ultimate [as a noun]

[bize]

Hello,

Could you please tell me what "ultimate" means as a noun?
Here's the sentence:

One should be loose and natural and not obsessed with anything, neither mind nor meditation. Only then, unoccupied, unobsessed, when you are simply flowing, the ultimate happens to you.

(source: Osho "The Orange Book")

Does it mean the best?

Thanks.

 

[Cameljockey]

Never having meditated I could not say, that door is still closed to me.

However I presume that the writer is trying to use this word to describe the highest or most intensely possible feeling or personal experence, which clearly cannot have a sharp definition.

 

[mapache-pcp]

I agree with cameljockey

 

[Nunty]

There is a tendency in less-than-formal English to use an adjective as though it were a noun to give it greater emphasis: That movie was the best!

Spiritual and mystical texts are attempting to express in words something that cannot really be expressed. There, too, you can find adjectives used as nouns:
Get in touch with the infinite. (Perceive infinity.)
The ultimate happens to you. (You find yourself at the peak of experience.)

 

[Cameljockey]

I see that some online dictionaries list ultimate as a noun. Of course I do believe that continued misuse should not make it right, but unfortunately it eventually does.

 

[EStjarn]

Could you please tell me what "ultimate" means as a noun?

From Collins English Dictionary - Complete and Unabridged, (2003):

ultimate
n
the most significant, highest, furthest, or greatest thing

From The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, (2009):

ul·ti·mate
n.
1. The basic or fundamental fact, element, or principle.
2. The final point; the conclusion.
3. The greatest extreme; the maximum: actions that represented the ultimate in political expediency.