Human Development
Ontological perfection
Description:
The [Perfect Prayer] in the Isha Upanishad reads:"That is perfect. This is perfect. Perfect comes from perfect. Take perfect from perfect, the remainder is perfect".
The word "perfect" is derived from the latin "per facere" and implies thoroughly made, a state of completion or totality. That which is perfect can be said by definition to lack nothing, so no change can improve it, nor is it subject to decay. Absolute perfection is therefore eternal and immortal and, if conceived of as having an existence beyond an ideal in the mind, identical with the concept of God. On the other hand, "relative" perfection, perfection within certain limits, may be used to refer to the greatest perfection which something intrinsically removed from absolute perfection is capable of achieving. The process of perfection, or "making perfect", meaningless in absolute terms, can have meaning in terms of relative perfection; for example, in relation to human development. A thing is said to be perfect in this sense when it achieves final fulfilment in attaining its end or destiny.
Greek thought (and many subsequent philosophies) considered that the state of becoming or change was illusory or imperfect, only being is perfect. Different interpretations on the "oneness" of being and the illusion of plurality or multiplicity include Plato's argument that multiple, created things, although imperfect in themselves, are perfect in that they participate in the single, infinite whole. This also seems implicit in the above quotation from the Isha Upanishad. Opinions have differed as to the possibility, nonetheless, of being aware of the perfect being, as for instance Kant, who said that knowledge is simply of appearances, of that which the senses make available to consciousness, and that the perfect being is unknowable. This interpretation, however, denies the validity of knowledge in belief or inner experience, the comprehensive awareness of the nature of existence; and it is towards this knowledge that those on different spiritual paths are said to strive.