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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. On the other hand, it is said of such an one that he enters Nirvana when he dies, as if it were a state not of this life, but of the period beyond.

If then, the "heavens" as applied to the planets revolving above the earth in the solar system, and "Heaven" as a term used to describe a state of happiness, bliss, samadhi, nirvana, or "life with God," be synonymous it may reasonably be inferred that in the solar system are planets upon which live sentient beings, in a state to which we on earth, are seeking to attain; a state wherein so-called evil has been eliminated and the good retained.

And when Miss Snagg learned that her brother in Venezuela had died a very sudden death brought on by drinking rum for seventeen years and had left her ten thousand dollars, the Bahee which she exhibited almost amounted to Nirvana. In fact, the very general dissemination of the Oriental idea became more and more noticeable with each week that passed.

There we see that the First Truth about suffering is little more than an admission of the existence of evil, which all religions and common sense admit. Evil ceases in the saint: nirvana in this life is perfect happiness. A king should be a good king. Renunciation is a great word in the religions of both Europe and Asia, but in Europe it is almost active.

Priests who are getting on in years, or who are stricken with a mortal disease, are compelled by rule to move into a certain part of their monastery, known as the Abode of a Long Old Age, in which they are required not to die, for death does not come to a good priest, but to enter into Nirvana, which is a sublime state of conscious freedom from all mental and physical disturbance, not to be adequately described in words.

Active, daring, and astute, he judged the o-omi to be swayed solely by personal ambition, and he placed no faith in the sincerity of the great official's Buddhist propaganda. Meanwhile, the fortunes of the new faith prospered. When the dying Emperor, Yomei, asked to be qualified for Nirvana, priests were summoned from Kudara.

The common aspiration of the religious Indian is for deliverance, that is release from the round of births and repose in some changeless state called by such names as union with Brahman, nirvana and many others. The Buddha

Therefore, teachings are no good for me, they have no hardness, no softness, no colours, no edges, no smell, no taste, they have nothing but words. Perhaps it are these which keep you from finding peace, perhaps it are the many words. Because salvation and virtue as well, Sansara and Nirvana as well, are mere words, Govinda.

Yet, while all these things afflicted the nations of the West, and seemed to foreshadow the decline or destruction of the human species, the wild mountains of Northern India, now overrun by savages more fierce than those who sacked Rome, were occupied by a placid people, thriving, industrious, and intelligent; devoting their lives to the attainment of that serene annihilation which the word nirvana expresses.

Even in theory Indian mysticism does not repudiate energy. No one enjoyed more than the Buddha himself what Ruysbroeck calls "the mysterious peace dwelling in activity," for before he began his mission he had attained nirvana and such of his disciples as were arhats were in the same case.