A Critique on Sankara's School of Thought

Extracted this information from Messiah - understanding of the author, followed by his critique. Interesting questions (looks like Advaita is spelled incorrectly by the author).

Advaita

The Sankara school is often called Avaita (non-dualistic) Vedanta or simply Vedanta. As traditionally interpreted, the Sankara school claims that there is ultimately only one reality, Brahman, with which each of us is absolutely identical. Moreover, they claim that Brahman is pure consciousness, without any internal differentiation or characteristics whatsoever. (An analogy to their view of Brahman might be seen by considering what your own consciousness would be like if you were able to completely blank your mind of all internal differentiation and distinctions--that is, if through meditation you eliminated all sense impressions, feelings, and thoughts and simply experienced a state of pure awareness.)

Since Brahman comprises all of reality, and since there are no internal distinctions within Brahman, it follows that ultimately the world of separate entities, distinctions, and characteristics is an illusion. Followers of Sankara claim that this illusion, which they call maya, is produced by ignorance--that is, by our misapprehension of the true nature of Brahman. Salvation therefore consists of experientially realizing, through intense meditation, the Truth about ourselves--namely, that each of us is already identical with Brahman. Once we realize this, ignorance will vanish and we will hence escape from the cycle of rebirths.

An Excerpt from the critique

a. The View is Self-Contradictory: The first problem with the core of Sankara's philosophy is that it seems to be self-contradictory. As advocates of the other Hindu schools of thought have pointed out, if the only reality is Brahman, and Brahman is pure, distinctionless consciousness, then there cannot exist any real distinctions in reality. But the claim that this world is an illusion already presupposes that there is an actual distinction between illusion and reality, just as the claim that something is a dream already presupposes the distinction between waking consciousness and dream consciousness. Moreover, Sankara's idea of salvation--that is, enlightenment through recognition that all is Brahman--already presupposes a distinction between living in a state of unenlightenment (ignorance) and living in a state of enlightenment. So this view contradicts itself by, on the one hand, saying that reality (Brahman) is distinctionless, while on the other hand distinguishing between maya and the truth of Brahman, and by distinguishing between being enlightened and unenlightened.

b. The Impossibility of Maya: A second and related problem is that ignorance, which Sankara and his followers claim is the source of maya, could not exist. According to the Sankara school, Brahman is perfect, pure, and complete Knowledge, the opposite of ignorance. Hence, ignorance cannot exist in Brahman. But, since nothing exists apart from Brahman, ignorance cannot exist apart from Brahman either. Thus, it follows that ignorance could not exist, contrary to their assertion that our perception of a world of distinct things is a result of ignorance.