In India, people think of religion as a stepping stone to the realization of the higher truth, but it is not so.+

In India, people think of religion as a stepping stone to the realization of the higher truth, but it is not so because religion is based on the false self (ego) within the false experience (waking or the world).

Religion is not Spirituality. Spirituality is based on the invisible Soul, which is present in the form of the Spirit.

One must go beyond form, time, and space. The theistic tradition has been kept alive by the orthodoxy. The orthodoxy is the path of ignorance because it is based on ignorance. The orthodoxy has nothing to do with the ultimate truth or Brahman. Thus, it is not the path of ultimate truth or Brahman.

People who stuck to orthodoxy never will be able to cross the prison of duality. Without crossing the prison of duality, Self-awareness is an impossibility. Self-knowledge or Brahma Gnana is necessary to realize the ultimate truth or Brahman.

Self-knowledge or Brahma Gnana or Atma Gnana is the highest wisdom. Self-knowledge or Brahma Gnana or Atma Gnana is the Advaitic Gnana. Self-knowledge or Brahma Gnana or Atma Gnana leads to Anic-awareness.

In Atmic-awareness, there is no second thing other than the invisible Soul, the Self which is present in the form of consciousness

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 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

The Upanishads declare: ~ It is impossible to find and realize the truth via religion, yoga, and scriptural study.

Sage Sankara's commentary:~

Page 489: "The knower of Brahman (Self-realized or Gnani) wears no signs.

Page 500 asks in effect: "Tell us what you know, show it, and let us examine it under the mental microscope." It means we must bring notions and beliefs out of vagueness into clearness. It also criticizes the mystics who claim superior knowledge but who cannot communicate it for purposes of verification.

On page 482: On Gnani: "The knower of Brahman wears no signs. Gives up the insignia of a monk's life…his signs are not manifest, nor his behavior." When the knower of Brahman wears no signs, it means he does not identify himself as a guru or a teacher.

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).

Thus, it proves that the one who identifies himself as a Guru or a Swami is not a Gnani.

The one who identifies himself as a swami, a guru, or a yogi is not a Gnani. 

A Gnani never identifies himself as a swami, guru, pundit, or yogi. Swami, guru, pundit, or yogi belongs to the religious and yogic path, not to the Path of truth or the Path of wisdom.

That is why Sage Sankara: ~ "Though I wear these robes of a Sanyasin, it is only for the sake of bread." Exploring if an outside observer can, in all cases, determine if a person is Enlightened or not, the venerated Indian Sanyasin, Sage Sankara, in his work -The Crest-Jewel of Discrimination (1) or as it is sometimes known, Viveka Chudamani (2), states that the Knower of the Atman (i.e., a Gnani) "bears no outward mark of a holy man" (Stanza 539).

Sage Sankara, in Bhaja Govindam, says: - (Jnana Viheena Sarva Mathena Bajathi na Muktim janma Shatena) - one without knowledge does not obtain liberation even in a hundred births, no matter which religious faith he follows.

Thus, it proves that religion, yoga, and all theoretical paths are not the means to Self-knowledge or Brahma Gnana or Atma Gnana. : ~ Santthosh Kumaar