The doer and doing are part of the duality

When the body is not the doer, how the karma theory, which is based on the physical self can be true because self is not form but self is formless consciousness.  The action is possible only in duality. The doer and doing are part of the duality. When there is no second thing exists other than the consciousness in reality, than  the duality is mere illusion created out of consciousness. 

   The karma or action can be performed on physical base with in the false experience. Thus, whatever karma or action performed within the false experience is bound to be false.  The individual experiences within the practical world are reality only within the waking experience but waking experience itself is mere illusion created out of consciousness. If the waking experience is mere illusion then practical life within the practical world is  bound to be an  illusion. Thus karma theory is not meant for those who have chosen the path of wisdom. The path of wisdom or Gnana  is independent path. The karma theory is noting do with the true self, which is ever formless.

Thus the experience of birth, karma and death are part of the illusion.  Thus karma theory based on false self within the false experience is bound to be illusion.  The Advaitic orthodoxy are stuck with the karma theory and rituals are stuck with the theory meant for the lower web  think by glorifying their guru and conceptual god and indulging in all sorts non-Vedic [Puranic]  rituals  they get Moksha.They propagate after indulging in path of belief and devotion one is qualified to take Gnana Marga through  their path also  leads to Gnana. such talks are mere religious fable.     

That is why 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.

Thus it proves the religion is not the means to self-realization.

Sri Sankara  says in Aparokshanubhuti:-

   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, inasmuch as 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 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 the karma is reality only on the base of false self, where one thinks body and the universes 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 the ignorance. And ignorance makes him believe the cycle of birth, life and death as reality.  Thus the freedom which one is seeking will remain distant dream. For the one who accepts the birth, karma and death as reality, Self-knowledge is impossible.

People are ignorant and they are unaware of the reality of their true existence. Man and his experience of universe is simply a mirage created out of   the consciousness.

Consciousness is the real Self, the real Atman. Ataman is the ultimate reality or Brahman.

The rituals are meant for those who believe the particle life within the practical world as reality, who are stuck believing the experience of birth, life death and the world as reality. Thus they cannot cross the sea of samsara [birth, life and death] because they are stuck with their belief system.    

All the scriptures indicate that Ataman is Brahman, and Brahman is ultimate truth. Therefore the soul, which is in the form of consciousness, is ultimate truth.  Thus to realize the ultimate truth is the prime goal.   A well-directed inquiry, analysis and reasoning will lead one to his nondual destination. 

Self-Realization is direct realization of the ultimate truth or real god, in contrast with traditional paths, which are indirect. And the other paths cannot lead to the ultimate destination because they are based on the false self, which they hold as real self and false experience as reality. 

Until and unless one overcomes physical shackle it is impossible to understand and assimilate the nondual truth, which is beyond the physical existence or the universe.  Consciousness itself is lord of itself though not of the universe. And having nothing it has all. 

Mundaka Upanishad:- The rituals and the sacrifices described in the Vedas deal with lower knowledge. The sages ignored these rituals and went in search of higher knowledge. ... Such rituals are unsafe rafts for crossing The sea of samsara, of birth and death. Doomed to shipwreck are those who try to cross The sea of samsara on these poor rafts. Ignorant of their own ignorance, yet wise In their own esteem, these deluded men Proud of their vain learning go round and round Like the blind led by the blind.

Seeker of truth has to take the direct path and avoid losing precious time and effort loosing himself in philosophical studies. 

All the religionists  believe in god and goddesses [vidya] and performing rituals  and other sacrifices[Avidya] both are hindrance to self-knowledge according to Ish Upanishads,  then why the seeker of truth needs worshiping of  god and goddesses, when essence of Advaita  is Atman is Brahman [soul or self as ultimate reality]. 

 When the self is formless there is no need pada pooja [feet worship] Advaitin gurus to get freedom. A guru who preaches conduct as the means to freedom believes in birth, life death and the world as reality, whereas the Advaitic sage Sri, Sankara declares the world as unreal.  Therefore, how actions performed in unreal world can get moksha or freedom. Therefore there is need to know the fact that, the self is not physical in order to understand and assimilate and realize the truth beyond physicality.

 That is why Gaudapada says that: - The merciful Veda teaches karma and Upaasana to people of lower and middling intellect, while Jnana is taught to those of higher intellect.

It means the people who follow religion and worship of guru and conceptual god are lower and middling intellect.  But in this modern world people are sharp enough to understand and assimilate ultimate truth or Brahman or god. Thus it is high time to discard the lower knowledge and move ahead to realize the ultimate truth, which is Brahman or God.   

They alone in this world are endowed with the highest wisdom who are firm in their conviction of the sameness and birthlessness of Ataman. The ordinary man does not understand their way. [Chapter IV — Alatasanti Prakarana 95-P-188 in Upanishads by Nikilanada]

Therefore, if one is seeking truth he has to know his true self is not physical but it is the Ataman, which is in the form of consciousness.  

Isa Upanishads indicates that: By worshiping 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.

It also indicates that, Religious Rituals [Avidya] is Karma [action] and therefore a hindrance. By performing Agnihotra and other sacrifices [Avidya] is a roundabout way of purifying the mind, and it is also groping in the dark.

In addition, it indicates the karma is limited only to the religious rituals, not on the whole human life. This karma theory based on the human conduct must have been adopted from Buddhism and other theories based on human conducts. 

When it says: Perform the obligatory karmas without any attachment to the fruits, and at the same time worship gods and goddesses, again without any desire to go to heaven - then you can get the benefit of both, liberation and bliss. For those who are not yet ready to renounce, this path is recommended, it mean that the religion and its  idea of god and goddesses and code of conducts, and its rituals are meant for the mass who are incapable of thinking of the beyond.

In addition, it also speaks of heaven the abode of gods, where one goes after death, and it speaks of rebirth, this contradiction, seeker has to conclude that religion, rituals god and its code of conducts are meant for the mass that is not receptive to self-knowledge. 

When the self is not the body [‘I’] whatever one sees, knows, believes, experiences and feels on the base of the body [‘I’] as self is bound to be illusion.  Thus, the karma performed in illusion is bound to be illusion. The birth, life and death is happening within the illusion, therefore it is bound to be illusion. Thus, rebirth and reincarnation theories based on the false self within the false experience are bound to be illusion on the base of the true self. Only the witness of the illusion is real [Brahman].  Therefore, everything has to be viewed and judged, on the base of the Formless Witness [soul] in order to overcome the illusion/duality. 

Seeker of truth has to know somewhere he is going wrong, and it is for the seeker to go on his own and remove the obstacle.  The greatest hindrance is mixing religion, god, scriptures, and yogic theories. Moreover, attachment to scriptures, personal god and religious code of conduct keeps one permanently in the grip of duality.

Seeker has to have courage to accept the truth and reject the untruth because most people will not be able to subscribe to path of truth because they sentimentally and emotionally involved with their inherited belief system and even if one does he has to overcome all his doubts confusion and despair.  These are problem for the seekers who are from religious back ground because of their conditioning and they are made to accept their blind belief as truth and their interest or insight is not deep.  Thus all my blogs are useful analyse these problems because they highlight the what is not truth according to their own religious scriptures  and make  them to accept the truth and reject all the false conditioning and move ahead in pursuit of truth.

It becomes difficult for the orthodox cult to accept anything else as truth other than their accepted belief, which they hold as truth. Although all religious followers are participants alike in the spiritual endeavour of the world, overzealous   followers of each religion are not prepared to accord equal status to other faiths and assert the superiority of their own. Thus universal brother hood is total impossibility because it is difficult to accept anything other than their inherited belief system.        

Most of the pundits are egoic and they try to snub others who question them.  They think they are unquestionable authority.  They quote the citation from the scriptures as proof without verifying the validity.  All punditry is a great obstacle in realizing the Advaitic truth expounded by the Sri, Sankara and Goudapada. 

One finds lots of differences between Adavita preaching and practice. There is need to bifurcate religion, concept of god and scriptures from Adavitic philosophy to assimilate the essence of Adavita.    

Sri, Sankara says in Brahma Sutras: that Brahman is the cause of the world, whereas in Mandukya he denies it. This is because he says that at the lower stage of understanding, the former teaching must be given, for people will get frightened as they cannot understand how the world can be without a cause, but to those in a higher stage, the truth of non-causality can be revealed. 

Sri, Sankara himself has warned us not to use ambiguous words, and to practice semantic analysis in his book "Definition of one's own Self. [" Page 199, v.24 of "Sankara's Selected Works]

Sri, Sankara founded his Advaita Vedanta either on reason independent of sruti or on sruti confirmed by reason."   Sri, Sankara's commentary on the Mandukya Upanishad, II, 1:  This [the unreality of duality] is borne out by the Srutis ... But it is possible also to show the unreality of the object world even from pure reasoning, and this second chapter is undertaken for that purpose.

 Sri, Sankara himself had often said that his philosophy was based on Sruti, or revealed scripture.  This may be because Sri, Sankara addressed the ordinary man, who finds security in the idea of causality and thus in the idea of God—and Revelation is indispensable to prove the latter.  He believed that those of superior intelligence, have no need of this idea of divine causality, and can therefore dispense with Sruti and arrive at the truth of Non-Dualism by pure reason. 

Sri, Sankara, in debates with Buddhists and others who did not recognize the authority of the Vedas, had been obliged to prove the truth of Advaita by means of reason alone.  Mandukya Upanishad, a scripture which appealed to reason to the exclusion of Revelation. 

Nonduality does not need the support of any Scripture or Revelation like the Veda. For it is based, not upon the varying theological fancies, which are as numerous as the sands of the sea, but upon reason, the common heritage of all mankind, irrespective of colour or creed or clime.

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. 

 I am not trying to prove my views, but it is for every seeker who is in the path of truth to prove himself to know “What is truth, “and “What is untruth?” to assimilate the self -knowledge. 

Karma, Bhakti, Raj yoga are not the means to path of wisdom. And mixing them up and trying to assimilate ultimate truth is impossibility. 

There is no need to practice to devotion, karma and raja yoga because they are not the means to acquire non-dual wisdom.   There is no practice as such but perfect understanding is needed.   Deeper inquiry, analysis and reasoning revels the fact that, the self is not physical but the self is formless consciousness. Therefore, all the accumulated knowledge, experiences and understanding based on physical self [ego or body as Self] are falsehood based on the false self, within the false experience [waking].   Thus, whatever is based on the waking entity is bound to be falsehood because waking experience itself is false hood.   Since many teachers and teachings are based on the false self [ego or body as Self] and they consider the false experience [three states] as reality, they are incapable of grasping the witness, which is within the three states, but it is without the three states.

 Thus, the formless knower of the three states has to be grasped mentally and realize the fact that, all the three states, which comes and goes, are mental.  They are impermanent. The formless witness or knower of the three states is permanent and eternal.  Therefore, there is a need to understand “What is Mind?” and “What is the substance of the Mind?” in order to understand and assimilate the non-dual truth.

 For this one has drop all his accumulate knowledge, which he is using as a yardstick and lands himself in pursuit of argument without reaching anywhere.  One has to think deeper and analyze and verify everything and accept only un-contradictable truth.  Nothing has to be accepted as truth because some great thinker says it or I am saying it.  

Those who lack the intelligence to discriminate between formless witness [subject] and three states [object] will not be able to grasp what is real and what is unreal. Both subject and object are consciousness, not subject alone.

The truth can never change. The nature of truth is, it can never be changed under any circumstances. It may be misrepresented. It must apply to the whole of existence, to the whole of the universe. It is in the object [three states] alone that one has all changes, as deeper analysis points out.

 The subject [formless witness] remains unchanged. The subject [formless witness], as such remains immortal. It can never die for it never changes. The body and world are an object, and goes, but the subject or knower of the body and the universe, can never go. Seeker has to take this principle as his guiding thread and non-dual truth becomes easy to grasp. The formless witness can never be subject to the changes of the object; it is unchanged. The mistake usually made is that subject becomes object, or that object is subject.

If one wants to have absence of contradictions, absence of duality, there must be one entity, one being. If one has experience which is an object [mind], there is contradiction between subject and object, for "mind” is an object.

The duality is reality on the standpoint of the false self [ego or body as Self].  The duality is mere mirage on the base of the true self, which is formless consciousness. This understanding comes only to the serious seeker, who has real urge to know the ultimate truth, which is beyond the all the teachings and teachers. There is neither teaching, nor teacher, nor student in the realm of truth.  

Different paths will not converge to the same Ultimate Reality because they are based on the false self. They are not the different stages in the same path. People fight about the differences and greatness of their chosen paths but only through wisdom one can realize the Ultimate Reality.

One has to have perfect understanding and march a head, surely and steadily, towards that Ultimate Reality, which is consciousness or Brahman or Christ or Buddha. One becomes limited to the concepts, names and forms within the waking/dream. Waking/dream originates from the soul.