The unmanifest is manifest. Awareness is self-aware. The awareness is real. The self-awareness is a process, neither real nor not real. That which is neither real nor not real is called illusion, dream, magical thinking.
Awareness is parabrahman. Self-awareness is saguna brahman where godlike Isvara is busy at the maya dream machine building self-reflexive universes.
And a person is this universe’s 7th stage. And the 7th substage of the 7th is contact by the satguru. For contact from the next stage is required for transcendence, like DNA for organic molecules.