It is difficult for tradition-bound people to accept anything as truth other than what they inherited from then parental grooming

It is difficult for tradition-bound people to accept anything as truth other than what they inherited from then parental grooming. Only intense urge to know the truth and courage to accept the truth after verification with better understanding one will be able to drop all his accumulated dross, which is the main obstacle in self-realization.

  

Religion needs a guru to propagate its belief system, whereas in pursuit of truth there is no need for a guru. The ultimate truth has to be ascertained by him alone.  Yoga needs guru to guide its student to practice Samadhi. 

Religion encourages one  who can induce himself to feel convinced that he has realized the Self, or has  an admirer who believes that he has done so, the it  opens up for  him the way for the founding of a new sect based on Guru-worship. People, too, have developed curious credulousness. Often they would install an earnest seeker and devotee, or a pious saint, on the throne of God and begin to offer him worship and homage even if he protested and resisted such acts. They would lay prostrate, sing hymns, wave lights (arati) and burn incense before him, and present to him food which was to be returned by him as prasdda, wash his toes and sip the wash. At times the disciple would go to the length of getting food, fruit or a betel-nut leaf chewed by him, and taking the morsel back from it.

They would place his photo in the private temples of their homes and perform all these rites and ceremonies which are usually offered to temple-idols.  In this way there might be at present in our country scores of individuals who are worshiped as living God, with a following varying in numbers.

If one is seeking truth one has to drop religious baggage and move forward in their pursuit of truth.  

When Chandogya Upanishads :-

This universe comes forth from Brahman and will return to Brahman. Verily, all is Brahman. A person is what his deep desire is. It is our deepest desire in this life that shapes the life to come. So let us direct our deepest desires to realize the Self.

If one is seeking truth then it is necessary to bifurcate and drop the traditional Advaitic path which is not the means to self-knowledge and move ahead without the traditional baggage to get direct realization on his own  as suggest by the great sages. 

Thus seeker of truth has to know what this universe is. What is this Brahman in order to realize the non-dual or Advaitic truth?