The spiritual path means to come ever closer to Divine Gnosis, Divine Love and Divine Goodness. This is a path towards becoming an individual loci for the Divine. The Divine is the true Seed of every self-being, and this Divine Seed seeks to become more complete and more fully actualized.
This is the meaning a 'completed' human being. Though whether there is a final completion or final omega, or whether the process of actualization never ends in any final point, is a matter of speculation for us, since we could not know about a final end unless we reached it. It is probably more honest to simply speak about a process of becoming evermore complete, or divinely actualized, rather than assume there is a final end to the process. Nonetheless, there is a goal, which we can think of as a completion or as a greater actualization of our Divine Potential, or as a spiritual maturing process of our self-potential.
So the spiritual path can be understood as a maturing process of the self, a maturing of the self's potential. This might seem to be a psychological theory, since now we are speaking about self and maturing, but this is also part of spiritual psychology because the Divine is within our self. The Divine is not out there somewhere; it is right here and we are it. The Divine can be understood, psychologically, as the great potential of our self. And the Divine Goal is to actualize this, or mature it. But the actualization of this potential is not necessarily guaranteed, nor determined. So the human self is in a potential process of actualizing, maturing, evolving.
Now when we normally think of human maturity, we often limit the notion of maturity to a set of psychological and behavioral standards, such as having a sufficient degree of self-control, rational thinking, and socially cooperative behavior. Yet from the spiritual point of view, or from spiritual philosophy, the notion of self maturity is greatly expanded and there is much more asked of us.
For example, in normal psychology a predominately selfish, self-centered and economically greedy person might still be regarded as a mature adult. In some standards, a boy is finally mature when he can kick someone's butt, and a girl is finally mature when she can cook and produce a baby.
The spiritual notion of maturity goes beyond these limited ideas. For in spiritual maturity, one is realizing the spiritual reality behind the veils of appearance, and also one is expressing the finest Qualities of Divine God/Being. Of course though, this is quite a lofty aim. So we need not be concerned whether we perfectly reach it or not; but rather, our concern is whether we are at least on the path, or in the process of becoming spiritually complete.
One is coming into the completion of who one is meant to be. This completion is the fulfillment of one's divine destiny. It is the fulfillment, or completion, of what is divinely Intended for us, or what is God's Will. It can also be understood as the fulfillment or completion of our natural true being. For just as the plants and animals have their respective design for completion, the maturation of what they are in essence or what they are meant to be; so too do humans have their respective design for completion. Though the human design, or destiny, is much more open-ended and less fixed in its details, especially in respect to desires and character expression. In other words, the human design for completion is much more general than any other living species. Nonetheless, there are general principles to be fulfilled that we can rightly regard as being divinely Intended, or as our true spiritually-human destiny.
What is spiritual maturing? That is a big question. It would be better to keep the question alive and find the answers on one's own. There are so many facets to this, such as greater knowledge of one's true being and refinement of one's character, but there is much more to say as well, such as considering the needs of others and caring more about others, and not getting engrossed in one's own little desire/demands or our reactions to that which is not congruent with what we want. We need to be evermore loving. This is the essence of spiritual maturity.
We need to embrace more of the world in our heart. We need to be more full of Divine Spirit and more full of the Divine Qualities. We need to actualize the Divine Qualities within us. This is completing and actualizing the Divine within us. We also need to be more present in life, and deal rightfully and beautifully with the people and circumstances we are in. We need to improve on our love and skillful love in the world.
The spiritual (and moral) maturing process begins from an ego that is constricted, dwelling upon its own self-importance and its own small concerns. Yet this self can grow and mature into a self that is expansive in its love and evermore universal in its realization. The self can be in a continuing process of growing up and coming into maturity - or self-completion.
This maturing process is from a small self-ego to an ever-greater expansive self - which embraces and includes more of Life in empathy. First, the human needs to develop a self-ego, which is a loci of self-knowing and self-will. This begins very small and weak, but then develops larger and stronger. And this is all good, at this stage of human maturing process. But this strengthening ego can become self-engrossed, myopic in its interest, and willfully demanding. Unless along side the ego development is empathetic love and an expansion of consciousness. The maturing process should not become stagnant in this limited sphere of self-ego, though sometimes it does. Ultimately, we are spiritual meant to become evermore expansive in our realizations and awakening to all we really are - in potential.
So in this process of spiritual maturation, the self begins as a small awakening and gradually grows into an ever-larger awakening. This is an awakening of oneself, an awakening of our true self. It is also an awakening to the world around us and to our relationship in the world. In other words, we are expanding our understanding of our self, the world, and our inter-relatedness with all that is. We are gradually embracing the world in our heart and consciousness; thus expanding our empathy with all the world in which we live.
The small self, the ego at the beginning of the spiritual maturing process, is limited in its self identification and engrossed in its small concerns. Yet a healthy small self-ego is still open and sensitive to new expanded knowing and empathy. It is still open to the greater spiritual reality, however limited in this process of knowing. The small self-ego can still grow spiritually, if it keeps on being open, empathetic and assimilating.
But at some point many people cut off their spiritual maturing process, which creates an ego that closes off from further empathy with the world and further understanding of its spiritual essence. This disrupts the spiritual maturing process. There are those in the world who are grown up physically, but who have closed off from further spiritual growth. Parts of ourself are this way. So we have to regain the sense that we are still in process of growing up. For once we think that we are already mature, the process is halted. The reality is that we all are in an ongoing potential process of greater maturity, spiritual and moral maturity, just as we are all in an ongoing process towards greater knowledge and wisdom. The ego mistake is to think that one is already mature, already complete, when in fact one is not.
So the first key to ever-greater spiritual knowledge, maturity and completion, is to realize that one is still in the process, or still on the journey. This also requires humility. The moment you think you are already there, already complete and perfect in every way, is the moment when you have closed off from the process of learning and refinement. But in contrast, one who realizes they are still on a journey or in a process of maturing, as a person, is the one who can still awaken to more of who they are and become all they can be. An other part of this process is learning from others and learning from the natural world. See everyone and everything as potential teachers and guides.
The goal of spiritual self-completion, or spiritual maturation, can be generalized into two polar-complimenting aspects.
One is the realization aspect of spiritual completion, which is to consciously realize the omnipresent Presence of Divine Being, through oneself and through the whole world. This can also be called God-Realization. It is knowing the God-Divinity of oneself and also through others and the world. His realization aspect may not be fully complete for us, but if we affirm it as one of our greatest goals and work at waking up to the spiritual Reality, then at least we are in the process of completion and moving along the Way.
The self-maturing process is from limited perspective to a more expansive perspective, all the way to the full Universal perspective. So we begin this journey viewing ourselves and life from a small egocentric perspective, and the journey of maturation leads out of this little self box and widens evermore towards the full comprehensiveness of a Universal perspective, the final viewpoint being that of God/Being, whereby the Qualities of Divine Being are known comprehensively and so is the Divine Will and Purpose. In other words, the self-maturing process involves an expansion of spiritual knowledge, or expansion in the self-knowing of Divine Being. This is the aspect of greater realization.
The other aspect of spiritual completion is expressive. It is the actualization of the Divine Qualities inherent us. These are the Divine seeds or potentials in us, which are meant to be cultivated and matured; for example, love, compassion, peace, wisdom and beauty in action. We must cultivate and develop the Good in us, the Love in us, and all of the other fine Qualities of the Divine Being. In effect, this expressive aspect of our spiritual completion can be regarded as the goal to be God-like in self-expression, to be a unique example of the One Divine Being manifesting on earth.
This goal may seem almost ridiculously lofty, but it is not ridiculous. To be fully and completely God-in-expression may indeed seem out of reach, and maybe it is; but at least we can be on the path and in the process of becoming ever-more complete or ever-more maturing in our divine expression. That is, we can at least become evermore spiritually complete and mature in our expression, our behavior and character.
We may not reach a point where we can honestly say "I am God walking on earth," or "I am the Christ," or "I am a Prophet of God," or "I am the Enlightened Bodhisattva,"; however, we can make this our Aim, and approach such an Aim, while at the same time being honest and realistic enough to not walk around in a spiritual arrogance of believing that we are way more special than everyone else.
All that we want to do is approach a very high degree of spiritual expression and character, in which Divine Love is shining through us, and all of the Divine Qualities are expressing though us. So we can have a lofty Aim to be God-like knowing and God-like expressing; but not expecting to be absolutely perfect in this. We are not looking for a final perfection, nor expecting a final perfection. But we are hoping for and working towards more perfection. In other words, the spiritual path is a path of perfecting; but without getting stuck in any definite idea about what is exactly perfect. It is the moving towards that is important, and also the question of where to.
The expressive aspect of this process involves a greater perfecting of the Divine Qualities (inherent within) in our self-expression. Essentially, this is an unfolding and perfecting of the Love within us. It is a refinement of Love in expression. This is no small matter, no small feat. First, the Love has to be found within us. Second, it has to be brought out from the heart. And third, the Love needs to be complimented by wisdom in how to express it. This wisdom aspect is not always easy, because different situations often require different ways of expressing the Love, and this can only be learned with maturing experience. So even if our love is ready to flow out expressively, we still need to know how to express this love in the most effective way for the good. This is wisdom, or skillful means, and wisdom develops with practice and experience. So part of the expressive aspect of spiritual maturation must also involve a maturing of wisdom and the skillful knowledge of how to best express Love for the greater good. To some extent it is possible to guided by a Higher Wisdom from beyond us, which seems as a spontaneous wisdom that comes through. But we can only rely upon this to some extent. Ultimately we have to rely on our own development (or maturation) of wisdom, and we do the best we can with the knowledge and experience we have.
From another perspective, God is in the process of becoming -- into individual expressions and into the world in general. This is the same process, but looking from the other way around. Thus, so too, God is in process of becoming more fully realized through the minds and hearts of individual beings, and in process of becoming more fully expressive in all its comprehensive Qualities of Good, or more fully manifesting of the Divine Will.
All can be seen as God, as long as one acknowledges that particular God-manifestations range from very base-gross to very refined. So we might then say of something that it is a very base level of God-manifestation, more primitive, less matured or underdeveloped. In understanding that God-manifestation is in process of greater refinement, maturity, love and beauty; we can see life in general, and people in particular, as evolving towards greater spiritual perfection and harmony, and spiritual qualities unfolding in greater refinement.
We can see this process of refinement in music, art and sports, as the artist or athlete begins with an undeveloped skill, making practiced efforts to improve, then finally reaching stages of greater refinement or perfection in the skill and art form. Spiritual, intellectual and moral evolution works in the same manner, and so too God-manifestation -- by process and stages. Thus, we cannot rightly say that everything is perfect or perfectly good, but rather that everything is in process of becoming more perfect or good. Then we can acknowledge that many people and expressions in the world are spiritually undeveloped and lacking in full maturity and perfection.
Now, rather than thinking that this process (of learning, development, and perfecting) is rigidly determined by God, or controlled by a Higher Power; think of it as a learning and development process whereby each individual is responsible for their own process, and that in this process each individual is free to make their own mistakes, and then hopefully learn from these mistakes. Each is free to get diverted from the spiritual goal. In other words, God is not controlling or directing the process. Rather, the process is working out organically, as each individual is exploring and developing their potentials from their own capacity and self-responsibility. Each individual must break free from their limitations and learn from their own mistakes, in order to come into a greater degree of divine expression.
This organic learning and development process is not controlled-manipulated by God at all. Yet, there is Divine influence in the process, an influence that comes from within. There is motivating spiritual influence within each individual, but this is not compelling or controlling. The spiritual influence is within, but it can be blocked and sidetracked by the individual ego. The individual can make mistakes and negative manifestations, due to this blocking of the spiritual influence.
So it is possible for the spiritual process-unfoldment to be blocked or sidetracked. It is possible for particular undeveloped beliefs or behavior to become fixed (or even pathological). They can become stuck pathologies of underdeveloped or spiritually immature expressions, distortions or poor substitutions for real spiritual expression. Thus, the spiritual process can become blocked and distorted. This is the cause of many problems in the world. It is not because God wills it so. Rather, it is because people sometimes get stuck in the spiritual unfolding process, or because they are simply at the lower stages of spiritual evolution. So shit happens along the way of life. Some of this is due to the learning process, and some is due to stuck pathologies in need of healing.
So far this consideration has taken the position that the process of maturing and completion is ongoing and probably endless; that there is always more to realize and always more refinement (or perfection) possible in the comprehensive expression of Divine Qualities. We will not abandon this view. Yet let us consider another angle on this topic, which may show that a final completion of absolute realization and perfect expression is possible, in any lifetime or in any moment.
Consider the possibility of emptying oneself, becoming empty in heart and mind. When the self is given up, when it has become empty and there is no more self-identification, no more thought of self and no more desire in the heart (except for a desire to be one with God); then the Presence of God becomes transparently present in experience, or it could be said that our true Being-Essence becomes transparent. When self-identification is giving up, the Light of Pure Being shines. When we are empty of our self and only conscious of the Divine Presence or Spirit of God all around, then we are in Union, and then God expresses through us.
So it is by this emptiness that we become complete. For then, God can be complete in us. And from this pure realization of God, or this union in God, God can express through us. Through our realization of God all around, and our consciousness of only God Presence, love and healing flows through the space around us. The space has now become actualized with God, through this recognition or realization of God, as the ego-identification and ego reactive patterns have been dissolved. So in this sense, the very process of spiritual completion is completed by our self-abandonment and emptying. One ceases to obstruct the spiritual unfoldment by this self-abandonment, though the individual self as vehicle-for-God is still needed to respond to any moment-circumstance with Love-Wisdom.
There will still be a ongoing maturation of this response or expression, which is essentially a refinement or purification of the vehicle, yet the divine unfoldment will also depend on how empty we are of self-identification. Through self-abandonment and self-emptiness, God will then become complete in us and expressive through us, as the self empties into union with God. Because of this self-emptiness and the abandonment of identifying with the oneself, transformations will happen in the space and people around us, since there will no longer be an ego to obscure spiritual Beingness. Be empty and transparent enough that God moves through and shines through.