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not mere cultivation of the inner life but the apprehension of something that stands over against the individual. The real is known not as the conclusion of an argument but with the certainty of a thing experienced."39 Radhakrishnan thus admits that religious experience is a "bona fide discovery of reality."
As to the nature of reality discovered by religious experience, Radhakrishnan has maintained: "There are aspects in religious experience, such as sense of rest and fulfilment, of eternity and completeness, which require the conception of a being whose nature is not exhausted by the cosmic process, which possesses an allfulness of reality which our world only faintly shadows. This side of religious experience demands the conception of the supreme as Self-existence, infinity, freedom, absolute light and absolute beatitude. On the other hand there are features of our religious experience which require us to look upon God as...a personal being with whom we can enter into personal relationship. Practical religion presupposes a God who looks into our hearts, knows our tribulations and helps us in our need. The reality of prayer and sacrifice is affirmed by the religious life of mankind. It assumes the reality of a concrete being who influences our life. To leave the Absolute in abstract isolation dwelling in Epicurean felicity is to reduce it to an ornamental figurehead who lends an atmosphere to an essentially agnostic view of the cosmic process. The permanent reality beyond the transient world of struggle and discord is also here and in everything. In religious experience itself there is no conflict. The supreme satisfies both sets of needs."40
The above quoted words of Radhakrishnan can be well interpreted as implying complete identity of the notions of the Absolute and of God. The Absolute here does not mean the sum-total of reality but the ever sustaining metaphysical ground of all-that-there-is. The same Supreme Reality, which is one without a second with respect to metaphysical and spiritual sovereignty, is the Absolute of some philosophers and God of all religious people. The philosopher in Radhakrishnan should not find difficulty in admitting this not only in the light of his interpretation of religious experience but also in the light of his own admission that "Professor Brightman's whole criticism about my vacillation between the nondualism of Samkara and the personal theism of Ramanuja is based on the postulate that the supreme must be either the one or the other, which I do not admit."4 1
The identification of God and the Absolute is clearly admitted by Radhakrishnan in his observation that, "All religions are founded on the
