Most of my Hindu teachers are not in the least distributed by the dramatic difference between various Hindu masters like Kapila, Shankara, and Jaimini . To my gurus, these different philosophers were just hanging on to different parts of the elephant. In some respects, their differing doctrines say more about where they were in their meditation practice than about reality itself.
There comes a point in one's meditation where you enter a state much like unconsciousness. There comes a deeper state where you feel yourself to be pure conscious awareness alone, an observer of the material that seems somehow " outside" you. Continuing the journey inward, there comes a still deeper state where the distinction between you, the world, and God fades away and you experience an expansive state of unity. So these different teachers aren't contradicting each other. They're all correct, based on the level of meditation they attained.
The broad consensus today (with a fair number of contemporary gurus dissenting) is that Shankaracharya grasped more of the elephant than the others. But for practical purposes of advancing in one's spiritual practice, Kapila's Sankaya system is still considered the most useful.
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