Replying to the question, 'Does religious experience necessarily involve a mystic experience?', Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan said, "Religious experience need not always be of mystic character. There are many religious persons who are innocent of ecstasies but pass their lives in spirit of utter faith in a trend behind phenomena, a power behind appearances to whom they are responsible and owe reverence".
According to Radhakrishnan, the presence of God is not something to be seen or touched, but to be felt. It is expressed in "the conviction based on experience that a great pilot is guiding and taking us from one stage to another. All that He calls for in return is complete surrender". One has to be a sharnagat or one who surrenders oneself to the care of the Lord. This conviction results in utter self-surrender and a pure self-giving. Like the highest form of love it does not expect anything in return. This conviction exemplifies Spinoza's saying that he who loves God cannot want that God should love him in return.
This conviction is "not a confession of faith or a vague social idealism. It is spiritual certainty offering us strength and solace in the hour of need and sorrow". We consciously believe that God shall look after us as Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita, "yogakshemavyamyaham". It is total effortless surrender. Underlying this conviction is the belief that love and justice form the core of this universe and the spirit responsible for our being will help us in becoming perfect. It shall lead us to higher and still higher state.
A person with such conviction has a composed mind and compassionate heart. He is truly liberated, a jivanmukta. He "is so utterly indifferent to what happens to the little self and so completely taken up by the life of spirit". He is not elated when he is victorious, nor is he dejected by his defeat. It is an "assurance that though the waves on the shore may be broken, the ocean conquers nevertheless".
Involvement in public affairs is a matter of duty rather than inclination. Escaping from the world and its affairs is out of question for the evolving speaker. He works for the welfare of mankind not with the motive of personal profit or private advantage but for its own sake.
The conviction that there is someone to guide you and take care of your needs results in self-respect and immense joy because it unites you with your real nature which consists of matter imbued with the divine spark. By eliminating the feeling of being the doer, absolute faith results in the removal of the ego or ahamkar which results in "release from one's bondage, escape from one's littleness".
As a result of this conviction an individual becomes exalted, calm, noble and develops dispassionate attitude. He remains unmoved by motives of personal gain, ambition or power. As a consequence the individual lives in peace "which the world can neither give nor take away".
The individual lives "on the frontiers between the sacred and secular, between religion and politics, between being and non-being". He becomes a true karmayogi and his life "charts its course by the distant stars and not by the dim street lights". His life so to say "becomes a poem". Such a state is achieved through deep meditation and self-discipline.
The writer teaches philosophy at Delhi University .