The soul or consciousness is ultimate truth or Brahman or God.

Swami Vivekananda :- The masses in India cry to sixty million gods, and still die like dogs. Where are these gods?

 Knowing this, stand up and fight! Not one step back that is the idea. ... Fight it out, whatever comes. Let the stars move from the sphere! Let the whole world stand against us! Death means only a change of garment. What of it? Thus fight! You gain nothing by becoming cowards. ... Taking a step backward, you do not avoid any misfortune. You have cried to all the gods in the world. Has misery ceased? The masses in India cry to sixty million gods, and still die like dogs. Where are these gods? ... The gods come to help you when you have succeeded. So what is the use? Die game. ... This bending the knee to superstitions, this selling yourself to your own mind does not befit you, my soul. You are infinite, deathless, birthless. Because you are infinite spirit, it does not befit you to be a slave. ... Arise! Awake! Stand up and fight! Die if you must. There is none to help you. You are the entire world. Who can help you? - Swami Vivekananda  (Delivered In San Francisco, on May 28, 1900) -The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda/Volume 1/Lectures And Discourses/The Gita II

In Vedas the God has been described as:-

v  Sakshi (Witness)

v  Chetan (conscious)

v  Nirguna (Without form and properties).

v  Nitya (eternal)

v  Shuddha (pure)

v  Buddha (omniscient)

v  Mukta (unattached).

So, it clearly indicates that God is formless thus there is no scope for form based God. The religion and its conceptual gods, and its theories of karma, heaven, hell, sin, punya, rebirth, and reincarnation are based on the false self, within the false experience. Therefore, they are meant for lower mind-sets, they are of no use for those who are seeking higher truth as indicated in the scriptures.  

There are many schools of thought in Hinduism based on Vedas. These schools of thoughts are add-ons. Therefore, these add-ons have to be bifurcated from original Vedic Religion, to get the pure Vedic essence. 

Sri, Sankara said: The world is unreal and Brahman alone is real.  It means the birth, life and death, which happens within the world, also is unreal.  If birth, life and death are unreal, then the rebirth and reincarnation and the avatar concept has to be unreal. Thus, it is for the seeker to find out, on what standpoint the world becomes unreal, to know the Brahman, which is the ultimate truth.

Causality taught in the Upanishads is only to enable us to understand the supreme truth of no-origination. The world is not different from the self and the self is not different from Atman and Atman is not different from Brahman. That the non-dual absolute appears as the diverse world is only an illusion. If it really became diverse then the immortal would become mortal.

 The dualists who seek to prove the origination of the unborn, by that very enterprise try to make the immortal, mortal. Ultimate nature can never change - the immortal can never become mortal and vice versa.

Gaudapada quotes from the Upanishads:- "There's no plurality here"; "The Soul through its powers appears to be many"; "those who are attached to the creation or production or origination go to utter darkness"; "the unborn is never reborn, for what can produce it?”

Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, which is a part of Vedas, Declares that:-Brahman is the form of the Athma, and it is indeed Athma itself.

DVI" means two. DVI" connotes dual existence and the non-dual. Which of these two is non-existence? People think that there is God and that the jivas--souls-- like them form the second, other than them. There is no such duality at all.

"Soul”, which is present in the form of consciousness,   is the only reality and there is nothing other than this soul or consciousness, which is the innermost self. On the stand point the formless soul or consciousness, innermost self, there is no second thing exists other than consciousness.  Because the whole universe in, which we all exist is created out of consciousness.  There is no second thing exist other than consciousness. Hence it is nondual . The soul or consciousness is ultimate truth or Brahman or God.     

Just as the sun is the direct cause of the daylight, so without the self-knowledge or Bramha Gnana or Atma Gnana no emancipation can be had.

Upanishad's say:- "He who thinks he knows, does not know." This means that to know anything implies a second, an object of knowledge, hence duality, i.e. no Gnana.

Gnani and Illusion

A King who was greatly incensed at the wisdom taught by Gnani that everything here below is an illusion. He wanted to teach the exponent of this doctrine a lesson. So he invited the then Gnani to his palace. That Gnani went there and stoutly maintained that everything in this world was an illusion. The king had arranged to let loose a hungry lion against Gnani. The beast rushed at Gnani who took to a precipitate flight to save himself.

'Oh, Venerable Sir,' shouted the king, 'why do you run so fast seeing that the lion is only an illusion?'

'Oh, king,' said Gnani in his course of his flight, 'my running too is an illusion. Everything in this world is an illusion.’

Similarly, we all are searching truth within the illusion not being aware of the fact that, the illusion is created out of single stuff is the formless soul, which is present in the form of consciousness. 

Thus searching the truth within illusion with the illusory self, within the illusory experience, has to be an illusion.  The illusion is created, and sustained, and finally dissolves as consciousness, which is Soul, the innermost self.  Since, there is no second thing other than the consciousness; the consciousness itself is God/ Brahman/Christ.  This conviction derives only through deeper self-search.  

The soul unfolds itself, like a lotus of countless petals.― Khalil Gibran

The soul, the innermost self has to be free from experiencing the duality as reality.  To overcome the duality, the waking entity has to know it itself is not the self but the self is the soul, which witnesses coming and going of the three states.  Thus self-knowledge or Brahma Gnana or Atma Gnana is necessary to realize ‘what is truth’ and ‘what is untruth’ to reject the untruth by accepting the truth.  

Lust, anger, greed are part of the duality. From the ultimate standpoint the duality is mere illusion. If duality is mere illusion than the form, time and space are mere illusion. If form, time and space are mere illusion than the universe is mere illusion. If the universe is mere illusion, than the three states are mere illusion. If the three states are mere illusion than   the experience of birth, life, death and the world are mere illusion.  If birth, life, death and the world are mere illusion than the individualized god, heaven, hell, sin, and karma are part of the illusion.   Therefore it is necessary to realize ‘what is illusion’ and ‘what is reality’ in order to get freedom from falsehood.

  

By inquiring WHO AM I?  it unfolds the fallacy of the form thus only half the truth is revealed. The ignorant who fail to apprehend the ‘self’ are caught in the web of illusion experience, the birth, life, death and world as reality.  The people who think the ‘I’ or ‘I AM’ as self are caught up in the web of duality experiences the pain and pleasure as reality.

    

As the waking entity or ego becomes more and more inward turned, it becomes gradually free from experiencing the duality as reality.  When the soul, the innermost self becomes freed from all the obstruction by fully eliminating the ignorance it remains in its own awareness.  When the soul, remains in its own awareness in the midst of duality then the duality is mere illusion created out of the soul, which is present in the form of consciousness.

So long the soul, the innermost self identifies itself with the waking entity it remains in ignorance of its formless nondual true nature. Therefore it is necessary to realize the fact that, the ‘self’ is neither the waking entity nor the ‘self’ is dream entity but the self is the formless soul, which witnesses the coming and going of the three states.

Just as the sun is the direct cause of the daylight, so without the self-knowledge or Bramha Gnana or Atma Gnana no emancipation can be had. Compared to all other forms discipline self-knowledge is the only direct means for freedom from experiencing the illusion as reality.

Only when the wisdom dawns the soul, the innermost self can remain in its own awareness in the midst of duality. 

The non-dualistic or Advaitic truth has to be grasped and realized in the midst of the waking experience

The non-dualistic or Advaitic truth has to be grasped and realized  in the midst of the waking experience.  That is, being aware of the truth and untruth, reality and unreality. And able establish himself in the truth and able to view and judge, the three states, on the base of the soul, which is ultimate truth or Brahman. 

It is unfortunate people are stuck with their accumulated ideas based on the false self, and imagine about non duality and say nothing exist other than the source. But a Gnani says everything exists (illusion) but everything is created out of the consciousness.  Everything arises from the consciousness, and subsides as consciousness. Thus, the whole diversity (three states) has no relevance, on the standpoint of the formless  soul , the innermost self.

Everything (illusion) is nothinness (consciousness) realizing the three states are created out nothingness (Consciousness). Nothingness is the nature of the consciousness, because there is no second thing exists other than itself.       

Those who lack the intelligence to discriminate between formless witness [subject] and three states (object) will not be able to grasp what is real and what is unreal. Both subject and object are consciousness, not subject alone.

The truth can never change. The nature of truth is, it can never be changed under any circumstances. It may be misrepresented. It must apply to the whole of existence, to the whole of the universe. It is in the object (three states) alone that one has all changes, as deeper analysis points out.

 The subject [formless witness] remains unchanged. The subject [formless witness], as such remains immortal. It can never die for it never changes. The body and the world are an object, and goes, but the subject or the knower of the body and the universe, can never go. The seeker has to take this principle as his guiding thread and non-dual truth becomes easy to grasp. The formless witness can never be subject to the changes of the object; it is unchanged. The mistake usually made is that subject becomes object, or that object is subject.

If one wants to have an absence of contradictions, absence of duality, there must be one entity, one being. If one has experience which is an object [mind], there is a contradiction between subject and object, for "mind” is an object.

The duality is reality on the standpoint of the false self (ego or body as Self).  The duality is a mere mirage on the base of the true self, which is formless consciousness. This understanding comes only to the serious seeker, who has a real urge to know the ultimate truth, which is beyond the all the teachings and teachers. There is neither teaching, nor teacher, nor student in the realm of truth.  

Different paths will not converge to the same Ultimate Reality because they are based on the false self. They are not the different stages in the same path. People fight about the differences and the greatness of their chosen paths but only through wisdom one can realize the Ultimate Reality.

One has to have perfect understanding and march ahead, surely and steadily, towards that Ultimate Reality, which is consciousness or Brahman or Christ or Buddha. One becomes limited to the concepts, names and forms within the waking or dream. Waking or dream originates from the soul.

 The soul is the true self.  The soul is in the form of consciousness. Realizing the consciousness as the true self is truth realization. Consciousness is formless, limitless, permanent and unchanging, and by its nature non-dual and universal. The consciousness is the formless knower of the mirage (universe) which comes and goes.

Realize Brahman or ultimate truth here and now,  in this very life , not in the next life and in the  next world by realizing the fact that this life itself is an illusion.