The time you spend worshiping Gods and Goddesses is wasted because you could have spent that time to acquire Self-knowledge or Brahma Gnana or Atma Gnana.+

All the religious worship and prayers are based on the religious Gods. The religious Gods are not God in truth. 

The seeker must know the difference between religious Gods and Spiritual god.

Religious Gods are based on blind belief whereas the Spiritual God is the Spirit, the existence.  

Blind belief in religious belief hides the truth. So, people are immersed in their belief system. People who escape from the truth will never find God in truth.

Religion causes one to become crippled, Self-mortifying and Self-deprecating is not a religion, but the social system of controlling the populace through psychological deformation and retardation.

Your religion and religious belief in God are an escape from realizing the actual God. Spirituality is not an escape from actuality but realizing the fact that the world, in which you exist, is merely an illusion created out of the Spirit, the real God

By worshipping Gods and Goddesses, you will remain in the domain of the dualistic illusion. Worshiping Gods and Goddesses will not help you to realize the real God. The real God is the Soul, the Self. 

The time you spend worshipping Gods and Goddesses is wasted because you could have spent that time to acquire Self-knowledge or Brahma Gnana or Atma Gnana. 

Self-knowledge or Brahma Gnana or Atma Gnana is your goal. By worshiping Gods and Goddesses, you cannot you will remain in ignorance of the ultimate truth or Brahman or real God. 

Upanishads clearly indicate that the human goal is to acquire Self-Knowledge or Brahma Gnana or Atma Gnana. 

Mundaka Upanishad condemns rituals: ~ The Para or Higher Knowledge is the knowledge of the Supreme Being while the Apara or Lower Knowledge is that of following sacrificial rites and ceremonies. (1/2/ 1 – 6) 

First, you must know what God is supposed to be. There is a clear-cut idea in the scriptures, of what is supposed to be God. And what not to worship in place of God then why worship the belief of God, which is not God. 

That is why Lord Krishna Says Ch ~V: ~ “Those who know me 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.

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

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

People, who worship the belief of Gods are hallucinating that they become one with such God.  

Remember:~ 

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

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

The Vedas confirm God is Atman (Spirit), the Self. 

Yajurveda – chapter- 32:~  God is  Supreme Spirit has no ‘Pratima’ (idol) or material shape. God cannot be seen directly by anyone. God pervades all beings and all directions. 

Thus, Idolatry does not find any support from the Vedas. 

Rig Veda: ~ 'Prajnanam Brahma'- Consciousness is the ultimate reality or Brahman or God in truth.

Do not accept any other God other than the Soul. The Soul is God in truth. Nothing is real but the Soul, which is present in the form of consciousness.

Nothing matters but realizing God in truth. God in truth, is everywhere and in everything. Let these words be inscribed in your subconscious.

God in truth, is hidden by the illusory universe. God in truth alone, is real and eternal, and all else is an illusion.

Brahman is merely a word to indicate the ultimate truth or God in truth. The ultimate truth itself is God in truth.

People are not aware that there is no religious God that exists, apart from the Soul, which is present in the form of consciousness.

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)

How can you worship God? That implies two ~ the worshipper and the worshiped, whereas God is non-dual. One can worship his idea of God only or realize his unity with it when he can’t worship it as a part.

When Upanishads and Vedas declare that “God is in the form of the Athma, and God is indeed Athma itself” then why accept another God in place of the Atman nor worship other than the Atman.

God is the Supreme Being the One eternal homogeneous essence, indivisible consciousness, and intelligence, which is beyond the form, time, and space. To which the Sages describe in a variety of ways through diverse words.

People, who worship the belief of God, are hallucinating that they become one with such Gods.

Vedas itself says: May ye never accept another God in place of the Atman nor worship other than the Atman? Thus, to know the real God Self-realization is necessary. Self-realization is God-realization. Self-realization itself is real worship.

In Yajurveda says if you worship what is not God: ~

Yajurveda: ~ 

Translation 1.

They enter darkness, those who worship natural things (for example air, water, sun, moon, animals, fire, stone, etc).

They sink deeper in darkness those who worship sambhuti. (Sambhuti means created things, for example, table, chair, idol, etc.) (Yajurveda 40:9)

Translation 2.

"Deep into the shade of blinding gloom fall asambhuti's worshippers. They sink to darkness deeper yet who on sambhuti are intent." (Yajurveda Samhita by Ralph T. H. Giffith pg 538)

Translation 3.

"They are enveloped in darkness, in other words, are steeped in ignorance and sunk in the greatest depths of misery who worship the uncreated, eternal Prakriti -- the material cause of the world -- in place of the All-pervading God, But those who worship visible things born of the Prakriti, such as the earth, trees, bodies (human and the like) in place of God are enveloped in still greater darkness, in other words, they are extremely foolish, fall into an awful hell of pain and sorrow and suffer terribly for a long time." (Yajur Veda 40:9.)

So, Yajur Veda indicates that: ~  Those who worship visible things, such as the earth, trees, and bodies (humans and the like) in place of God are enveloped in still greater ignorance. 

If the religious Gods and goddesses are not real Gods then why indulge in rituals and glorify the conceptual Gods, Goddesses, and Gurus to go into deeper darkness. Instead spend that time moving forward towards Self-knowledge, which is one’s prime goal. 

That is why Sage Sankara: ~ VC ~ 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.  (verses-6)   

Remember:~ 

The religious belief, actions, conduct, love, virtue, scriptural mastery, religion, rituals, and prayers which are mere theories based on the false Self, are great hindrances in realizing the non-dual truth, which is the ultimate truth. 

All religious theories are meant for those who believe in the practical life within the practical world as a reality because they are unable to verify the truth of their true existence. 

The religion is based on the birth entity (you). The birth entity is the false self within the false experience (waking). Thus, the religion is based on falsehood, because the religion accepts the experience of birth, life, death, and the world as a reality. 

It is very much necessary to realize the self is the formless Soul, which is birthless and deathless because it is unborn and eternal. 

The Soul, the Self has no religion. All religious theories are based on the birth entity is bound to be a falsehood. 

Sage Goudpada says: ~ The merciful Veda teaches karma and Upasana to people of lower and middling intellect while jnana is taught to those of higher intellect. 

So they clearly indicate rituals and theories are not meant for those who are searching for higher knowledge or wisdom. The path of wisdom is the only means. 

All the orthodox Advaitins indulge and immerse themselves in a ritualistic-oriented lifestyle and follow the path of karma and Upaasana which is meant for lower and middling intellect and not for realizing the Advaitic truth.

Many chose these orthodox scholars as their gurus. But these gurus are good for learning the conceptual Advaita meant for those orthodox who believe their conduct-oriented lifestyle leads to Moksha [liberation]. But the theistic Advaita is not the means to acquire Self–knowledge or non-dualistic or Advaitic wisdom. 

Those who are seeking the truth have to do their own homework to acquire Self-knowledge or Brahma Gnana or Atma Gnana. : ~Santthosh Kumaar