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Why did Lord Shiva preach Mayavada?

In Kali yuga, about a thousand years ago, Lord Shiva appeared as Shankaracharya and preached the monistic philosophy all over India. This philosophy, also known as Mayavada. says that the form, qualities, attributes of the Supreme Lord are all maya (illusion); the Absolute Truth, in the ultimate analysis, is form­less and impersonal; the living entity and the Lord are equal in all respects or, in other words, we are all God. A question naturally arises, "Why did Shankara preach this philosophy, which, in effect, says that the form of Krishna is Maya? If Lord Shiva is a devotee of Lord Krishna, will any devotee  blas­pheme his worshipable Lord?"

Shankaracharya is called as a covered personalist. He superfi­cially preached impersonalism to :

*bewilder the atheists,

*to increase the population in Kali Yuga and

*to distinguish and separate the genuine devotees of the Lord from the pretenders and cheaters who want to merge into brahman.

This is confirmed in the Padma Purana :

mayavadam asac-chastram pracchannam bauddham ucyate

mayaiva vihitam devi   kalau brahmana-murtina

Lord Shiva informed the goddess Durga, the superintendent of the material world,

mayavadam asac-chastram
pracchannam bauddham ucyate
mayaiva vihitam devi
kalau brahmana-murtina

"In the age of Kali, I take the form of a brahmana and explain the Vedas through false scriptures in an atheistic way, similar to Buddhist philosophy." {Padma Purana Uttara khanda 25.7)

The Mayavada philosophy, which says that everyone is god, is an atheistic philosophy, which is soothing to the heart of a condi­tioned soul who wants to lord over the material world. At the time of Shankaracarya, there were many so-called mendicants moving in the name of devotees of Vishnu, who were actually pretenders. Shankaracharya preached the twisted philosophy of Mayavada to separate them from the genuine devotees of Vishnu.Buddhist philosophy is voidist and Mayavada is covered Bud-dhism. Pretenders, cheaters and duplicitous men who want to become God are quickly attracted to this Mayavada philosophy and indulge in false argumentation leading to no proper conclu­sions of scriptures.Although Shankaracharya preached such a philosophy super­ficially, he maintained his eternal relationship with the Supreme Lord internally. He wrote Jagannathashtakam in glorification of Lord Jagannath at Puri. He instructed his foolish followers at the end of his life to glorify the names of Lord Govinda (Krishna) loudly without resorting to mental speculation, because, for a spiritual aspirant, mental speculation and Sanskrit word jugglery are of no avail at the time of death.

Thus devotees of Krishna can understand the actual position of Shankaracharya or Lord Shiva. To prove that he is a devotee of Vishnu, he established mathas in the holy places of Vishnu such as Badrikashram, Puri, Kanchipuram etc.Anyone who worships Lord Shiva with a pure heart devoid of material desires is directed by Lord Shiva himself to Krishna.