ss which
we are considering, referring later on to the question, and its
interpretation by the various schools of religion and philosophy.

It is apparent that the most learned sages of the Orient fail to agree as
to the exact meaning of Nirvana. Occidental writers and leaders of the
Theosophical philosophy, differ somewhat as to its import, but at the same
time we find enough unity on this point to make it evident that the state
of Nirvana is a desirable attainment--the goal of the religious enthusiast.

Going back for a moment, to a consideration of the earliest recorded
religion of Japan, we find that Sintoism means literally "the way of the
gods," meaning the way in which men who have become god-like, found the
path that led thereunto, but as to exactly what conditions are represented
by godhood, how indeed, is it possible for man to _know_, much less to
express?

Since we are conscious of a divine and irresistible urge toward the
attainment of this state of being, it is hardly consistent with what we
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 say