Sage Sankara declared 1200 years back –everything is Atman- because Atman is in the form of consciousness.+

Scientists now concluded that you are not the brain (body). Consciousness requires the joint operation of the brain, body, and world. "You are not your brain. The brain, rather, is part of what you are."

The Biology of Consciousness

by Alva Noë. Hill and Wang, 2009:~

 Alva Noe, a University of California, Berkeley, philosopher, and cognitive scientist argues that after decades of a concerted effort on the part of neuroscientists, psychologists, and philosophers "only one proposition about how the brain makes us conscious ... has emerged unchallenged: we don't have a clue." The reason we have been unable to explain the neural basis of consciousness, he says, is that it does not take place in the brain. Consciousness is not something that happens inside us but something we achieve it is more like dancing than it is like the digestive process. To understand consciousness the fact that we think and feel and that a world shows up for us we need to look at a larger system in which the brain is only one element. Consciousness requires the joint operation of the brain, body, and world. "You are not your brain. The brain, rather, is part of what you are."

Thus, science is going in the right direction in its invention, and one day it will declare that everything is consciousness, which Sage Sankar declared 1200 years back –everything is Ataman- because Ataman is in the form of consciousness.

We have to know the fact that Sage Goudpada and Sage Sankara are not only reformers but also the sage greatest scientists. Since their original thesis has been lost in the labyrinths of philosophy and mutilated by pundits and priestcraft, it becomes very difficult to understand and assimilate the wisdom expounded by the great masters. In addition, the conservativeness of the orthodox scholars will not allow any research other than playing with the words, which suits the mass mindset, because of their egocentric outlook.

All the add-ons have to be deleted, in order to understand and assimilate the real fragrance of the wisdom expounded by the great masters of Advaita, but it is a hurricane task.  Thus, it is no use of studying all the scriptures, when there is a direct path to nondualistic or Advaitic truth.  The same time and effort can be used to reach the nondual destination, in lesser time and effort.   

As the seeker goes deeper into the investigation he finds:-

Sage Sankara founded his Advaita Vedanta either on reason independent of Sruti or on Sruti confirmed by reason."   Sage Sankara's commentary on the Mandukya Upanishad, II, 1:  This (the unreality of duality) is borne out by the Srutis ... But it is possible also to show the unreality of the object world even from pure reasoning, and this second chapter is undertaken for that purpose.

Sage Sankara himself had often said that his philosophy was based on Sruti, or revealed scripture.  This may be, because, Sage Sankara addressed the ordinary man, who finds security in the idea of causality and thus in the idea of God—and Revelation is indispensable to prove the latter.  He believed that those of superior intelligence, have no need for this idea of divine causality, and can therefore dispense with Sruti and arrive at the truth of Non-Dualism by pure reason. 

Sage Sankara, in debates with Buddhists and others who did not recognize the authority of the Vedas, had been obliged to prove the truth of Advaita by means of reason alone.  Mandukya Upanishad, a scripture that appealed to reason to the exclusion of Revelation. 

Nonduality does not need the support of any scripture or revelation like the Veda. For it is based, not upon the varying theological fancies, which are as numerous as the sands of the sea, but upon reason, the common heritage of all mankind, irrespective of color or creed or clime.

Self-knowledge is meant only for those who have an intense urge, and courage to accept the truth with humility and reject the untruth. Since people start comparing their scriptural knowledge, it becomes impossible to assimilate and realize the non-dual truth.   Therefore, there is no need to convince anyone other than our own-self to get a firm conviction. :~Santthosh Kumaar