Emotionally sticking to your physical Guru is sticking to ignorance. Worshiping your physical Guru is worshiping ignorance. +

Emotionally sticking to your physical Guru is sticking to ignorance. Worshiping your physical Guru is worshiping ignorance.

Surrendering to your physical Guru is surrendering to ignorance.

If you are seeking truth, you have to get rid of the idea of Guru propagated in the past by the gurus of the religious and yogic path.

That is why Swami Vivekananda said: ~ “You have to grow from the inside out. None can teach you, and none can make you spiritual.

Vedas bar human worship. There is no need for the seeker of truth to indulge in glorifying the Gurus and worship them as Gods.

The seeker has to go beyond religion. Go beyond religion means, to go beyond the belief in religious God to realize the real God hidden by ignorance.

When one goes into the annals of history, it looks like the true Advaita expounded by Sage Sankara and Sage Goudapada was lost or mutilated by the orthodoxy because the orthodoxy preaching and practice do not match. Orthodoxy talks of Advaita, but their practice is dualistic. The orthodoxy has nothing to do with Advaita because they are based on the experience of birth, life, death, and the world, whereas Advaita is based on the invisible Soul, which is ever birthless, deathless, and worldless.

There is no use of prostration to the holy sandals of the Guru or indulgencing in Pada Pooja (feet worship) when the inner Guru is Soul, the Self, which is ever formless.

The guru who identifies with his experience of birth, life, death, and the world and the disciple who worships his guru’s body will remain ignorant of the truth beyond form, time, and space. Without getting rid of ignorance, they will never get freedom from experiencing the dualistic illusion as reality.

People think that prostrating to a religious Guru, adoring which the worst poverty-stricken have turned out to be great possessors of wealth, and even the mutes have turned out to be great masters of speech are ideas based on the dualistic perspective is meant for the ignorant populace which accepts the world as a reality.

From the standpoint of the Soul, the ‘Self’, the world in which birth, life, and death take place is merely an illusion.

People think that prostrating to the physical Guru, which serves as the downpour of water to put out the fire of misfortunes, removes the groups of distresses of those who prostrate to them.

The devotion to the physical Guru and grace with the valuable dominion of renunciation is the religious idea. All the religious belief is nothing to with the ultimate truth or Brahman.

The devotion to the physical Guru and grace with the valuable dominion of renunciation is the religious idea.

A person who has realized the ultimate truth or Brahman will throw off his religious robe and his religious identity and become free from experiencing the illusory duality as a reality.

Why worship and glorify the GURUS and YOGIS when Vedas bar human worship: ~

Translation 3

"They are enveloped in darkness, in other words, are steeped in ignorance and sunk in the greatest depths of misery who worship the uncreated, eternal prakrti -- the material cause of the world -- in place of the All-pervading God, But those who worship visible things born of the prakrti, such as the earth, trees, bodies (human and the like) in place of God are enveloped in still greater darkness, in other words, they are extremely foolish, fall into an awful hell of pain and sorrow, and suffer terribly for a long time."- [Yajur Veda 40:9.]

Then why worship and glorify the Gurus and Yogis (human form) in place of God when Veda bars such activities and it also warns people who indulge in such activities are enveloped in still greater darkness, in other words, they are extremely foolish, fall into an awful hell of pain and sorrow, and suffer terribly for a long time.

Swami Vivekananda said:~ “You have to grow from the inside out. None can teach you, and none can make you spiritual. There is no other teacher but your own Soul.”

Sage Sankara clearly indicates in Viveka Chudamani (2) that the Knower of the Atman (A Gnani) "bears no outward mark of a holy man" (Stanza 539).

Sage Sankara:~ (11) As regards the rituals, Sage Sankara says the person who performs rituals and aspires for rewards will view himself in terms of the caste into which he is born, his age, the stage of his life, his standing in society, etc. In addition, he is required to perform rituals all through his life. However, the ‘Self’ has none of those attributes or tags. Hence, the person who superimposes all those attributes on the changeless, eternal ‘Self’ and identifies ‘Self’ with the body is confusing one for the other and is, therefore, an ignorant person. The scriptures dealing with rituals, rewards, etc., are therefore addressed to an ignorant person. (Adhyasa Bhashya)

Sage Sankara:~ (11.1) This ignorance (mistaking the body for ‘Self’) brings in its wake a desire for the well-being of the body, aversion for its disease or discomfort, fear of its destruction, and thus a host of miseries(anartha). This anartha is caused by projecting karthvya(“doer” sense) and bhokthavya (object) on the Atman. Sage Sankara calls this adhyasa. The scriptures dealing with rituals, rewards, etc., are, therefore, he says, addressed to an ignorant person. (Adhyasa Bhashya)

Sage Sankara:~ (11.2) In short, a person who engages in rituals with the notion “I am an agent, doer, thinker”, according to Sage Sankara, is ignorant, as his behavior implies a distinct, separate doer/agent/knower; and an object that is to be done/achieved/known. That duality is Avidya, an error that can be removed by Vidya. (Adhyasa Bhashya)

In religious and yogic path Guru is needed, but guru is not needed to acquire ‘Self’-knowledge or Brahma Gnana or Atma Gnana.

Gnana (wisdom) is given neither from outside nor from another person. The Guru of everyone is only the Soul, the innermost ‘Self’ that is always revealing on its own.

Self-knowledge or Brahma Gnana or Atma Gnana is the raft to cross this endless ocean of the dualistic illusion. :~Santthosh Kumaar