Manduka Upanishad In deep sleep and anesthesia, you have non-duality but no Gnana.+

People’s views and opinions are based on a dualistic perspective but the truth, one is seeking is hidden by the dualistic illusion or Maya or universe (I). 

Manduka Upanishad shows how one opinion may be used to contradict another so that both may be thrown away. Opinions are not for philosophy; they are as Ashtavakra says, mere thoughts; it wants the truth.

Manduka Upanishad In deep sleep and anesthesia, you have non-duality but no Gnana. Therefore there must be discrimination along with non-duality. Otherwise sleeping dogs would be Gnanis. ~ (P.219)

 

Manduka Upanishad is not meant for all, as it is based entirely on reasoning. Hence, only a few will be able to understand and assimilate it.

Manduka Upanishad:~Atman is the highest Reality and its opposite: Note the word "and". Reality and illusion together make Brahman: nothing can be left out. Page 51.

Sage Sankara said: ~A.A~ 88. When the whole universe, movable and immovable, is known to be Atman (consciousness), and thus the existence of everything else is negated, where is then any room to say that you are Atman? 

The universe in which you exist is a prison that hides the Soul, ‘Self’. It is not you who has to get freedom; it is the Soul that has to get freedom from experiencing the illusory universe as a reality. 

Most people have the desire to know the truth but the capacity to understand and assimilate it is limited.  

The result is that people resolve the conflict by jumping to the first simplest and easiest conclusion as the correct one, and smugly but unjustifiably thinking “I know”: Thus they commit the fallacy of primitivity. 

The seeker needs proof to accept anything as truth. Every guru intellectual, pundit or yogi statements have to be verified before accepting them as the ultimate truth or Brahman. Their claims have to be verified before accepting them as truth

You and the world in which you exist are part of the illusion. Without knowing what is an illusion and what is reality? 

How is one to realize the ‘Self’ hidden by the dualistic illusion.  To realize our life of pleasure-pain within the world is as real as a dream is possible only through Advaitic wisdom. 

Only through Advaitic wisdom, the Soul, the ‘Self’ becomes free from experiencing the dualistic illusion as a reality.

Even in a dream whatever is experienced becomes unreal when waking takes place. Similarly, when wisdom dawns one becomes aware 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.

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

A Gnani is fully aware that his body, ego, and the universe are nothing but consciousness. 

Thus, he finds that experience of any sort is the play of consciousness and experience is merely an illusion. 

The one which witnesses the experience, which is in the form of the universe or mind is merely an illusion.

Through Advaitic wisdom, one gains Self-awareness in the midst of the dualistic illusion.  Self-awareness itself is Brahmic-awareness or God-awareness. :~Santthosh Kumaar