DOES NIRVÂNA MEAN ANNIHILATION? by T. H.
IT is sometimes said by superficial students that Nirvâna means total annihilation; while more accurate scholars point out that it means the extinction of the impermanent part of our nature, whereby the permanent prevails. This is well brought out in the following quotation from The Kashf al-Mahjûb, the oldest Persian treatise on Sûfiism, translated by Reynold A. Nicholson.
Annihilation is the annihilation of one attribute through the subsistence of another attribute.... Whoever is annihilated from his own will subsists in the will of God, as the power of fire transmutes to its own quality anything that falls into it ... but fire affects only the quality of iron without changing its substance.
It is evident that what is annihilated is the personality, which, according to the teachings, is an erroneous conception preventing the manifestation of the real Self. Thus the doctrine of annihilation is seen to be a consistent part of a logical teaching and not the untenable idea which some critics have represented it to be. The fact that most of us in our present state of development look with reluctance at the idea of losing our transitory personality does not invalidate the truth of the teaching; for the teaching relates to the destinies of the permanent Spirit, in which the wishes of our erring, transitory personality play but little part. Were we washed clean, standing forth in robes of light, as most religious believers hope to be at some time or other, we might consent in will and understanding to this teaching; seeing then that the personality is indeed a delusion and a source of woe, whose annihilation is even to be desired.
In the meantime, and for immediate practical purposes, we can consider annihilation as a process applicable to the development of our character; substituting, however, a less harsh word—say neutralization. There are in our character many elements which we should wish to reduce to nothing; there are many false selves which obtrude themselves on us, claiming a share of our life and crowding out the better phases of our character. The elimination of these, in order that the better elements may shine forth unobscured, is a process of purification. Why, then, may not Nirvâna be so considered? To what extent have our prejudices on the subject been aroused by the mere use of an inadequate word in translation? Nirvâna is extinction of the false. "Ring out the false, ring in the true!"