AN ESSAY
IN ONTOLOGY
243
sphere, can the causes, subtle and coarse,
the unborn causes whose seed is hardly sown,
of continued existence be grasped and anni-
hilated, so that the Arahat is sure of being
abolished in the utter extinction of Nirvana,
while even in this world of pain, where he
must remain until the ancient causes, those
which have already germinated, are utterly
worked out (for even the Buddha himself
could not swing back the Wheel of the Law),
his certain anticipation of the approach of
Nirvana is so intense as to bathe him con-
stantly in the unfathomable ocean of the
apprehension of immediate bliss.
AUM MANI PADME HOUM.