Self-knowledge or Brahma Gnana or Atma Gnana cannot come if anything is left out in inquiry. The whole universe must be included.+

Sage Sankara: ~ VC-  Let erudite scholars quote all the scripture, let Gods be invoked through sacrifices, let elaborate rituals be performed, let personal Gods be propitiated---yet, without the realization of one‘s identity with the Self, there shall be no liberation for the individual, not  even in the lifetimes of a hundred Brahmas put together (verses-6)

In spirituality the ultimate truth is God. The Atman is the ultimate truth or Brahman or God.

Sage Sankara’s wisdom is nothing to do with orthodox belief systems. Sage  Sankara is the only sage who has final authority on the Advaitic truth. The Advaitic truth is rational truth and scientific truth without dogma.

The Advaitic orthodoxy is not the means to acquire Self-knowledge or Brahma Gnana or Atma Gnana.  Advaitic orthodoxy is meant for the ignorant populace that is unfit to grasp the highest truth.   The Advaitic orthodoxy is nothing to do with the ultimate truth or Brahman.

All sect-based beliefs are dualistic and unphilosophical nothing to do with the ultimate truth or Brahman.  In spirituality the ultimate truth is God.  Thus, the Advaitic orthodoxy is a sect is nothing to do with the Advaitic wisdom of the Sage  Sankara. Advaitic orthodox sect is meant for the ignorant populace.

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) Vivekachoodamani v 56, pg~25

Mundaka Upanishad condemns rituals.  The Para or Higher knowledge is the knowledge of the Supreme Being while the Apara or Lower Knowledge is that of following sacrificial rites and ceremonies. (1/2/ 1 – 6)

Mundaka Upanishads:~ So called spiritual pundits and learned are called children because a child takes whatever it thinks as truth. The question never occurs to children “Is what I have seen or thought really the truth?" (P.334 line 9)

Lord Krishna confesses that the oldest wisdom of India (our true Advaita philosophy) has been lost: people misinterpret and falsify it today as they did then. It is not yoga but the philosophic truth. But nobody knows it. The teachers of philosophy and leaders of mysticism or religion do not want to inquire into truth and have no time for it. (Gita –Chap- IV-v.2)

Mundaka Upanishad~ “The study of the Vedas, linguistics, Rituals, astronomy and all the arts can be called lower knowledge. The higher is that which leads to Self-realization. The eye cannot see it; the mind cannot grasp it. The deathless 'Self' has neither caste nor race, neither eyes nor ears nor hands nor feet. Sages say this Self is infinite in the great And in the small, everlasting and changeless, The source of life.

Sage Sankara says ~ “The exercise in discrimination between real and unreal and renunciation of the false is real meditation, then why you are indulging in other types of meditation.

First realize the truth you are seeking is the Soul, the Self is hidden by the universe.

Sage Sankara: ~ “VC~ All this universe which through ignorance appears as of diverse forms, is nothing else but Brahman which is absolutely free from all the limitations of human thought,

Hence, Sage Sankara says:~V.63 ~ "Without knowing and examining the external world, one can’t know the Truth, as the idea that the external world exists, won't go. It can go only by an inquiry into the nature of the external world.

Sage  Sankara says: ~ ‘What is accepted without a proper inquiry will not lead to the final Goal. (Commentary on Vedanta Sutra)

The Soul, the Self which is formless as the cloudless and stainless sky.  The Soul is present in the form of consciousness. Consciousness shines in everything and everywhere in the universe in which we exist.  The Soul is the cause of the illusory universe in which we exist and it itself is uncaused. 

The seeker has to move on in his search for the ‘Self’ hidden by the illusory form, time, and space.  The universe is present only when the illusory form, time, and space are present. Without the illusory form, time, and space the universe is non-existent.

The nature of the Soul is a silent, featureless one without attributes. The Soul, which is present in the form of consciousness, is not an object but is always the subject.

The truth is beyond form, time, and space. Self-knowledge or Brahma Gnana or Atma Gnana dispels ‘Ignorance’. The Self is the Soul. The Soul is present in the form of consciousness; there the object has become one with the subject.  there is only unity in diversity.

 The consciousness is the ultimate truth or Brahman. The consciousness is ‘the one without a second’, the one which alone exists as the ultimate reality. 

The Soul remains in its own awareness. The illusion (mind) does not merge with the Soul because it never really separated from it.  The Soul remains the one without a second (Advaita). The Soul’s separation is an illusion, the result of ignorance which when dispelled, the hidden reality shines as formless, timeless, and spaceless existence.

The samsara (the universe in which you exist) itself is an illusion.  You are not the Self. You are part and parcel of the dualistic illusion.  The Soul is the Self. The Soul is present in the form of consciousness. 

The Soul is the witness of the illusion (the universe in which you exist.  The universe appears as the waking or the dream (duality) and disappears as deep sleep (nonduality).  From the standpoint of the Soul, the three states are one in essence.   

Remember:~

The man is blind because he is part of the dualistic illusion. None can see the Soul, the innermost Self in the dualistic illusion. Very few will be able to grasp the truth beyond the form, time, and space, the rest are immersed in the illusory experience of birth, life, death, and the world.

A person, who stamped his foot on the ground to refute to show the world, is real, ignore that in a dream he would do exactly the same--stamp his dream foot on the ground and assert it to be real. 

Advaita is very different from Buddhism. Advaita regards consciousness as permanent and all-pervading while Buddhists regard it as momentary. Madhyamikas regard that a non-existent entity can appear in perception like it does in the snake in the rope illusion.

You cannot live without the physical world; it is the basis of your life, so it must be the starting point of your inquiry. Things, not imaginations, must be the truth-seekers material.

Without knowing the nature of the world in which you exist, it is impossible to know the truth, which is beyond form, time, and space. What is the use of trying to find our inner ‘Self’ before we understand the world, which confronts us?  You have to realize the fact that, this world that confronts 'you' is also consciousness. 

If you do not make his induction from facts from the world before you, then you are only drawing on your imaginations. By saying ‘‘Self’’ is like this, or like that." but it will be only your imagination.

You must inquire into the nature of the ‘I’ i.e. matter. Second, he must inquire into the nature of the Soul, the ‘Self’. To say the world in which you exist as an illusion without first examining them and inquiring into them thoroughly is to delude yourself.

This world is common to all of us, therefore you must begin our inquiry with it and not avoid it. It is only after you have inquired into the nature of the objective world, that you should inquire into who is the knower. If, however, you inquire into the knower before the inquiry into the world in which you exist, then it is mere mysticism.

‘What is the world?’ must precede ‘What is this I? in the Atmic path.

Look at everything in its essence because in everything there is consciousness.  You should not avoid them, do not shut your eyes to the world in which you exist; do not shut yourself away from the world which is as much consciousness, as anywhere else.

Those who are weak and those who are not sharp enough to grasp the truth beyond the form, time, and space advise others to be non-observant and to withdraw.  Soulcentric reasoning will help, not hinder your pursuit of truth.  There is no need to run away from worldly life in ascetic fear or shyness of them.

The yogi shuts his eyes against the world and then has the temerity to declare that he knows the world to be Brahman! Because he has not inquired into the world in which he exists, he knows nothing.  Yoga cannot remove ignorance. It is only a step. It removes obstructions.

Sage Sankara definitely says: ~ Yoga is not the means of liberation (page 132-133 of his commentary on Brihadaranyakopanishad).

In Sutra Bashya and Manduka: ~ Samadhi and sleep are identical.

Brihad Upanishad does not advocate Samadhi.

Self-knowledge or Brahma Gnana or Atma Gnana cannot come if anything is left out in the inquiry. The whole universe must be included. Only when all is known can all be known to be but ideation. Hence,  yogis blotting all out in Samadhi cannot lead to Gnana. :~Santthosh Kumaar