Nick the Pilot
Well-Known Member
The question has been asked elsewhere on this forum, what is nirvana? Here are two Theosophists giving their descriptions, from the books The Masters and the Path and Nirvana — An Occult Experience.
“The entry into [nirvana] is utterly bewildering, and it brings as its first sensation an intense vividness of life, surprising even to him who is familiar with the buddhic plane. The surprise has been his before, though in a lesser measure, whenever he mounted for the first time from one plane to another. Even when we rise first in full and clear consciousness from the physical plane to the astral, we find the new life to be so much wider than any that we have hitherto known that we exclaim: ‘I thought I knew what life was, but I have never known before!’ When we pass into the mental plane, we find the same feeling redoubled; the astral was wonderful, but it was nothing to the mental world. When we pass into the higher mental plane, again we have the same experience. At every step the same surprise comes over again, and no thought beforehand can prepare one for it, because it is always far more stupendous than anything that we can imagine, and life on all those higher planes is an intensity of bliss for which no words exist.
“European Orientalists have translated Nirvana as annihilation, because the word means ‘blown out’, as the light of a candle is extinguished by a breath. Nothing could be a more complete antithesis to the truth, except in the sense that it is certainly the annihilation of all that down here we know as man, because there he is no longer man, but God in man, a God among other Gods, though less than they.
“Try to imagine the whole universe filled with and consisting of an immense torrent of living light, and in it a vividness of life and an intensity of bliss beyond all description, a hundred thousand times beyond the greatest bliss of heaven. At first we feel nothing but bliss; we see nothing but the intensity of light; but gradually we begin to realize that even in this dazzling brightness there are brighter spots — nuclei, as it were — which are built of the light because there is nothing but the light, and yet through them somehow the light gleams out more brightly, and obtains a new quality which enables it to be perceptible upon other and lower planes, which without this would be altogether beneath the possibility of sensing its effulgence. And by degrees we begin to realize that these subsidiary suns are the great Ones, that these are Planetary Spirits, Great Angels, Karmic Deities, Buddhas, Christs and Masters, and that through Them the light and the life are flowing down to the lower planes.
“Gradually, little by little, as we become more accustomed to the stupendous reality, we begin to see that, in a far lower sense, even we ourselves are a focus in that cosmic scheme, and that through us also, at our much lower level, the light and the life are flowing to those who are still further away-not from it, for we are all part of it and there is nothing else anywhere — but further from the realization of it, the comprehension of it, the experience of it.”
George Arundale describes the entry into Nirvana as a blinding experience.
[When one enters Nirvana for the first time,] “Light, of course, is the first discovery, for it is the primary, overwhelming experience. I have spoken of "lightning-standing-still". Entry into the Nirvanic world is as into lightning, blinding, penetrating, drenching. One plunges into a sea of vibrant, vocal lightning. One cannot sink, but one has to learn to swim. One does not sink, because the light within makes one buoyant. It is impossible to conceive entry into this kingdom without the warrant of the awakened light within....”
Here, George Arundale describes Nirvana as being nothing but light, yet having points of light within the light. (George was a Christian, and his Christian bias comes through loudly in this passage. But nontheists can read around George’s theistic language, and still get a meaningful idea of what he is saying.)
“Let me try to put my visions [into words]. I look upon the world, and I see our Lord the Sun expressed in myriad suns. Each monad I perceive to be a Sun in miniature. The Sun Divine throws off spark-suns charged with all His attributes. The process of evolution begins, and these sparks burst into color, or rather gradually. unfold in terms of color; rainbows with sun-hearts, or nuclei or centers. God's Light thus imprisoned in form begins its long pathway of transcending form, thus acquiring self-consciousness. Every atom of light is an atom of unconscious Divinity, slowly but surely fulfilling the will of the Sun that it shall become unfolded into self-conscious Divinity. Every atom is a Sun unconscious, and shall become a Sun self-conscious. And the Sun-Light, which is the Light that is free, shines upon the Sun-Light, which is the Light imprisoned; Light the wanderer in the darkness, until the Light within and the Light without blend into a perfect whole, earth-light kissing Heaven-Light and becoming Sun-Light. “Bathed in the Lightning-standing-still which is Nirvana, I perceive the imprisoned lightnings in all things. I perceive the Light which is dull — the savage; the Light which is bright — the man evolved; the Light which is glory — the Superman, the Master. I see color everywhere in process of transmutation, of glorification, of transcendence. There is no blackness anywhere in the sense of a negation of Light. God said: ‘Let there be Light.’ And there was and is light everywhere. His Light shineth even in our darkness.’ “And as before I might express my vision in terms of sound, of music, in terms of gloriously growing forms. For, as time passes, I begin to perceive that while my first impression found instant expression in the word ‘Light,’ and specially in the phrase ‘Lightning-standing-still,’ I now know that this Light conception is but a quality of Nirvana, an aspect, a facet of the diamond sphere. In truth, Nirvana is an essence of things and a flower of things.”
George Arundale describes objects (sentient beings) in Nirvana:
“Each object is a personalization of Light-Sound, the personalization being the translation of Light-Sound in our lower worlds. Each object is a sun in humblest miniature, a tiny star, a world, a universe. Each object is a microscopic harmony. But each object, too, may have its elements of darkness and of discord, in which its true light and sound-values are thwarted. It is interesting to me to listen to and observe objects and to endeavor to sense their respective Sound and Light-formulae, their various vital notes and mystic chords.”
“The entry into [nirvana] is utterly bewildering, and it brings as its first sensation an intense vividness of life, surprising even to him who is familiar with the buddhic plane. The surprise has been his before, though in a lesser measure, whenever he mounted for the first time from one plane to another. Even when we rise first in full and clear consciousness from the physical plane to the astral, we find the new life to be so much wider than any that we have hitherto known that we exclaim: ‘I thought I knew what life was, but I have never known before!’ When we pass into the mental plane, we find the same feeling redoubled; the astral was wonderful, but it was nothing to the mental world. When we pass into the higher mental plane, again we have the same experience. At every step the same surprise comes over again, and no thought beforehand can prepare one for it, because it is always far more stupendous than anything that we can imagine, and life on all those higher planes is an intensity of bliss for which no words exist.
“European Orientalists have translated Nirvana as annihilation, because the word means ‘blown out’, as the light of a candle is extinguished by a breath. Nothing could be a more complete antithesis to the truth, except in the sense that it is certainly the annihilation of all that down here we know as man, because there he is no longer man, but God in man, a God among other Gods, though less than they.
“Try to imagine the whole universe filled with and consisting of an immense torrent of living light, and in it a vividness of life and an intensity of bliss beyond all description, a hundred thousand times beyond the greatest bliss of heaven. At first we feel nothing but bliss; we see nothing but the intensity of light; but gradually we begin to realize that even in this dazzling brightness there are brighter spots — nuclei, as it were — which are built of the light because there is nothing but the light, and yet through them somehow the light gleams out more brightly, and obtains a new quality which enables it to be perceptible upon other and lower planes, which without this would be altogether beneath the possibility of sensing its effulgence. And by degrees we begin to realize that these subsidiary suns are the great Ones, that these are Planetary Spirits, Great Angels, Karmic Deities, Buddhas, Christs and Masters, and that through Them the light and the life are flowing down to the lower planes.
“Gradually, little by little, as we become more accustomed to the stupendous reality, we begin to see that, in a far lower sense, even we ourselves are a focus in that cosmic scheme, and that through us also, at our much lower level, the light and the life are flowing to those who are still further away-not from it, for we are all part of it and there is nothing else anywhere — but further from the realization of it, the comprehension of it, the experience of it.”
George Arundale describes the entry into Nirvana as a blinding experience.
[When one enters Nirvana for the first time,] “Light, of course, is the first discovery, for it is the primary, overwhelming experience. I have spoken of "lightning-standing-still". Entry into the Nirvanic world is as into lightning, blinding, penetrating, drenching. One plunges into a sea of vibrant, vocal lightning. One cannot sink, but one has to learn to swim. One does not sink, because the light within makes one buoyant. It is impossible to conceive entry into this kingdom without the warrant of the awakened light within....”
Here, George Arundale describes Nirvana as being nothing but light, yet having points of light within the light. (George was a Christian, and his Christian bias comes through loudly in this passage. But nontheists can read around George’s theistic language, and still get a meaningful idea of what he is saying.)
“Let me try to put my visions [into words]. I look upon the world, and I see our Lord the Sun expressed in myriad suns. Each monad I perceive to be a Sun in miniature. The Sun Divine throws off spark-suns charged with all His attributes. The process of evolution begins, and these sparks burst into color, or rather gradually. unfold in terms of color; rainbows with sun-hearts, or nuclei or centers. God's Light thus imprisoned in form begins its long pathway of transcending form, thus acquiring self-consciousness. Every atom of light is an atom of unconscious Divinity, slowly but surely fulfilling the will of the Sun that it shall become unfolded into self-conscious Divinity. Every atom is a Sun unconscious, and shall become a Sun self-conscious. And the Sun-Light, which is the Light that is free, shines upon the Sun-Light, which is the Light imprisoned; Light the wanderer in the darkness, until the Light within and the Light without blend into a perfect whole, earth-light kissing Heaven-Light and becoming Sun-Light. “Bathed in the Lightning-standing-still which is Nirvana, I perceive the imprisoned lightnings in all things. I perceive the Light which is dull — the savage; the Light which is bright — the man evolved; the Light which is glory — the Superman, the Master. I see color everywhere in process of transmutation, of glorification, of transcendence. There is no blackness anywhere in the sense of a negation of Light. God said: ‘Let there be Light.’ And there was and is light everywhere. His Light shineth even in our darkness.’ “And as before I might express my vision in terms of sound, of music, in terms of gloriously growing forms. For, as time passes, I begin to perceive that while my first impression found instant expression in the word ‘Light,’ and specially in the phrase ‘Lightning-standing-still,’ I now know that this Light conception is but a quality of Nirvana, an aspect, a facet of the diamond sphere. In truth, Nirvana is an essence of things and a flower of things.”
George Arundale describes objects (sentient beings) in Nirvana:
“Each object is a personalization of Light-Sound, the personalization being the translation of Light-Sound in our lower worlds. Each object is a sun in humblest miniature, a tiny star, a world, a universe. Each object is a microscopic harmony. But each object, too, may have its elements of darkness and of discord, in which its true light and sound-values are thwarted. It is interesting to me to listen to and observe objects and to endeavor to sense their respective Sound and Light-formulae, their various vital notes and mystic chords.”
