Centuries have passed since Sage Sankara appeared, yet it is very hard to find his Advaitic wisdom understood anywhere in the world today.+

Everyone likes religion because it belongs to the world of sentiments and emotions. Religion changes as it appeals to different emotions. One will find at one pole the nude Sadhu is admired; at the other, the gorgeous life-styled Godman is revered. Belief in religious prohibitions arises out of fear of God's punishment.

The people themselves suggest that there must be a God. It is an auto-suggestion.  To say that one knows God exists always implies he must also exist always. It would be correct to say at this point, he does not know about the existence of God because God’s existence depends on an individualized belief. The individualized belief is ignorance because the universe itself is a product of ignorance. 

People magnify every minor coincidence or every petty fact where yogis or Good men were concerned, and they see the miraculous or the esoteric significance therein.

Religion is “believers Truth”; Spiritual truth is "universal truth .” This means a believer takes his feeling and sentiments as truth,  whereas A Gnani takes his reasoned judgment, which will be the same under test everywhere in the universe.

A Gnani says he has not seen God and he does not know his capacities, what God can do, and what God cannot do. Therefore, he thinks any statement he might make about God would only be a lie. A Gnani does not wish to tell a lie. Therefore, he does not accept the religious belief of  God because he is very firm in his conviction the religious God does not exist in reality.  

Each sect concocts a God to suit its own purposes. Belief in such concocted Gods is a great hindrance in the pursuit of truth.  The man himself suggests that there must be a God. It is an auto-suggestion. Prayers and sacrifices belong to a premature stage of development. When no answers come to prayers to their belief in God, then doubt arises about the existence of such God. Belief in religion weakens as the man pays more attention to the facts of his practical life within the practical world.

Remember:~

People who argue that truth is only in their religion are vain logicians based on mere ideas, and imaginations.  Religions that say- "If one follows the religion they will go to heaven, while others “go to hell," are stories invented on the base of the false self within the false experience.

Religious truth is individual truth, not the ultimate truth because it always shows a contradiction. A contradiction arises because a different person's interpretation may disagree with others.

Religions place God as the unknown reality”.  Every religious believer has a different idea of God. Every man has a different idea of real. Hence the need for definition before the study.

Dualists’ sages have written big volumes about the soul. Yet they are quite ignorant of the fact that the ‘I’ about which they write itself comes and goes and has no permanent existence, is only an idea after all. 

Remember:~

Bhagavan Buddha found religion in such a worthless state, with so many vile animal sacrifices, that he attacked religion.  Sage Sankara did not seek to destroy religion like Bhagavan Buddha, but he advocated reforming it for the better. He did this because he saw that the masses had to have some form of religion as they were not ripe intellectually for truth. 

Sage Sankara's sex experience in Benares and occupying the body of another man and then having sexual intercourse with his wife, is a story created by pundits hiding the real fact. Sage Sankara had a scientific spirit and when told by Saraswathi the woman that he was talking freely about sex, being a Sanyasi, he wanted to know the truth by having actual intercourse himself and thus learning by experiment and observation. Thus, this has to be viewed by the seeker from a rational standpoint, because sex is part of the illusion from the ultimate standpoint.   Sage Sankara stressed the great importance of freeing our use of words from all ambiguity. 

Buddhists and Jains did not believe in the Vedic positions and did not accept the scriptures. Hence, Sage Sankara had to meet their objections also.  Biographical anecdotes about his persecution of Jains and Buddhists or of his challenges to self-immolation for the loser of a debate are all foolish tales fabricated after his lifetime either by his own followers who took him to be a religious propagator but not as a  philosopher or by the dualistic cult. 

The religious pundits of the Adavitic sect relate boastfully pseudo-historical stories of how Sage Sankara's school put down, persecuted end exterminated the Buddhists, as though this was something to be proud of. However, these stories are either exaggerations or false stories fabricated by pundits or priests' craft. The religious pundits are mere followers of the religion, never having understood the depth of Advitic philosophy. Sage Sankara gave religion and scholasticism and yoga no less than philosophy, to the world. 

His commentary on Manduka is pure philosophy, but many of his other books are presented from a religious standpoint to help those who cannot rise up to the philosophy.  North India is the home of mysticism and deification and South India of keen rational truth.

Sage Sankara gave religious, rituals, and dogmatic instruction to the mass, but pure philosophy only to the few who could rise to it. Hence, the interpretation of his writings by commentators is often confusing because they mix up the two viewpoints. Thus, they may assert that ritual is a means of realizing Brahman, which is absurd. 

Centuries have passed since  Sage Sankara appeared, yet it is very hard to find his Advaitic wisdom understood anywhere in the world today. It is because so few could rise to his level. Hence, the dualistic cults and devotional sects that came into existence and prospered.:~Santthosh Kumaar