If the Self is not you, then the religion you follow, the God in which you believe, and your practical life within the practical world have no value. Religion is based on the false self (you) within the false experience (waking). The religion and its idea of God and its code of conduct and its rituals have importance only in the domain of ignorance.
The paradise or heaven exists according to the imagination, of the religious believers. But where people have got a little inquiring capacity, they begin to disbelieve through the contradictions of various contending religious claims and descriptions.
Religious scholars say God is a perfect being, but they have never known God, never proved his existence; hence, their ascription of the perfection of God is purely self-imagined.
Religion is so strong and popular because it makes no demand on the intelligent: It simply requires belief in the religious idea of God. Has it ever struck a religious believer to doubt whether his religion is true? Religious believers never use their reason because they start and conclude that, their religion alone is true because they never question. If one says "his religion is higher" another will reply, "No, it is lower." It is impossible to get anywhere with such talk because both sides are merely imagining.
Spirituality is nothing to do with religion. Spirituality is realizing the truth beyond form, time, and space.
That is why Swami Vivekananda:~
The masses in India cry to sixty million Gods and still die like dogs. Where are these gods?
Knowing this, stand up and fight! Not one step back that is the idea. ... Fight it out, whatever comes. Let the stars move from the sphere! Let the whole world stand against us! Death means only a change of garment. What of it? Thus fight! You gain nothing by becoming cowards. ... Taking a step backward, you do not avoid any misfortune. You have cried to all the gods in the world. Has misery ceased? The masses in India cry to sixty million Gods and still die like dogs. Where are these gods? ... The gods come to help you when you have succeeded. So what is the use? Die game. ... This bending the knee to superstitions, this selling yourself to your own mind does not befit you, my soul. You are infinite, deathless, birthless. Because you are the infinite spirit, it does not befit you to be a slave. ... Arise! Awake! Stand up and fight! Die if you must. There is none to help you. You are the entire world. Who can help you? ~ Swami Vivekananda (Delivered in San Francisco, on May 28, 1900) -The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda/Volume 1/Lectures And Discourses/The Gita II
As indicated in ISH Upanishads:~ By worshipping gods and goddesses you will go after death to the world of gods and goddesses. But will that help you? The time you spend there is wasted because if you were not there you could have spent that time moving forward towards Self-knowledge, which is your goal. In the world of gods and goddesses, you cannot do that, and thus you go deeper and deeper into the darkness.
It clearly indicates that:-If the human goal is to acquire Self-Knowledge then why indulge in rituals and glorify the conceptual gods, goddesses, and gurus to go into deeper darkness. Instead spend that time moving forward towards Self-knowledge, which is one’s prime goal.
Since it is eternal and infinite, it comprises the only truth. The goal of Vedic religion, through the various yogas, is to realize that consciousness (Atman) is actually nothing but Brahman.
The Vedic pantheon of gods is said, in the Vedas and Upanishads, to be the only higher manifestations of Brahman. For this reason, "ekam sat" (all is one), and all is Brahman.
Thus, the goal is to realize Atman (consciousness). If Atman (consciousness) is nothing but Brahman and by realizing Atman (consciousness) as Brahman (ultimate truth) is truth realization or Self-Realization, then there is no need to follow the religion, study scriptures or glorify gods or gurus and follow the path of doubts and confusion by losing oneself in the labyrinths of philosophy, when there is an easier path. By mentally tracing the source of the mind from where it rises and subsides one becomes aware of the fallacy of the mind, which rises as waking or dream and subsides as deep sleep. The mind raises from the soul (consciousness) and subsides as the soul ( consciousness).
The Vedas
confirm God is Atman (Spirit), the Self.
Yajurveda
– chapter- 32: ~ God is Supreme Spirit has no
‘Pratima’ (idol) or material shape. God cannot be seen directly by anyone. God
pervades all beings and all directions. Thus, Idolatry does not find any
support from the Vedas.
Rig Veda: ~ The Atman is the cause; Atman
is the support of all that exists in this universe. May ye never turn away from
the Atman, the Self. May ye never accept another God in place of the
Atman nor worship other than the Atman?" (10:48, 5)
How can you worship God? That
implies two ~ the worshipper and the worshiped, whereas God is nondual. One
can worship his idea of God only or realize his unity with it when he can’t
worship it as apart.
When Upanishads and Vedas
declare that, “God is present in the form of the Athma, and God is indeed Athma itself”
then why accept another God in place of the Atman nor worship other than the
Atman.
God is the Supreme Being the One
eternal homogeneous essence, indivisible consciousness, and intelligence, which
is beyond form, time, and space. To which the Sages describe in a variety
of ways through diverse words.
Yajurveda says: - if one worships what is not God:
Translation 1.
They enter darkness, those who worship natural things (for example air, water, sun, moon, animals, fire, stone, etc.).
They sink deeper into darkness those who worship sambhuti. (Sambhuti means created things, for example, table, chair, idol, etc.)~ (Yajurveda 40:9)
Translation 2.
"Deep into the shade of blinding gloom fall asambhuti's worshippers. They sink to darkness deeper yet who on sambhuti are intent. ("Yajurveda Samhita by Ralph T. H. Giffith pg 538)
Translation 3.
"They are enveloped in darkness, in other words, are steeped in ignorance and sunk in the greatest depths of misery who worship the uncreated, eternal prakrti -- the material cause of the world -- in place of the All-pervading God, But those who worship visible things born of the prakrti, such as the earth, trees, bodies (human and the like) in place of God are enveloped in still greater darkness, in other words, they are extremely foolish, fall into an awful hell of pain and sorrow, and suffer terribly for a long time." ~(Yajur Veda 40:9.)
So, Yajur Veda indicates that:~
They sink deeper into darkness those who worship sambhuti. (Sambhuti means created things, for example, table, chair, idol, etc. ~(Yajurved 40:9)
Those who worship visible things born of the prakrti, such as the earth, trees, bodies (human and the like) in place of God are enveloped in still greater darkness, in other words, they are extremely foolish, fall into an awful hell of pain and sorrow, and suffer terribly for a long time.~(Yajur Veda 40:9.)
Brihadaranyaka Upanishad: ~ Brahman (God) is present in the form of the Athma, and it is indeed Athma itself.
People, who worship the belief of God, are hallucinating that they become one with such God.
Vedas itself declares: May ye never accept another God in place of the Atman nor worship other than the Atman? Thus, to know the real God Self-realization is necessary. Self-realization is God-realization. Self-realization itself is real worship.
The Hindus believed in polytheism, believing all of their Gods to be separate individuals, which were introduced much later by the founders of Hinduism which contains diverse beliefs caste, and creed.
When the religion of the Veda knows no idols then why so many gods and goddesses with different forms and names are being propagated as Vedic gods. Why these conceptual gods are introduced when the Vedic concept of God is free from form and attributes.
Vedic religion was modified and reintroduced with new add-ons by Sage Sankara a great Advaita Master to uplift the Vedic culture and Santana Dharma, which were in ruins in the clutches of Buddhism. 18 Puranas are introduced in the name of Sage Veda Vyasa not by Sage Sankara but someone else because the Puranic Gods are non-Vedic Gods. Worship of Such Gods, are barred Vedas.
As one goes deeper into the annals of history, it indicates the fact that somewhere someone has added the Puranas in the name of Sage Veda Vyasa the grandmaster of Vedas. It is impossible to accept and believe that Sage Veda Vyasa authored and introduced Puranas which have all conceptual gods.
In the year 1794 A.D. Sir William Jones, the European chief justice of the then-Supreme Court of India at Calcutta, coined the new term Hinduism for the caste discriminating principle of Varnashrama Dharma originated based on Manu Dharma Śāstra. :~Santthosh Kumaar
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