Religion is a prison of ignorance, and the people who follow it are a prisoner of ignorance. Advaitic wisdom frees the Soul, the Self from ignorance.+

God is not realized by religious rituals and ceremonies.  Religion propagated myth as real God. All religion survive on blind belief or faith and dogmas. 

Religious people make a show of their faith and beliefs. clinging to religion and rituals and ceremony is clinging to ignorance. To get to the fundamental core of truth underlying all religions, reach beyond religion. 

So long as people will stick to the empty shows of customs and ceremonial, they will fail to grasp the truth hidden by the religion. 

Religions are many but God is only one and longing to realize the God in truth leads to  God-awareness. 

Religion is a prison of ignorance, and the people who follow it are a prisoner of ignorance. Advaitic wisdom frees the Soul, the Self from ignorance.  People’s approach was more practical, and they are stuck with the belief of their inherited belief system.

Religions are based on the belief, not the truth. Religions are more concerned with its beliefs dogmas and superstitions.

Religious Gods are based on imaginary beliefs. The beliefs are not the truth. The belief is part of the dualistic illusion.  The Atman is Brahman or God in actuality.   Other than the Atman God all else is an illusion.  Whatever is based on the belief is a myth.

Remember:~ 

From the Vedic perspective, all our religious Gods we believe and worship are non-Vedic Gods based on the imagination. 

Religious Gods are merely a belief. Belief is not God. Religious God cannot be considered as a center because the Soul, the ‘Self’ is the center of all that exists. 

Without the Soul the world in which you exist ceases to exist, it means the religious God is dependent on the Soul for his existence. God in truth is only the Soul, which is present in the form of consciousness. 

Even Bhagavad Gita says: ~ Brahmano hi pratisthaham ~ Brahman (God) is considered the all-pervading consciousness, 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 which is the basis of all the animate and inanimate entities and material then nothing has to be accepted as God other than consciousness. 

Even Brihadaranyaka Upanishad: ~ Brahman (God) is present in the form of the Athma, and it is indeed Athma itself. 

Even Rig Veda: ~ The Atman is the cause; Atman is the support of all that exists in this universe. May ye never turn away from the Atman, the Self. May ye never accept another God in place of the Atman nor worship other than the Atman?" (10:48, 5)

Brihadaranyaka Upanishad:~ "He who worships the deities as entities entirely separate from the Self does not know the truth. For the Gods, he is like a pasu (beast)". (1. 4. 10)

That is why Sage Sankara:~ VC- v6~ Let erudite scholars quote all the scripture, let Gods be invoked through sacrifices, let elaborate rituals be performed, let personal Gods be propitiated---yet, without the realization of one‘s identity with the Self, there shall be no liberation for the individual, not even in the lifetimes of a hundred Brahmas put together.

Sage Sankara goes on to say: ~A sickness of not cured by saying the word “medicine.” You must take the medicine. Liberation does not come by merely saying the word “Brahman.” Brahman must be realized. Until you allow this apparent universe to dissolve from your consciousness until you have realized Brahman, how can you find liberation just by saying the word Brahman? The result is merely noise. Until a man has destroyed his enemies and taken possession of the splendor and wealth of the kingdom, he cannot become a king by simply saying “I am a king.” 

Sage Sankara says:~ A buried treasure is not uncovered by merely uttering the words: “Come forth.” You must follow the right directions, dig, remove the stones and earth from above it, and then make it your own. In the same way, the pure truth of the Atman, which is buried under Maya and the effects of Maya, can be reached by meditation, contemplation, and other spiritual disciplines but never by subtle arguments. 

The Atmic path is not for the religious and yogic minded people. Religious and yogic people must move on their chosen path. The Atmic path is for only seekers of truth who are seriously searching for the truth of their own existence. 

The Advaitic wisdom of Sage  Sankara is nothing to do with the religion, caste, rituals, worships, yoga and other practices. Therefore an obvious disparity between Sage Sankara‘s path of Gnana and path of Karma. Path of Gnana is meant for the advanced seeker of truth and path of Karma is meant for the ignorant populace. 

Remember: ~

All the orthodox ideas rejected by Sage Sankara. There is no need to indulge rituals, in order to realize the ultimate truth or Brahman. There is no need to study philosophy, in order to realize the ultimate truth or Brahman then why you indulge in studying philosophy.

Sage Sankara pokes fun at ascetics and points out that all their austerities do not cause desires to go (Altar Flowers" Page 205, v.2 P.207 v.4)

Sage Sankara pointed out those rituals could in no way bring about wisdom, much less moksha.

Sage Sankara says the rewards of the rituals are not a matter of direct realization. The Advaitic wisdom is based on personal realization.

The orthodox Advaitin believes that rituals alone would lead one to higher levels of attainment. Further, the deities would reward only those entitled to perform the rituals alone. The entitlement involved the caste, creed and other parameters.

The scriptural authority and value of rituals are part of the Advaitic orthodoxy, which is meant for ignorant people. .

The Advaitic wisdom of Sage Sankara is nothing to do with the religion, caste, rituals, worships, yoga and other practices. Therefore an obvious disparity between Sage Sankara‘s path of Gnana and path of Karma. Path of Gnana is meant for the advanced seeker of truth and path of Karma is meant for the ignorant populace.

Even Sage Sankara appears and tells the orthodox people  the path of orthodoxy is the path of ignorance they will not be able to drop their inherited samskara or conditioning, which they think is the only way to reach heaven and reap a happy life in the next life.

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 the ‘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.-  (11- Adhyasa Bhashya)

The orthodox people only teach and preach their knowledge of ignorance but none of them wants to know God in  Truth, which is  hidden by the dualistic illusion or Maya. 

Remember:~

First Mundaka - Chapter 2 (10) - Ignorant fools, regarding sacrifices and humanitarian works as the highest, do not know any higher good. Having enjoyed their reward on the heights of heaven, gained by good works, they still remain in ignorance of the Atman the real God.

As a person one performs rituals throughout his life.  The person who performs rituals and aspires for rewards will view the world in which he exists as a reality. However, the Soul, the Self unborn eternal hidden by the world in which he exists.  From the standpoint of the Soul, the world in which he exists is merely an illusion.

The scriptures dealing with rituals, rewards, etc. are therefore addressed to an ignorant person.

First Mundaka - Chapter 2 (9) ~ Children, immersed in ignorance in various ways, flatter themselves, saying: We have accomplished life's purpose. Because these performers of karma do not know the Truth owing to their attachment, they fall from heaven, misery-stricken, when the fruit of their work is exhausted.

First Mundaka - Chapter 2 (8) ~ Fools, dwelling in darkness, but wise in their own conceit and puffed up with vain scholarship, wander about, being afflicted by many ills, like blind men led by the blind.

Ish Upanishad declares:~ Those people who have neglected the attainment of Self-knowledge and have thus committed suicide 10/11/12

The religious orthodox people who have neglected the attainment of Self-knowledge and have thus committed suicide, as it were, are doomed to enter those worlds after death.

This is a condemnation of people who do not try to attain Self-knowledge. They are, in a real sense, committing suicide, for what can be worse than being a slave to sense enjoyment, completely oblivious of the real purpose of life, which is to be one’s, own master? : ~ Santthosh Kumaar