know of merely _human_ nature, that the way lies in the direction of loss
of identity, or in other words, in what is popularly comprehended as
_absorption_. That this idea prevails in many Oriental sects of Buddhism
and Vedanta we are aware, but we are confident that this idea is erroneous,
and comes from the fact that it is impossible to describe the condition of
consciousness enjoyed by the initiate into Nirvana, which term we believe,
is identical, or at least comparable with cosmic consciousness.

The very fact that external life represents so universal a struggle for
attainment of this state of being, or higher consciousness, indicates at
least, even if it does not actually _guarantee_ a fuller, deeper, more
complete state of consciousness than hitherto enjoyed, rather than an
absorption or annihilation of any of that dearly bought consciousness which
distinguishes the self from its environment, and which says with conviction
"I am."

It is admitted that those who have experienced liberation, illumination,
_mukti_, have reported their sensations with such relative vagueness and
with such apparent variance of conclusion as regards the _meaning_ of the
experience that the reader is left to his own interpretation of the
character of that state of being, other than a general uniformity of
description.

Referring to the pleasure which the lower nature feels under certain
conditions, the late Swami Vivekananda says:

"The whole idea of this nature is to make the soul know that it is entirely
separate from nature and when the soul knows this, nature has no more
attraction for it. But the whole of nature vanishes only for that man who
has become free. There will always remain an infinite number of others for