The orthodox pundit seeing Sage Sankara will see differently from the A Gnani seeing the same Sage Sankara.+

According to Advaita Vedanta, the Veda addresses itself to two kinds of audiences - the ordinary ones who desire the transitory heaven and other pleasures obtained as a result of rituals  and sacrifices. The more advanced seeker who seeks to know Brahman. The Purva mimam. sa, with its emphasis on the karma kanda of the Vedas, is meant for the first audience, to help lead its followers along the way. However, the Vedanta, with its emphasis on the jnana kanda, is meant for those who wish to go beyond such transient pleasures.

The look of an object will depend upon the medium through which the observer views it. In fact, our mental and intellectual conditions will determine the phenomenal world observed and experienced.  The orthodox pundit seeing Sage Sankara will see differently from the A Gnani seeing the same Sage Sankara.  Each one of them interprets the world that they see in terms of their existing knowledge.

The orthodox see Sage Sankara as the founder of their religion and also as the Jagad guru of the  Advaitic orthodox sect.  A man of truth sees Sage Sankara not as a guru but as a Gnani. Orthodoxy believes in their experience of birth, life, death, and rebirth and the world as reality. Whereas Gnani sees the world is merely an illusion created out of consciousness.  Thus Gnani sees no second thing other than consciousness. The one who treads the path of wisdom gains the knowledge of reality beyond form, time, and space. A  Gnani has delved into and transcended consciously all identification with the experience form, time, and space. 

Similarly, orthodoxy has to be bifurcated from philosophy. To know the Advaitic philosophy of Sage  Sankara one has to be free from all superstitions and dogmas and orthodoxy and scriptural knowledge.  The seeker has to be more rational and scientific in his attitude.   

Sage Sankara said: ~ Talk as much philosophy as you like, worship as many gods as you please, observe ceremonies, and sing devotional hymns, but the liberation will never come, even after a hundred aeons, without realizing the Oneness. 

Philosophy does not begin with the ultimate truth. The ultimate truth has to be proved, not assumed. Hence, so-called philosophers who take Brahman for granted are not philosophers at all.

Lots of Advaitin scholars will teach that all is yourself, but none of them can show that this is so, none has analyzed it scientifically, and none can prove it. Rational proof is required so that one arrives at knowing the ultimate truth or Brahman i.e. Gnana.  Theirs is mere dogma, parrotism, and repetition of what they read in scripture.  Authoritarianism merely assumes as true what another says, but what has yet to be proved. 

Sage Sankara’s whole teaching can be summed up into one sentence, ‘There is nothing else but Brahman. He says that the Absolute Existence, Absolute Knowledge and Absolute Bliss are Real. The universe is not real. He says that Brahma and Atman are one. The ultimate and the Absolute Truth is the Self, which is one though appearing as many different individuals. The individual has no reality. Only the Self is real; the rest, mental and physical are but passing appearances. 

Sage Sankara:~"Though I wear these robes of a Sanyasin, it is only for the sake of bread." (Select Works of Sage  Sankara" also his commentary on Brihad) 

Sage Sankara: ~  The Gnani "should pass through life", not run away from life, and should take a middle course between seeking worldly honor and worldly abasement. ( Chap.3.4.50; Sankara's commentary to Brahma Sutras) 

Genuine philosophy must be independent of religion, that in Sage Sankara himself the Saguna Brahman or a personal God is only a part of the phenomenal (if not illusory) world and the Nirguna Brahman is the only reality and has nothing to do with religion. 

The main hurdle in his way of thinking is the fact that Sage Sankara did not claim to be an original thinker at all, and his philosophy took the form of commentaries on the generality of the scriptures, particularly the Upanishads and the Gita. Sage  Sankara was an independent thinker. His philosophy has not been taken seriously by many in India, because, most of the followers of Sage  Sankara are religious orthodox.

It is that philosophy in India was for centuries more an exposition of the ancient classics than the independent thought of individual thinkers as in ancient Greece or modern Europe and America. 

Sage Sankara, and  Sage Gaudapada, are independent thinkers, other schools of Indian philosophy are mere theologies. Advaitic wisdom is real wisdom. The dualistic wisdom cannot escape the charge of dogmatism. 

Intelligence and thought, do not apply to Advaitism, intelligence and thought are based on the false self (waking entity) within the false experience (waking).   The whole Advaitic philosophy is an attempt to transcend the limitations of intelligence and thought. 

The two points of view A Gnani is not cut off from the experience of practical life within the practical world because Advaitic truth is neither realism nor idealism; it is beyond both these. 

Sage Sankara said:~ Talk as much philosophy as you like, worship as many gods as you please, observe ceremonies, and sing devotional hymns, but the liberation will never come, even after a hundred aeons, without realizing the Oneness. 

Sage Sankara endeavored toward establishing the Vedic religion and overthrowing Buddhism. But even he was not able to avoid the influence of Buddhism. The influence of the revolutionary atmosphere of Buddhism has reappeared in the Advaita of Sage Sankara. His inability to revive the Vedic religion that flourished before the Buddhist revolution in its pure form is discernible.:~Santthosh Kumaar