Everything is consciousness, which Sage Sri Sankara declared 1200 years back –everything is Atman because Atman is in the form of consciousness.
The scriptures are for ignorant masses, who wholly accept the material world as it presents itself. Non-dualistic or Advaitic wisdom is for those who have begun to realize that things are not what they seem.
Whatever seen, known, believed and experienced within the waking or dream(duality or illusion) is powered by the soul,which is present in the form of consciousness. Thus, the illusion( mind or universe) which appear and disappear as reality is impermanent. The formless substance and witness (soul or consciousness of the illusion is real and eternal. The soul is the innermost self. The ultimate truth or Brahman is the very awareness without the illusion, which is permanent and eternal.
Sage Sri
Sankara, indicated in Bhaja Govindam
says: - (Jnana Viheena
Sarva Mathena Bajathi na Muktim janma Shatena) - one without knowledge does not obtain liberation even in a hundred
births, no matter which religious faith he follows.
Then it is no use going roundabout way, trace the Brahman which
is the formless substance and witness of the universe, which is in the form of
mind. By tracing the source of the mind
or universe one will be able to realize the Brahman.
Thus,
self-knowledge is meant only for those who have intense urge, and courage to
accept the truth with humility and reject the untruth. Since people start
comparing with their scriptural knowledge, it becomes impossible to assimilate
and realize the non-dual truth. Therefore, there is no need to
convince anyone other than our own-selves to get the firm conviction.
So they clearly indicate rituals and theories are not meant for
those who are searching for the higher knowledge or wisdom. The path of wisdom is the only means.
Isa Upanishads indicates that: By
worshipping gods and goddesses and going to the world of gods after death is of
no use. The time one spends in ritualistic practices is wasted; one can
spend same time moving forward towards Self-knowledge, which is the main goal.
One cannot reach the nondual destination by glorifying god and goddesses and by
doing that, one goes deeper and deeper into darkness. It surely indicates the
fact that, the seeker of truth has to drop the worshiping god and goddess in
order to get self-knowledge.
Sage Sri, Sankara as a
rationalist philosopher, in contrast to the more traditional image of him as a
theologian: (Sage Sri, Sankara’s system of Advaita) is not even a philosopher
dish cooked to suit exclusively the palate of the Hindu. It is like the air and
the water, the common food of all men in all countries. It is ... an attempt
... at constructing a "Science of Truth," nay, in fact, it is the
only attempt yet made at such a science. If rightly interpreted Sage Sankara’s
teaching as food for all humanity, the universal teaching par excellence; it is
not just a religion, but the religion; not a philosophy, but the philosophy; not a science, but the Science of Truth; not a soteriology, but the path to spiritual liberation par excellence, wide and deep as the ocean which contains virtually
all the water of the world and in which all particular forms ultimately
dissolve.
