Religious rituals and scriptural mastery, are not a qualification to acquire Self-knowledge or Brahma Gnana or Atma Gnana.+

The path of wisdom is only for those who are seriously seeking the truth. The path of wisdom is not for religious-minded people.

Everyone is free to follow their chosen path, which gives them satisfaction and makes them happy. The path of wisdom is only for those who are seriously seeking the truth.

There is no need to walk in the mountains in search of the truth.

There is no need to meet any Gurus.

There is no need to renounce family life.

There is no need to study the scriptures.

There is no need for glorifying the Gurus.

There is no need to spend a fortune to please the Gurus.

Going to the mountains, searching for a Guru, renouncing the family life, studying the scriptures, and glorifying the personal Gods and Gurus are the greatest obstacle in the path of wisdom. 

No need to become a monk, or sanyasi, or a swami to acquire Self-knowledge or Brahma Gnana or Atma Gnana.

Religious rituals and scriptural mastery, are not a qualification to acquire Self-knowledge or Brahma Gnana or Atma Gnana.

Remember:~

Spirituality is nothing to do with religion. Whatever is written is the words of wisdom of the Sages of truth. Do not mix religion with spirituality. Religion is meant for the ignorant populace.

Without an intense urge to realize the truth is not possible to tread the path of wisdom.

Swami Vivekananda:~ This bending the knee to superstitions, this selling yourself to your own mind does not befit you, the Soul. Self is infinite, deathless, and birthless. Because the Self is infinite Spirit, it does not befit you to be a slave. ... Arise! Awake! Stand up and fight! Die if you must. There is none to help you. Self is the entire world. Who can help you? -

Swami Vivekananda: ~Jñāna Yoga is divided into three parts. First:- Hearing the truth--that the Atman is the only reality and that everything else is Maya. Second:- Reasoning upon this philosophy from all points of view. Third:- Giving up all further argumentation and realizing the truth. This realization comes from being certain that Brahman is real and everything else is unreal.

Remember:~

All is consciousness. The whole universe is consciousness. From consciousness, the universe comes. When the universe disappears, consciousness still 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 absolutely free from all the limitations of human thought.

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.

Till you think you are an individual separate from the world and the world existed prior to you and you are born in it afterward 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. : ~Santthosh Kumaar