The real love is the love for the innermost self. Thus ‘Love Thyself'.

People who are incapable to inquire and reason are tending to follow some philosophy without verification. Therefore the more ignorant they are easier to get them into a religious fold. Religion is so strong and popular because it makes no demand on the most intelligent; it simply requires belief in guru and his teachings. 

It never strikes believer to doubt whether his inherited belief system is true. They never use their reason because they start and conclude that their belief system   alone is true, because they never question the validity of their inherited belief.  

For religion one can interpret texts as he likes, in whatever way that pleases him, he simply imagine away.  The idea of god injected in the past and inherited by people and they refuse to verify the facts, because they think it blasphemy even to question their inherited belief system.  

Vivekananda :-

Creeds and sects have their parts to play, but they are for children, they last but temporarily. Books never make religions, but religions make books. We must never forget that. No book ever created God, but God inspired all the great books. And no book ever created a soul. We must never forget that. -Talk given at Unity Hall, Hartford (Connecticut), USA, on March 8, 1895, as reported in "Hartford Times" (March 11, 1895). Complete Works, 1.324.

In pursuit of truth the ultimate truth has to be proved, not assumed. Pundits who take scriptures for granted are not Gnanis.

Pundits teach that all is your-self, but none of them can show that this is so, none has analyzed it scientifically, and none can prove it. Rational proof is needed, so that one arrive at knowing truth i.e. Wisdom; punditry is mere dogma, parrotism, a repetition of what they read in scripture. The scriptures are not yardstick and scriptural truth is not proof.   Pundits take the scriptures as authority.   Authoritarianism merely assumes as true what another says, but what has yet to be proved.

Jesus said, "Know what is in front of your face, and what is hidden from you will be disclosed to you. (THE GOSPEL OF THOMAS- Saying 5)

It means one has to know the world which confronts him confronts to realize his body and the world are made of the same essence and that essence is Spirit [father].  

Sri, Sankara says: one must first know what is before him. If he cannot know that, what else can he know or understand? If he gives up the external world in his inquiry, he cannot get the whole truth.

[63. Without causing the objective universe to vanish and without knowing the truth of the Self, how is one to achieve Liberation by the mere utterance of the word Brahman? — It would result merely in an effort of speech.[ Sri, Sankara says in Viveka Chudamani ] 

 Buddha said:- Work out your own salvation. Do not depend on others.

  

"Jesus said:-"Those who seek should not stop seeking until they find. When they find, they will be disturbed. When they are disturbed, they will marvel, and will reign over all." (Gospel of Thomas 2)

"The Kingdom of God is inside you and all around you, Not in a mansion of wood and stone.  Split a piece of wood and God is there, Lift a stone and you will find God." (Gospel of Thomas)

Sri, Sankara says: (VC) 65. As a treasure hidden underground requires (for its extraction) competent instruction, excavation, the removal of stones and other such things lying above it and (finally) grasping, but never comes out by being (merely) called out by name, so the transparent Truth of the self, which is hidden by Maya and its effects, is to be attained through the instructions of a knower of Brahman, followed by reflection, meditation and so forth, but not through perverted arguments.

66. Therefore the wise should, as in the case of disease and the like, personally strive by all the means in their power to be free from the bondage of repeated births and deaths.

When the seeker indulges in deeper self-search becomes aware of the fact that, the experience of birth, life, death and the world are mere illusion created out of spirit [consciousness], which is the innermost self     

Meher Baba said: - give no importance to creed, dogma, caste or the performance of religious ceremonies and rites.

The only Real Existence is that of the One and only God Who is the Self in every (finite) self.

The only Real Love is the Love for this Infinity (God), which arouses an intense longing to see, know and become one with its Truth (God).

The only Real Sacrifice is that in which, in pursuance of this Love, all things—body, mind, position, welfare and even life itself—are sacrificed.

The only Real Renunciation is that which abandons, even in the midst of worldly duties, all selfish thoughts and desires.

The only Real Knowledge is the Knowledge that God is the inner dweller in good people and in so-called bad, in saint and in so-called sinner. This Knowledge requires you to help all equally as circumstances demand without expectation of reward, and when compelled to take part in a dispute, to act without the slightest trace of enmity or hatred; to try to make.

The real love is the love for the innermost self. Thus ‘Love Thyself'. 

The self cannot be experienced, because the experience is possible only in the realm of duality.   There is neither experience nor experincer in reality.  In self-awareness the body, ego and the world are not considered different from consciousness.