Divine Unity (tawhid) and Non-Duality (advaita) : Interfaith Dialogue

I - God - World . This triad only exists from the vantage point of one steeped in ignorance. In reality, there is nothing in existence but the One. Supreme knowledge is knowing who we really are. Knowing our oneness with the Divine and all things. Here we discover that all divisions are illusions, yet it does not mean that all hierarchies are abolished. Let us clarify that nobody attains the non-dual experience without observing the servant-Lord duality and respecting this hierarchy. In the Vedanta, we are told that Bhakti (devotion to the Lord) precedes Jnana (Knowledge of the Self). 

Moreover, the realisation of our supreme Self does not annul the authority and commandments of the Lord, which remain binding upon the servant. This truth is evident in the lives of the Non-Dual masters, such as Shankara in Hinduism or Rumi and Bayazid in Islam. Despite their realisation of oneness with the Divine, they continued to uphold the servant-Lord distinction with reverence. Ibn Arabi articulated this succinctly: "The servant remains the servant. The Lord remains the Lord."

Classical Non-Dualists understood that as long as we remain in bodily form, separate from God, it is our duty to worship Him as "Other" and above. Ramakrishna explicitly said,

“…so long as anything exists outside myself, I aught to adore Brahma [God], within the limits of the mind, as something outside myself.”

[The Transcendent Unity of Religions, by Frithjof Schuon, p. 119-20]

This insight challenges modern spiritual movements that seek to dissolve traditional dualities by asserting that non-duality renders all distinctions illusory. They often seek to flatten all hierarchies and divisions in the name of non-duality and equality, whereas traditional non-dual teachings maintain that true realisation encompasses both unity and distinction, both equality and hierarchy, in a manner that transcends ordinary logic.