On the dawn of Self-knowledge Atma Gnana it is known to have no existence apart from consciousness***

Realization of the ultimate truth or Brahman is possible on this very life itself. The highly evolved seeker, who has an intense urge, and sharpness to grasp non-dualistic or Advaitic truth, is fit to realize the ultimate truth or Brahman.

One who has realized ultimate truth or Brahman, is freed from experiencing the duality as reality. He is a Gnani. A Gnani is liberated from the ignorance, which is the cause of the duality. Thus, a Gnani is freed from experiencing the form, time and space as a reality while still living in the practical world.  He continues to live in the practical world   in self-awareness.

The ignorance is burnt in the Self ~awareness. The waking entity along with the waking experience eventually dies, and a Gnani is said to have attained Moksha before his physical death.  Thus,he is free from experiencing the birth, life death and the world as reality. ~Santthosh Kumaar

 A   person, seeing a rope in dim light, mistakes it for a snake. He is as much frightened as he would have been if there had been a real snake there.  The snake is said to have ‘illusory reality’.  The illusory snake is described as a superimposition on the rope. The snake is not real, because, it is found on examination with a light that it never existed there. At the same time, it was experienced as reality till ignorance prevailed. Similarly, this waking experience experienced   as reality till wisdom dawns.  On the dawn of Self-knowledge or Brahma Gnana or Atma Gnana it is known to have no existence apart from consciousness. Consciousness is ultimate truth or Brahman. The waking experience is therefore said to be superimposed on consciousness same way as the dream is superimposed on the consciousness.  The  waking experience   is the practical   reality,  because  it  is  real  until  the  attainment  of  Self-realisation.  Consciousness alone has absolute reality; because it is absolutely changeless because it is formless.      

One could go on and on but the point is that the Upanishads approach the Supreme immutable truth in multiple ways and try to articulate the manifest and un-manifest aspects of the Brahman.

For those that are deluded, the multiple points of view may amount to contradictory perceptions but Upanishads are the epitome of an attempted understanding of the immortal, immutable Brahman by mortals caught in the dynamism of this Universe. 

The rope does not give birth to the snake. The rope is that which causes apprehension of the snake. That is all. Objects of imaginations alone have birth and death and not the formless consciousness because consciousness is not an object of imagination.

One has to discriminate between formless witness (subject) and three states (object)    becomes aware of the fact that both formless witness (subject)   and three states (object)   are consciousness, not formless witness alone.

The consciousness never changes.  The nature of   the consciousness is this: 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.

Deeper self-search reveals fact that: - all the three states are an object to the formless subject.   It is in the waking or dream alone that one has all changes. The formless witness remains unchanged. The formless witness, as such remains immortal. It can never die for it never changes.

 The body and the world are seen, and goes, but the formless witness or seer or knower of the body and the world, can never go. Seeker has to take this principle as his guiding thread and self-knowledge becomes easier to understand assimilate. The formless witness or seer can never be subject to the changes of the seen or waking or dream; it is unchanged. The mistake usually made is that witness or seer becomes waking or dream entity which is within waking or dream or seen whereas the witness is the one which witnesses the coming and going of the three states.

If one wants to have an absence of contradictions, absence of duality, there must be one entity, one being. If one has a thought, an idea, there is a contradiction between the witness and witnessed, for "thought" is of the duality. Distinction implies contradiction. Distinction means two things are not the same, hence duality exists there.

 There is no moment when the Self as consciousness does not exist, nor can the seer remain apart from consciousness.

A Gnani does not see his body as body, his ego as ego and his experience of the world as the world, but he sees them all as consciousness, which is the innermost self. He sees the consciousness   like a jeweller estimating gold in various ornaments. For a Gnani the whole universe including his body and ego is nothing but consciousness.  Thus,he is fully aware of the fact that there is no diversity in reality, but there is only unity.      

The soul seems to be different from the ego or  the waking entity because it is prior to the appearance of anything that exists, but they are one in essence. The soul is not an entity or identity or a thing within the universe, which appears as waking or dream. The soul, which is in the form of consciousness, is the very basis of the three states because it pervades in everything and everywhere in all the three states as their formless substance and witness.  Thus, the universe or mind is consciousness in its substance.

The soul is only a mental picture or an idea within the waking experience. Even if one say that the self is immortal and exist eternally, it the ego or  the waking entity that must tell him this, i.e. to the mind that it is only an idea.

Ego never reaches soul or the  consciousness. The ego never knows it. He who says he has a vision of the highest or describes it as supra-mental etc. does not understand consciousness, because it is free from imaginations.  It is free from imagination because it is formless. To imagine anything the form has to be there.  Without the form there is no ego. Without the ego there is no thinker. Without the thinker the imagination is impossible. 

Ordinarily knowledge arises from experience of the object by a subject; that all knowledge of objects will only lead to more thinking but never gives you the  ultimate reality.

Intellectuals think by thinking   more and more of objective experience one may get the reality. The intellectuality is based on individuality and individuality is based on the form. When the self is no the form,but the  self is formless consciousness, then what is the use of thinking on the base of the form, which is the false self within the false experience.

It is impossible to know and realize nondual reality, without rectifying the reasoning base.Intellectuals can never get at ultimate truth that way because it leads to endless thoughts and because it ignores the formless witness of the three states, intellectuals must first realize the existence of the formless witness in order to find the ultimate reality or Brahman.