to change, shall give place to the changeless,
deathless, spiritual man; not through cataclysms, and destruction, but
through the natural birth into a higher consciousness.

The Occidental mind is easily affrighted by a name. Perhaps we should not
specify the Occidental mind, but rather the mind of man among all races is
easily put to sleep by the hypnotism of a word.

The word Pantheism is a bugaboo to the Occidentalist. He fears the
destruction of the Monistic faith, if he admits that man is in essence a
god, and that therefore there are many gods in the one God, even as there
are many members to the one physical organism.

Nevertheless all literature, whether sacred or profane, teaches the
attainment of godhood by Man. This can not mean other than the attainment
of _realization_ of godhood, by the individual and the _retention_ of this
realization to the end that reincarnation shall cease and identity with the
cosmic, principle, be established, beyond further loss, or doubt, or
strife, or death.

This is what it means to attain to cosmic consciousness. It is inclusive
consciousness. It is not absorption into the vast unknown, in the sense of
annihilation of identity. It is consciousness _plus_, not minus.

An ancient writing says:

"And thou shalt awake as from a long dream. Thou shalt be like the perfume
arising from the flower in which it has been so long enclosed. And thou
wilt float above the opened flower. And thou wilt say 'There is time before
me in eternity.'"

There is nothing in the testimony of those who have described, as best they
could, their emotions upon attainment of this consciousness, which would
argue the absorption of the individual soul into The Absolute.

There is no testimony to argue that the attainment of cosmic consciousness,
carries with it anything approaching annihilation of _sentiency_.

Rather it would seem to testify to an acceleration of all the higher
faculties.

That this would be a more apt interpretation may be seen by comparing the
different reports of those experiencing the phenomenon of Illumination.

Nevertheless there has been much controversy regarding the meaning of the
terms nirvana; samadhi; dai zikaku, etc.--words expressing the condition
which we are considering under the phrase cosmic consciousness.

WHAT IS NIRVANA?

Let us consider briefly, what is meant by Nirvana, and see if it is not
highly probable that the word describes the state of consciousne