Doubts and Confusions arise when the seeker finds the religion, scripters and yoga are inadequate or useless to quench his spiritual thirst.+

 

You are being conditioned by the religious myth which has made you a non-thinker. Come out of the religious myth by realizing God in truth.

Sage Sankara gave religious, rituals, and dogmatic instruction to the orthodox populace, but Advaitic wisdom only to the few who could rise to it. Hence the interpretation of his writings by commentators is often confusing because they mix up the two viewpoints. Thus, they may assert that ritual is a means of realizing Brahman, which is absurd.

Bhagavad Gita says: ~“Don't unsettle the minds of the ignorant by revealing the esoteric truth." 

Bhagavad Gita says: ~ Among thousands of men, scarcely one strives for perfection; and of those who strive and succeed, scarcely one knows the ‘Self’ in truth.

Doubts and Confusions arise when the seeker finds the  religion, scripters and yoga are inadequate or useless to quench his spiritual thirst. 

Disappointments in religion or yoga or even science imply error or ignorance. Seeker reaches a stage whether he is right?" Where is the certainty that he is proceeding on the right lines?" 

The doubts arise and the inquiring spirit comes and impels us to search elsewhere for truth where it will not be possible even to have doubt. The test is therefore in the realization of the Self. And only in non-duality, where there are no two to argue about views or to have a difference of opinion can such doubtlessness be possible. Belief depends upon unstable bases whereas certainty depends on the proof.

Remember:~

The true meaning of "kill doubt" is not to refrain from inquiry as Pundits, yogis and religious believers say, but to tackle every doubt and to go on until you answer or solve it satisfactorily and thus the doubt disappears.

Lord Krishna tells Arjuna to fight is misrepresented by half-Vedantins as an order to kill other human beings, because they are mere Ideas, Illusory, whereas whole Vedanta says these ideas too are Brahman, and the Self, and hence no killing really occurs. Only when you see all individuals, especially the Self as imagined ideas, can you rise to see them later as Brahman. Thus, there are two stages. You must first see the self as illusory before you see others as illusory. ~ CH.2 v.16

Bhagavad Gita gives dualistic worship of "God” only to the lower minds; it also teaches Advaita for the more evolved.

Likewise, thinkers and poets of the Age of Devotion (Bhakti) of the 16th century believed in a God with attributes who became very tangible when incarnating as Avatar and was attainable simply through love and devotion rather than scholastic and intellectual meditation.

For the religious people, the Bhagvad Gita became the main vehicle of inspiration with its qualified and deistic Monism, rather than the scholastic and esoteric path shown by Sage Sankara’s Advaitic path.

Sage Sankara never rejected devotional prayer (Bhakti) or denied its value for he held that it was a necessary but intermediate stage for the adept on his journey to the ultimate realization of the true nature of the universal essence.

People worship God in various ways, not knowing the Truth. At different levels, at different epochs, and in different lands, people have different conceptions of God. They quarreled because they did not know the truth about God.

The conflict of opinions among mystics and religionists proves that all are imagining God as they like, not knowing God.

Lord Krishna teaches us in the Gita and in it he lashes out against the karmakanda.

It is generally believed that the Buddha and Mahavira were the first to attack the Vedas. It is not so. Lord Krishna himself spoke against them long before these two religious leaders. At one place in the Gita, he says to Arjuna: The Vedas are associated with the three qualities of sattva, rajas, and tamas.

You must transcend these three qualities. Full of desire, they (the practitioners of Vedic rituals) long for paradise and keep thinking of pleasures and material prosperity. They are born again and again and their minds are never fixed in Samadhi, these men clinging to Vedic rituals.

“In another passage Lord Krishna says: "Not by the Vedas is Self to be realized, nor by sacrifices nor by much study. . . . "

According to Advaita Vedanta, the Veda addresses itself to two kinds of audiences - the ordinary ones who desire the transitory heaven and other pleasures obtained as a result of ritual sacrifices, and the more advanced seeker who seeks to know Brahman.

Thus, the Purva mimam. sa, with its emphasis on the karma kanda of the Vedas, is meant for the first audience, to help lead its followers along the way. However, the Vedanta, with its emphasis on the jnana kanda, is meant for those who wish to go beyond such transient pleasures.

Bhagavad Gita 2:46:~ "A man of true knowledge who has attained enlightenment, has the same use for all the scriptures as one has for a small reservoir of water in a place flooded on all sides."

The rituals mentioned in the karmakanda of the Vedas are sought to be negated in the Jnanakanda which is also part of the same scripture. While the Karmakanda enjoins upon you the worship of various deities and lays down rules for the same, the Jnanakanda constituted by the Upanishads ridicules the worshipper of deities as a dim-witted person no better than a beast.

This seems strange, the latter part of the Vedas contradicting the former part. The first part deals with karma, while the second or concluding part is all about jnana. Owing to this difference, people have gone so far as to divide our scripture into two sections: the Vedas (that is the first part) to mean the karmakanda and the Upanishads (Vedanta) to mean the Jnanakanda.

God in truth is the Soul, the Self. The Soul is present in the form of consciousness. God in truth is not within you, but you and your experience of the world are within God.

Self-realization is God-realization because the Soul the Self itself is God in truth.

Remember:~

Bhagavad Gita: ~ ‘All those whose intelligence has been stolen by material desires, they worship many Gods. (7- Verse -20)

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

When Bhagavad Gita says, God is considered the all-pervading consciousness (Spirit) which is the basis of all the animate and inanimate entities and material then nothing has to be accepted as God other than consciousness.

Lord Krishna says Ch ~V: ~ “Those who know the Self in truth.". The last two words (tattvataha) are usually ignored by pundits, but they make all the difference between the ordinary concept of God and the truth about God.

The dualistic worship of "God” is only for the ignorant populace. God in truth is only Atman, the Self. In reality, there are no dualities, no differentiation. Only Atman exists.

Bhagavad Gita 2:46:~ "A man of true knowledge who has attained enlightenment, has the same use for all the scriptures as one has for a small reservoir of water in a place flooded on all sides."

Lord Krishna taught the Karma and Bhakti yogis their own paths only in order to lead them up to the Gnana yoga path, which is the highest and the real object of his teaching. : ~ Santthosh Kumaar