There has never been a single scripture that has the whole wisdom in it. Sage Sankara restrained himself from parting the Advaitic wisdom to the mass and imparted it only to a selected few.
Advaitic wisdom was hidden from the people who were not qualified and receptive to it. Advaitic wisdom was not written down in one book but was imparted orally to the chosen few. Thus, religion was given to the ignorant populace and the Advaitic wisdom is given only selected few. Thus, we find traces of the Self-knowledge in the religious books in the form of parables.
Sage Sankara says: ~ A buried treasure is not uncovered by merely uttering the words: “Come forth.” You must follow the right directions, dig, remove the stones and earth from above it, and then make it your own. In the same way, the pure truth of the Atman, which is buried under Maya and the effects of Maya, can be reached by discriminating between real and unreal, and renouncing the false is real meditation,
Bhagavad Gita says: ~ Among thousands of men, scarcely one strives for perfection; and of those who strive and succeed, scarcely one knows the ‘Self’ in truth.
The seeker has to without the scriptures move ahead in his pursuit of truth. All the religious scriptures and holy books are irrelevant -- God's greatest book is just in front of you.
That is why Sage Sankara says you must first know what is before you. If you cannot know that, what else can you know or understand? If you give up the external world in your inquiry, you cannot get the whole truth.
You have to study the book of the universe carefully and find and realize God hidden in it.
All religions claim that their books are not man-made? Hindus claim that the Vedas are Aporsheya: not made by man but revealed by God himself; and Sanskrit is the divine language, not human.
All religions have the same type of claim. Muslims say the Koran has descended from God, and so with Jews and Christians. Everybody is trying to claim that their book is the sacred book and nobody bothers to look at the real divine book.
This is what the real Veda, the real Koran, the real Bible is. This is the book, and all other books are man-made. Only this universe is the book that is authored by God because God is hidden by the universe.
The universe is the real Veda, the real Koran, the real Bible is. The universe is the book, and all other books are man-made.
Only when you open the book of the universe the God hidden in the book will be revealed. When you finish reading the book of the universe then the universe will become an illusion and God alone prevails as the ultimate reality.
Sage Sankara says: ~ “What is accepted without a proper inquiry will not lead a person to the final goal. On the contrary, such acceptance will result only in evil, something which is detrimental to our spiritual progress.
You are also part of the divine book of the universe! And whatever you have seen, known, believed, and experienced as an individual is part of it.
It is difficult to understand and assimilate Advaitic wisdom within a framework of some Gurus teaching or holding some philosophy as a yardstick.
We have to drop all our accumulated dross to understand and assimilate and realize the non-dualistic truth.
I am highlighting some scriptural citations only to show the seeker that the Advaitic Sages themselves declare that scriptures, religion, and ideas of God are unimportant in the pursuit of truth. It is easier to understand, assimilate and realize the ultimate truth or non-dualistic truth by rationalizing our views and understanding. :
Remember:~
Advaitic truth is the supreme truth; all dualistic systems hold false self as real Self and false experience as a reality. Advaitic wisdom is the culmination of all systems including the theistic Advaita.
Advaitic wisdom was hidden from the people who were not qualified and receptive to it. Advaitic wisdom was not written down in one book but was imparted orally to the chosen few. Thus, religion was given to the ignorant populace and the Advaitic wisdom is given only selected few. Thus, we find traces of the Self-knowledge in the religious books in the form of parables.
Sage Sankara says: ~ A buried treasure is not uncovered by merely uttering the words: “Come forth.” You must follow the right directions, dig, remove the stones and earth from above it, and then make it your own. In the same way, the pure truth of the Atman, which is buried under Maya and the effects of Maya, can be reached by discriminating between real and unreal, and renouncing the false is real meditation,
Bhagavad Gita says: ~ Among thousands of men, scarcely one strives for perfection; and of those who strive and succeed, scarcely one knows the ‘Self’ in truth.
The seeker has to without the scriptures move ahead in his pursuit of truth. All the religious scriptures and holy books are irrelevant -- God's greatest book is just in front of you.
That is why Sage Sankara says you must first know what is before you. If you cannot know that, what else can you know or understand? If you give up the external world in your inquiry, you cannot get the whole truth.
You have to study the book of the universe carefully and find and realize God hidden in it.
All religions claim that their books are not man-made? Hindus claim that the Vedas are Aporsheya: not made by man but revealed by God himself; and Sanskrit is the divine language, not human.
All religions have the same type of claim. Muslims say the Koran has descended from God, and so with Jews and Christians. Everybody is trying to claim that their book is the sacred book and nobody bothers to look at the real divine book.
This is what the real Veda, the real Koran, the real Bible is. This is the book, and all other books are man-made. Only this universe is the book that is authored by God because God is hidden by the universe.
The universe is the real Veda, the real Koran, the real Bible is. The universe is the book, and all other books are man-made.
Only when you open the book of the universe the God hidden in the book will be revealed. When you finish reading the book of the universe then the universe will become an illusion and God alone prevails as the ultimate reality.
Sage Sankara says: ~ “What is accepted without a proper inquiry will not lead a person to the final goal. On the contrary, such acceptance will result only in evil, something which is detrimental to our spiritual progress.
You are also part of the divine book of the universe! And whatever you have seen, known, believed, and experienced as an individual is part of it.
It is difficult to understand and assimilate Advaitic wisdom within a framework of some Gurus teaching or holding some philosophy as a yardstick.
We have to drop all our accumulated dross to understand and assimilate and realize the non-dualistic truth.
I am highlighting some scriptural citations only to show the seeker that the Advaitic Sages themselves declare that scriptures, religion, and ideas of God are unimportant in the pursuit of truth. It is easier to understand, assimilate and realize the ultimate truth or non-dualistic truth by rationalizing our views and understanding. :
Remember:~
Advaitic truth is the supreme truth; all dualistic systems hold false self as real Self and false experience as a reality. Advaitic wisdom is the culmination of all systems including the theistic Advaita.
There is no need to discuss argue and quarrel with those who think they know the truth. There is no need for any support from scriptures to acquire Self-knowledge or Brahma Gnana or Atma Gnana. Theistic Advaitic orthodoxy is nothing to do with the Advaitic wisdom. The theistic Advaitic Orthodox scholars or pundits like Dualist sages could not distinguish between ‘I’ and ‘formless witness of the ‘I’.
They take the ‘I’ as the witness. They are stuck to the reality of the ‘I’, all their theories are based on the ‘I’. All the ‘I’ based theories are false theories
They are so much attached to the 'I' that they do not want to think that 'I' does not exist. Again they are unable to detach the ‘I’ from the Soul, the Real witness.
There is no need to study the scriptures. The seeker has to self-search for the truth and realize it without the scriptures. When he realizes the truth, which is beyond the form, time, and space then he reads the scriptures he realizes some of the scriptures are also saying the same thing, but everything is misinterpreted.
Yoga Vasistha:~ "Teachers, interpretations of sacred texts, the force of religious merit--none of these lead to the realization of that Ultimate Truth which is revealed in the clear reflection of the heart, engendered from contact with the good."
When the ultimate truth is rightly known and one attains eternal life thereby. Through Soul, the Self he gains strength and through its knowledge immortality.
Advaitic truth cannot be realized by intellectualism but only by a perfect understanding of ‘what is the truth?’ and ‘what is the untruth?’.
The soulcentric vision is when you learn to view and judge the world which confronts you from a non-dualistic perspective.
The nature of the Soul, the Self s is like the state of deep sleep.
Mundaka Upanishad: ~ “This Atman cannot be attained through study of the Vedas, nor through intelligence nor through much learning. He who chooses Atman—by him alone is Atman attained. It is Ataman that reveals to the seeker Its true nature”. - 3 page70upanhsds by Nikilanada
It means the truth is beyond scriptures and egocentric intelligence. Thus in order to grasp, assimilate and realize the Advaitic truth the seeker to employ soulcentric reasoning.
That is why Sage Sankara says in the commentary in Vedanta-sutra that what is accepted without a proper inquiry will not lead a person to the final goal. On the contrary, such acceptance will result only in evil, something which is detrimental to our spiritual progress.
Seekers of truth should not believe blindly in traditional Orthodox nonduality without verifying all the facts from every angle. One has to reflect through reasoning over and over again without getting tired of the process.
That is why Sage Sankara says:~ VC- 58. Loud speech consisting of a shower of words, the skill in expounding the Scriptures, and likewise erudition - these merely bring on a little personal enjoyment to the scholar but are no good for Liberation.
59. The study of the Scriptures is useless so long as the highest Truth is unknown, and it is equally useless when the highest Truth has already been known.
60. The Scriptures consisting of many words are a dense forest which merely causes the mind to ramble. Hence men of wisdom should earnestly set about knowing the true nature of the Self.
61. For one who has been bitten by the serpent of Ignorance, the only remedy is the knowledge of Brahman. Of what avail are the Vedas and (other) Scriptures, Mantras (sacred formulae), and medicines to such a one?
62. A disease does not leave off if one simply utters the name of the medicine, without taking it; (similarly) without direct realization one cannot be liberated by the mere utterance of the word Brahman.
There is nothing more rational, more intelligible, and more un-dogmatic insights of Sri, Sankara, is to drop all the theistic nonduality or Advaita which is meant for those who are incapable and not receptive to realize the ultimate truth or Brahman.
If one merely theorizes, tries to understand through his intellect and there contended he cannot become a Gnani, but he becomes a scholar or pundit.
Seeker of truth must make what he has understood and assimilated has to be realized, to get a firm conviction of the non-dualistic truth or ultimate truth or Brahman, then only it is possible for him to transcend all the limitations of the experience of form, time, and space.
The existence beyond limitations of form, time, and space is known as Moksha or Nirvana. Spiritual freedom or Self-realization is the goal of every seeker of truth.
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