If the waking entity is not the self and waking experience is mere illusion then the karma performed within the illusion has no value.

 

Truth cannot be got in external world. The truth is hidden within the three states as their formless substance and witness. By Becoming a monk and renouncing the worldly life and running away to mountains to acquire non dual truth or Brahman is a foolish venture.

 CH.2 v.16 where Krishna tells Arjuna to fight is misrepresented by half-Vedantins as an order to kill other human beings, because they are mere Ideas, Illusory, whereas whole Vedanta says these ideas too are Brahman, and yourself and hence no killing really occurs. Only when you see all individuals, especially yourself as imagined ideas, can you rise to see them later as Brahman. Thus there are two stages. You must first see yourself as illusory before you see others as illusory. 

Truth is not something to be sought. It is something that has to be realized.  People start their spiritual practices for accomplishing their needs in the practical  life as they think fulfilling such needs will give them peace of mind. But gradually they come to know that actual spiritual practices are for realizing the fact that , experience of birth, life ,  death and the world  are mere mirage on the standpoint the formless soul or consciousness the innermost self.

Brahman is within. The formless soul, which is in the form of consciousness, is ultimate truth or Brahman. The formless soul is the innermost self and it is not an entity or identity within the waking or dream, but it is the formless substance, witness and source of the three states. Formless soul is the source of the three states, from where the mind or universe (waking or dream) erupt and subsides.

All the confusion and doubts arise because one doesn’t know what he is seeking. He thinks “ego or waking entity” is self and he is trying to acquire self-knowledge on the base of ‘ego or waking entity’ which is false self within the false experience. He thinks truth is some thing accomplished from the external experiences. So instead of verifying it through deeper self-search he tries to regulate his human attributes through yoga and devotion and religious code of conduct and tries to acquire the self-knowledge or Brahma Gnana or Atma Gnana .

Karma (Conducts, action, deeds) are not the means to acquire non dual wisdom because they are based on the false self within the false experience. How karma can yields fruit when it is practiced on the base of false self within the illusion. Karma done in the dream will not yield fruit because the dream becomes unreal when waking takes place. Similarly the waking becomes unreal when waking entity realizes it itself is not self in the midst waking experience. If the waking entity is not the self and waking experience is mere illusion then the karma performed within the illusion has no value.

All the orthodox Advaitins indulge and immersed themselves in ritualistic oriented life style 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 Adavaita meant for those orthodox who believe their conduct oriented life style leads to Moksha [liberation].  But religious based Adavaita is not   the means to acquire self –knowledge or non-dual wisdom.  Those who are seeking truth have to do their own homework in order to acquire self-knowledge. 

When everything is consciousness, where is the room to say the thinker, thought, words, body and the universe are not consciousness? The consciousness alone is real and eternal and the thinker, thoughts, words body and universe are mere mirage created out of consciousness.

Sri, Sankar 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 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 the ignorance. And ignorance makes him believe the cycle of birth, life and death or pain and pleasure as reality.  Thus the freedom which one is seeking will remain distant dream. For the one who accepts the birth life and death as reality, Self-knowledge is impossible.

Thus it is necessary for the seeker of truth to know the fact that, the body which is born, lives and dies is not the self. Since he is taking the body to be the self, he is experiencing the duality as reality within the waking experience.