The universe, of course, is illusory, but there is Brahman.+

All religions the world and all philosophies of the world are based on the ego; find no answers to many questions. Truth seekers all over the world are trying to find answers for themselves, and they imagine and write articles and books about their ideas and others will read and blindly accept them as truth. 

The spiritual truth was hidden by the Sages and only to few it has been given to know the secrets of the Self-knowledge or Brahma Gnana or Atma Gnana but for the mass, they are in parables, so that seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand. 

What is the use of discussing the practical life within the practical world within the unreal world? Instead, one has to find how this world is unreal (illusion).   In the Atmic discussion, the body and the world are merely an illusion. Why discuss the practical life within the practical world, when the Self is not the body.  

The look of an object will depend upon the medium through which the observer views it. In fact, our mental and intellectual conditions determine the three states, observed and experienced.  The commoner viewing the three states will see differently from a Gnani viewing the same three states. Each one interprets the three states that they see in terms of their existing knowledge. The commoner sees everything based on the ego, therefore, experiences the birth, life, karma,  death, and the world as reality, whereas a Gnani sees everything as consciousness and he is fully aware of the fact that, there is no second thing that exists other than the Soul or consciousness. 

Thus, all the egocentric (religious) adulteration has to be bifurcated to realize the ultimate truth or Brahman to know the truth propagated by the ancient sages of the truth. The sages of truth are not religious Gurus or saints.     

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 is the only sage who has final authority on the Advaitic truth. The Advaitic truth is rational truth and scientific truth without dogma.

The Advaitic orthodoxy is not the means to acquire Self-knowledge or Brahma Gnana or Atma Gnana.  Advaitic orthodoxy is meant for the ignorant mass that is unfit to grasp the highest truth.   Thus, the Advaitic orthodoxy is nothing to do with the ultimate truth or Brahman.

Sage Sankara disagrees with Buddhists who say, there is nothing - a nonentity. Sage  Sankara believes there is some reality, even though things are not what they appear to be. If one knows the truth, he will know what to do to find inspiration for action.  The seeker of truth‘s subject is to know what is it that is Real.

Buddhism says: ~ all things are illusory and nothing exists.  However, Advaita avers that it is not so.  It says that the universe, of course, is illusory, but there is Brahman (Consciousness), that exists, forming the very substratum of all things (illusion or universe).

The ignorant are always egocentric. He thinks what he knows is the truth.  He always indulges in pursuit of an argument.  The ignorant is sentimentalized to his belief system.  An ignorant person just to prove that he is correct and others are wrong because the ignorant presumes he already knows and wants to see whether others know or not. The ignorant person provokes others to snub them. Ignorant accumulates knowledge and tries to show his intellectual wealth. Such intellectual sharing of knowledge is mere garbage. It is of no use in the pursuit of truth because they are egocentric,  and their knowledge is based on ignorance.  Thus, egocentric knowledge will not yield truth, which is beyond form, time, and space. :~Santthosh Kumaar