Self-Knowledge or Brahma Gnana or Atma Gnana is necessary to understand and assimilate what is ultimate truth or Brahman.

People think that the “good or “bad" things happen to us not because, in a previous life, we were once “good” or "bad" to others. Is happens because of the ignorance of the true self, which is soul.  It is foolish to accept the karma theory without verifying the fact that, when body is not the experiencer of the body itself, then it is not correct to view and judge the worldview on the base of body as self.  

The karmic account cannot be settled on the physical self, because it is not the author of the three states. Thus, karma theory is based on the false self (‘ego or waking entity’), believing the false experience (waking) as reality.

On the base of  the formless Soul, the innermost self, the  experience of the birth, life and death is mere illusion.  Thus, whatever is based on the false self has to be part of the illusion. By accepting the karma theory makes one hold the false self, as real self.  Therefore, Self-Knowledge or Brahma Gnana or Atma Gnana  is necessary to understand and assimilate what is  ultimate truth or Brahman.  

 Deeper self-search  reveals the fact that, the self is not physical but the self is formless consciousness. Therefore, all the accumulated knowledge, experiences and understanding based on physical self (ego or waking entity)are falsehood based on the false self, within the false experience (waking).   Thus, whatever is based on the waking entity is bound to be falsehood because waking experience itself is false hood.   Since many teachers and teachings are based on the false self (ego or waking entity) and they consider the false experience (three states) as reality, they are incapable of grasping the witness, which is within the three states, but it is without the three states.

 Thus, the formless knower of the three states has to be grasped mentally and realize the fact that, all the three states, which comes and goes, are mental.  They are impermanent. The formless witness or knower of the three states is permanent and eternal.  Therefore, there is a need to understand “What is Mind?” and “What is the substance of the Mind?” in order to understand and assimilate the non-dual truth.

 For this one has drop all his accumulate knowledge, which he is using as a yardstick and lands himself in pursuit of argument without reaching anywhere.  One has to think deeper and analyze and verify everything and accept only un-contradictable truth.  Nothing has to be accepted as truth because some great thinker says it or I am saying it.  

Those who lack the intelligence to discriminate between formless witness (subject) and three states (object) will not be able to grasp what is real and what is unreal. Both subject and object are consciousness, not subject alone.

The truth can never change. The nature of truth is, it can never be changed under any circumstances. It may be misrepresented. It must apply to the whole of existence, to the whole of the universe. It is in the object (three states) alone that one has all changes, as deeper analysis points out.

 The subject (formless witness) remains unchanged. The subject (formless witness), as such remains immortal. It can never die for it never changes. The body and world are an object, and goes, but the subject or knower of the body and the universe, can never go. Seeker has to take this principle as his guiding thread and non-dual truth becomes easy to grasp. The formless witness can never be subject to the changes of the object; it is unchanged. The mistake usually made is that subject becomes object, or that object is subject.

If one wants to have absence of contradictions, absence of duality, there must be one entity, one being. If one has experience which is an object (mind), there is contradiction between subject and object, for "mind” is an object.

The duality is reality on the standpoint of the false self (ego or waking entity).  The duality is mere mirage on the base of the true self, which is formless consciousness. This understanding comes only to the serious seeker, who has real urge to know the ultimate truth, which is beyond the all the teachings and teachers. There is neither teaching, nor teacher, nor student in the realm of truth.