Universe is mere mirage created out of consciousness and there is conscious awareness of unity in diversity because there is no second thing exist other than consciousness.

Sankara said: - Without causing the objective universe to vanish and without knowing the truth of the Self, how is one to achieve Liberation. -63- (VC)”

Universe will not remain as reality when wisdom dawns. Universe is mere mirage created out of consciousness and there is conscious awareness of unity in diversity because there is no second thing exist other than consciousness.

One thinks he is imprisoned within this body; whereas the body and his experience of the world are within the mind. The consciousness is hidden within the three states but it is without the three states.  The one, which has the awareness of the three states, is not the body but the soul, which is in the form of consciousness. Thus consciousness is not limited to waking experience alone because it pervades all the three states. Till one views and judges the world-view on base of ego or waking entity, he is in the grip of individuality or intellectuality.  The self is not an individual because it is universal. And it pervades in everything and everywhere in all the three states. Thus individualized judgment will not lead one non-dual destination.  

 That is why Sri,Sankara says:- (V C) :-65. As a treasure hidden underground requires (for its extraction) competent instruction, excavation, the removal of stones and other such things lying above it and (finally) grasping, but never comes out by being (merely) called out by name, so the transparent Truth of the self, which is hidden by Maya and its effects, is to be attained through the instructions of a knower of Brahman, followed by reflection, meditation and so forth, but not through perverted arguments.

66. Therefore the wise should, as in the case of disease and the like, personally strive by all the means in their power to be free from the bondage of repeated births and deaths.

Thus one has to know what is real by realizing our body and our experience of the world is mere illusion created out of consciousness, which the inner most self.  The nature of the self is emptiness. And it is identified by different masters with different name, such as Spirit  God or Atman  or  Brahman or Buddha’s nature or Christ consciousness or Self, Ultimate Truth.