Recently I had an interesting discussion with a friend regarding the term ’spiritual evolution’. He stood strongly by the solipsist argument that in fact there is no such thing as spiritual evolution. I have to admit that the arguments were impeccable. Still, a part of me wants to believe in it. Then it occurred to me how to find a way out of this dilemma.

“Of course I believe that solipsism is the correct philosophy, but that’s only one man’s opinion.” Melvin Fitting

Before I get into the main reasoning, I have to tell you that we had this conversation in Hungarian. It is my mother tongue. For those of you who haven’t heard of it, it is probably the most unique language in Europe, very difficult to learn, mainly because of this uniqueness.

So, it just occurred to me that in English there are actually two major formulas for what we were talking about. There is

1. spiritual evolution

and

2. spiritual development

both pointing at the same concept for which in Hungarian there is only one expression.

The solipsist standing point denies the possibility of spiritual evolution. Self knowledge is the only deliverer. In our context, we could say that all that is other than my conscience cannot be realized and might not exist at all. Regarding spiritual evolution, even the mere term would presume a finality. Which they say, is wrong.

Evolution vs Development

Then I thought of spiritual development, which gives a different understanding here. Still, solipsism might deny even this, but I realized it is an excellent compromise for me to clarify the terms. Development can contain the nuance of effort, also means bringing something to the surface, strives for growth into a purpose. It means filling up a predefined pattern in order to reach its goal, which I like to define as completeness.

In my actual phase of searching for meaning, it is vital to define clearly proper frames for self development. Now, maybe I am one step closer to clarify the term of spiritual development.

Another conclusion I am drawing here is that solipsism is indeed helpful. I have the feeling that you will find me writing about it some more in the near future. Anyway, are there any solipsists out there reading this? Feel free to contradict me or point out if I am missing something here on this subject.

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