Religion is chiefly the understanding that you are a part of the totality. Being a separate individual is the entire problem. All sensuality, all search for knowledge, all search for pleasure, is related to this problem. You have created a sense of duality by separating yourself from the totality.
You have a sense of self-identity that makes you anxious. The sense of separate existence is a reflection in a separate body of the one reality. In this reflection the unlimited and the limited are confused and taken to be the same. To undo this confusion is the purpose of yoga.
All the scriptures are of no use.
The scriptures are for the ignorant, not for the one of knowledge. Whatever can be told through words has no permanence. It can be compared to a dream. The religions of the world are the games of the ignorant.
The traditional scriptures are unable to locate the Absolute, which is beyond the grasp of the Vedas, because it is not conceptual. There are many volumes written about spirituality which do not destroy your concepts but add to them. All the volumes do not tell you what you are.
Spiritual books help in dispelling ignorance. They are useful in the beginning, but become a hindrance in the end. One must know when to discard them. Whatever you think of as spiritual knowledge was gained in the realm of consciousness. Such knowledge is merely a burden upon your head and is going to add more misery. It is nothing more than spiritual jargon.
In scriptures there are additions by unauthorized writers. Most of them are ignorant people, whose books would have been ignored in the normal course. Hence, these writers indicated the names of Vyasa etc, as the author, for easy acceptance by people. Also there are very few who question the content of the scriptures. They are taken for granted as the Truth. Even if it is not the Truth, it does not matter. For the common man spirituality comes last in their list of priorities. There are other important matters, like supply of food, rising prices, political instability etc, which need immediate attention. Spirituality can wait until one gets very old. Hence, as years pass, doubtful untruth gets established as the Truth.
The scriptures are concepts of poets. They offer bribes as well as they threaten.
There are so many religions. Even if people lose their lives, they will not accept anyone else’s religion. The basis of it is loyalty to a concept. Consensus means identification with concepts. But are wakefulness, sleep, hunger and thirst different for different religions? Why are there so many religions?… one likes one’s own concepts and wants others to follow them. If this succeeds one gets followers. This leads to creeds and religions. Those who teach and those who learn… all pass away. Religion is formed by the concepts of their followers, nothing else.
Many people study Yoga, which is the joining of knowledge and ignorance. Each seeker accepts, or invents, a method which suits him, applies it to himself with some earnestness and effort, obtains results according to his temperament and expectations, casts them into a mould of words, builds them into a system, establishes a tradition, and begins to admit others into his ‘School of Yoga’. It is all built on memory and imagination. No such school is valueless, nor indispensable; in each one can progress up to the point… when all desire for progress must be abandoned, to make further progress possible. Then all schools are given up, all effort ceases. In solitude and darkness the last step is made, which ends ignorance and fear forever.
The ignorant follow religious practices for the satisfaction of following a tradition, and also for entertainment. Everybody has directly or indirectly taken initiation as per the religion to which he or she belongs. It is important to know that principle which takes the initiation. It is necessary to find out the nature of that principle.
Religions have come down through traditions. Is there a religion without dogma? Even a jnani has to follow traditions until a certain stage has been crossed.
Religions are based on concepts and emotions. Those emotions are so violent and absorbing that people have immolated themselves. Those who have identified themselves with Jesus Christ have not realized that unless individuality is given up Reality can never manifest itself. One individual has identified with another individual.
Religions show their true face in action, in silent action. To know what man believes, watch how he acts. For most people service of their bodies and their minds is their religion. They have their religious ideas, but do not act on them. They play with them, they are often very fond of them, but they will not act on them.
Spirituality is to realize the absolute meaning of your beingness, not the meaning of what is seen and felt.
All the prophets, creeds, religions, etc, are not real… they are only the play of this consciousness.
Spirituality is nothing more than understanding this play of consciousness. The ultimate religion is Self-realization. The religions based upon the bodily behaviour of human beings take them to their downfall. The highest religion means to live with the conviction that we are pure consciousness. Liberation means to be free… then one is not affected by the bondage of mind, intellect and ego. Only the religion of one’s own Self will last to the end.
The greatest negation of religion, the greatest sin, is to believe that the body is your true nature. Your religion is to remain as the Self. The highest religion is searching for one’s nature and stabilizing there.
In spirituality there is no profit or loss.
It is the Atman, not the personality, that is drawn to spirituality. Whether you practice spirituality or not, it makes no difference to the Absolute.
Nisargadatta Maharaj