Belief in religious prohibitions arises out of fear of God's punishment.

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.

First Mundaka - Chapter 2 (11) - But those wise men of tranquil minds who lives in the forest on alms, practicing penances appropriate to their stations of life and contemplating such deities as Hiranyagarbha, depart, freed from impurities, by the Path of the Sun, to the place where that immortal Person dwells whose nature is imperishable.

Everyone likes Religion because it belongs to the world of emotions and sentiments. Religion changes as it appeals to different emotions. At one pole the nude saint is admired; at the other the gorgeously-dressed God men is revered.

Seeker of truth should not be carried away by any yogi or swami standing or by the attitude of authority which he adopts in addressing to the mass. It has no value in the realm of truth. His pretends he knows everything and this attitude he adopted because his guru told him so, both of them not knowing really what truth is but they are well versed in scriptural knowledge. Scriptural knowledge is not ultimate truth.

Yogi or swami is certainly brilliant intellectually in religious authority, but remember the religious truth is individual truth not universal.  They apply reason admirably to their profession or business, but drop it and use feeling or emotion only when trying to philosophize.

Religion is “individual truth”; spiritual truth   is “universal truth.” This means religionist take his feeling of truth whereas a Gnani takes his reasoned judgment, which will be the same under test everywhere in the universe.

No one has ever seen God; they only heard or read about him. Some may claim they have seen in the vision. But vision is mere individual experience similar to dream. If one takes the visions as real then the dream also be taken as reality.  No one knows god’s capacities, what He can create, and what he cannot create. Therefore any statement one might make about God would only be a lie, because god can exist only when man exists, and believes in belief of god. If there is no belief then there is no god. Thus god is the religious software in the belief system.  If the software is removed then it is only physical existence.  The truth will unfold only when one is able to think beyond physical existence.

The truth of religion can only be proved by physical strength or by imagination, or power of the weapon or political power, never by reason.  Belief in religious prohibitions arises out of fear of God's punishment.  Seeker of truth has to regard the theosophy in the same way as he regards the idea of God- of religion.

The Religionists place God as the unknown reality. Every religionist has a different idea of God. Every man has a different idea of real, Hence there is need to know the ultimate truth.  The fallacy of the religionist’s appeal to scripture lies in the varying and conflicting interpretations of the same scripture which different persons feel entitled to give or hold. 

Religion needs a guru to propagate its belief system, whereas in pursuit of truth there is no need for a guru. The ultimate truth has to be ascertained by the seeker alone.  Yoga needs guru to guide its student to practice Samadhi. 

Religion encourages the one  who can induce himself to feel convinced that he has realized the Self, or has  an admirer who believes that he has done so, then it  opens up for  him the way for the founding of a new sect based on Guru-worship. People, too, have developed curious credulousness. Often they would install an earnest seeker and devotee, or a pious saint, on the throne of God and begin to offer him worship and homage even if he protested and resisted such acts. They would lay prostrate, sing hymns, wave lights (arati) and burn incense before him, and present to him food which was to be returned by him as prasada, wash his toes and sip the wash. At times the disciple would go to the length of getting food, fruit or a betel-nut leaf chewed by him, and taking the morsel back from it.

They would place his photo in the private temples of their homes and perform all these rites and ceremonies which are usually offered to the  temple-idols.  In this way there might be at present in our country scores of individuals who are worshipped as living God, with a following varying in numbers.

If one is seeking truth one has to drop all religious based dogmas and blind beliefs ritualistic baggage and move forward in their pursuit of truth. 

Therefore, one has overcome all the inherited conditioning to unfold the mystery of the physical existence/mind.  

Chandogya Upanishads:- This universe comes forth from Brahman and will return to Brahman. Verily, all is Brahman. A person is what his deep desire is. It is our deepest desire in this life that shapes the life to come. So let us direct our deepest desires to realize the Self.

If one is seeking truth then it is necessary to bifurcate and drop the traditional Advaitic path which is not the means to self-knowledge and move ahead without the traditional baggage to get direct realization on his own as suggest by the great sages. 

Thus seeker of truth has to know what this universe? What is this ultimate truth or Brahman?  in order to realize the non-dualistic or Advaitic truth?  

No one can escape the waking experience which is the very basis of the physical existence. What was the waking experience before it appeared? Was their existence before the appearance of the waking experience?  When the waking perishes, does the soul or consciousness survive alone?  Is there a self or soul?  The seeker has to find answers for all these doubts in order to realize ‘what is truth’ and ‘what is untruth’.  

As one goes deeper in self-search one becomes aware of the fact that, the self is neither the waking entity not self is the dream entity but the self is formless substance and the witness of the three states. And the formless substance and witness of the three states are one in essence. And that essence is consciousness.  If the formless substance and witness are one in essence, then there is second thing can exist, other than consciousness?  Thus consciousness alone is real and all else is mere illusion created out of consciousness, which is the innermost self.