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Monday Morning Greetings 2025 #35 – Advaita Vedānta: A Philosophy That Is Just Illusion

August 25th, 2025

I got a message from an Indian friend who visits Vrindavan. He is a good devotee, and I was therefore surprised by his letter. He had gone to an Āyurvedic doctor who was also a learned Māyāvādī scholar, and the doctor had said something that affected him. “It has poisoned my heart and affected my chanting,” my friend said. “What should I do?”

 

“What was the reason it affected you?” I asked. “Did hearing it hurt your heart because it negated the personality of God, or has the hearing created doubts in you about God being a person?”

 

He was quite erudite and started to explain something about the Lord’s departure in the Rāmāyaṇa and Bhāgavatam, how they died, but that Brahman was supreme. “I am embarrassed to write this,” he said, “but I want to be honest. I don’t know why I was so affected.”

 

Suddenly I started to question if what I am doing is wrong. It seemed to me that my whole spiritual life was at stake. Yes, when I was a new bhakta in the ashram, I had that super-sensuous experience, sphūrti, but how did that prove that God is a person?

 

“Advaita Vedānta is not reasonable,” I replied. “Their philosophy says that all distinction is illusion. But illusion must have a subject, someone in illusion. They can’t say the living entities are the basis of illusion, for according to their philosophy the living entities themselves are just an illusion. And illusion can’t be the basis of illusion.

 

“Their only recourse is to say that Brahman is the basis, or subject, of illusion. But if Brahman is the subject of illusion, then it is neither Brahman, the greatest, nor nondual. Such a philosophy has no solid foundation.”

 

“Do you read Śrīla Prabhupāda’s books?” I asked. “Here is a link to a post that I wrote that might help you—‘Is God a Person?’

 

https://wavesofdevotion.com/2016/06/27/is-god-a-person/

 

His response:

 

“Deep, deep gratitude! No, I don’t read Śrīla Prabhupāda’s books regularly, but I think now I should. And also hear his lectures.

 

“Thank you! Thank you!”

 

My conclusion:

 

Advaita Vedānta: a philosophy that is just Illusion.

 

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