Bhagavad Gita: ~ Even if you are most sinful of all the sinners, you will cross all the sins by the raft of Self-knowledge.+

Sage Sankara: ~VC- Neither sacred baths nor any amount of charity nor even Hundreds of pranayamas* can give us knowledge about our own Self. The firm experience of the nature of the Self is seen to proceed from inquiry along the lines of the salutary advice of the wise. (13)

The obsession with "our sins" having been "washed away by the water of river would be regarded as evidence of a serious mental illness in an individual within any sane society, but when this is an obsession of millions of people it becomes "religious faith", held by many others to be something that should never be criticized.

It was desperately important for the believers of their belief system for some reason that others shared their beliefs because they assume that their religious doctrine is literally true, and then justify their beliefs because "God says so in their doctrine ".

It is no use arguing with someone who has faith in his belief system because for him, there can be no possible refutation of what he believes, so the rational argument is entirely useless. He clings to his belief so strongly that he makes no distinction between the truth and his belief. One has to know the fact that God cannot exist without his existence. The truth does not depend on god's existence but entirely depends on man’s existence.

Thus, it is foolish to venture into knowing the truth of God's existence without verifying the facts about his own existence

Bhagavad Gita: ~ Even if you are most sinful of all the sinners, you will cross all the sins by the raft of Self-knowledge. (IV-36)

Self–knowledge or Brahma Gnana or Atma Gnana is inexhaustible wealth. Other wealth disappears as one spends, but with the Self–knowledge or Brahma Gnana or Atma Gnana, the more one shares, the more he gains.

Remember:~

The world in which you exist is a dualistic illusion created out of the Soul, which is present in the form of consciousness. The only thing that is real and eternal in the world in which you exist is the Soul, the Self. Thus, the Soul alone is real and eternal. Whatever is eternal is God in truth.

The one who thinks he is independent and apart from the world and believes in action (karma) is unaware that the world in which he exists is an illusion created out of the Soul, which is present in the form of consciousness.

Thus, all good karma performed with the dualistic illusion has no value because the karma performed within the dualistic illusion has value only in the state of ignorance.

Self-realization cannot be the result of good works, any amount of charity, dipping in holy rivers by visiting holy mountains, or pilgrimaging even hundreds of pranayamas all types of Kriya yogas.

That is why 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

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)

Liberation cannot be the result of good works, for Sruti itself declares that there is no hope for immortality through wealth. (Verses -7): ~ Santthosh Kumaar