Prayers and sacrifices belong to a premature stage of development

Prayers and sacrifices belong to a premature stage of development. As time passes, When however no answers come to prayers, when they questions the God men or swami  he  tells them that the answers come in the next world. As time passes and struggle for existence presses man, and doubt arises again about the existence of god.  Faith in religion weakens as man pays more attention to facts of practical life and practical world,which is mere illusion from ultimate standpoint. 

All the prayers are just begging to the belief of God to fulfil his individual desire. One do not know what exactly the slokas being recited by the priest meant in Sanskrit, but going by the translation one becomes aware the prayers are nothing but list of specific demands. For health, wealth, education, success in business ventures, political power. Under the grab of holiness and piety, what was being transacted is a shoddy deal between man and belief of God with one‘s belief in the divine being bartered for some material goodies.  

Leading orthodox life in strict accordance with moral and ethical conduct may be helpful to lead a life within the practical world. But practical life within the practical world is mere illusion from ultimate standpoint. Orthodoxy is not a qualification for realization of truth. All these religious and yogic conducts like faith, belief, devotion, service, and yogic-Samadhi will make the seeker of truth lull into spiritual inactivity.

• ·         The basic requirement is an intense urge to know and realize the truth. 
• ·         Courage to reject the untruth when it is discovered. 
• ·         Accepting the truth by dropping the untruth.
• ·         Full-pledged inquiry and reasoning and analysis and intensity of mental effort of constant reflection on the true nature of the mind or universe.

Ultimate reality is not individualized God but the formless Soul or Consciousness or Spirit which the formless substance and witness of the illusion or universe or mind. 

The religion is built on the imaginary divine entity called god for creating faith to inspire and promote the belief.  It introduced its code of conduct and rituals to help people who are not fit enough to think beyond. Thus religion creates its own pedigree to help people to live in harmony and build a cultured society within the practical world. But religion, scriptures and its beliefs are nothing to do with the ultimate truth or Brahman.  

Seeker of truth should not be carried away by some gurus the act of assuming nor by the attitude of authority which they adopt in speaking to everyone. It has no value from ultimate standpoint.

Many illustrate the ‘I know’ attitude adopted because their guru has told them so, both of them not knowing really.

Many gurus are certainly brilliant intellectually in their other spheres, such as religion they follow and yoga and other subject of the practical world but most of these gurus are unaware of the ultimate truth or Brahman, which is beyond form, time and space.

 They apply reason admirably to their holy business and talk about love and compassion and play with the feeling and emotion of the people. They have mastered the art of manipulating the ignorant mass.  People magnify every minor coincidence or every petty fact where god men and some gurus were concerned, and they see miraculous or esoteric significance therein.

Paradise or heaven exist according to the imagination of religious believers.  But when people start verifying through deeper thinking they begin to disbelieve through the contradictions of various contending orthodox claims and descriptions.

The craving for religion, the fear that not to follow its rites and dogmas will bring punishment, the inability to give up the notion of its truth even when one’s  reason demonstrates its fallacies and absurdities are merely forms of mild obsessions, i.e. a thought constantly repeating itself automatically; hence it is mental disease.

Unless one up the ideas of heaven and hell, it is impossible to acquire Self-knowledge or Brahma Gnana or Atma Gnana. Ultimate Truth or Brahman must be proved here and now not in the next life and next world.  Without realizing the ultimate truth it is impossible to realize the experience of birth, life, death and the world as illusion.

The truth of religion can only be proved by your physical strength or by one’s imagination, or his power of the sword or his political power, never by reason.  If a yogi or orthodox is honest, after the course of practice over many years, he would admit to himself “Nothing has come of all this." And they would give up their egocentric practice and take the path of truth or wisdom. 

Whatever is thought of within the waking experience makes Him something other than what He is. When the waking experience ends, what happens? It is consciousness alone prevails without the three states.

Awakening is nothing but a complete, perfect understanding and assimilation of what is what. A clear cut understanding of a ‘what is what’ is awakening. Reality is not to be achieved; it is there as it is. After this perfect understanding assimilation and realization, nothing is required.

And we expect "awakening" to be some great, mysterious happening! "Reality is not to be achieved; it is there” as it is,  as unchangeable existence within the changeable illusion. 

Kabir views humanity as being caught up in illusion, searching for Ultimate Reality in all the wrong places, always seeking It outside of ourselves in various rituals, temples, forests and mountaintops, not realizing That for which we seek is already hidden within us. 

The ultimate truth or Brahman dwells within the three states like fragrance in the flower; Musk lies within the Musk-deer yet seeks it afar." Until one trace the truth within the three states the illusion of birth, life, death and the world(duality) is experienced as reality. 

Without causing the objective universe to vanish and without knowing the truth of the Self, how is one to achieve Liberation.

The quest of “truth “begins with the first step. It is very much necessary to know the basics, whether “Truth Realization” is related to religion, yoga and modern science or any other subject. The religion, yoga or modern science is no way related to the ultimate truth or Brahman.

In the formative years, the religious propensities of an individual are shaped and formed initially by parents, which is substantial. These inherited religious conditioning or samskaras  handed down as a precious legacy from one generation to the next generation.

To say that we know God exists always implies one must also exist always to say God exists. It would be correct to say on this point, I do not know because one is not sure what God is.

Religion belongs to the world of sentiments and emotions. That is why everyone likes it Religion changes as it appeals to different emotions and sentiments. One will find at one pole the nude saint and hata yogi   is admired; at the other the gorgeously-dressed God men is revered. Belief in religious prohibitions arises out of fear of God's punishment.

Religions place God as the unknown reality.  Every believer  has a different idea of God. Every man has a different idea of reality. The fallacy of believers appeal to scripture lies in the varying and conflicting interpretations of the same scripture which different persons feel entitled to give or hold.

Religion continues to enjoy a pre-eminent position in the life of most people all over the world.  Religion conditions man to be, to behave, to believe and to live as a person in the practical life within the practical world. Religion is only a mind game based on the belief. The religious worship, rituals, prayers scriptural studies and yoga are not the means to Self-Knowledge or Brahma Gnana or Atma Gnana.

Most people take to the path of belief merely because they are the easiest ways. To seek for proof is troublesome and time-consuming.

Religion and mysticism are so much preferred to path of truth or wisdom because one has only to imagine, not to inquire and verify the validity of his inherited belief system. The first is easy, the second is difficult.

Religion and mysticism is a species of mesmerism affecting weaker mind sets. Thus the panoply of swamis or gurus religious robes and life style etc. creates unconscious suggestion in weaker minds of a superior power or magical knowledge. Similarly the people who visit to ashrams are suggested into thinking they experience great peace because they are unconsciously hypnotized into believing that will happen. But when a man with a strong disciplined rational mindset meets a swami or guru visits an ashram, he is entirely unaffected.

Scriptures are being added to from time to time. There is no final authority among them. One contradicts the other: duality reigns supreme.

Each man sees in his own Samadhi whatever is uppermost in his mind. How does he or anyone know that what he sees is ultimate truth? Similarly each has intuitions agreeable to what is uppermost in his mind.

Believers who are anxious for a mystic or occult experience often get it. But it is only a mental construction of their strong suggestion to subconscious.

Ritualistic path, yogic path, devotional are not path of wisdom. Soul-centric reasoning helps the seeker to enter to Self-Awareness. And as his understanding matures, he will be able to realize the fact that, the form, time and space are mere illusion and whatever is connected to form, time and space is illusory reality created out of consciousness.  The consciousness alone is real and eternal.  Thus consciousness is ultimate truth or Brahman.  Thus one has to drop all religious baggage mentally ,which is the first step in pursuit of truth.

People fail to understand that, the emptiness is the nature of the self, which is consciousness.  When self becomes aware of its formless non-dual nature it becomes empty of ignorance or illusion or duality or experience of waking or dream.  Thus whatever remains empty of duality or ignorance or illusion is non-dual reality. Only through wisdom one becomes aware of the truth in the midst of duality.

 That is why "Sri, Sankara said: 63- (VC)- Without causing the objective universe to vanish and without knowing the truth of the Self, how is one to achieve Liberation.

Universe will not remain as reality when wisdom dawns. Universe is mere mirage created out of consciousness and there is conscious awareness of unity in diversity because there is no second thing exist other than consciousness.

One thinks he is imprisoned within this body; whereas the body and his experience of the world are within the mind. The consciousness is hidden within the three states but it is without the three states.  The one, which has the awareness of the three states, is not the body but the soul, which is in the form of consciousness. Thus consciousness is not limited to waking experience alone because it pervades all the three states. Till one views and judges the world-view on base of ego or waking entity, he is in the grip of individuality or intellectuality.  The self is not an individual because it is universal. And it pervades in everything and everywhere in all the three states. Thus individualized judgment will not lead one non-dual destination.  

 That is why 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 soul, the innermost self becomes aware of its formless non-dual nature than  it becomes empty of ignorance or illusion or duality (waking or dream).  Thus whatever remains empty of duality or ignorance or illusion is non-dual reality. Only through wisdom one becomes aware of this ultimate  truth or Brahman in the midst of duality.