The rise from shariat (karma-kanda) to tariqat (adhyatma-marga) is not to be interpreted, therefore, as being merely a departure from external conformity. It is not a change from conventionality to idiosyncrasy, from the usual to the unusual. It  is a change from a life of thoughtless acceptance of established traditions to a mode of being that is based upon thoughtful appreciation of the difference between the important and the unimportant. It is a change from a state of implicit ignorance to a state of critical thoughtfulness.
At the stage of mere external conformity, the spiritual ignorance of an individual is often so complete that he does not even realize that he is ignorant. But when the person is being awakened and enters the path, he begins by realizing the need for true light. In the initial stages the effort to attain this light takes the form of intellectual discrimination between the lasting and the transitory, the true and the false, the real and the unreal, the important and the unimportant.
-Discourses 7th Ed. p352