To walk streets paved with gold and play a harp incessantly while chanting
doleful praises to a Deity who ought to become wearied of the never-ceasing
adulation, would still be a more desirable goal of our strife, than that so
inaccurately and unattractively described by many students of Oriental
religions and philosophies as the state _nirvana_, or _samadhi_.

Again quoting from Vivekananda's Raja Yoga:

"There are not wanting persons who think that this manifest state (our
present existence) is the highest state of man. Thinkers of great caliber
are of the opinion that we are manifested specimens of undifferentiated
Being, and this differentiated state is _higher than the Absolute_."

Although as Vivekananda says there are thinkers who make this claim, the
idea does not find ready acceptance among theologians, either Eastern, or
Western. Neither do philosophers, as a general thing incline to adopt this
view. The reason for this general disinclination is not difficult of
discovery. It is due to the present state of man on this planet.

If man, as we see and know mankind, is the highest state of Being (not
merely of manifestation, but of Being) "then," they say, "we have nothing
to hope for."

But have we not? May we not hope that man will _manifest_, on this planet a
fuller realization, of that which he _is_ in _Being_, and that, far from
dissolving what consciousness he has, he will but _plus_ this consciousness
by a larger--an all-embracing consciousness that shall make earth a fit
habitation for god-like men?