From depth to height, from height to loftier height
The climber sets his foot and sets his face;
Tracks lingering sunbeams to their resting-place,
And counts the last pulsations of the light.
Strenuous by day and unsurprised by night,
He runs a race with time, and wins the race;
Emptied and stripped of all save only Peace,
Will, Love, a threefold panoply of might.
— Christina Rossetti
There seem to be two aspects of Nirvana — the potential and the self-conscious — with gradations of unfoldment between. Potential Nirvana is Nirvana asleep, or at the most stirring in its sleep, perchance half-dreaming; but only asleep, for there is no death. The lower planes, especially the physical, are dreamlands — Nirvana in potentiality surely, for nowhere is it non-existent. Self-conscious Nirvana is awake, alive, beginning to use its faculties. When fully self-conscious it is completely realized on all its planes, and perhaps
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I have written that I have seemed to absorb Nirvana more than I seem to have been absorbed. I have just had an interesting experience indicating the truth of this, and suggesting either that there are early tests in connection with Nirvanic consciousness, or that, after a certain realization of its glories, a choice is offered between remaining in them
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