For religion you can interpret texts as you like, in whatever way that pleases you, you simply imagine away.+

Katha Upanishad (1.2.5) says: ~ "Caught in the grip of ignorance, self-proclaimed experts consider themselves learned authorities. They wander about this world befooled, like the blind leading the blind."

Religion, yoga, and mysticism are so much preferred to spirituality because you have only to imagine, not inquire. The first is easy, and the second is hard.

Religion and mysticism are a species of mesmerism affecting weaker or impressionable minds. Thus, the panoply of a Godman's religious robes, etc. creates an unconscious suggestion in weaker minds of superior power or magical knowledge. Similarly, visitors to ashrams are suggested into thinking they experience great peace because they are unconsciously hypnotized into believing that will happen. But when a strong disciplined philosophic mind meets a Godman or visits an ashram, he is entirely unaffected.

Religion belongs to the world of emotions. That is why everyone likes it. You will always find it in primitive times, as now, linked with music, dancing, and art--both emotional expressions.

Religion changes as it appeals to different emotions. You will find at one pole the nude fakir is admired; at the other, the gorgeously-dressed Godmen is revered.

Religion is the Truth of the ignorant populace. Advaitic wisdom is universal truth hidden by ignorance. This means religious believer takes their feeling as truth whereas the Gnani takes their reasoned judgment, which will be the same under test everywhere in the world.

For religion you can interpret texts as you like, in whatever way that pleases you, you simply imagine away. 

The fallacy of religionists’ appeal to scripture lies in the varying and conflicting interpretations of the same scripture which different men feel entitled to give or hold.

Scriptures are being added from time to time. This process will go on. There is the final authority among them? One contradicts the other: duality reigns supreme.

Disappointments in religion or yoga or mysticism or even science imply error or ignorance. Create the question. "Am I on the right?" Where is the certainty that I am proceeding on the right lines?" Thus doubts arise and the inquiring spirit comes and impels to search elsewhere for truth where it will not be possible even to have doubt.

The test is therefore in the realization of the truth. Only in Advaita, 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 proof.

Finally, the truth of religion can only be proved by your physical strength or by your imagination, or your power of the sword, or your worldly power, never by reason.

Religions place God as the unknown reality. Every religionist has a different idea of God. Every man has a different idea of the real. Hence, there is a need for definition before accepting anything as truth.

There is nothing so absurd that men have not worshipped in religion, nor sacrificial forms of worship so cruel which have not been indulged in. And every imaginable face has been given to God from the tribal; some have made God with wild in looks and some with the sober look. !

People stop with their imaginations about God, Reality, and Truth, and do not go to the bitter end.

Two ways of religious cheating have always existed and are always successful

(1) Say what happens after death-- nobody can deny it

(2) Say you have seen God by intuition--who can disprove it?

The onus of proof is on those who make an assertion. Religionists and mystics are required to prove; the burden to disprove is not on their critics.

The mystic experience never reveals the truth. The feat of a guru, touching people and thus putting them into mystic states is purely a physical or at best a psychological one; based on the power of suggestions it has nothing to do with epistemology, with the question of truth. It is just a higher variation of the effect produced by patting a friend on the shoulder to encourage him.

Instead of finding fault and maligning others first realize what the Self is in actuality. Amazingly an honest introspection will reveal that all fault lies with “you” and “your "own perceptions and attitudes. If there is an error in understanding what 'Self' is in actuality it is in “you".

Correcting this and changing to a Soulcentric attitude will change your perception and then the Soul; the 'Self' will reveal its formless, timeless, and spaceless true nature.

Just as the snake sheds its skin the seeker must shed the untruth by realizing the truth hidden by the dualistic illusion (Maya).

Different paths will not converge to the same Ultimate Reality because they are based on the false ‘‘Self’’. They are not different stages on the same path.

People fight about the differences and greatness of their chosen paths but only through wisdom one can realize the Ultimate Reality. :~Santthosh Kumaar