VlSHNUVARDHANA, the King of the Hoysalas, was a Vaishnavite and was greatly incensed at the doctrine taught by Sankaracharya that everything here below is an illusion. He wanted to teach the exponent of this doctrine a lesson. So he invited the then Sankaracharya to his palace. That holy man went there and stoutly maintained that everything in this world was illusion. The king had arranged to let loose an infuriated elephant against Sankaracharya. The beast rushed at Sankaracharya who took to a precipitate flight to save himself.
'Oh, Venerable Sir,' shouted the king, 'why do you run so fast seeing that the elephant is only an illusion?'
'Oh, king,' said Sankaracharya in his course of his flight, 'my running too is an illusion. Everything in this world is an illusion.’
Similarly, we all are searching truth within the illusion not being aware of the fact that, the illusion is created out of single stuff which is: Consciousness/Spirit/Self/Christ/Brahman/Emptiness.
Thus searching the truth in illusion with the illusory self, within the illusory experience, has to be illusion. The illusion is created, and sustained, and finally dissolves as Spirit, which is Soul/Self. Since, there is no second thing other than the Spirit or consciousness; the Spirit itself is God/ Brahman/Christ. This conviction can be derived from deeper inquiry, analysis and reasoning.
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