To attain Self- realization, the study of the Advaita Vedanta is not necessary.+

To attain Self- realization, the study of the Advaita Vedanta is not necessary. You want fresh water to drink, but you do not require all the water of the river to quench your thirst.

The intellectual wealth of accumulated knowledge is of no use in the quest for truth. Each Guru spins his own imagination and calls it wisdom.

My blogs and posting are useful in explaining doubts and difficulties the seeker encounters in the course of thinking.

Sage Sankara's wisdom (Advaita) ~ Without a Parallel.  Sage Sankara's wisdom is lofty, sublime, and unique. It is highly interesting, inspiring, and elevating. No other wisdom can stand before it in boldness, depth, and subtle thinking.  Sage Sankara’s wisdom is complete and perfect.

Advaitic wisdom is independent of religion, that in Sage Sankara himself the Saguna Brahman or a personal God is only a part of the phenomenal (if not illusory) world, and the Nirguna Brahman is the only reality and has nothing to do with religion.  

Sage Sankara’s whole teaching can be summed up in one sentence, ‘There is nothing else but Brahman. He says that Absolute Existence, Absolute Knowledge, and Absolute Bliss are real. The universe is not real. He says that Brahma and Atman are one. The ultimate and the Absolute Truth is the Self, which is one though appearing as many different individuals. The individual has no reality. Only the Self is real; the rest, mental and physical are but passing appearances. 

There is no need to study Vedanta.  The seeker has to find out: - ‘What is the mind or ‘I’?’, ‘What is the substance of the mind (I)?’  And what is the source of the mind?  (I),  in order to realize the nature of the mind (I). 

Sage Sankara said: ~ Talk as much philosophy as you like, worship as many gods as you please, observe ceremonies, and sing devotional hymns, but the liberation will never come, even after a hundred aeons, without realizing the Oneness.

The non-duality has to be grasped in the midst of the duality (waking experience).  When one is Soul-centric than he will realize ‘what is the truth’ and ‘what is untruth’ and ‘what is a reality and what is unreality’  and able establish himself in the truth and able to view and judge, the three states, on the base of the Soul, the Self.  

The Soul, which is present in the form of consciousness is the ultimate truth or Brahman or God in truth.

It is unfortunate people are stuck with their accumulated ideas based on the false self, imagine nonduality and say nothing exists other than the source. But a Gnani says everything exists (illusion) but everything is created out of single stuff and that single stuff is consciousness.  Everything arises from consciousness and subsides as consciousness. Thus, the whole diversity (three states) has no relevance, from the standpoint of the Soul,  the Self.

Everything (illusion) is nothingness (consciousness) realizing the three states are created out of nothingness (Consciousness). Nothingness is the nature of consciousness because there is no second thing exists other than itself.       

Religion, mysticism, and yoga are meant for the mass mindset, which is incapable of investigating and verifying their inherited beliefs.  The path of wisdom or truth is to get the pure essence of non-duality or Advaita.

The ultimate truth is based on the formless Soul, the Self.  Soul-centric reasoning leads one to non-dual Self-awareness.  Therefore, there is a  need to rectify the reasoning base from ego base to Soul base to understand, assimilate and realize the Non-dualistic or Advaitic truth.:~Santthosh Kumaar