Accepting the birth, life and death as reality, is accepting the illusion as reality.

Accepting the birth, life, death and the world  as reality, is accepting the illusion as reality. Accepting illusion as reality is the cause of the ignorance. Ignorance makes one feel the duality as reality. The duality makes one feel he is an individual separate from the world.  This separation makes one feel the birth, life, death and world  as reality. 

 The person who bases on the birth, life and death is trying to find the meaning of life. There is no meaning or purpose of the life, because the life is mere happening within the illusion.  Thus the karma based on the physical entity is based on the birth, life and death, which is part and parcel of the illusion.

 All appearance has not appeared to the physical entity, but to the formless  soul, the innermost self . Man and the world are mere appearance.  That is, the illusion is mere appearance. Thus man cannot be considered as witness, since man and his experience of the world are within the illusion.  Thus the witness of the illusion is within the illusion but it is apart from the illusion.  It is with is within the illusion as its formless substance and it is apart from the illusion as its formless witness.  

 The formless substance and witness is the soul or consciousness or spirit. The soul or consciousness or  spirit is the innermost  self. Realizing the soul as self is Self -Realization.  Therefore, the soul alone is real and all else is mere illusion. By Learning to view and judge the truth on the base of soul as self will lead one to realize the fact that the man and the world are mere illusion. 

Therefore, it is necessary to learn to view and judge the truth on the base of soul, to understand and assimilate the self-knowledge.  It is the though the soul one knows himself as a person and perceives the world.  It is the soul, which is the author/knower of the three states, not the person who is limited to waking or dream.