worship visible things born of the prakrti, such as the earth, trees, bodies (human and the like) in place of God are enveloped in still greater darkness, in other words, they are extremely foolish, fall into an awful hell of pain and sorrow, and suffer terribly for a long time." ~ (Yajur Veda 40:9.) 

Many people are stuck to the idea that without a Guru, Truth -realization is impossible. Guru is only a religious fable. They do not even know what their Guru teaches is the truth. 

Gurus themselves dwelling in darkness preach their way is the only way and the followers of the gurus follow the dualistic path like the blind led by the blind. 

The Guru is useless so long as the ultimate truth is unknown, and Guru is equally useless when the ultimate truth or Brahman has already been known. 

The Guru is useless so long as the ultimate truth is unknown, and Guru is equally useless when the ultimate truth or Brahman has already been known. 

A Guru is needed in religious and the yogic path. There is no need for a Guru to acquire Self-knowledge or Brahma Gnana or Atma Gnana.    

A person who realized the ultimate truth or Brahman will throw off his religious robe and all religious identity and lives like a commoner. He never identifies himself as Gnani nor does he identify himself superior to others. He only shares his knowledge with fellow seekers. 

A Gnani never identifies himself as a Guru or a Yogi or someone disciple. The one who accepts himself as a Guru or someone’s disciple is not a Gnani. 

Manduka Upanishads: - Even the Gods cannot find out who is a Gnani because he bears no external mark. Neither nudity nor the yellow robe has anything to do with him. 

A Gnani cannot have the idea of renouncing the world or giving up something of the practical world because that would connote the idea of duality.  Duality is merely an illusion from the ultimate standpoint. Knowing no second thing at all there remains nothing to be given up 

Ashtavakra Samhita: ~ "The man of knowledge (Gnani), though living like an ordinary man, is contrary to him and only those like him understand his state. 

Sage Sankara: ~ "Though I wear these robes of a Sanyasin, it is only for the sake of bread." 

So Sage  Sankara wore a Guru's robe only for the sake of the ignorant. So he was identified as Guru with parampara by religious people. For the truth seekers, Sage  Sankara is a Brahma Gnani. 

Sage   Sankara himself said: ~ A Gnani "bears no outward mark of a holy man" (Stanza 539). 

Thus, it proves that religious Gurus and Yogis are not Gnanis because they identified themselves as holy people. 

All those who were the sanyasin robes are wearing it for the sake of bread belongs to the religion; they are nothing to do with the Self-knowledge or Brahma Gnana or Atma Gnana.  

There is no need to criticize and condemn the gurus, yogis, and swamis because they are needed for the welfare of ignorant mass in the dualistic world. : ~ Santthosh Kumaar