What is ultimately real?
The oldest question of metaphysics, answered very differently across traditions.
Framing
Perspectives
Voices from several traditions, each in its own terms. They are set side by side to be compared, not ranked.
Essays that take up this question
Reflect
What would remain if everything that could change were taken away?
Cite this entry
“What is ultimately real?” Question. The Library, Unitive Knowledge Society. Last modified November 7, 2026. https://www.unitiveknowledge.org/questions/what-is-ultimately-real.
“What is ultimately real?” question, The Library, Unitive Knowledge Society, last modified November 7, 2026, https://www.unitiveknowledge.org/questions/what-is-ultimately-real.
“What is ultimately real?” The Library, Unitive Knowledge Society, 7 Nov. 2026, www.unitiveknowledge.org/questions/what-is-ultimately-real.
@misc{questions-what-is-ultimately-real, title = {{What is ultimately real?}}, howpublished = {The Library, Unitive Knowledge Society}, note = {Question. Last modified November 7, 2026}, year = {2026}, url = {https://www.unitiveknowledge.org/questions/what-is-ultimately-real} }
Concepts involved
- AbsoluteThat which is unconditioned and depends on nothing else.
- BeingThe fact or act of existing; the subject of ontology.
- BrahmanIn the Upaniṣads, the ultimate reality underlying all things.
- The OneIn Neoplatonism, the first principle, beyond being and thought.
- Emptiness (śūnyatā)In Mahāyāna Buddhism, the absence of intrinsic existence in all things.
- DaoThe Way: in Daoism, the nameless source and pattern of all things.
- GodThe supreme being of theistic traditions: creator, sustainer and object of worship.
- MetaphysicsThe study of what is fundamentally real.
- FormsPlato’s eternal, unchanging realities, such as Beauty itself and the Good, of which the things of the senses are images.
- ShekhinahThe indwelling presence of God; in Kabbalah, the feminine aspect of the divine.
- SefirotIn Kabbalah, the ten powers or qualities through which the hidden God is manifest.
- Waḥdat al-wujūdThe “oneness of being”, the teaching associated with Ibn ʿArabī and his school.
- EmanationThe procession of all things from a first principle, as light from a source.
- ĪśvaraThe Lord: God as personal creator and ruler of the world.
- ImmanenceThe presence of the divine or ultimate within the world and the self.
Traditions
- Advaita VedāntaThe school of Vedānta that teaches the non-difference of the self and Brahman.
- NeoplatonismThe late ancient Platonism of Plotinus and his successors, centred on the One and the soul’s return to it.
- MadhyamakaThe Mahāyāna school of the “middle way” between existence and non-existence.
- DaoismThe Chinese philosophical and religious tradition of the Dao, the Way.
- Islamic philosophyThe philosophical tradition of the Islamic world, from al-Kindī and Ibn Sīnā to the illuminationists and Mullā Ṣadrā.