Madhva, who lived around 1200 C.E., rejected both points of view. He created a third major school called Dvaita Vedanta, the Vedanta of duality. Some scholars have speculated that his views were influenced by Christianity. He is the only major Hindu thinker distinguished by teaching eternal damnation!
Madhva taught that the world is real, we're real, and God is real, we're all eternally separate. We're not united or in union or anything to that effect, thank you!
During Madhava's lifetime, the Muslims were creating havoc in India, actively trying to extinguish the Hindu religion. It's possible he felt the need to arouse Hindus from the other-worldliness that the other schools of Vedanta tended to produce and inspire them to deal with real life emergencies in the material world, like homicidal Muslim armies.
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