Religious orthodox people think that through their good karma and performing rituals they get Moksha. The orthodox Advaitins indulge and immerse themselves in a ritualistic oriented lifestyle and follow the path of karma and Upasana which is meant for lower and middling intellect and not for realizing the Advaitic truth.
Many chose these orthodox scholars as their Gurus. But these Gurus are good to learn the conceptual Advaita meant for those Orthodox who believe their conduct oriented lifestyle leads to Moksha (liberation).
The orthodox Advaita is not the means to acquire Self–knowledge or nondual wisdom. Those who are seeking the truth have to do their own homework in order to acquire ‘Self’-knowledge or Brahma Gnana or Atma Gnana.
Sage Goudpada says that: - The merciful Veda teaches karma and Upasana to people of lower and middling intellect, while Jnana is taught to those of higher intellect.
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 most advanced seeker who seeks to know the truth beyond the form, time, and space. The religious orthodoxy is meant for the first audience, to help lead its followers along the way. The Atmic path, emphasis on the Advaitic wisdom, is meant for those who wish to go beyond such transient pleasures.
The rituals mentioned in the karmakanda of the Vedas are sought to be negated in the jnanakanda which is also part of the same scripture. While the karmakanda enjoins upon you the worship of various deities and lays down rules for the same, the jnanakanda constituted by the Upanishads ridicules the worshipper of deities as a dim-witted person no better than a beast.
This seems strange, the latter part of the Vedas contradicting the former part. The first part deals throughout with karma, while the second or concluding part is all about jnana. Owing to this difference, people have gone so far as to divide our scripture into two sections: the Vedas (that is the first part) to mean the karmakanda and the Upanishads (Vedanta) to mean the jnanakanda.
Sage Sankara:~ Action (karma) cannot destroy ignorance, for it is not in conflict with or opposed to ignorance. Knowledge does verily destroy ignorance as light destroys deep darkness. -Atma Bodha
First Mundaka - Chapter 2 (8) - Fools, dwelling in darkness, but wise in their own conceit and puffed up with vain scholarship, wander about, being afflicted by many ills, like blind men led by the blind.
First Mundaka - Chapter 2 (9) - Children, immersed in ignorance in various ways, flatter themselves, saying: We have accomplished life's purpose. Because these performers of karma do not know the Truth owing to their attachment, they fall from heaven, misery-stricken, when the fruit of their work is exhausted.
First Mundaka - Chapter 2 (10) - Ignorant fools, regarding sacrifices and humanitarian works as the highest, do not know any higher good. Having enjoyed their reward on the heights of heaven, gained by good works, they enter again this world or a lower one.
Remember:~
When Sage Sankara says clearly, the universe is not real. He says that Brahman and Atman are one. The ultimate and the Absolute Truth is the Self, which is one though appearing as many different individuals. The individual has no reality. Only the 'Self 'is Real; the rest, mental and physical are but passing appearances, then it indicates the form (waking) is unreal the formless is real (Soul). Therefore, only Atman is real because there is no second thing other than Atman.
The individuality is a reality within the illusory world. Therefore, all the theories created within the illusion on the base of the false entity, within the false experience, has to be the part and parcel of the illusion. Thus, it is necessary to realize the fact that Atman is the innermost Self and all else is an illusion, to overcome the illusory concept of the cycle of birth, life, and death.
The karma theory is a reality only for those who believe their present physical identity (ego) as real, and world as reality. When the Sage Sankara declares the world itself is an illusion, and Brahman is real, then what value the karma theory has when the world is an illusion because man is part and parcel of the illusory world. Therefore, one has to view and judge the three states from the standpoint of the formless Soul, the innermost Self in order to overcome the duality, which he is experiencing as a reality.
Sage Sankara says in Aparoksh Anubhuti: ~ 88. When the whole universe, movable and immovable, is known to be Atman, and thus the existence of everything else is negated, where is then any room to say that the body is Atman?
89. O enlightened one, pass your time always contemplating on Atman while you are experiencing all the results of Prarabdha; for it ill becomes you to feel distressed.
90. The theory, one hears of from the scripture, that Prarabdha does not lose its hold upon one even after the origination of the knowledge of Atman, is now being refuted.
91. After the origination of the knowledge of Reality, Prarabdha verily ceases to exist, since the body and the like become non-existent; just as a dream does not exist on waking.
92. That Karma which is done in a previous life is known as Prarabdha (which produces the present life). But such Karma cannot take the place of Prarabdha (for a man of knowledge), as he has no other birth (being free from ego).
93. Just as the body in a dream is superimposed (and therefore illusory), so is also this body. How could there be any birth of the superimposed (body), and in the absence of birth (of the body) where is the room for that (i.e., Prarabdha) at all?
94. The Vedanta texts declare ignorance to be verily the material (cause) of the phenomenal world just as the earth is of a jar. That (ignorance) being destroyed, where can the universe subsist?
95. Just as a person out of confusion perceives only the snake leaving aside the rope, so does an ignorant person see only the phenomenal world without knowing the reality?
96. The real nature of the rope being known, the appearance of the snake no longer persists; so the substratum being known, the phenomenal world disappears completely.
97. The body also being within the phenomenal world (and therefore unreal), how could Prarabdha exist? It is, therefore, for the understanding of the ignorant alone that the Shruti speaks of Prarabdha.
98. “And all the actions of a man perish when he realizes that (Atman) which is both the higher and the lower”. Here the clear use of the plural by the Shruti is to negate Prarabdha as well.
99. If the ignorant still arbitrarily maintain this, they will not only involve themselves into two absurdities but will also run the risk of forgoing the Vedantic conclusion. So one should accept those Shrutis alone from which proceeds true knowledge.
The above proves that karma is a reality only on the base of the false Self, where one thinks the body and the universe as reality. When one becomes aware of the fact that, the true Self is formless Soul, then the karma becomes part and parcel of illusion.
My point is that, if one accepts the karma theory as reality, he will never be able to come out of ignorance. And ignorance makes him believe the cycle of birth, life, and death as a reality. Thus the freedom which one is seeking will remain a distant dream. For the one who accepts the birth, life, and death as a reality, Self-knowledge or Brahma Gnana or Atma Gnana is impossible.
Remember:~
Karma (Action) will not dispel ignorance. Karma itself is based on ignorance Only Self-Knowledge or Brahma Gnana or Atma Gnana will destroy ignorance.
The karma theory is based on the birth entity whereas the Soul, the Self is birthless and deathless because it is the formless, timeless and spaceless existence.
The present birth itself is an illusion because the world in which birth, life, and death happen is merely an illusion from the standpoint of the Soul, the Self. Those who believe in the karma theory are unfit to acquire Self-knowledge or Bramha Gnana or Atma Gnana.
The Karma theory is meant for those who are immersed in worldly life thinking the individual life within the particle world as reality. In the path of wisdom, the Karma theory becomes a great obstacle in realizing the truth, which is based on the form, time and space. in reality, the form, time and space are non-existent as a reality.
When Sage Sankara says clearly, the universe is not real. He says that Brahman and Atman are one. The ultimate and the Absolute Truth is the Self, which is one though appearing as many different individuals. The individual has no reality. Only the 'Self 'is Real; the rest, mental and physical are but passing appearances, then it indicates the form (waking) is unreal the formless is real (Soul). Therefore, only Atman is real because there is no second thing other than Atman.
The individuality is a reality within the illusory world. Therefore, all the theories created within the illusion on the base of the false entity, within the false experience, has to be the part and parcel of the illusion. Thus, it is necessary to realize the fact that Atman is the innermost Self and all else is an illusion, to overcome the illusory concept of the cycle of birth, life, and death.
Thus, to understand and assimilate Sage Sankara’s Advaitic wisdom the seeker has to do his own homework through deeper Self-search, without mixing the religion, the scriptures, the theories, the concept of God and the yoga.
The karma theory is a reality only for those who believe their present physical identity (ego) as real, and world as reality. When the Sage Sankara declares the world itself is an illusion, and Brahman is real, then what value the karma theory has when the world is an illusion because man is part and parcel of the illusory world. Therefore, one has to view and judge the three states from the standpoint of the formless Soul, the innermost Self in order to overcome the duality, which he is experiencing as a reality.
Sage Sankara says in Aparoksh Anubhuti: ~ 88. When the whole universe, movable and immovable, is known to be Atman, and thus the existence of everything else is negated, where is then any room to say that the body is Atman?
89. O enlightened one, pass your time always contemplating on Atman while you are experiencing all the results of Prarabdha; for it ill becomes you to feel distressed.
90. The theory, one hears of from the scripture, that Prarabdha does not lose its hold upon one even after the origination of the knowledge of Atman, is now being refuted.
91. After the origination of the knowledge of Reality, Prarabdha verily ceases to exist, since the body and the like become non-existent; just as a dream does not exist on waking.
92. That Karma which is done in a previous life is known as Prarabdha (which produces the present life). But such Karma cannot take the place of Prarabdha (for a man of knowledge), as he has no other birth (being free from ego).
93. Just as the body in a dream is superimposed (and therefore illusory), so is also this body. How could there be any birth of the superimposed (body), and in the absence of birth (of the body) where is the room for that (i.e., Prarabdha) at all?
94. The Vedanta texts declare ignorance to be verily the material (cause) of the phenomenal world just as the earth is of a jar. That (ignorance) being destroyed, where can the universe subsist?
95. Just as a person out of confusion perceives only the snake leaving aside the rope, so does an ignorant person see only the phenomenal world without knowing the reality?
96. The real nature of the rope being known, the appearance of the snake no longer persists; so the substratum being known, the phenomenal world disappears completely.
97. The body also being within the phenomenal world (and therefore unreal), how could Prarabdha exist? It is, therefore, for the understanding of the ignorant alone that the Shruti speaks of Prarabdha.
98. “And all the actions of a man perish when he realizes that (Atman) which is both the higher and the lower”. Here the clear use of the plural by the Shruti is to negate Prarabdha as well.
99. If the ignorant still arbitrarily maintain this, they will not only involve themselves into two absurdities but will also run the risk of forgoing the Vedantic conclusion. So one should accept those Shrutis alone from which proceeds true knowledge.
The above proves that karma is a reality only on the base of the false Self, where one thinks the body and the universe as reality. When one becomes aware of the fact that, the true Self is formless Soul, then the karma becomes part and parcel of illusion.
My point is that, if one accepts the karma theory as reality, he will never be able to come out of ignorance. And ignorance makes him believe the cycle of birth, life, and death as a reality. Thus the freedom which one is seeking will remain a distant dream. For the one who accepts the birth, life, and death as a reality, Self-knowledge or Brahma Gnana or Atma Gnana is impossible.
The path of religion, the theory of karma, the path of yoga and the path of wisdom were intended for different classes of people. The wisdom is for the advanced seekers of truth. It deals with the nature of the ultimate Truth and Reality. It is meant for superior aspirants who have an inner urge to know the truth and it is not for those who are immersed in earthly desires.:~Santthosh Kumaar
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