Absolute

The Absolute, from the Latin absolutus, “loosed from” or “unbound”, is what is unconditioned: what exists, or is true, without depending on anything beyond itself. Everything else is relative, conditioned by causes, contexts and other things; the Absolute is the ground on which the relative depends, or the whole in which it is contained.

The word became a technical term in German idealism, above all in Schelling and Hegel, for the ultimate reality in which subject and object, thought and being, are one. The British idealists, such as F. H. Bradley, used it in the same way, and it was soon applied, in comparative writing, to the ultimate principles of other traditions: Brahman, the One, the Godhead, the Dao.

These equations are useful but loose. Brahman is described as being and consciousness, where the One is beyond both; the Dao is a way and pattern as much as a ground; and Madhyamaka denies that there is any unconditioned thing at all, holding that the ultimate is the emptiness of everything, including emptiness. The word “Absolute” should therefore be used with care when comparing traditions.