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A Series of Lessons in Gnani Yoga760
it gives you a greater and grander identity. Instead of your sinking into a
Nirvana of extinction of consciousness, your consciousness so enlarges as
you unfold, that you will in the end feel your identity to be the identity
of the Universe. Instead of your gaining Nothingness, you gain Allness. All
spiritual growth and unfoldment gives you a constantly increasing sense
of relationship with, and agreement with, the All. You grow into Allness as
you unfold. Be not deceived by this chatter about Nothingness, and loss of
Individuality, in the Oriental thought, although some of the presentations of
its teachings may so seem to mean at first reading. Remember always that
Personality is the mask, and Individuality the Real One.
You have often heard persons, claiming to be acquainted with the
teachings of Theosophy and other expositions of the Oriental Wisdom
Religion (including our own presentation), asserting that the Oriental mind
was ever bent upon attaining a final stage of Nothingness or Extinction
in Nirvana. In addition to what we have said, and to what we shall say on
this subject, let us quote from the inspired writer of the “Secret Doctrine”
(a standard Theosophical work) when she says, in that work on page 286,
Vol. I: “Is this annihilation, as some think?…To see in Nirvana annihilation,
amounts to saying of a man plunged in a sound, dreamless sleep—one
that leaves no impression on the physical memory and brain, because the
sleeper’s Higher Self is in its original state of absolute consciousness during
these hours—that he too is annihilated. The latter simile answers only to
one side of the question—the most material; since reabsorption is by no
means such a dreamless sleep, but, on the contrary, absolute existence,
an unconditional unity, or a state, to describe which human language is
absolutely and hopelessly inadequate…Nor is the individuality—nor even
the essence of the personality, if any be left behind—lost because reabsorbed.”
As J. Wm. Lloyd says, in connection with the above quotation,
“This seems conclusive proof that Theosophy does not regard Nirvana as
annihilation, but as an infinite enlargement of consciousness.” And we would
add that this is true not only as regards the Nirvana of the Theosophist, but