Nirvana

“ That draws me nigh Nirvana.
Gods of small worlds, ye little Deities
Of humble Heavens under my large skies,
And Governor-Spirits, all, I rise, I rise,
I rise into Nirvana.
The storms of Self below me rage and die. ”

“ Nirvana is the beginning and the end of things. Nirvana in which there is neither action nor feeling; in which intelligence and consciousness are submerged, appeared to this pessimist preacher the last, the only reality. Life is a delusion, real only in its pains: the entire cessation of conscious existence, is the solution he offers to human suffering.
Nirvana is the universal—its conception is vast and dim; it hovers in the distance before the pilgrim of the earth ”

“ When death draws near, intercourse with people who in this life look beyond its bounds, is precious and cheering; and you and those rare real people I have met in life, always stand on the very verge and see clearly, just because they look now at Nirvana—the illimitable, the unknown—and now at Sansara; and that glance at Nirvana strengthens their sight. ”

“ Through time and life and flesh and death, to clear
My way unto Nirvana.
I slew gross bodies of oldethnic hates
That stirred long race-wars betwixt States and States.
I stood and scorned these foolish dead debates,
Calmly, calmly, Nirvana.
I smote away the filmy base of Caste.
I thrust through antique blood and riches vast,
And all big claims of the pretentious Past
That hindered my Nirvana. ”

“ Only it says, of the world of absolute being, Nirvana, we know nothing. That is our aim and end; but it is the direct opposite to all we know. It is, therefore, to us as nothing. The celestial world, that of the gods, is even of less moment to us. What we know are the everlasting laws of nature, by obedience to which we rise, disobeying which we fall, by perfect obedience to which we shall at last obtain Nirvana, and rest forever. ”

“ The goal of every man’s striving is the blessed rest of Nirvana (Neikban) , a state, not of annihilation, but of rest for many ages from passion and all transitory disturbance. For even the rest of Nirvana is not eternal. ”

“ Here rest your weary limbs and share our shade.
Have you escaped from karma's fatal chains
And gained clear vision—found the living light?"
"Call me not master. Profitless to you
Six years have passed," the Buddha answered them,
"In doubt and darkness groping blindly on.
But now at last the day has surely dawned.
These eyes have seen Nirvana's sacred Sun,
And found the noble eightfold path that mounts
From life's low levels, mounts from death's dark shades
To changeless day, to never-ending rest." ”

“ This was the golden age of existence, a Nirvana preliminary to life as we know it at present, a Nirvana of the gods, as the Buddhist extinction of self is to be the Nirvana of just men when all shall be one in all and one in one. ”

“ The Buddhist had looked to Nirvana, a state of Nothingness, of eternal calm—the primitive Christian, with the lure of a vague future bliss before his eyes, finding life on earth a designed brutality, had looked on the life of this world as a pitiful thing, and fixed his hopes on the gateway of Death to bring him into the garden of eternal peace. ”

“ I hope it is, and that, in the absence of Márya Petróvna, you have taken slight symptoms for a return of your terrible illness.
In Nirvana there is nothing to laugh at; still less is there [343] cause for anger. We all (I, at least) feel that it is much more interesting than life; but I agree that however much I may think about it, I can think of nothing else than that Nirvana is nothingness. I only stand up for one thing: religious reverence—awe of that Nirvana. ”

“ The true teaching is that Nirvana is a state of the fullest consciousness—a state in which the soul is relieved of all the illusion of separateness and relativity, and enters into a state of Universal Consciousness, or Absolute Awareness, in which it is conscious of Infinity, and Eternity—of all places and things and time. Nirvana instead of being a state of Nothingness, is a state of "Everythingness." As the soul advances along the Path it becomes more and more aware of its connection with, relation to, and identity with the Whole. ”

“ Nirvana.—Our account of the doctrine would appear incomplete if we did not attempt to answer the question, What is Nirvana? It is, as the last extract shows, the state of salvation in Buddhism. As we have seen, it is the condition of the man who has escaped from the series of rebirths, and will never be born again. It is attained even in this life by the Arahat, in whom all desire and restlessness have come to an end. ”

“ The oriental conception of "Nirvana" is no more than a soothing opiate administered to a soul that has grown weary of its complex vision and weary of its irreducible personality. To imagine oneself freed from the burden of personal consciousness, and yet in some mysterious way conscious of being freed from consciousness, is a delicious and delicate dream of life-exhausted souls. ”

“ From our safe inland retreat we watch the passing of his Dance of Death, and we know that what they seek, these wanderers upon the wind, is not our Ideal nor our Real, not our Earth or our Heaven, but a strange, fairy-like Nirvana, where, around the pools of Nothingness, the children of twilight gambol and play. ”

“ Though the colossal statue of the welcome redeemer, like those of the worshipping kings, does not recommend itself by faultless modelling, it breathes the spirit which sustains the arahat, him who becomes worthy; it radiates the tranquil felicity of annihilation of existence, sin, sorrow and pain; it promises the final blowing out of life’s candle, the Nirvana, when the understanding will be reached of the Adi-Buddha, the primitive, primordial, immeasurable. ”

“ Go hand in hand till death shall claim his own,
Then hand in hand ascend Nirvana's heights,
There, hand in hand, heart beating close to heart,
Enter that life whose joys shall never end,
Perennial youth succeeding palsied age,
Mansions of bliss for this poor house of clay,
Labors of love instead of toil and tears."
He spoke, and many to each other said:
"Why hear this babbler rail at sacred things—
Our caste, our faith, our prayers and sacred hymns?" ”

“ What is it that suffers by karma; what is it that lies within the illusion, —that makes progress,—that attains Nirvana? Is it not a self? Not in our sense of the word. The reality of what we call self is denied by Buddhism. That which forms and dissolves the karma; that which makes for righteousness; that which reaches Nirvana, is not our Ego in our Western sense of the word. Then what is it? It is the divine in each being. It is called in Japanese Muga-no-taiga,—the Great Self-without-selfishness. There Is no other true self. ”

“ Instantly the air grows gloomy, gray, and the ocean rocks menacingly, while the great bells grow harsh and strident, as they hint of a dark fate. I clasp my hands appealingly to the heavens; I moan and struggle with the unknown grasp; then there is peace and the sweet content of the infinite Nirvana. ”

“ Every being, according to Buddhistic teaching, attains Nirvana in the end; so may it not be in "the times of the restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began"?
If symbolism were only taken for what it represents, every Buddhist could join with the Christian in many of the exquisite invocations of the Psalms. There is no rest to be found in the impermanent. To find the peace which passeth understanding, we must ultimately have recourse to the unconditioned, the permanent, Nirvana, God. ”

“ Nirvana does not represent the nothingness of eternal oblivion, but an eternal rest of the soul in pure knowledge, a peace which puts an end to all striving, just as does the heaven for which the Christian hopes. The difference between Nirvana and the Christian heaven is merely that, in the one case, the emphasis falls on knowledge, whereas, in the other, it is placed on feeling. This distinction, however, is not absolute. Buddha, also, preaches love of one's neighbour—indeed, sympathy with every suffering creature; and the Christian, as well as the Buddhist, seeks the knowledge of God. ”

“ Nirvana is the cessation of a process not the annihilation of an existence. If I take a walk, nothing is annihilated when the walk comes to an end: a particular form of action has ceased. Strictly speaking the case of a fire is the same: when it goes out a process ceases. ”

“ And here he found the light he long had sought,
Gilding at once Nirvana's blissful heights
And lighting life's sequestered, lowly vales—
A light whose inner life is perfect love,
A love whose outer form is living light,
Nirvana's Sun, the Light of all the worlds, [4]
Heart of the universe, whose mighty pulse
Gives heaven, the worlds and even hell their life,
Maker and Father of all living things
Matreya's [5] self, the Lover, Saviour, Guide,
The last, the greatest Buddha, who must rule
As Lord of all before the kalpa's end. ”

“ So, mounting, striving, failing, reconquering, at last the pilgrim may approach that shining mystery the world calls "Nirvana,"—that glare of glory where the soul is swallowed up in light, and so passes on to new realms of a radiance so ineffable that human thought falls helpless and blind before it. ”

“ Under such a system of cold abstractions, it is not strange that the common people should distort the conception of Nirvana into an earthly paradise, and fly for refuge even into demon-worship, and other forms of Shamanism. ”

“ To some of my talented New York friends who are touched with Buddhism just now and much puzzled to describe, and I judge even to imagine, their heaven, I confidently recommend a week's continuous jar upon a rough railway as the surest preparation for attaining a just conception of Nirvana, where perfect rest is held the greatest possible bliss. ”

“ Nirvana is perhaps from all other points of view equivalent to annihilation; but from the point of view of man, conscious of his helplessness and failure, it means salvation. It is a philosophy of life, an accord between man and his world by which he wins the greatest good that he can conceive. ”

“ Here we must pause to make the inquiry, What is meant by Nirvana,—the goal of the Buddhist's hope and aim? Literally, the word means “extinction”; and hence it has often come to be regarded as a mere synonym for annihilation. The variety of opinions held by European scholars as to its meaning is, there is little doubt, due to the fact that Buddhists themselves are by no means agreed as to its precise significance. Is Nirvana a state of consciousness or unconsciousness? Is the personality perpetuated, or is the ego absorbed,—i.e. into Buddha? ”

“ He that has put off all lust and desire, all hope and fear, all will to exist as a sinful, because a sentient, being, has won to the heaven of extinction or Nirvana. He may still tread the earth, but he is a saint or Brahman, is in heaven, has quitted the transient and enjoys eternity.
Such was the Buddha’s gospel, as his most ancient scriptures enunciate it. Nirvana is constantly defined in them as supreme happiness. It is not even clear how far, if we interpret it strictly, this philosophy leaves any self to be happy. ”

“ The emotions which sway the human heart are few, and they are very much alike. The self-same word-music transports the English child to the happy land, far, far away, and the Indian mystic to Nirvana.
Almost everything which the Jainas say of Nirvana might have been said by any follower of any spiritual religion who attempted to suggest a place of final beatitude. “There is a safe place in view of all, but hard to approach, where there is no old age, nor death, nor pain, nor disease. ”

“ Karma continues; and that means ignorance; and ignorance can have no vision of the Holy Grail, fails to reach Nirvana, unites not with God!
There is no cessation in the continuous flow of thought between one life and another until Nirvana is reached. The "being" born in another life is absolutely not the same that died here, nor absolutely another; but is the result of the one. "My substance was hid when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth."
[Pg 82]
Chapter IV. HEAVEN AND NIRVANA.
"Soles occidere et redire possunt. ”

“ The striving for Nirvana is a struggle perpetual between false and true, light and darkness, the sensual and the supersensual; and the ultimate victory can be gained only by the total decomposition of the mental and the physical individuality. Not one conquest of self can suffice: millions of selves must be overcome. For the false Ego is a compound of countless ages,—possesses a vitality enduring beyond universes. ”

“ The Buddhist believes in a process of spiritual evolution that, tending ever toward perfection, finally reaches the state of Nirvana, where the individual soul is merged into the Infinite. How can it be differentiated from the universal spirit if it has attained all the attributes of divinity? And that idea seems to be the basis of our mistaken worship of perfection--a Nirvana where each thing, being absolutely perfect, loses every distinguishing mark of character. ”

“ This place which is in view of all is called Nirvana or freedom from pain, 192or it is called perfection; it is the safe, happy, quiet place. It is the eternal haven which is in view of all, but is difficult to approach.”
Nirvana is the getting-well of the soul. “He will put away all the misery which always afflicts mankind ”

“ Again the Orient heaven—flecked only with thinnest white ghosts of cloud, all shadowless as Souls entering into Nirvana—became for me the very sky of Buddha; and the colors of the morning seemed deepening into those of the traditional hour of His birth, when trees long dead burst into blossom, and winds were perfumed, and all creatures living found themselves possessed of loving hearts. The air seemed pregnant with even such a vague sweetness, as if the Teacher were about to come again ”