Isa Upanishads indicates that:~ By worshipping Gods and Goddesses and going to the world of gods after death is of no use.+

People who worship the Guru as God in human form and there is a danger that they might establish a regular religious sect in his name.  This is an unhappy development of the religious movement.

People believe that guru or mystic or priest has got so many followers and therefore, there must be some truth in their teaching, is a common fallacy accepted by the populace due to their inherited samskara or conditioning. It proves only an ignorant can find a number of greater ignorant to follow him.

No point in time the world was at peace. History speaks the wars, violence, and terrorism in the name of the religion and God.  The universal brotherhood is an impossibility with diverse beliefs and the idea of God, lifestyles, and culture. 

Everyone thinks is their religion is superior to another religion, so there is no universality in any religion.  Until religion and its ideas of religious Gods are there the wars, violence and terrorism will continue.  Until people become more and more rational and try to realize the truth of the universe in which they exist, the belief system will dominate.

Remember:~

It is not possible to bring order in the restless world without realizing the world is an illusion.   To realize the world in which we exist is an illusion, one has to acquire Self-knowledge or Brahma Gnana or Atma Gnana.

 There is no need to follow anyone.  There is no need to follow any path.  The ultimate truth or Brahman is nothing to do with religions, in philosophies, in teachings.

The religious teachers, gurus, yogis are nothing to do with the ultimate truth or Brahman. They are merely propagators of their religious beliefs and theories.  Therefore, they cannot help in the quest of the Self.

Religion teaches one to look outside the Soul, the innermost Self and promises a heaven and a reward outside the Soul, the innermost Self, is not the means to Self-realization.

Perfect understanding and realization of ‘what is what’, leads to nondualistic or Advaitic Self-awareness.

Remember:~

 The seeker's goal is towards Self-knowledge and noting other than it. Therefore, the Guru is needed in religious and yogic paths which are meant for the ignorant populace which is searching for worldly comforts and temporary peace in this physical existence.  They fear to lose their physical identity and all that is connected to the physical identity.

When one realizes the physical identity (ego) is the false Self and the true identity is the Soul, which is in the form the consciousness, then he realizes that the fear factor is limited to the false Self within the false experience. When the Self is not the form,  but the self is formless Soul,  then all the burden and bondage of the duality is a mere mirage created out of the consciousness.

By surrendering to any Guru or Godmen is not the means to Self-knowledge.  The Self is the true Guru. The Seeker has to surrender to the Self by realizing the fact that, the Self is not the ‘I’, but the self is the ‘I-LESS~Soul. 

By realizing the Self is not the  ‘I’, he will be able to drop all the ‘I’ based accumulated knowledge and inherited conditioning in the midst of duality and he finds the freedom from experiencing the duality (waking) as a  reality.

The one who identifies himself as swami, Guru or yogi is not a Gnani. A Gnani never identifies himself as swami, guru, pundit or yogi. Swami, guru, pundit or yogi belongs to the religious and yogic path, not to the path of truth or wisdom.

Remember:~

Yoga-Vasistha: ~ (A Gnani)  He may be stealing in the company of rogues, killing in the company of butchers, but always he will be amongst them to elevate them; to lift them up gradually to a higher ethic. But by not separating himself from them, by being like them and among them for a time, he can improve them and make them better.

Sage Sankara's commentary: ~ "The knower of Brahman (self-realized or Gnani) wears no signs.  (Page 489)

Page 500 asks in effect "Tell us what you know, show it, and let us examine it under the mental microscope." It means we must bring notions and beliefs out of vagueness into clearness. It also criticizes the mystics who claim superior knowledge, but who cannot communicate it for purposes of verification. (Page 500)

On page 482: ~On Gnani:~ "The knower of Brahman wears no signs. Gives up the insignia of a monk's life…his signs are not manifest, nor his behavior."  When the knower of Brahman wears no signs -- it means he does not identify himself as guru or teacher.  (On page 482)

Manduka Upanishads:~  Even the Gods cannot find out who is a Gnani, because he bears no external mark. Neither nudity nor the yellow robe has anything to do with him.

A Gnani cannot have the idea of renouncing the world or giving up something of the practical world, because that would connote the idea of duality.  Duality is merely an illusion from the ultimate standpoint. Knowing no second thing at all there remains nothing to be given up.

When the Upanishad itself says: ~ The human goal is to acquire Self-Knowledge and they indicate the personal gods, scriptures, worship, and rituals are not the means to Self –Knowledge, then why anyone should indulge in it. 

The religion, concept of individualized God, belief in physical guru scriptures are the greatest obstacle to realizing non-dual truth because they are based on the false self.  The seeker of truth has to search the ultimate truth without losing himself in the labyrinths of philosophy, through deeper self-search and assimilate and realize it.

It is better to take guidance from a Gnani and try to attain the same realization which he had, rather than spend their energies in deifying him. Let us remember that to deify a Gnani is to defy wisdom”

Hindu religious literature is full of such aphorisms as ' there is no higher deity than the Guru; the Guru is the ultimate Truth and Deity. God and  Avatars (incarnations) are secondary to the Guru in importance; there is no higher refuge, no higher target, no higher destination than the Guru; the Guru is God Himself; God and the Guru are one; he who makes a  distinction between the Guru and God is ignorant and stupid; and scores of similar others. They abound both in Sanskrit and in modern Indian languages.

People born in the different sect and they remain as its follower. Most of the sects are founded by some gurus, thus, the Indian belief system is a Guru Cult, i.e. believes in the worship of the Guru as the Supreme Deity.

 When a seeker could not get full enlightenment from his inherited belief system, then only he searches elsewhere. And tries to get enlightened himself further to clear the cobwebs of his understanding and seeks guidance to his progress.

The path of religion, the path of yoga and the path of wisdom were intended for different classes of people. The wisdom is for the advanced seekers of truth. It deals with the nature of the ultimate Truth and Reality. It is meant for superior aspirants who have an inner urge to know the truth and it is not for those who are immersed in earthly desires.

Lord Krishna himself says that he can do nothing to make a man intelligent straight away. The adepts give Prasad, blessing, initiations, mantras, etc. only to confer temporary peace of mind, to help you to get rid of worries, but not to confer Gnana. The capacity to receive it must first be inborn in man by evolutionary degree.

Sage Sankara said:~ Neither by the practice of yoga nor philosophy, nor by good works nor by learning, does liberation come, but only through the realization that Atman and Brahman are one in no other way. (1) VivekaChudamani v 56, pg 25

Isa Upanishads indicates that:~  By worshipping Gods and Goddesses and going to the world of gods after death is of no use.  The time one spends in ritualistic practices is wasted; one can spend the same time moving forward towards Self-knowledge, which is the main goal.

One cannot reach the nondual destination by glorifying gods and goddesses and by doing that, one goes deeper and deeper into the darkness. It surely indicates the fact that the seeker of truth has to drop the worshiping god and goddess in order to get Self-knowledge or Brahma Gnana or Atma Gnana.

By glorifying the guru and yogis as God the grace will not come.  The guru or yogi belongs to the domain of religion. Religions belong to the domain of the duality.  From the standpoint of the Soul, the Self, the duality is merely an illusion.  Just by hugging the saint or by his feet worship, one does not get the qualification to receive Self-knowledge or Bahama Gnana or Atma Gnana.

Vedas bars human worship: ~

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.)

Then why worship and glorify the GURUS and YOGIS (human form)   in place of God when Veda bars such activities and it also warns people who indulge in such activities 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. All such acts and worship and rituals are meant for the ignorant populace, not for the seekers of the truth.  :~Santthosh Kumaar