Most people from the west think that Hinduism is a religion but it is not so.

Most people from the west think that Hinduism is a religion but it is not so. The Indus [Sindu] valley culture is   named as Hinduism by the Muslim invaders in the past, who were not able to pronounce Sindu they called Sindu culture as Hindu culture. Thus name Hindu came into existence.  Hinduism is mere culture of Indus valley not religion. This Hindu culture consists of different caste, creeds, ideologies, beliefs and way of life in different regions of India.

Santana Dharma was pure Vedic religion prior to the existence of the present day Hinduism.  Hinduism is not pure Vedic religion; it is hotchpotch mixture of many ideologies adopted by other ideologies, cultures and traditions.  

As one goes deeper in annals of the history  he becomes aware of the fact that, the so called present Hinduism has adopted many things from Buddhism, religion of Abraham, Jainism and Islam.    If one goes deeper enough he will become aware everything is mixed up and messed up in time.

 No one is taken pains to rectify it because; because people have been inherited them, from their ancestors and they think it is blasphemy even to hear anything against their inherited religion and belief. Once one gets involved with the religious class it is the end of the pursuit of truth.

The religion and yoga are not the means to Self-Knowledge or Brahma Gnana. Holding religion and yoga as the means to Self-Knowledge or Brahma Gnana leads to all sorts of confusions.   There is no need to collect all these baggage of confusions, if one is seeking truth, nothing but ultimate truth or Brahman. 

The guru is necessary only in religious and yogic paths, but guru is not necessary in pursuit of truth.  Path of truth is a personal path and it is the path of verification. But in religion and yoga the verification is not allowed. Blind faith is main ingredient in belief system and yoga.   Gurudom is playing with words because maybe the meaning is floating somewhere in between the spaces of words...

People who think themselves to be in a position to air their knowledge forget one basic fact, namely that they go by mere appearances. Someone expounds knowledge and the one who receives it begins to ape the person from whom he has received the knowledge.  They never question the validity of that knowledge.

Thus, whatever the guru wears, he will wear; whatever mannerisms the guru affects, he will imitate.  Thus, they only learn to pretend. And all so-called accumulated knowledge" is mere speculation based on the waking entity( physical self or ego). This is how tradition became established and traditional forms of worship came into being and passed it on the one generation to the next.  All these have nothing to do with the Self- Knowledge.

Whatever One has heard, whatever he has been told, will have no value as far as the ultimate point of view. Whether one accepts the fact that, the only knowledge that he really has is the knowledge that he exists, that is consciousness. Other than that, whatever knowledge he thinks he has as a person, is part of the illusion, something acquired, based on the illusory consciousness.

That is why BUDDHA SAID: - Believe nothing just because a so-called wise person said it. Believe nothing just because a belief is generally held. Believe nothing just because it is said in ancient books. Believe nothing just because it is said to be of divine origin. Believe nothing just because someone else believes it. Believe only what you yourself test and judge to be true. 

Religion, belief in God, is an escape from realizing ultimate reality.  Belief in god and belief system blocks one's realization of ultimate truth or Brahman.

People of various walks of life believe in their inherited belief system and its idea of God. People indulge in God and guru glorification to symbolize that they are religious people. 

Religion makes one believe that, the practical life within the practical world as reality.  By believing the practical life within the practical world as reality one is bound to believe, the experience of the birth, life, death and the world as reality.  By believing in the experience of  birth, life, death and the world as reality one is accepting the false self (waking entity or ego) as true self and  the illusory  world(waking) as reality). By accepting the false self as real self and illusory world as reality, one is accepting the experience of the form, time and space as reality. By accepting the experience of the form, time and space as reality one is accepting   illusion or mind or universe or waking as reality. 

Religion and its idea of God make one, more and more egocentric.   Egocentricity makes one feel he is an individual separate from the world and world existed prior to him and he is born in this world afterwards.  Thus this conviction or condition or samskara is so deep rooted therefore it is impossible acquire Self-Knowledge or brahma Gnana or Atma Gnana.  

The realization of truth is not intellectual understanding. Self- Realization is about realizing the fact that, the self is not physical, but it is the formless soul or consciousness. 

 Intellectual, logical, analytical perspective is based on the false self, will not help the seeker to reach his non-dual destination. The truth is beyond intellectual understanding and only the serious seekers who are free from preconceived accumulated ideas can get there.

The seeker of truth moves ahead by verifying the facts and by removing all the obstacles and reaches his non-dual destination. There is a need to bifurcate spirituality from the religion.