News and commentary from the cross-platform scripting community.
	RE: WHAT JAVA IS SAYING

Sent:	5/31/96; 8:44:48 AM
From:	storms@pi.net (Jan M.J. Storms)

> PPS: Nirvana is a state of perfect blessedness achieved by the > extinction of individual existence. It's groupware!

Extinction of individual existence?

Nirvana is not *extinction* of individual existence, it is *expansion* of individual existence.

Cosmic consciousness can be lived in terms of enrichment of individuality. From the Mandukya Upanishad: pracara sa tu vijñeyah; 'the individual mind gets expanded in the transcendent'.

Certainly, in the transcendent the individuality is not found, yet in the state of nirvana individual life, individual decisions, individual preferences go on, be it on the basis of the transcendent. That is the key characteristic of nirvana: unbounded consciousness lived as the basis of individual life.

It's not loosing the individual, it's gaining the cosmic.

Jan

P.S. Dictionaries are not a good source for (this kind of) knowledge.

P.P.S. 'Killing the ego' and similar things usually results in an unhealthy mindset, which is neither useful for enlightenment nor for success in individual or in social life.