For a Gnani all the three states are mere an illusion created out of the consciousness.+

Religious Gods are not God in truth. Bible says “God is a Spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. Rig Veda says may ye never accept another God in place of the Atman (Spirit) nor worship other than the Atman.

What is the use of arguing with religious believers?  They think what they know as the ultimate truth.

Whatever is real in the world in which we exist is God. All that is real in the world in which we exist is the Soul, the Self.

Thus, by realizing the Self, which is the Soul, we discover the Soul, which is present in the form of consciousness itself is God which is hidden by the ‘I’, which is the dualistic illusion.

Even The Bhagavad Gita says: ~ Brahmano hi pratisthaham ~ Brahman (God) is considered the all-pervading consciousness, which is the basis of all the animate and inanimate entities and material. (14.27).

When Bhagavad Gita says, God is considered the all-pervading consciousness which is the basis of all the animate and inanimate entities and material then nothing has to be accepted as God other than consciousness. 

Even Brihadaranyaka Upanishad: ~ Brahman (God in truth) is in the form of the Athma, and it is indeed Athma itself.

Even Rig Veda: ~ The Atman is the cause; Atman is the support of all that exists in this universe. May ye never turn away from the Atman, the Self. May ye never accept another God in place of the Atman nor worship other than the Atman?" (10:48, 5)

Those who indulge in a perverse argument on their own standpoint and opinion are not seeking the truth, which is beyond form, time, and space.  They just want to exhibit their accumulated knowledge accumulated from here and there.  They think what they know is the ultimate truth.

They think whatever they propagate is the ultimate truth. The question never occurs to them, “Is what I know is really the truth?

That is why Jesus said: ~ Do not throw your pearls before pigs, lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you. (Matthew -7:6) 

~ Jesus meant knowledge of Spirit or God or Self-knowledge or Advaitic wisdom.

Remember:~

Spirituality is nothing to do with religion. Spirituality is based on the Spirit, the real God whereas religion is based on the false self within the false experience.

Bible says: ~ “God is a Spirit, and they that worship God must worship Godin Spirit and in Truth. (John 4:24)”, 

God in truth is not physical. God is the Spirit. God is the innermost Self.  God in truth is birthless and deathless because God in truth is a formless, timeless, and spaceless existence. The birth, life, and death happen within the illusory world, which is created out of God in truth, which is present in the form of the Spirit.  

People who are incapable to inquire and reason are tending to follow some philosophy without verification. Therefore the more ignorant they are the easier it is to get them into a religious fold. Religion is so strong and popular because it makes no demand on the intelligent: It simply requires belief in a guru and his teachings.

It never strikes a believer to doubt whether his inherited religion is true. They never use their reason because they start and conclude that their religion alone is true because they never question.

Theological philosophers say God is a perfect being, but they have never known God, never proved his existence; hence their ascription of perfection to Him is purely Self-imagined or assumed.

The scholastic or mystic argument is endless. If one says "God is formless” another will reply, "No, God has attributes! If one says "his religion is higher" another will reply, "No, it is lower." It is impossible to get anywhere with such talk because both sides are merely imagining because they think on the base of the false Self and false experience. When the Self is not physical then whatever is seen, known, believed, and experienced as a person is bound to be a falsehood.   Therefore, there is a need to know the fact that, the Self is formless. 

The paradise or heavens and hell are mere religious injected imagination.  When the Self is formless then the experience of birth, life, death, and the universe is merely an.  But where people have got little thinking capacity, they begin to disbelieve through the contradictions of various contending orthodox claims and descriptions.

           

For religion one can interpret texts as he likes, in whatever way that pleases him, he simply imagines away.

Mundaka Upanishad:~ The study of the Vedas, linguistics, Rituals, astronomy, and all the arts Can be called lower knowledge. The higher is that which leads to Self-realization. The eye cannot see it; the mind cannot grasp it. The deathless 'Self' has neither caste nor race, neither eyes nor ears nor hands nor feet. Sages say this Self is infinite in the great and in the small, everlasting and changeless, the source of life.

In the pursuit of truth, the ultimate truth has to be proved, not assumed. Pundits (scholars) who take scriptures for granted are not Gnanis.

Pundits teach that all is yourself, but none of them can show that this is so, none has analyzed it scientifically, and none can prove it. The rational proof is needed so that one arrives at knowing truth i.e. wisdom; punditry is mere dogma, parrotism, and repetition of what they read in scripture. Scripters are not a  yardstick and the scriptural truth is not proof.   Pundits take scripters as an authority.   Authoritarianism merely assumes as true what another says, but what has yet to be proved.

Pundits have to test truth in this world not in the next world.  There is no proof other than blind belief based on the scriptures, belief is not the truth.  So, doctrines are not the means to realize the truth. There is no need to follow them to acquire Self-knowledge or Brahma Gnana.

Doubts and Confusions arise when the seeker finds the scripters and yoga are inadequate or useless to quench his spiritual thirst.

Disappointments in religion or yoga or even science imply error or ignorance. The seeker reaches a stage whether he is right?" Where is the certainty that he is proceeding on the right lines?" Thus, the doubts arise and the inquiring spirit comes and impels us to search elsewhere for truth where it will not be possible even to have doubt. 

The test is therefore in the realization of the truth. And only in non-duality, where there are no two to argue about views or to have a difference of opinion can such doubtlessness be possible.  Belief depends upon unstable bases whereas certainty depends on the proof.

Remember:~

Religion was coherent because it had a transcendent God as a central doctrine, whereas in pursuit of truth god cannot be considered as the center.

First, one should not hold a god as the center of existence without verification. Both the theist and atheist are theories with nothing to do with ultimate truth or Brahman.

Seeker of truth has to get rid of his doubts through deeper Self-search on his own, to realize the fact that, the Self is not the form but the Self is formless. Thus his analysis and reasoning have to be based on the formless (Soul), not on the form (ego).  

Simply going on believing and accepting whatever is said by the punditry will not lead one towards the path of wisdom. All the doubt has to be got rid of "by the sword of Self-Knowledge."  

The scriptures and yoga are not necessary if one follows the inner (formless) path.  Religion and yoga are not the means to the path of wisdom. 

There is a controversy as to the meaning of Maya. One Advaitic School says it is a Shakti of Brahman whereby both illusion and creation are brought about.

How do you know that it is the truth? If one bases it on the sayings of Rishis and saints, granting that they honestly believed in their experiences, there is still the query how do they know that these experiences were the truth?

Remember:~

Even in dreams whatever is experienced becomes unreal when waking takes place.  Similarly, when wisdom dawns one becomes aware of the fact that the Self is neither the waking entity nor the dream entity.  Thus whatever is experienced as a waking experience is as real as a dream.

For a Gnani all the three states are merely an illusion created out of the consciousness, because he is fully aware of the fact that, the witness of the three states is not the body but the Soul or consciousness.

A Gnani is fully aware of the fact that his body, ego, and the universe are nothing but consciousness. Thus, he finds the experience of any sort is the play of the consciousness and experience is merely an illusion.  The one who witnesses the experience, which is in the form of the universe (mind) is merely an illusion. :~Santthosh Kumaar