Sage Sankara: ~ Karma cannot destroy ignorance, for it is not in conflict with or opposed to ignorance. Self-Knowledgedestroy ignorance.+

Those who strongly believe in Karma theory are unfit for the Advaitic Gnana. Karma theory is meant for ignorant people who are incapable of grasping the truth hidden by the Maya.  

Sage Sankara: ~ “Action (karma) cannot destroy ignorance, for it is not in conflict with or opposed to ignorance. Self-knowledge does verily destroy ignorance as light destroys deep darkness. -Atma Bodha

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 Karma 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.

All the orthodox ideas of karma were rejected by Sage Sankara. There is no need to indulge in karma to realize the ultimate truth or Brahman. There is no need to study philosophy, to realize the ultimate truth or Brahman so why 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 that karmas 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. Advaitic wisdom is based on personal realization.

The orthodox Advaitin believes that the karmas 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 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 has nothing to do with religion, caste, rituals, worship, yoga, and other practices. Therefore an obvious disparity between Sage Sankara‘s path of Gnana, and the path of Karma. 

Path of Gnana is meant for the advanced seeker of truth and the path of Karma is meant for the ignorant populace.

Even Sage Sankara appears and tells the orthodox people the path of Karma 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.

A person who performs karma 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 good deeds 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 Karma and rewards, etc. are therefore addressed to an ignorant person.  

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.

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?

Sage Sankara says “he who knows the Brahman (God in truth) is one and the ‘Self’ is another does not know Brahman (God).”

Sage Sankara also asserts that the Self is realized when All the effects of ignorance, root, and branch, are burnt down by the fire of Self-  knowledge, which arises from discrimination between these two—the Self and the non-Self.

Remember:~ 

Religious people believe the Karma theory is a universal theory but the Karma theory is a religious and yogic fable.

The Karma theory is a universal theory for those who believe the dualistic illusion as a reality. 

Karma is a reality only for those who believe the false self (ego or you) is the real ‘Self’ and the false experience (waking or universe) as a reality.

The Karma theory is a reality for those who believe that experience, form, time, and space as a reality. Karma theory is a reality for those who believe in a religious God based on blind belief. 

The Karma theory is a reality for those who believe in the experience of birth, life, death, and rebirth, and the world as a reality.

The karma performed in the dream becomes unreal when the waking takes place. Similarly, the waking karma becomes unreal when wisdom dawns. 

The karma theory is the universal theory when the karma is limited to the waking experience alone.

The Advaitic wisdom dawns when you (doer of karma) realize you are not the ‘Self’, but the ‘Self’ is the unborn and invisible  Soul. 

Thus, all theories based on you (form) are falsehoods because of the Soul, the ‘Self’ is ever formless, timeless, and spaceless existence.

If the ‘Self’ is not the waking entity but the ‘Self’ is a formless Soul then how anyone can accept the theory of karma, which is based on a false self within the false experience.

Thus, whatever theories are based on the false self (waking entity or ego) and false experience (waking) are bound to be falsehoods.

Karma is a reality only for those who are stuck with the reality of practical life within the practical world because they have accepted the world as a reality.

Thus, without knowing what witnesses the coming and going, of the three states how can one say the karma theory is the universal theory when the karma is limited to waking experience alone.

If the ‘Self’ is not the waking entity but the ‘Self’ is the unborn and invisible  Soul then how anyone can accept the theory of karma, which is based on a false self within the false experience.

Thus, whatever theories are based on the false ‘Self’ (waking entity or ego) and false experience (waking or the world) are bound to be a falsehoods.

Karma is a reality only for those who are stuck with the reality of practical life within the practical world because they have accepted the world as reality.

What is the doer, what is the enjoyer, what is a cessation of thought and rising of thought, what are immediate perception and its result, to the Soul, the  ‘Self’, the ever impersonal?

What is this world, what is meant by the aspirant for liberation; what is the contemplative man and what is a man of knowledge; what is the Soul in bondage and what is liberated Soul to the ‘Self', which is ever formless and nondual.

What is Prarabdha Karmas, what is even liberation in life, and what is that and where is liberation at death for the Soul, the ‘Self', which is ever attributeless?

The nearest state to understanding the Soul by itself is to eliminate the whole waking experience, as in deep sleep. Once this is grasped one has to understand that the three states are the Soul, which is present in the form of consciousness, that the Soul is the ‘Self’.

Whether the karma theory existed prior to Buddhism or time immemorial is not the question. Karma theory is based on form, time, and space whereas as the ultimate truth or Brahman is based on formless, timeless, and spaceless existence.

Thus, one has to decide whether the ‘Self’ is in the form or the  ‘Self’ is formless. If the ‘Self’ is the form then the karma theory has value but if the ‘Self’ is formless then the karma theory has no value.

Deeper self-search reveals the fact that the karma theory is meant for those who are immersed in worldly life thinking that the individual life within the particle world as reality. 

In the path of the truth, the karma theory becomes a great obstacle to realizing the truth. :~Santthosh Kumaar