Sage Sankara says: - Yoga is not the means of liberation +

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

What happens when thoughts are stilled? It is not the ultimate truth that is found.  Thoughtlessness is not wisdom or Gnana. It is only ignorance.

Patanjali yoga is not Atma  Gnana and, therefore, yoga will not yield the highest truth. The yoga is good to give peace and concentration, but only in order to start reasoning, i.e. thinking again and again to find the truth, which is beyond the form, time, and space.

Yoga and Samadhi are not a goal but a means to an end, i.e. Gnana. Samadhi in itself is useless because the mind is withdrawn and there is no memory of it until after it is over and one returns to the waking state. A yogi who attains mind control: it is only sleep.

In Gita Chap.IV where Lord Krishna says: ~ "This yoga has been lost for ages" the word yoga refers to Gnana yoga, not other yogas: the force of the word this is to point this out.

Lord Krishna describes some of the other yogas but devotes this chapter separately to Gnana Yoga. So one sees even in those ancient days people did not care for Advaita; they wanted religion; hence, Gnana got lost. That is why Krishna calls it "the supreme secret." Krishna points out that yoga must see "Brahman in action. 

Bhagavan Buddha: ~ Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. 

The path of truth is the path is verification. Nothing has to be accepted as truth without verification. 

Ashtavakra Gita: ~ The fool tries to control the mind with the mind - what folly! The wise one delights in the  Self alone. There is no mind to master.

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

Yoga can yield only the duality because everything that one can do or practice becomes a vanishing 'known.' It yields relative truth based on imagination, which is true from the physical point of view, not the non-dual truth, which is the ultimate reality.

Yoga does not yield truth, because it ignores the objective world.  Say the yoga has its place rather than its value and that its value is for a certain type of mindset.  One cannot live without the physical world; it is the basis of his life, so it must be the starting point of his inquiry. Things, not imaginations, must be the seeker’s material.

The yogi, who follows Patanjali-yoga, wants to sit in a place and think "I’ am shutting my eyes, ‘I’ am sitting in this cave, and ‘I’ am meditating." This egocentric yoga has nothing to do with the ultimate truth or Brahman or God in truth.

The yogi mystic is always thinking in terms of me and ‘I’ for he thinks of what he is to get from his practice; whereas in the path of wisdom one first verifies and get rid of this ‘I’ by the deeper inquiry for he wants the truth, not something for the Self.

The Yogi says he wants to gain Samadhi. The Gnani wants to gain nothing for he knows, "I’ is the whole universe. 

Remember:~

Yoga is 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 nonduality or Advaita.

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

Brihad Upanishad does not advocate Samadhi.

Avadhuta Gita: ~ “The Atman cannot be purified through the practice of the six limbs of the yoga, or through the annihilation of the mind, or through the instruction of a teacher. The Atman is the Reality Itself and It is Purity Itself."

From the standpoint of the Soul, the Self, the visions, and Samadhi are the illusion because they are based on the false self (ego) within the false experience (waking).

It is not possible to stop the thought for more than a half-second whilst in the waking state. If one succeeds in controlling thought and then banishes it, one passes into Nirvikalpa Samadhi, which is identical to deep sleep. The only difference between ordinary deep sleep and Samadhi, therefore, is that the ordinary man falls asleep involuntarily whereas the yogi has the satisfaction of knowing that he has passed into sleep by his own effort of will in banishing thoughts.

Sage Patanjali warns against sleep as a hindrance to yoga, he means when it occurs in the early stages of the practice before one has obtained the power of control and consequently to banish the thought. The fact, that Samadhi is deep sleep is kept secret because people would not be tempted to take up yoga.

Yoga sharpens the ego, to enable it to keep away all extraneous thoughts when one gets out to reason in the practice of the next higher stage, i.e. Gnana.

Yoga is thus simply a sharpening-stone for the ego to enable it to take up Gnana. But you say that Maharishi lives without thoughts, Impossible. How can he walk from one spot to another without thought? He does not know the Gnanic truth if he says thoughtlessness is the perfect stage of the Soul, the Self.:~Santthosh Kumaar 

Everything in the cosmos-- energy and space, fire and water, name and form,time and space --all come from the Soul, the Self.+*****

The seeker has to find out:~ What is this universe in which we exist? What stuff the universe in which we exist ultimately made of?

Realizing that the final stuff of which this universe in which you exist is made is Truth realization or self-realization or God realization. 

Chandogya Upanishad -One who meditates upon and realizes the 'Self' discovers that everything in the cosmos-- energy and space, fire and water, name and form, birth and death, mind and will, word and deed, mantram and meditation--all come from the Self.

Krishna tells Arjuna ~   that knowledge of both matter and Spirit is the True knowledge. (Gita, Chap.XII)

Everything (universe) is the consciousness, which Sage scientist Sankara declared 1200 years back –everything is Atman because Atman is in the form of consciousness or Spirit. 

The Soul is the Self. The Soul is present in the form of consciousness. Consciousness is ever-present. Without consciousness, the world, in which you exist ceases to exist. Consciousness is Self-evident. It is not established by extraneous proofs. 

It is not possible to deny consciousness because it is the very essence of the one who denies it. Consciousness is the basis of all kinds of knowledge, presuppositions, and proofs. Consciousness is everything. Thus, consciousness is the ultimate truth or Brahman.

 

The Soul, which is present in the form of consciousness, is real and eternal. The world in which we exist is an illusion created out of consciousness.  

Remember:

All is consciousness. The whole universe is consciousness. From consciousness, the universe comes. When the universe disappears, the consciousness remains without form, time, and space.

Sage Sankara: ~ “VC~ All this universe which through ignorance appears as of diverse forms, is nothing else but Brahman (Consciousness) which is free from all the limitations of  Maya.

Sage Sankara:~ VC~.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.

After verifying through deeper inquiry if one finds the world is a reality within the illusion then he cannot again say the world is not an illusion.

If one is frightened to accept the world is an illusion (waking) then he is unfit to acquire ‘Self’-knowledge or Brahma Gnana or Atma Gnana. Those who are stuck with the reality of the world are stuck with the reality of the individual experiences of birth, life, and death, which take place within the unreal world. Thus the pursuit of truth is for those who have the courage to accept reality as it is, that is the reality without form, time, and space.

When you finally realize the ‘‘Self’ ‘is not you but the ‘‘Self’’ is the Soul then you will realize the world in which you exist is merely an illusion created out of the Soul. The Soul is present in the form of consciousness.

Sage Sankara says:~ VC-47- All the effects of ignorance, root, and branch, are burnt down by the fire of knowledge, which arises from discrimination between these two—the Self and the non-Self.

Until you think you are an individual separate from the world and the world that existed before you and you are born in it afterward the ignorance will prevail as a reality. Till ignorance is there the universe prevails as reality.

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.

Perfect understanding and realization of ‘what is what’ leads to Self-awareness. By holding onto theories one remains in the realm of duality. You have to mentally go on dropping what is not the truth through deeper Self-search. Finally when you become aware of the fact that, your ego, your body, and the world are one in essence then there is Self-awareness in the midst of duality. 

 Remember 

Ignorance is the cause of the duality. The duality is the cause of the illusion. The illusion is the cause of experiencing birth, life, death, and the world as a reality.

Self-knowledge leads to Self-awareness. The quest for truth is not the quest for acquiring the dualistic truth within the world. The seeker must have an intense urge to realize the truth which is beyond the form, time, and space.

 The dualistic knowledge hides the truth beyond form, time, and space. The practical life within the practical world is nothing to do with the ultimate truth or Brahman.  

The dualistic knowledge within the dualistic illusion is not Self-knowledge or Brahma Gnana or Atma Gnana.

Remember:~

This vast cosmos with all its contents (atom, molecule, sun, moon, planet, and star) all are created out of single stuff. That single stuff is the Soul, which is present in the form of consciousness. Knowledge of the single stuff is Self-knowledge or Brahma Gnana or Atma Gnana.  

Consciousness is ever-present. Without consciousness, the world, in which you exist ceases to exist. Consciousness is Self-evident. It is not established by extraneous proofs.  It is not possible to deny consciousness because it is the very essence of the one who denies it. Consciousness is the basis of all kinds of knowledge, presuppositions, and proofs. Consciousness is everything. Thus, consciousness is the ultimate truth or Brahman or God in truth.

The Soul, which is present in the form of consciousness, is the ultimate truth or Brahman (God). The universe is not real. There is no difference between Brahman and the universe because the universe is a mere illusion created out of the consciousness which is the ultimate truth or Brahman or God in truth.

First, the seeker has to know ‘what is the mind” What is the substance of the mind? And ‘what is the source of the mind? , to realize ‘what is what’? The ego is the physical mind, whereas the mind is present in the form of the universe. 

The universe appears as waking or dream (duality) and disappears as deep sleep). Thus, a perfect understanding of ‘what is what' is necessary to realize that form, time, and space are merely an illusion created out of single stuff. 

The Atman or the Soul, which is present in the form of the consciousness, is the Self. Consciousness is the witness that experiences the action, the actor, and the world of separate things. It is like a light that illuminates everything in a theatre, revealing the master of ceremonies, the guests, and the dancers with complete impartiality. Even when they all depart, the light shines to reveal their absence.

What is not the consciousness (formless) in waking, dream, or deep sleep? The waking and the dream cease to exist without consciousness. 

 The Soul (witness and the three states (witnessed) are one in essence. That essence is consciousness. Thus, The seeker, seeking and his destination all are one in essence.

There is only a need to realize the whole universe in which we exist is created out of consciousness (Soul), the Self.  

From the standpoint, the Soul, the Self, the universe is merely an illusion created out of consciousness. From the ultimate standpoint, no second thing exists other than consciousness. Thus, consciousness is the ultimate reality or Brahman or  God in truth. :~Santthosh Kumaar 

If the man had seen God creating the world, he could admit it, but how could he have seen God before he came into existence?+

People accumulate knowledge by reading or hearing from different sources, and they think they are learned and already self-realized. Their half-baked knowledge leads to hallucinations. Without self-knowledge, or Brahma Gnana or Atma Gnana is impossible to realize the truth beyond the form, time, and space.

Rational thinking is necessary to realize the truth beyond form, time, and space because Self-knowledge or Brahma Gnana or Atma Gnana is nothing to do with religion and its rituals.  The religious man alone thinks of the attributed consciousness with various names and forms.

If God is the formless spirit, then how does man know God created the world? There is no proof. If man had seen God creating the world, he could admit it, but how could he have seen God before he came into existence? (i.e. were created).

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)

Pundits justify myths and religious fancies. Soulcentric Reasoning means strict thinking of facts.  Easy philosophy is a false philosophy. It may be a true religion.  People do not want the reason, to think.

The seekers of truth should not accept pundits' knowledge as the ultimate truth without deeper verification  A Gnani is no respecter of persons, but he is concerned with the ultimate truth or Brahman. 

Sage  Sankara himself declares ~ VC~ 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.

The person, who starts an exposition by bringing in Gods, is trying to force on others something which he believed as truth or something, which he has simply assumed. An assumption is something that is not in itself true but is assumed to be true.

How does one know that his idea of God corresponds to God? Philosophic doubt is needed. Every dream and vision must be tested if it is true.  The yogi thinks that by getting to Nirvikalpa Samadhi he reaches the highest; the religious man thinks that by getting God’s vision he reaches the highest, but how do they know it is the highest?:~Santthosh Kumaar 

Sage Goudpada: ~ To establish the truth of Non-duality by sheer reasoning alone.+

In chap. 10 of in Bhagvad Gita, Krishna says: ~ I cannot save you, but I can give you Buddhi (reason). (chap. 10)

In chap. 10 of in Bhagvad Gita, Krishna says: ~ "I have given you the most secret teaching, now reflect over it all" Krishna plainly says reflect, think. (Verse 63 of Chap. 18)

 Bhagvad Gita: ~ Reason as a means to reality. (Chap.18 verse 37)

Mundaka Upanishad says: ~  Both states are harmful and take you away from the path of inquiry into the truth. (Page 234)

Ashtavakra Gita: ~ It is not the absence of Buddhi that can grasp Advaita but the man who possesses the highest intellect. Brains are necessary. Such a man, by merely hearing the truth mentioned will know it. (Page~ 224).

Sage Goudpada: ~ To establish the truth of Non-duality by sheer reasoning alone. He begins by defining "What is real?" "What is unreal?" etc, because that is the right way to discuss or teach. People must first know what they are talking about. (Manduka Karika)

The reasoning is interpretable in two ways. The egocentric interpretation is to apply it only to the waking experience. The Soulcentric interpretation is to apply it to the three states. The latter leads to a final settlement of the problems because it takes all data into consideration.

If one has a belief, it is because somebody else believes it, or the majority believes it--or it is his own experience. Is it religious authority or religious sanction or is it based upon a feeling of certainty? They believe it merely because it works well or is it true. If you ask the question of Truth, it becomes a question of philosophy. Does your belief rest upon Reason?  Nearly all people want their own imagination, not the truth.

The inferior knowledge based on religion is not the means to Self-Knowledge or Brahma Gnana or Atma Gnana.  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.:~Santthosh Kumaar    

Every religion has its own idea of God.+

GOD is a mere word used by the religion that believed there is a higher power that is the cause of the creation. Different religions used different words for the same thing. The idea depends on the man’s imagination. God is an English word. The different language uses a different word for the same thing.

The words are there for only communication purposes.

The sages of truth called the ultimate truth as Brahman. For them, the ultimate truth is God in truth.

The earliest uses of the word God in Germanic writing are often cited to be in the Gothic Bible or Wulfila Bible, which is the Christian Bible as translated by Wulfila (a.k.a. Bishop Ulfilas) into the Gothic language spoken by the Eastern Germanic, or Gothic Tribes. The oldest part of the Gothic Bible, contained in the Codex Argenteus, is estimated to be from the fourth century. During the fourth century, the Goths were converted to Christianity, largely through the efforts of Bishop Ulfilas, who translated the Bible into the Gothic language in Nicopolis ad Istrum in today's northern Bulgaria. The words guide and guþ were used for God in the Gothic Bible.~wiki

All these experiences as the father, son, guru, pupil, and the world were one and the same consciousness appearing differently. All these distinctions disappear when one realizes the ultimate truth.

The Upanishads say in effect that: ~If you believe that you are one and God is another you cannot understand Truth.

No conceptual God can exist, apart from consciousness. People are not aware of the fact that there is no individual God that can exist, apart from the Soul, which is in the form of consciousness. 

Thus, the Soul or consciousness is the true Self.   If there is no consciousness, then there is no physical body, no ego, no universe, no religion, and no conceptual God.

Brihad Upanishad: ~ “If you think there is another entity, whether man or God,  there is no truth."

People think that there must be a creator of this universe. If one thinks physical entity or ego as the Self, then there is a creator, but if one thinks of the Soul as the Self, then there is nothing that exists other than the consciousness, which is the  Self.

If one objectifies and sees a universe, then he is bound to see many things besides himself and postulate a God, the creator. The Body, the idea of the God and world rises and set together from, and into, the Soul or consciousness, the Self. If God is apart from the ‘Self ‘, then He would be Selfless, that is, outside existence, that is, non-existent.

Bhagavad Gita: ~ Brahmano hi pratisthaham - Brahman is considered the all-pervading consciousness which is the basis of all the animate and inanimate entities and material. ( 14.27)

Yajurveda – chapter- 32:~ God is Supreme Spirit has no ‘Pratima’ (idol) or material shape. He cannot be seen directly by anyone. He pervades all beings and all directions. Thus,   Idolatry does not find any support from the Vedas.

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

Mythreyi Upanishad 2:26 says: ~ All those who desire to have salvation without taking several births, should worship God in spirit and truth.  

In Vedas, God has been described as: ~

Rig Veda: ~ 'Prajnanam Brahma'- Consciousness is the ultimate reality or Brahman or God in truth.

Do not accept any other God other than the Soul. The Soul is God in truth,  Nothing is real but the Soul, which is present in the form of consciousness. Nothing matters but realizing God in truth. God in truth is everywhere and in everything. Let these words be inscribed in your subconscious.

God in truth is hidden by the illusory universe. God in truth alone is real and eternal and all else is an illusion.

Brahman is merely a word to indicate the ultimate truth or God in truth.  The ultimate truth itself is God in truth. 

The nature of Atman, which is God in truth:~

v  Sakshi (Witness)

v   

v  Chetan (conscious)

v   

v  Nirguna (Without form and properties).

v   

v  Nitya (eternal)

v   

v  Shuddha (pure)

v   

v  Buddha (omniscient)

v   

v  Mukta (unattached).

So, it clearly indicates that God is formless thus there is no scope for a form-based God. The religion and its ideas of Gods, and its theories of karma, heaven, hell, papa, Punya, rebirth, and reincarnation are based on the false self (ego), within the false experience (waking). Therefore, they are meant for a lower mindset, they are of no use for those who are seeking higher truth as indicated in the scriptures. 

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 man himself suggests that there must be a God. It is the autosuggestion.  To say that one knows God exists always implies he must also exist always. It would be correct to say at this point, that he does not know about the existence of God because God's existence depends on the individualized belief. :~Santthosh Kumaar