The Sruti itself says:~ This Atma is not to be attained by a study of the Vedas.+

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 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.

Religious truth  is “believers Truth”; the 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.  

Remember:~

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.

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 the individual truth, not the ultimate truth because it always shows the contradiction. A contradiction arises because a different person's interpretations 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 the real. Hence the need of 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:~

Bible says:~  “God is a Spirit, and they that worship God  must worship God  in Spirit and in truth(John 4:24)”,

Yajur Veda also says, “Nathasya prathima asityasya nammahastha( 32.3)”, God has no image and His name is Holy.

Mythreyi Upanishad 2:26 says:~ “Pashanalogamani moonmayavigrahashi pooja punarjanana bohahari mumusho tasmatati: swahdayarja nameva kuyarta hayacharam parihareta ”,punarbhavaya ~  all those who desire to have salvation without taking several births, should worship God in spirit and truth.  

In religious literature, we find the OM as sound arising from Hiranyagrabha or Atman.   Thus, Hiranyagrabha or Ataman is the source of the OM sound, thus, it is the second thing.   The Atman is in the form of consciousness prior to the sound OM.  The sages in the past prescribed OM for those people who are not receptive to the higher truth.  Those who are seeking ultimate truth or Brahman have to go beyond divine sound, divine light, and divine vibration,   to realize that form, time and space are merely an illusion created out of the consciousness(Atman), which is the Self.   

Holding the symbol means holding on to religion. Religion belongs to physicality.  The soul has no religion,  it is ever formless. 

Remember:~

In the past, spirituality was treated not as a separate subject,  but as a part of religion, but it is not so. Religion is based on form and spirituality is based on formless. Therefore, spirituality is nothing to with religion.  

Spirituality is a rational inquiry regarding all that is known to exist. Everyone, each to the extent to which one's reasoning power admits, is by nature free to exercise this faculty, at whatever stage one may be. One can devote himself exclusively to a pursuit of the highest Truth, by means of reason.

In ancient times, religious, Yogic, or mystic disciplines, which were not an end in themselves, were considered to be a means for self-realization. But such discipline is almost an impossible task for the modern man to adopt. Day by day modern man is becoming aware of the fact that religion and yoga are nothing to do with the pursuit of truth.

As one goes deeper into the annals of history, it indicates the fact that somewhere someone has added the Puranas in the name of Veda Vyasa the grandmaster of the  Vedas. It is impossible to accept and believe that Veda Vyasa authored and introduced the Puranas which have all conceptual gods because:-

In Vedas, God has been described as:~

v         Sakshi (Witness)

v          Chetan (conscious)

v          Nirguna (Without form and properties)

v          Nitya (eternal)

v          Shuddha (pure)

v          Buddha (omniscient)

v          Mukta (unattached).

This clearly indicates the nature of the innermost self, which is the Soul. 

Sage Sankara says: - Ataman is Brahman. Thus, the soul the innermost self is God. Therefore,    all the gods with form and attributes are merely imaginations based on the false self.  Thus, there is adulteration and add-ons in the past, which have to be bifurcated if one wants pure Vedic essence.  

Remember:~

Yajurved says:~ 

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 is 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, and 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.)

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.

Who introduced the concept of God with attributes and attributeless Gods, when Yajur Veda says: -   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. Therefore, all these add-ons prove that the form and attribute-based concepts are introduced by some sages of the past with a new belief system and code of conduct in the name of Vedas. 

Sruti is made the final or exclusive authority in apara Vidya and for supporting the tenet of the CAUSAL relation or creatorship of Brahman, Nirguna Brahman = the "Absolute beyond qualities," which can be defined only in a negative way. For the Shankarian school = the Ultimate Reality, higher than the Lord. i.e. of Saguna or apara Brahman ... The support of Scriptural Revelation is, therefore, absolutely necessary for this hypothesis of cosmology, this Saguna or apara (= inferior) Brahman, but not for the absolute truth of Nirguna Brahman.  The Sruti itself says: "This Atma is NOT to be attained by a study of the Vedas.  (Katha Upanishad I, 2, 23.)   

        

Therefore, all the add-ons and attribute-based knowledge, which are inferior, have to be bifurcated and excluded to know the ultimate truth.  The seeker of truth has to drop all the inferior knowledge based on the attributes and go beyond the Vedas to understand assimilate and realize the ultimate truth or Brahman. 

One has to go beyond Vedas means to go beyond religion. Going beyond religion means, going beyond the concept of a personal God.  Thus, going beyond Veda, religion and conceptual god means going beyond illusion.   That is the end of the Vedas (Veda –antha).:~Santthosh Kumaar