Hinduism is not one theology.
That is especially important when discussing Advaita Vedānta, one of the most sophisticated and influential schools of Indian philosophy.
Advaita does not simply say:
“There are many gods.”
Its central claim is much more radical:
Ultimate reality is nondual.
The deepest self—ātman—is, in the final analysis, not other than brahman.
This produces one of the most interesting comparisons with Eastern Christianity because Orthodoxy also speaks about union with God and even theosis.
But the resemblance hides a profound difference.
What is Vedānta?
Vedānta refers to philosophical traditions rooted especially in the Upaniṣads, Bhagavad Gītā, and Brahma Sūtras.
Different Vedānta schools interpret those texts differently.
Advaita means nondualism.
It is particularly associated with the eighth-century teacher Śaṅkara.
Other Hindu thinkers strongly disagreed with him.
Rāmānuja developed Viśiṣṭādvaita, qualified nondualism.
Madhva defended a much stronger distinction between God and souls.
So “Hinduism teaches all is one” is too broad.
Advaita is one major Hindu answer.
Brahman
In Advaita, brahman is ultimate reality.
Brahman is not one object among others.
Brahman is not simply a very powerful personal being inside the universe.
The highest brahman transcends ordinary predicates and empirical distinctions.
Classical Advaita speaks of brahman as nondual, infinite reality and consciousness.
All plurality is ultimately dependent.
Ātman
The Upaniṣadic term ātman can refer to self.
Advaita claims that the deepest reality of the self is not ultimately an individual entity standing over against brahman.
The great insight of liberation is the identity:
ātman is brahman.
This is not normally meant as:
“My ego is God.”
The empirical ego, personality, biography, body, and ordinary psychological identity belong to the realm of ignorance and conditioned experience.
Advaita is not divine narcissism.
It is the transcendence of the ego.
“Tat tvam asi”
One famous Upaniṣadic statement is:
tat tvam asi — “you are that.”
Advaita interprets this as revealing the deepest identity of self and brahman.
The distinction between individual self and ultimate reality belongs to ignorance.
Liberation involves knowledge of what was always true.
What is māyā?
Popular summaries say:
“Hinduism teaches the world is an illusion.”
That is too crude.
Śaṅkara’s account is more subtle.
The world is experienced.
Moral action matters.
Religious discipline matters.
Ignorance has real consequences at the empirical level.
But the world does not possess ultimate independent reality alongside brahman.
Stanford’s recent overview of Śaṅkara describes the world as an objective but less-than-ultimate appearance—not simply nonexistent like a square circle.
The term māyā becomes especially important in later Advaita explanation.
Ignorance
The basic human problem is avidyā, ignorance.
We mistakenly identify ourselves with:
- body;
- mind;
- personality;
- social identity;
- individual agency.
Because we fail to know nondual reality, we experience bondage and rebirth.
Liberation is fundamentally a matter of knowledge.
Moksha
Moksha is liberation from samsara, the cycle of rebirth.
In Advaita, liberation comes through realization of nonduality.
This does not mean information alone saves.
Traditional Advaita includes:
- ethical discipline;
- renunciation;
- scriptural study;
- meditation;
- teacher-guided inquiry;
- detachment.
But liberating knowledge is decisive.
The final problem is mistaken identity.
Christianity also teaches union
At this point, an Orthodox Christian should resist a cheap comparison.
Christianity does not teach a distant God who merely hands out legal pardons.
The New Testament speaks of believers:
- united to Christ;
- indwelt by the Spirit;
- becoming “partakers of the divine nature”;
- being filled with divine life;
- transformed into Christ’s image.
Eastern Christianity calls this theosis.
This can sound surprisingly close to nondualism.
But theosis is not identity of essence
The difference is absolute.
Orthodoxy teaches:
God is uncreated. Human beings are created.
That distinction never disappears.
A saint can participate in God’s uncreated life.
A saint does not become numerically identical with the divine essence.
The person remains a created person.
Union does not erase distinction.
Gregory Palamas and the distinction
Later Orthodox theology describes participation using the distinction between God’s essence and energies.
God’s essence remains transcendent and incommunicable.
Yet God truly gives himself through his uncreated energies.
The Christian is united to God without becoming God by nature.
This is precisely where theosis and Advaita diverge.
Advaita finally says the deepest self was never really other than brahman.
Orthodoxy says the creature was never God and never becomes the divine essence.
Creation changes everything
Biblical creation is not merely an empirical appearance masking nondual reality.
God creates what is not God.
Creation is real because God freely gives it existence.
The world depends completely on God.
Dependence does not mean unreality.
This establishes permanent metaphysical difference:
Creator ≠ creation.
Personal identity
Advaita’s critique of ego can be spiritually powerful.
Christianity also calls people to die to egoism.
Pride, self-attachment, passions, and self-centered desire must be crucified.
But Christianity does not teach salvation by discovering that individual personhood is ultimately mistaken.
God creates persons and loves persons.
Resurrection restores personal embodied life.
The goal is communion, not dissolution of personal distinction.
Is Christian personhood selfish individualism?
No.
Christian personhood is relational.
The Trinity itself is communion.
Human beings exist through relation to God and one another.
Orthodox salvation destroys autonomous self-enclosure.
Yet relation requires distinction.
Love does not require lover and beloved to become numerically identical.
Perfect union can preserve personhood.
Incarnation versus manifestation of nonduality
Christianity’s center is not a teacher who awakens humanity to its hidden divine identity.
It is the incarnation.
The eternal Son, who is God by nature, becomes what he was not: genuinely human.
Jesus is not a human individual who discovers that his deepest self is brahman.
He is one divine Person possessing both divine and human natures.
That is a radically different ontology.
Sin versus ignorance
Advaita often places ignorance at the root of bondage.
Christianity agrees that ignorance matters.
But sin is more than metaphysical confusion.
It is personal rebellion.
Human beings misuse freedom.
They harm one another.
They reject God.
Salvation therefore requires:
- forgiveness;
- reconciliation;
- healing;
- liberation;
- resurrection.
Knowledge alone cannot undo guilt or death.
Death
Advaita places embodied existence within samsara.
Liberation breaks the cycle of rebirth.
Christianity does not seek escape from embodied creaturehood.
The body is good.
The incarnation sanctifies human embodiment.
Christ rises bodily.
Christian hope is resurrection and renewed creation.
That may be one of the sharpest contrasts.
Could Advaita and Christianity simply be two languages for mysticism?
Modern comparative spirituality often says:
“Mystics all discover the same ultimate unity.”
That claim should be tested rather than assumed.
Christian mystics can speak extraordinarily boldly about union.
Advaita can speak about nondual realization.
But metaphysical grammar matters.
“Union with God” and “identity with brahman” are not synonymous.
If one tradition says distinction is eternally real and another says ultimate distinction is ignorance, they are not making the same claim.
The strongest Advaita objection to Christianity
An Advaitin may argue that Christian duality leaves God and creation permanently separated.
How can finite beings ever reach infinite God if they remain other?
Orthodoxy’s answer is theosis.
Creaturely distinction does not require separation.
God can truly communicate himself without ceasing to be Creator.
The incarnation proves the point dramatically:
divine and human natures unite in Christ without confusion and without division.
Difference need not mean distance.
The Christian objection to Advaita
Christianity asks whether nondualism can fully preserve:
- personal love;
- creation’s goodness;
- moral responsibility;
- enduring individual identity;
- resurrection;
- and the reality of communion.
If the final truth is that the deepest self and brahman are numerically one, then the Creator-creature relation at the heart of Scripture is dissolved.
Theosis becomes impossible because there is no ultimately distinct creature to be deified by grace.
Final Verdict
Advaita Vedānta is far more philosophically serious than the stereotype that “Hindus think everything is literally an illusion.”
Śaṅkara’s nondualism presents a powerful analysis of ego, dependence, consciousness, and liberation.
But it is not another form of Christian theosis.
Advaita teaches that the deepest ātman is ultimately identical with brahman.
Orthodox Christianity permanently distinguishes uncreated God from created persons.
The Christian becomes “god by grace,” never God by nature.
Salvation is not awakening to the fact that I was always the Absolute.
It is receiving, through Christ and the Spirit, a communion I could never possess by nature.
Advaita seeks liberation through realization of nonduality. Christianity seeks resurrection and eternal communion between Creator and creature.
Those are not two versions of the same mystical truth.
Key Sources
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, “Śaṅkara”: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/shankara/
- Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, “Advaita Vedānta”: https://iep.utm.edu/advaita-vedanta/
- Stanford Encyclopedia archive, detailed discussion of Śaṅkara and māyā: https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2026/entries/shankara/
- Primary Hindu sources: Chāndogya Upaniṣad; Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad; Bhagavad Gītā; Brahma Sūtras.
- Śaṅkara’s commentaries on the Upaniṣads, Bhagavad Gītā, and Brahma Sūtras.
- Primary Christian texts: Genesis 1; John 1; Romans 8; 1 Corinthians 15; 2 Peter 1:4.
- Athanasius, On the Incarnation; Gregory Palamas, Triads.