You exist within the world. The world is merely an illusion.+

You are misled by what confronts you or influenced by what you experience. You exist within the world. The world is merely an illusion. If the world in which you exist is an illusion, then your existence as an individual is also bound to be an illusion.

You have a firm conviction that you are an individual separate from the world, and the world existed prior to you and you are born in it afterward.

Until this conviction is there it is impossible to grasp the Advaitic truth, which is hidden by the illusory form, time and space.

Deeper Self-search reveals the fact that, the form, time and space are created out of a single stuff and that stuff is the Soul, which is present in the form of consciousness.

The Soul is the Self. On the standpoint, the Soul, the Self, the world in you exists is merely an illusion. To realize the world is an illusion, Self-knowledge or Brahma Gnana or Atma Gnana is very much necessary.

You think you are the Self and your experience of the birth, life, death, and the world as a reality. The Self-knowledge is necessary to realize the fact that, you, your experience of the world are part of the illusion.

The Soul is the Self is not part of the illusion, but the Soul is present in the form of consciousness. The Soul or consciousness is the formless substance and the witness of the illusion.

The illusion is present as the ‘I’. The ‘I’ is present in the form of the mind. The mind is present in the form of the universe. The universe appears as waking or dream (duality) and disappears as deep sleep (nonduality).

Mundaka Upanishad 1.3:~ “Complete knowledge includes knowledge of the phenomenal world, the spirit behind it, and the source of both of them. When the cause of all causes becomes known, then everything knowable becomes known, and nothing remains unknown.”

It is erroneous to identify the Soul, the innermost Self as 'I' or 'I AM' because the Soul, the innermost Self is not 'I' or I AM’. The Soul, the innermost ‘Self, is that witness of the 'I'. :~ Santthosh Kumaar