The purpose of human life, say Bahá'ís, is spiritual growth. This is conceived almost as an organic process, like the development of a fetus, and continues after death. Rather than a heaven and hell strictly speaking (or reincarnation, for that matter), Bahá'ís teach an afterlife in which the soul may progress infinitely through ever-more-exalted spiritual realms, towards what Buddhists call Nirvana. Bahá'ís believe that while God's essence can never be fully fathomed, he can be understood through his "names and attributes." The ...

See also:

Bahá'í teachings, Bahá'í teachings - Overview, Bahá'í teachings - Summary, Bahá'í teachings - Social Principles, Bahá'í teachings - Mystical Teachings, Bahá'í teachings - Excerpts from the Bahá'í Writings, Bahá'í teachings - Oneness of Mankind, Bahá'í teachings - Unity of Religion, Bahá'í teachings - Drugs, Bahá'í teachings - Government

Read more here: » Bahá'í teachings: Encyclopedia II - Bahá'í teachings - Mystical Teachings

The essence of the Testimony of Integrity is placing God at the center of one's life. Quakers believe that the Spirit is in everyone. Integrity means focusing and spending time listening to the small voice of the Spirit and being open to being led by it - whether the Spirit is speaking within oneself or through another. The Testimony of Integrity also means refusing to place things other than God at the center of one's life - whether it be one's own self, possessions, the regard of others, belief in principles (such as rationality, progress or justice) or something else. It is the understanding that eve ...

See also:

Testimony of Integrity, Testimony of Integrity - Explanation of the Testimonies, Testimony of Integrity - Early Quaker practices, Testimony of Integrity - Integrity and truth-telling, Testimony of Integrity - Spiritual aspect of integrity, Testimony of Integrity - Specific applications, Testimony of Integrity - Other Quaker Testimonies, Testimony of Integrity - Sources

Read more here: » Testimony of Integrity: Encyclopedia II - Testimony of Integrity - Spiritual aspect of integrity

Vegetarianism has been common in the Indian subcontinent, since possibly the 2nd millennium BC for spiritual reasons, such as ahimsa (nonviolence) and reducing bad karmic influences. Hinduism preaches that it is the ideal diet for spiritual progress and Jainism, which claims between eight to ten million adherants, enjoins all its followers to be vegetarian. Buddhist monks of Mahayana school have also historically practiced vegetarianism. In looking for parallels in Jewish and Christian antiquity for these practices, some Christian vegetarians feel a kinship with ...

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Vegetarianism, Vegetarianism - History, Vegetarianism - Recent trends, Vegetarianism - Terminology and varieties of vegetarianism, Vegetarianism - Motivation, Vegetarianism - Religious, Vegetarianism - Nutritional, Vegetarianism - Ethical, Vegetarianism - Environmental, Vegetarianism - Social, Vegetarianism - Spiritual, Vegetarianism - Physiological, Vegetarianism - Aesthetic, Vegetarianism - Vegetarian cuisine, Vegetarianism - Country specific information, Vegetarianism - Vegetarian societies, Vegetarianism - Criticism, Vegetarianism - Vegetarian diet and longevity, Vegetarianism - Vegetarian diet is not a healthy diet, Vegetarianism - Environment, Vegetarianism - Animal Right

Read more here: » Vegetarianism: Encyclopedia II - Vegetarianism - History

Samadhana (Sanskrit) [from sam-a-dha to put together, restore]

The collection of all the principles of a person's constitution into a single unity, thus restoring the person as an entitative being to the wholeness of the atmic reality. "That state in which a Yogi can no longer diverge from the path of spiritual progress; when everything terrestrial, except the visible body, has ceased to exist for him" (TG 286). It is true religious meditation, and profound intellectual absorption into and contemplation of pure spirit.

(See also: Samadhana, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Aham-atma (Sanskrit) (from aham I + atman self)

I am self; meaning that every self is but a manifestation of the essential self or atman; in the case of mankind, a reflection of the Logos within. As man progresses in evolution his human self will become united with his atman, the spiritual source of his composite constitution. In the Bhagavad-Gita (10:20) Krishna says: ahamatma gudakesa sarvabhutasayasthitah (I am the atman, O Gudakesa, living in the heart of all beings).

(See also: Aham-atma, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Redeemer [from Latin redimo buy back]

Usually applied by Christians to Jesus Christ as the Son of God who came to earth and "sacrificed himself as a propitiation for our sins." Prometheus, Dionysos, and other equivalents, are called redeemers; for they are types of the redeeming power in man himself. The good serpent Agathodaimon is another name for the cosmic redeemer; Lucifer the Light-bringer, our tempter and at the same time our illuminator, is our inner redeemer, as was the mystic serpent who withstood the Jewish Lord God in Eden.

In theosophy the redeemer or redemption is found within the person himself, for such redeemer is the spiritual monad, the highest part of the constitution, and the redemption consists in becoming progressively at one with the spiritual monad or inner god. The disciple or pilgrim has the constant spiritual and intellectual support of more advanced beings than himself, but the disciple must himself choose to turn toward the source whence such help comes, and to take it.

(See also: Redeemer, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

upasarga: (Sanskrit) "Trouble, obstacle."

Difficulties, challenges or distractions which retard one's progress on the spiritual path. Numerous lists are given in scripture under the Sanskrit terms upasarga, dosha (defect; blemish), klesha, vighna and antaraya.

The Yogatattva Upanishad lists twenty doshas including hunger, thirst, excitement, grief, anger and greed; as well as five vighnas: sloth, boastfulness, bad company, cultivation of mantras for wrong reasons and longing for women. Patanjali names nine antarayas to success in yoga, including sickness, doubt, sloth, nonattainment and instability. Spiritually, all these obstacles unless overcome lead to a dead end of unhappiness and despair, often affording steps which can only be retraced through reincarnating again.

See: purity-impurity.

(See also: Upasarga, Hinduism, Body Mind and Soul)

A Theosophical definition of Nirvana :

Nirvana

(Sanskrit) This is a compound: nir, "out," and vana, the past participle passive of the root va, "to blow," literallly meaning "blown out." So badly has the significance of the ancient Indian thought (and even its language, the Sanskrit) been understood, that for many years erudite European scholars were discussing whether being "blown out" meant actual entitative annihilation or not. But the being blown out refers only to the lower principles in man.

Nirvana is a very different thing from the "heavens." Nirvana is a state of utter bliss and complete, untrammeled consciousness, a state of absorption in pure kosmic Being, and is the wondrous destiny of those who have reached superhuman knowledge and purity and spiritual illumination. It really is personal-individual absorption into or rather identification with the Self  - the highest SELF. It is also the state of the monadic entities in the period that intervenes between minor manvantaras or rounds of a planetary chain; and more fully so between each seven-round period or Day of Brahma, and the succeeding day or new kalpa of a planetary chain. At these last times, starting forth from the seventh sphere in the seventh round, the monadic entities will have progressed far beyond even the highest state of devachan. Too pure and too far advanced even for such a condition as the devachanic felicity, they go to their appropriate sphere and condition, which latter is the nirvana following the end of the seventh round.

Devachan and nirvana are not localities. They are states, states of the beings in those respective spiritual conditions. Devachan is the intermediate state; nirvana is the superspiritual state; and avichi, popularly called the lowest of the hells, is the nether pole of the spiritual condition. These three are states of beings having habitat in the lokas or talas, in the worlds of the kosmic egg.

So far as the individual human being is concerned, the nirvanic state or condition may be attained to by great spiritual seers and sages, such as Gautama the Buddha, and even by men less progressed than he; because in these cases of the attaining of the nirvana even during a man's life on earth, the meaning is that one so attaining has through evolution progressed so far along the path that all the lower personal part of him is become thoroughly impersonalized, the personal has put on the garment of impersonality, and such a man thereafter lives in the nirvanic condition of the spiritual monad.

As a concluding thought, it must be pointed out that nirvana, while the ultima thule of the perfection to be attained by any human being, nevertheless stands less high in the estimate of mystics than the condition of the bodhisattva. For the bodhisattva, although standing on the threshold of nirvana and seeing and understanding its ineffable glory and peace and rest, nevertheless retains his consciousness in the worlds of men, in order to consecrate his vast faculties and powers to the service of all that is. The buddhas in their higher parts enter the nirvana, in other words, assume the dharmakaya state or vesture, whereas the bodhisattva assumes the nirmanakaya vesture, thereafter to become an ever-active and compassionate and beneficent influence in the world. The buddha indeed may be said to act indirectly and by long distance control, thus indeed helping the world diffusively or by diffusion; but the bodhisattva acts directly and positively and with a directing will in works of compassion, both for the world and for individuals.

See also: Nirvana, Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul)

Swedenborg, Emmanuel ( 1688-1772)

A Swedish scientist, theosophist, and mystic, a pioneer in both scientific, religious and spiritual thought.

For most of his life Swedenborg pursued a conventional, albeit brilliant, career. Educated at Uppsala University he first became a natural scientist and official with the Swedish Royal College of mines (1710-45), concentrating on research and theory. His foremost scientific writing is 'Opera Philosophica et Mineralia' (Philosophical and Mineralogical Works, three volumes, 1734), a unique combination of metaphysics, cosmology, and science.

A first-rate scientific theorist and inventor, Swedenborg, in some of his insights, anticipated scientific progress by more than a century. Visited by a mystic illumination in 1745, Swedenborg claimed a direct vision of a spiritual world underlying the natural sphere. He began having dreams, ecstatic visions, trances and mystical illusions in which he communicated with Jesus Christ and God and was granted a view of the order of the universe that was radically different from the teachings of the Christian church.

He resigned his job to concentrate full-time on his ecstatic visions and transcribing the knowledge imparted to him from the spiritual world. His voluminous works from this period are presented as divinely revealed biblical interpretations. In his system, best reflected in 'Divine Love and Wisdom' (1763), Swedenborg conceived of three spheres: divine mind, spiritual world, and natural world. Each corresponds to a degree of being in God and in humankind: love, wisdom, and use (end, cause, and effect). Through devotion to each degree, unification with it takes place and a person obtains his or her destiny, which is union with creator and creation.

Unlike many mystics, Swedenborg proposed an approach to spiritual reality and God through, rather than in rejection of, material nature. His 12-volume compendium 'The Heavenly Arcana' (1747-56) represents a unique synthesis between modern science and religion.

In response to a vision of the 'last judgment' and the 'return of Christ', Swedenborg proclaimed the advent of the New Church, an idea that found social expression in the Swedenborgian societies and in the foundation of the Church Of The New Jerusalem in England in 1778, and in the United States in 1792. Many of his views were adopted by 19th century spiritualism and many of his ideas were also disseminated in the works of writers and poets such as William Blake , Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Henry James .

(See also: Emmanuel Swedenborg, New Age Spirituality, Body Mind and Soul)

In Hindu tradition, the world goes through a continuous cycle of these epochs. Each ascending phase of the cycle from Kali Yuga to Satya Yuga is followed by a descending phase back to Kali Yuga, then another ascending phase and so on. Alternatively, it is sometimes supposed that at the end of the descending Kali Yuga, the world will return to the Satya Yuga, and begin a new decline. The descent from Satya to Kali is associated with progressively deterioration of Dharma (righteousness) manifested as decrease in length of human life and quality of human moral standards. ...

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Yuga, Yuga - The spiritual states of civilization in each yuga, Yuga - References, Yuga - Sri Yukteswar's teachings on the yugas, Yuga - Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet's teachings on the yugas, Yuga - Yugas in Ayyavazhi, Yuga - References

Read more here: » Yuga: Encyclopedia II - Yuga - The spiritual states of civilization in each yuga

Schumacher's treatise is as relevant today as when it first written. It is a book that is highly popular among the religious and spiritual community, because it provides a powerful defence for the religious and spiritual spheres that is grounded solely in scientific argument. Schumacher's argument stands or falls on his view that there are levels of being, that there are ontological differences between mineral, life, animal and human. The dominant scientific view still remains that there is no such differentiation of being, and so from that perspec ...

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A Guide for the Perplexed, A Guide for the Perplexed - Critique of materialistic scientism, A Guide for the Perplexed - Evolutionism, A Guide for the Perplexed - Levels of being, A Guide for the Perplexed - Progressions, A Guide for the Perplexed - Implications, A Guide for the Perplexed - Adequateness, A Guide for the Perplexed - Four fields of knowledge, A Guide for the Perplexed - Two types of problem, A Guide for the Perplexed - Art, A Guide for the Perplexed - The tasks of man, A Guide for the Perplexed - Reflections, A Guide for the Perplexed - Footnotes

Read more here: » A Guide for the Perplexed: Encyclopedia II - A Guide for the Perplexed - Reflections

Mediumship Usually, a peculiarly passive state or condition of a person, due to "disease or to the exuberance of nervous fluid," either of which disturbs the normal balance of forces in his or her constitution. Thereby, the man or woman, becoming unconscious at times of his natural senses, is then made the automatic agent of various psycho-astral forces and entities, and these last are of several kinds: elementaries, astral shells or spooks, nature sprites, and astral and even physical elementals.

This entranced state is cultivated in modern spiritualism as a means of inviting spirit-control and of gaining special knowledge. However, the very relation of the seven human principles infallibly and necessarily prevents pure spirit from directly contacting physical matter. In the complete living man on earth, his spiritual nature -- buddhi -- is above, within, or beyond his higher mind (higher manas) yet can only act downwards through it. The spiritual does not directly contact or act through the lower mind and emotions (kama-manas). After death, the higher triad (atma-buddhi-manas) separates from the lower quaternary and ascends to its own realms, entirely beyond the reach of the personal man that was.

Mediumship, moreover, is a negation of conscious selfhood and a reversal of natural evolutionary growth, whereby the reincarnating ego involved in material existence comes forth, step by step, taking positive, conscious control of its body, mind, and emotions. Our racial evolution reached the depths of materiality in Atlantean times, and therefrom made the turn onto the ascending arc. Hence, our future progress consists, not in trying further to materialize spirit, but in progressively spiritualizing matter.

Human mediumship is a voluntary, or more often involuntary, subjection to the lower planes of astral substance which, while more ethereal than ordinary matter, yet are of a quality more gross, more powerful, and usually more malefic. Entrance into these astral realms produces a species of astral intoxication, from the delusion of strange because unknown and often unequilibrated forces, deceptive astral pictures; and the astral intoxication is increased because of considering these experiences as wonder-phenomena. In other words, the conditions and experiences sensed are as genuine, and as unreliable and utterly useless, as are the hallucinations of the delirious or insane.

Only an occultist of masterful will and great purity of life can rise consciously to the spiritual plane and, looking down on the astral levels below, understand, control, and remember what he sees. In untrained mediumship the atoms and molecules of the astrally "controlled" body which the alien astral entity uses to mold into a form and to move with its own desire-impulses, retain this astral psychomagnetic imprint.

With repeated trances, the medium grows continuously and progressively less than his individual self, because of his thoughts and feelings becoming mixed with, overlaid, or blurred by ideas and emotions which per se are abnormal and misleading. He therefore becomes irresponsible as a source of genuine spiritual knowledge and prevision, and still less responsible as a guardian of sacred truths. Because of this, untrained mediumship precludes initiation into the Mysteries as the person's faith in his astral "control" would dominate him instead of the rules of the sanctuary.

(See also: Mediumship, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

In addition to his writings on marine life, Ricketts wrote three philosophical essays; he continued to revise them over the years, integrating new ideas in response to feedback from Campbell, Miller, and other friends. The first essay lays out his idea of nonteleological thinking - a way of viewing things as they are, rather than seeking explanations for them. In his second essay, "The Spiritual Morphology of Poetry," he proposed four progressive classes of poetry, from naive to transcendent, and assigned famous poets from Keats to Whitman t ...

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Ed Ricketts, Ed Ricketts - Biography and family, Ed Ricketts - Philosophical essays, Ed Ricketts - Notes

Read more here: » Ed Ricketts: Encyclopedia II - Ed Ricketts - Philosophical essays

Recapitulation Known as the biogenic law. In embryology, the supposed process in which any embryo reproduces many of the progressive type-forms of the organisms that precede it in the line of development.

The points of similarity between the series of forms that prevail from the simplest types of life to those of higher animals, and the resemblances in embryonic development of different organisms, are interpreted as evidence of a common descent. This implies that the imbodying entity -- man, for instance -- is the product of a progressive series of forms. Theosophy, however, shows the original unit of every manifested being to be an unself-conscious spark of divine life which becomes involved progressively in all grades and forms of matter during uncounted periods of time and varied rounds of experience. Thus the common descent and the evolutionary urge are fundamentally spiritual in origin.

The human embryo, in rapidly epitomizing its individual and racial history, sketches strange conditions which were normal in the early root-races. Its brain, in the second month, forms more than twenty percent of the body, as compared with about two percent in the adult body; the early embryonic and adult heart have similar relative proportions. This dominance of brain and heart, the external prominence of the pineal gland, the organ of spiritual sight, the indifferent sex, etc., all point to type-forms suitable for the spiritual and intellectual unself-conscious egos manifesting in their early racial career.

Today the reincarnating ego, with its vast ages of experience in matter, is the unseen organizer which summarizes its past, in overseeing the building of its body according to karmic specifications. Primeval man, though ethereal, was potentially human, and had retained from previous life cycles the form-pattern and seed-types of all grades below him. Hence, from him came all the subhuman creatures that developed and became specialized in their evolutionary turn.

(See also: Recapitulation, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Guruparampara (Sanskrit) (from guru teacher + parampara a row or uninterrupted series or succession)

An uninterrupted series or succession of teachers. Every Mystery school or esoteric college of ancient times had its regular and uninterrupted series of teacher succeeding teacher, each one passing on to his successor the mystical authority and headship he himself had received from his predecessor.

There are two kinds of guruparampara: first, those who rise one above the other in spiritual dignity and in progressively greater esoteric degree; and, second, those who succeed each other in time and in one line in the outer world. Yet these two kinds are but the same rule of series manifesting in two slightly differing manners. This process copies the hierarchical structure of nature itself.

Guruparampara applies in ordinary human life, for "a long chain of influence extends from the highest spiritual guide who may belong to any man, down through vast numbers of spiritual chiefs, ending at last even in the mere teacher of our youth. Or, to restate it in modern reversion of thought, a chain extends up from our teacher or preceptors to the highest spiritual chief in whose ray or descending line one may happen to be. And it makes no difference whatever, in this occult relation, that neither pupil nor final guide may be aware, or admit, that this is the case" (Letters That Have Helped Me).

(See also: Guruparampara, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Guruparampara (Sanskrit) (from guru teacher + parampara a row or uninterrupted series or succession)

An uninterrupted series or succession of teachers. Every Mystery school or esoteric college of ancient times had its regular and uninterrupted series of teacher succeeding teacher, each one passing on to his successor the mystical authority and headship he himself had received from his predecessor.

There are two kinds of guruparampara: first, those who rise one above the other in spiritual dignity and in progressively greater esoteric degree; and, second, those who succeed each other in time and in one line in the outer world. Yet these two kinds are but the same rule of series manifesting in two slightly differing manners. This process copies the hierarchical structure of nature itself.

Guruparampara applies in ordinary human life, for "a long chain of influence extends from the highest spiritual guide who may belong to any man, down through vast numbers of spiritual chiefs, ending at last even in the mere teacher of our youth. Or, to restate it in modern reversion of thought, a chain extends up from our teacher or preceptors to the highest spiritual chief in whose ray or descending line one may happen to be. And it makes no difference whatever, in this occult relation, that neither pupil nor final guide may be aware, or admit, that this is the case" (Letters That Have Helped Me).

(See also: Guru-deva, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

There are three main causes of death: aging, disease and trauma. Aubrey de Grey, a leading scientist in the field of aging, defines aging as follows: "a collection of cumulative changes to the molecular and cellular structure of an adult organism, which result in essential metabolic processes, but which also, once they progress far enough, increasingly disrupt metabolism, resulting in pathology and death." The current causes of aging in humans are cell loss (without replacement), oncogenic nuclear mutations and epimutations, ce ...

See also:

Immortality, Immortality - Definitons of immortality, Immortality - Causes of death, Immortality - Types of immortality, Immortality - Physical immortality, Immortality - Spiritual immortality, Immortality - Concepts of immortality, Immortality - Unending existence, Immortality - Undesirable immortality, Immortality - When talk of a soul arises, Immortality - Symbols of immortality, Immortality - Immortality in fiction, Immortality - Notes

Read more here: » Immortality: Encyclopedia II - Immortality - Causes of death

In 2000, right around the founding of the Singularity Institute, two books were released that discussed the potential and near-term (before 2040) feasibility of strong AI. These were Robot: Mere Machine to Transcendent Mind by Carnegie Mellon robotics guru Hans Moravec and The Age of Spiritual Machines by Ray Kurzweil. The widespread popularity and success of both these books contributed to the early growth and support of SIAI as an organization. Primarily existing as an online entity, SIAI's main donor base consists of ...

See also:

Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence - Founding, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence - Early years, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence - Recent progress

Read more here: » Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence: Encyclopedia II - Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence - Early years

Hindus believe that food shapes the personality, mood and mind. They believe that meat promotes aggressiveness and a mental state of turmoil known as "rajas". On the other hand, a vegetarian diet is considered to promote sattwic qualities, calm the mind, and essential for spiritual progress. They also believe that animals have souls and killing animals have karmic repurcussions that are bound to be reaped later by oneself. Most of the secular motivations for vegetarianism such as ethical considera ...

See also:

Vegetarianism and religion, Vegetarianism and religion - Hinduism, Vegetarianism and religion - Buddhism, Vegetarianism and religion - Abrahamic religions, Vegetarianism and religion - Judaism, Vegetarianism and religion - Christianity, Vegetarianism and religion - Islam, Vegetarianism and religion - Jainism, Vegetarianism and religion - Taoism, Vegetarianism and religion - Bahá'í Faith, Vegetarianism and religion - Sikhism, Vegetarianism and religion - Rastafari, Vegetarianism and religion - Ayyavazhi

Read more here: » Vegetarianism and religion: Encyclopedia II - Vegetarianism and religion - Hinduism

Water Lily In the West equivalent to the Eastern symbol of the lotus, especially in the Greek and Latin Churches. It particularly signifies spiritual productions or manifestations, thus the Archangel Gabriel is sometimes represented as appearing before the Virgin Mary bearing a lily or a bunch of water lilies. "This spray typifying fire and water, or the idea of creation and generation, symbolizes precisely the same idea as the lotus in the hand of the Bodhisat who announces to Maha-Maya, Gautama's mother, the birth of the world's Saviour, Buddha. Thus also, Osiris and Horus were represented by the Egyptians constantly in association with the lotus-flower . . ." (SD 1:379).

Just as the water lily or lotus rises out of the mud through the more ethereal water into the still more ethereal air, permeated by the sun, so does the individual follow the same progression of developing spirituality from the world of matter upwards through the astral light into the world of spirit illuminated by the divine sun as master of life.

(See also: Water Lily, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body mind and Soul)

Siksa-guru - the person from whom one receives instructions on how to progress on the path of bhajana is known as siksa-guru, or instructing spiritual master. After hearing instructions from the sravana-guru, the person from whom one hears about the fundamental truths of Bhagavan, a desire may arise to engage in bhajana. If such a desire arises, the person whom one approaches in order to learn how to perform bhajana is known as a siksa-guru.

The sravanaguru and siksa-guru are usually one and the same person as stated in the Bhakti-sandarbha, Anuccheda 206 - atha sravana-guru bhajanasiksa- gurvo prayakam-ekatam-iti tathaivaha.

(See also: Siksa-guru, Bhakti, Bhakti Yoga, Bhakti Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul)

Perfection, Perfectibility Absolute perfection is applicable, not to infinity, but to the Absolute of a universe, and theosophy teaches that all existences are tending through ever-growing evolutionary stages towards the relative perfection which all reach at the close of a manvantara; a state called paranishpanna in Sanskrit and yong-grub in Tibetan.

Paranirvana is described as a state of perfect rest insofar as activity in the lower manifested realms of a universe is concerned, but not perfect spiritual inactivity -- entirely to the contrary. In a larger view comprehending a galaxy of universes, or a super-galaxy of galaxies, any notion that human intelligence can entertain of perfection is relative, for we cannot assign ends to evolutionary progress, growth, or expansion.

(See also: Perfection, Perfectibility, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)