Karma (Action) will not dispel ignorance itself. Karma itself is based on ignorance.+

Religious orthodox think that through their good karma and performing rituals they get moksha. Religious moksha is based on the birth entity whereas spiritual moksha is based on the birthless Soul, the ‘Self’. 

What religious people are speaking of the religious propagated moksha.  Spiritual moksha is different from religious propagated moksha.

Mundaka Upanishad: ~ “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.

Arguing with religious believers is fruitless. Belief in tradition and the  scripture as if they were true or factual quite clearly is delusion, but the payoff for holding such delusions is, for those who hold them, extremely compelling ~ the avoidance of the "wrath of God," the hope of heaven or salvation, or the imagined "end of suffering."

Religious orthodox think that through their good karma and performing rituals they get moksha. Religious moksha is based on the birth entity whereas spiritual moksha based on the birthless Soul, the ‘Self’. 

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.

That is why Sage Sankara gave religious, ritual, or dogmatic instruction to the populace, but Advaitic wisdom only to the few who could rise to it.

If you mix Advaitic orthodoxy with Advaitic wisdom create confusion,   because they mix up the two viewpoints. Thus, they may assert that ritual is a means of realizing Brahman, which is absurd.

Sage Goudapada 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.

Karma (Action) will not dispel ignorance itself. Karma itself is based on ignorance.  Only Self-Knowledge or Brahma Gnana or Atma Gnana will destroy ignorance. 

This material existence is a mere mirage. It is like wax in a candle it will burn away. All attempts for freedom are possible only when one is ready to overcome ignorance. 

Overcoming ignorance is possible only when one realizes that birth, life, death, and the world are merely an illusion created out of consciousness.  Consciousness is the ultimate truth. And the one who knows this truth knows the knower (Soul or consciousness) is free from the known (mind or universe).  

Through Self-knowledge or Brahma Gnana or Atma Gnana, all of one’s egocentric successes and all of his credible accomplishments within the duality are ultimately evaporated, and consciousness alone will prevail as the non-dual existence.

Orthodox Advaitins accept karma theory.  If one accepts the karma theory, he will not reach the non-dual destination.  If one accepts karma theory then it is impossible to hold the world as an illusion. 

All the pundits’ explanation of karma theory carries no weight because karma theory is based on the false self, which is bound by the experience of birth, life and death and form, time, and space, whereas the true self,  is formless Atman (Soul), which the Self. The Atman is in the form of consciousness, is birthless, and deathless, because, it is ever nondual.

Sage Goudapada’s rational exposition of Advaita:~  Whatever is seen, whether external or internal, whether by the ordinary persons or yogis, is unreal. 

The birth, life, death, and world are part of the waking experience, which is merely an illusion from the standpoint of the formless soul the innermost self.  The soul is present in the form of consciousness.  

It is no use saying that we are not born, we do not die because we all were born and we all are going to die. However, birth, life, death, and the world are part of the illusion, which comes and goes as a waking experience.  The formless substance and witness of the three states is real, which is our true identity.   

The Self which is in the form of consciousness has no birth and death. The ultimate truth or Brahman has nothing to do with the orthodox Advaita, which claims itself, it is based on Vedas.  But it indulges in worshiping all non-Vedic gods.

That is why the Upanishads say Atma Gnana or Brahma Gnana will not dawn by studying Vedas or indulging in intellectuality or indulging in Karma. How can Karma performed within the dualistic illusion destroy ignorance?  

Sage Sankara and Sage Goudpada declared non-dual truth centuries back, but one has to reach the destination with the scientific (rational) investigation, not through punditry and intellectuality. 

One has to mentally reach the final conclusion then only the conviction becomes firm. Without firm conviction,  wisdom will not dawn. Therefore, there is a need to know consciousness is real all else is a myth, which  Sage Sankara declared as the world is a myth Brahman alone is real.

Sage Sankara say:~  Atman is Brahman, and everything is Brahman is scientific declaration not religious or yogic. 

Sage Sankara and Sage Goudpada are more scientific than anyone else in the world. Since the real Advaitic essence is hidden it cannot be got without the inner (mental) journey.

Sage Goudpada says:~  The merciful Veda teaches the karma and Upasana to people of the lower and middling intellect while Jnana is taught to those of higher intellect.

Gnana here is knowledge uncontradictable truth or scientific truth. Thus, their scientific truth of the whole, not the part is declared by Sage Sankara 1400 years back and thought only to those of higher intellect. Thus karma and Upasana, yoga, and orthodoxy have to be bifurcated in order to realize the ultimate truth or Brahman.  

Wisdom is for those who are capable of inquiring into their own existence to know and realize the ultimate truth or Brahman

That is the way the Upanishads declared Atma Gnana or Brahma Gnana will not dawn by studying Vedas or indulging in intellectualism.:~Santthosh Kumaar