The Upanishads clearly indicate:- This Atman cannot be attained by the study of the Vedas, or by intelligence, or by much hearing of sacred books.

The Upanishads clearly indicate:-

This Atman cannot be attained by the study of the Vedas, or by intelligence, or by much hearing of sacred books. It is attained by him alone whom It chooses. To such a one Atman reveals Its own form. (Katha Upanishad- Ch-II -23-P-20)

This Atman cannot be attained through study of the Vedas, nor through intelligence, nor through much learning. He who chooses Atman—by him alone is Atman attained. It is Atman that reveals to the seeker Its true nature. (3–page-70 Mundaka Upanishad -Upanishads by Nikilanada)

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.

This clearly indicates that religion, which is based on individual conduct, prescribes karma and Upaasana to people of lower and middling intellect, therefore religion is for the lower intellect. And wisdom is for those are capable of inquiring into their own existence. 

Brahman is considered the all-pervading consciousness which is the basis of all the animate and inanimate entities and material. (brahmano hi pratisthaham, Bhagavad Gita 14.27)

If Brahman is considered the all-pervading consciousness then, it is necessary to realize, the consciousness as self, which pervades all the three states to realize the fact that there is no second thing exists other the consciousness. Thus, consciousness [Atman] is ultimate truth or  Brahman.  

Even in the Buddhism: - Buddhist teaching has itself become a kind of interactive and self-evolving process, much like its idea of pratityasamutpada. However, the end goal is still Nirvana, which is an experience ultimately beyond all concepts and language, even beyond the Buddhist teachings. In the end even the attachment to the Dharma, the Buddhist teaching, must be dropped like all other attachments. The tradition compares the teaching to a raft upon which one crosses a swift river to get to the other side; once one is on the far shore; there is no longer any need to carry the raft. The far shore is Nirvana, and it is also said that when one arrives, one can see quite clearly that there was never any river at all.

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 is the consciousness, which is in the form of consciousness. 

Self-knowledge or Brahma Gnana or Atma Gnana cannot be attained by study of the Vedas and intellectual understanding or by bookish knowledge.  Therefore there is no use of studying the Vedas and other scriptures in order to acquire the non-dual wisdom.  That is why Buddha rejected the scriptures, and even Sri, Sankara indicated that, the ultimate truth lies beyond religion, concept of god and scriptures.

Thus it is necessary to follow the formless path dropping all the accumulated baggage and move forward to reach the destination in lesser time and effort.  

Scientific inventions say: 

Why You Are Not Your Brain, and Other Lessons from the Biology of Consciousness
by :Alva Noë. Hill and Wang, 2009

Alva No, a University of California, Berkeley, philosopher and cognitive scientist, argues that after decades of concerted effort on the part of neuroscientists, psychologists and philosophers "only one proposition about how the brain makes us conscious ... has emerged unchallenged: we don't have a clue." The reason we have been unable to explain the neural basis of consciousness, he says, is that it does not take place in the brain. Consciousness is not something that happens inside us but something we achieve it is more like dancing than it is like the digestive process. To understand consciousness the fact that we think and feel and that a world shows up for us we need to look at a larger system of which the brain is only one element. Consciousness requires the joint operation of brain, body and world. "You are not your brain. The brain, rather, is part of what you are."

If the brain (body) is not the self then what is self?  Therefore, there is a need to understand and assimilate the knowledge of the self through deeper inquiry, analysis and reasoning in order to unfold the mystery of the ‘I’. 

There is no scope for debate and argument   in pursuit of truth. Seeker has to verify the facts of any claim, if find them to be true then only accept them.  It is not correct to impose idea on others when they are not ready to accept anything other than their accepted truth. There is no need to prove whether Buddha is right or Sri, Sankara is wrong. But seekers only mission is to know, how to realize the non-dual truth, which is propounded by the Buddha andSri,Sankara and Sri, Goudpada? Since present practices are based on conduct and action, and they are based on the false physical self (ego).  What are the fatter and obstacle in realize the nondual truth? How to overcome the obstacle on the path of non-dual truth? 

Adyathmic Discussion -338

People consider themselves to be knowledgeable because they have read books and well informed about the subject. But all these accumulated knowledge is not wisdom. One can’t get non-dual wisdom from accumulating knowledge.

Whether the knowledge accumulated are of the scriptures or something from more recently published books are mere pointers to truth but not wisdom. First, whether one is aware 

of it or not, as he reads he is imposing his own cultural conditioning, biases, experiences, and prior knowledge onto what he is reading; this is how his thinking faculty works. He “makes sense" of new things by associating them with things he already knows.

Most of the time, this is useful. But if the "new thing" is utterly different from anything one has been exposed to before, he is almost certain to distort it to make it fit into pre-existing conceptual boxes. So much of knowledge is about changing perspective, but that's hard to do when he is twisting the knowledge around to fit the perspectives he is already has.

As one goes on digging mentally and on more things will be revealed to him through inner revelation, which makes him get A firm conviction of what is what. --FORMLESS PATH

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• Michael West, Bini P Varikattumalil and 2 others like this.
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  Manjit Manhas I totally agree, it very rare to see people speak from their own experience. it is always, he said this 1000 years ago and another said this 5000 years ago. it would seem god no longer speaks to people.

Sage Sri Sankara's system of Advaita does not need the support of any Scripture or Revelation like theVeda.

Advaitic view:-

Sage Sri Sankara's system of Advaita does not need the support of any Scripture or Revelation like theVeda. The Srutis may all disappear, yet will his school stand.  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.

The tenet of Nirguna Brahman is true for Shankara, not because it is taught by the Sruti, but because it is based on anubhava (intuitive experience) though it is also supported by the Sruti... The Advaitin knows that a legitimate doubt may have here to arise.  The Rishis may have truly spoken; but they may have been deluded themselves.  How are we certain that what the Rishis cognized is the Reality or Truth?  This can be proved according to the Advaita, only byanubhava.

And also:

Again, in the absence of this anubhava, Nirguna Brahman as an object of thought is mere sound without sense. To one who has not seen a penguin, for instance, the word has no meaning ... Of what use, then, is such Sruti to him?  Similarly, common sense tells the Advaitin that the meaning of the Sruti and especially where there are conflicting interpretations is made out by means of reasoning based upon the authority of anubhava, which is final.

Thus reason comes into play between Sruti and anubhava, corroborating the data of intuition with those of the revealed texts.

But reason also permits discrimination between the different possible experiences, for, in an a priori astonishing fashion:

Anubhava ... can reveal not two, but twenty thousand conflicting experiences.  And the business of the wise is to sift the ultimate truth from out of all these ... The Advaitin rejects nothing.  All human experiences are his data.  He tests all by reason.

Only Advaita can reply: it is the witness, the Seer. The Buddhists are in error in regarding the finite ego as illusory, and as having nothing more behind it: but they would have been perfectly correct in such outlook had they added the notion of the witness. How is it that Skandas come together and compose the ego? Who sees them come and go? It is the witness, the Atman, and this lack Vedanta supplies in the seer and seen and reason Analysis. When they say that the mind comes and goes they are forgetting that there must be another part of the mind as consciousness which notices it and which tells them of this disappearance and appearance. All their misunderstandings arise from the fact that Buddha refused to discuss ultimate questions. When Buddhism degenerates into Nihilism Advitin refutes it (See Mandukya P.281). The truth of a single reality within or underlying the illusory ego is all-important and without it Buddhism becomes fallacious.

Vedanta admits the transitoriness and evanescence of thoughts just like Buddhism, but not of the Mind which observes this transitoriness and knows it.

Buddhists borrowed from Upanishads because they were Indians. The Vedantins did not need to borrow from Buddhism therefore (see P.396 v.99 of Mandukya Up)

Buddha taught the illusoriness of ego, but did not go farther probably because he thought the world could not understand the higher truth. Hence followers go with him to that point of his, and then deny the Vedantic doctrine of one supreme reality when the Buddha himself neither denied nor advocated it. Anyway the refutation of his followers is to ask them “What is it that is aware of the ego's illusoriness?" There must be something that tells you that. That something is the  Drik, and if you say this Drik itself may be illusory, coming and going, still there must be something non-transient i.e. permanent, to tell you this.

Buddha's teachings that all life is misery belongs to the relative standpoint only. For you cannot form any idea of misery without contrasting it with its opposite, happiness. The two will always go together. Buddha taught the goal of cessation of misery, i.e. peace, but took care not to discuss the ultimate standpoint for then he would have had to go above the heads of the people and tell them that misery itself was only an idea, that peace even was an idea (for it contrasted with peacelessness). That the doctrine he gave out was a limited one, is evident because he inculcated compassion. Why should a Buddhist sage practice pity? There is no reason for it. Advaita is the next step higher than Buddhism because it gives the missing reason, viz. unity, non-difference from others, and because it explains that it used the concept of removing the sufferings of others, of lifting them up to happiness, only as we use one thorn to pick out another, afterwards throw both away. Similarly Advaita discards both concepts of misery and happiness in the ultimate standpoint of non-duality, which is indescribable.

Buddhists say that a thing exists only for a moment, and if that thing has still got some of the substance from which it was produced how then can they deny that its cause is continuing in the effect; hence its existence is more than a moment. Vedanta is concerned with whether it is one and the same thing which has come into being, or has it come out of nothing.

Even the Sunyavada ultimate of the "void" is really a breath, and therefore an imagination and not truth.

Buddha as a constructive worker committed an error in failing to give the masses a religion, something tangible they could grasp, something materialistic, if symbolic that their limited intellect could take hold of, in addition to his ethics and philosophy. Here Sri Ramakrishna was wiser and gave religion; such as Kirtan, puja etc.--to the ignorant masses, as well as Advaita to those like Vivekananda.

Buddha gave as the central feature of his doctrine the great law of Karma in order to reiterate its ethical meaning. He did more good in this to uplift the people than the ritualists.

Tibetan and Chinese Buddhists who say that there are many Buddhas living in spirit bodies and helping our earth from the spiritual world are still in the sphere of religious illusion, not ultimate truth. Their statements are wrong. Every sage realizes that the only way to help mankind is to come down amongst them, for which he must necessarily take on flesh-body. When people are suffering how can he relieve their suffering unless he appears amongst them? When people are suffering how can he feed them from an unseen world whether their struggle be for material bread or for spiritual truth? No! He must be here actually in the flesh. It is impossible to help them in any other way and all talk of Shiva living on Mount Kailas in spiritual body or Buddha in Nirmanakaya, invisible body belongs to the realm of delusion or self-deception.

Adyathmic Disussion-339

One has to mentally grasp the existence of the formless witness (soul or consciousness) of the three states, to realize the three states are mere illusion. And mentally focusing attention on the formless witness constantly one will be able to establish the reasoning base on the base of formless witness(soul). And when the reasoning base is established on the base of formless witness it becomes easy to understand and assimilate the self-knowledge or Brahma Gnana or Atma Gnana. 

But it takes much time to establish in consciousness because one has to overcome the physical conditioning by realizing the self is not physical but it is formless.--FORMLESS PATH

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• Michael West, Narendra Joshi and 2 others like this.
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  Manjit Manhas Very direct and simple solution. Like

  October 11 at 12:18pm · Unlike · 1