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knowledge (apara vidya). The way to Self Knowledge begins by restraining lust, anger, egotism, attachment, and other afflictions. The seeker then strives to attain the direct experience of Atman through the successive practices of listening (to sacred texts and discourses of sages), contemplating (on what has been studied), and meditating.
According to the Upanishads, the highest goal—immortalitycannot be achieved merely through ceremonial and sacrificial
rites.
The Mundako Upanishads (1/2/7) states:
Unsafe boats, however, are these rituals and sacrifices (to go across the world sea of death and birth) as described by eighteen (shastras) in which are expressed these lower performances. The ignorant who consider them better Go time and again to old age and death.
One can attain the joys of heaven for a limited time by means of sacrificial rituals (yajnas), but when the rewards of the rituals perish, the person must again return to this world of birth and death. By these lesser boats one cannot go beyond the world
Sea. 18
According to the various Shastras (the sacred texts), havan (the
sacrificial fire ritual), and the chanting of mantras are for people
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