Returning to the question of annihilation in Nirvana, Madame Blavatsky, in the Secret Doctrine, says:

"To see in Nirvana annihilation amounts to saying of a man plunged in sound, dreamless sleep - one that leaves no impression on the physical memory and brain, because the sleeper's Higher Self is in its original state of Absolute Consciousness during these hours - that he, too, is annihilated. The latter simile answers to only one side of the question - the most material; since reab - sorption is by no means such a dreamless sleep, but, on the contrary, absolute existence, an unconditioned unity, or a state to describe which human language is absolutely and hopelessly inadequate. Nor is the individuality, nor even the essence of the personality, if any be left behind, lost because reabsorbed. For however limitless from a human standpoint the paranirvanic state, it has yet a limit in eternity. Once reached, the same monad will re- emerge therefrom, as a still higher being, on a far higher plane, to recommence its cycle of perfected activity. The human mind cannot in its present stage of development transcend, scarcely reach, this plane of thought.

It totters here on the brink of incomprehensible absoluteness and eternity."

In conclusion, it will become apparent from this portion of our study that we create the conditions which control our Post-mortem states while we are yet within the physical body; that life in and out of the body pursues its eternal course in obedience to the absolute law of cause and effect, to which it forms no exception; and that therefore man can not enter upon a wiser course of study than that which relates to his own nature, origin and destiny. The object of our most strenuous exertions ought to be to transfer our consciousness from the impermanent to the permanent; from the mortal to the immortal. So long as our personal consciousness is limited to sensuous planes, so long must the subjective cycles of our existence be passed in an unconscious, sleep-like condition, with the possibility of perishing at any time by being drawn permanently within the attraction of matter. Or it might be caught by some cataclysmic, physical change in one of these unconscious subjective states, and eons of ages elapse before another opportunity be afforded for such an undeveloped Ego to again take up the evolution of its consciousness.

Suppose our world went into Pralaya before certain souls had attained to true, or spiritual self-consciousness. During this Pralaya there would be an universal Nirvana for the whole of humanity, owing to the dissociation of matter - a period of world rest, analogous to the night's rest between days, or the devachanic between lives. But such undeveloped souls would have to enter Nirvana as they now do Devachan, unconscious, except for this false, sleep-like consciousness, which must soon exhaust its material, even if it can utilize it here at all; and then what ? There is no more an earth fitted for them to continue their efforts awaiting the termination of the devachanic sleep, and they must remain unconscious during the whole sweep of Nirvanic duration. Hear the same Teacher: * "But there is a great difference between conscious and unconscious being. The condition of Paranirvana without Paramartha, the self-analyzing consciousness, is no bliss, but simply extinction (for seven eternities). Thus an iron ball placed under the scorching rays of the sun will get heated through, but will not appreciate the warmth, while man will.

It is only with a mind clear and undarkened by personality, and the assimilation of the merit of manifold existence devoted to being in its collectivity (the whole living and sentient universe), that one gets rid of personal existence, merging into and becoming one with the Absolute, and continuing in full possession of Paramartha." †

* Secret Doctrine.

† Paramartha - Self - consciousness, without which, as stated, even Nirvana is simply extinction while it endures.