Whatever seen, known, believed and experienced as a person is reality within the waking experience but waking experience itself is mere illusion.

Sage Sri, Sankara says in VivekaChudamani :- 

58. Loud speech consisting of a shower of words, the skill in expounding the Scriptures, and likewise erudition - these merely bring on a little personal enjoyment to the scholar, but are no good for Liberation.
 

59. The study of the Scriptures is useless so long as the highest Truth is unknown, and it is equally useless when the highest Truth has already been known.
 

60. The Scriptures consisting of many words are a dense forest which merely causes the mind to ramble. Hence men of wisdom should earnestly set about knowing the true nature of the Self.
 
Without the scriptures one has to move ahead in his pursuit of truth.
 
Sri, Sankara says in Viveka Chudamani:-
 

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.

The world is both real and unreal. It is real because it is a manifestation of consciousness, but is unreal, in the sense, that it is not absolute and eternal like consciousness itself.
 
Peoples approach is more practical, and they stuck with the reality of the world, they take it as real. That is why all the confusion.
 
In self-awareness-- the witness and witnessed are one in essence. That essence is consciousness. There is no second thing exists other than consciousness.
 
Whatever seen, known, believed and experienced as a person is reality within the waking experience but waking experience itself is mere illusion.
 
Soul, which is present in the form of consciousness, is the innermost self. Consciousness is the witness that experiences the action, the actor, and the world of separate things. It is like a light that illuminates everything in a theatre, revealing the master of ceremonies, the guests, and the dancers with complete impartiality. Even when they all depart, the light shines to reveal their absence.

What is not consciousness (formless) in the experience of diversity [waking or universe]? The waking and the dream cease to exist without consciousness. The seeker, seeking and his destination all are one in essence.

There is only need to realize the whole universe in which we exist is created out of consciousness (soul or Atman), the innermost self. On the standpoint innermost self, the universe is mere illusion created out of consciousness. Thus on the ultimate standpoint no second thing exists other than consciousness. Thus consciousness is ultimate truth or Brahman.