[1. "To reach the state of the perfect and everlasting happiness is the highest Nirvana; for then all mental phenomena--such as desires, etc.--are annihilated. And as such mental phenomena are annihilated, there appears the true nature of true mind with all its innumerable functions and miraculous actions."--KURODA, Outlines of the Mahayana.

2. It is on the subject of this propagation and perpetuation of characters that the doctrine of Karma is in partial agreement with the modern scientific teaching of the hereditary transmission of tendencies.]

and the final destruction of those impulses--the total extinction of their ghostly vitality,--may require a protraction of effort through billions of centuries. Perpetually from the ashes of burnt-out passions subtler passions are born,--perpetually from the graves of illusions new illusions arise. The most powerful of human passions is the last to yield: it persists far into superhuman conditions. Even when its grosser forms have passed away, its tendencies still lurk in those feelings originally derived from it or interwoven with it,--the sensation of beauty, for example, and the delight of the mind in graceful things. On earth these are classed among the higher feelings. But in a supramundane state their indulgence is fraught with peril: a touch or a look may cause the broken fetters of sensual bondage to reform. Beyond all worlds of sex there are strange zones in which thoughts and memories become tangible and visible objective facts,--in which emotional fancies are materialized,-- in which the least unworthy wish may prove creative.

It may be said, in Western religious phraseology, that throughout the greater part of this vast pilgrimage, and in all the zones of desire, the temptations increase according to the spiritual strength of resistance. With every successive ascent there is a further expansion of the possibilities of enjoyment, an augmentation of power, a heightening of sensation. Immense the reward of self-conquest; but whosoever strives for that reward strives after emptiness. One must not desire heaven as a state of pleasure; it has been written, Erroneous thoughts as to the joys of heaven are still entwined by the fast cords of lust. One must not wish to become a god or an angel. "Whatsoever brother, O Bhikkus,"--the Teacher said,--"may have adopted the religious life thinking, to himself, 'By this morality I shall become an angel,' his mind does not incline to zeal, perseverance, exertion." Perhaps the most vivid exposition of the duty of the winner of happiness is that given in the Sutra of the Great King of Glory. This great king, coming into possession of all imaginable wealth and power, abstains from enjoyments, despises splendors, refuses the caresses of a Queen dowered with