What is Nivana?
I will tell you of one incident in Rabindranath Tagore's life. His father was a great landlord. Their estate consisted of hundreds of towns and thousands of mi
les, and there was a beautiful river flowing through their estate. Rabindranath often used to go on his small houseboat and live for months on the beautiful river, surrounded by thick forest, in absolute silence and aloneness. One full-moon night, it happened: he was reading a very significant contribution to the philosophy of aesthetics, by Croce.
Croce is perhaps the most significant philosopher who has thought about beauty. His whole life's work was concerned with finding the meaning of beauty -- not truth, not good. His sole concern was with what is beautiful. He thought if we can find what is beautiful we have found what is true, because truth cannot be ugly, and we have found what is good, because the beautiful cannot be evil. A beautiful conception ...and with this foundation he worked his whole life to find out from different angles what beauty is.
Rabindranath himself was a worshiper of beauty. He lived a very beautiful and aesthetic life. He not only created beautiful poetry, but his life itself was a beautiful poem. He was a very graceful man.
On that full-moon night with a small candle inside his houseboat he was reading Croce. In the middle of night, tired from Croce's very complicated arguments, he closed the book and blew out the candle. He was going to his bed to sleep, but a miracle happened. As the small flame of the candle disappeared, from every window and door of the small houseboat, the moon came dancing in. The moon filled the house with its splendor.
Rabindranath remained silent for a moment ...it was such a sacred experience. He went out of the house, and the moon was immensely beautiful in that silent night amongst those silent trees, with a river flowing so slowly that there was no noise. He wrote in his diary the next morning, "The beauty was all around me, but a small candle had been preventing it. Because of the light of the candle, the light of the moon could not enter."
This is exactly the meaning of nirvana. Your small flame of the ego, your small flame of the mind and its consciousness, is preventing the whole universe from rushing into you; hence the word nirvana -- blow out the candle and let the whole universe penetrate you from every nook and corner. You will not be a loser. You will find, for the first time, your inexhaustible treasure of beauty, of goodness, of truth -- of all that is valuable. Hence, mind cannot be said to reach nirvana; only no-mind is equivalent to nirvana.
Croce is perhaps the most significant philosopher who has thought about beauty. His whole life's work was concerned with finding the meaning of beauty -- not truth, not good. His sole concern was with what is beautiful. He thought if we can find what is beautiful we have found what is true, because truth cannot be ugly, and we have found what is good, because the beautiful cannot be evil. A beautiful conception ...and with this foundation he worked his whole life to find out from different angles what beauty is.
Rabindranath himself was a worshiper of beauty. He lived a very beautiful and aesthetic life. He not only created beautiful poetry, but his life itself was a beautiful poem. He was a very graceful man.
On that full-moon night with a small candle inside his houseboat he was reading Croce. In the middle of night, tired from Croce's very complicated arguments, he closed the book and blew out the candle. He was going to his bed to sleep, but a miracle happened. As the small flame of the candle disappeared, from every window and door of the small houseboat, the moon came dancing in. The moon filled the house with its splendor.
Rabindranath remained silent for a moment ...it was such a sacred experience. He went out of the house, and the moon was immensely beautiful in that silent night amongst those silent trees, with a river flowing so slowly that there was no noise. He wrote in his diary the next morning, "The beauty was all around me, but a small candle had been preventing it. Because of the light of the candle, the light of the moon could not enter."
This is exactly the meaning of nirvana. Your small flame of the ego, your small flame of the mind and its consciousness, is preventing the whole universe from rushing into you; hence the word nirvana -- blow out the candle and let the whole universe penetrate you from every nook and corner. You will not be a loser. You will find, for the first time, your inexhaustible treasure of beauty, of goodness, of truth -- of all that is valuable. Hence, mind cannot be said to reach nirvana; only no-mind is equivalent to nirvana.
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