The 'I' itself is ignorance and 'I' itself is an illusion.+

Nothing has to be accepted as truth without deeper verification. Most of the people stop half-way (usually in mysticism) and wrongly believe “I know.”

This ‘I know’ business is very dangerous because one is caught up in the prison of the 'I'. The 'I' itself is ignorance and 'I' itself is an illusion.

Sage Sankara: ~ “VC~ All this universe which through ignorance appears as of diverse forms, is nothing else but Brahman (consciousness) which is absolutely free from all the limitations of human thought.

The universe is the product of ignorance. Ignorance is present in the form of the ‘I’.

Sage  Sankara says: - VC-47- All the effects of ignorance, root, and branch, are burnt down by the fire of knowledge, which arises from discrimination between these two—the Self and the non-Self.

Till you think you are an individual separate from the world and the world existed prior to you and you are born in it afterward ignorance will prevail as a reality. Till ignorance is there the universe prevails as reality.

Sage Sankara says: ~ “The exercise in discrimination between real and unreal and renunciation of the false is real meditation, then why you are indulging in other types of meditation.

Perfect understanding and realization of ‘what is what’ leads to Self-awareness. By holding on to theories one remains in the realm of duality. 

You have to mentally go on dropping what is not the truth through deeper Self-search. Finally when you become aware that, your ego, your body, and the world are one in essence then there is Self-awareness in the midst of duality.

Self-knowledge or Brahma Gnana or Atma Gnana is the destroyer of ignorance. The Soul is present in the form of consciousness is all-pervading and is the cause of all the three states and it itself is uncaused.:~Santthosh Kumaar