Question 7

WHAT IS NIRVANA?

This story is about NIRVANA... this ancient Buddhist story.

An exceptionally beautiful young woman, Enyadatta, enjoyed nothing quite as much as gazing at herself in the mirror. She was a little crazy, as all human beings are. When she looked into her mirror one morning, the figure in the glass had no head. Enyadatta became hysterical and rushed around yelling 'My head is gone, where is my head? Who has my head? I shall die if I don't find it!'

Even though everyone assured Enyadatta that her head was on her shoulders, she refused to believe them. Every time she looked in the mirror, her head wasn't there, so she continued her frenzied search, shouting and crying for help. Fearing for her sanity, Enyadatta's friends and relatives dragged her home and tied her to a pillar so she wouldn't hurt herself.

Enyadatta's friends continued to reassure that her head was still on her shoulders and slowly she began to wonder whether they might not be telling the truth. Suddenly one of her friends gave her a sharp clout on the head. She cried out in pain, and her friend exclaimed 'That's your head! There it is!' Enyadatta immediately realised that she had somehow deluded herself into thinking she had no head, when, in fact, she always had it.

So it is with NIRVANA.

You have never been out of it. You have never been away from it. It is in you; you are in it. It is already the case, you have just to become a little more alert. You need a clout on the head.

The head is there. You cannot see it because you are looking in the wrong direction or in a wrong mirror. You cannot see it because you don't have the clarity to see. Otherwise NIRVANA is not some goal somewhere, it is not the after-life; it is here-now. NIRVANA is the stuff you are made of. It is in each cell, it is in each fibre of your being. It is YOU. Just a remembrance is needed.

Just a remembrance...