44c | CR Book XII, Chapter 5

station of unlimited consciousness. Then, attending to
the emptiness aspect of space, and to the absence of con-
sciousness, he sees that there is nothing, that 'it' is
empty, that all is absent, - both object and conscious-
ness (see XII,  ). He then gives up even the act that
grasped the nothingness, and he reaches a station where
there is neither perception nor non-perception, where both
consciousness and self-consciousness are at the very mar-
gin of disappearance. In the 'cessation of perception and
feeling' this condition is perhaps driven a step further.
Outwardly this state appears as one of coma. Motion, speech
and thought are absent. Only life and warmth remain. Even
the unconscious formative forces are said to be 'asleep',
though not done away with, their 'seeds' not being extingui-
shed. Inwardly it would seem to correspond to the ineff-
able awareness of 'Naked Contemplation', a naked intent
stretching unto Reality, the union of nothing with nothing
or of one with one, a dwelling in the 'Divine Abyss', or the
'desert of the Godhead'. It is an 'inconceivable transfor-
mation death', but not a final one.

The practice of Wisdom confirms and renders more habi-
tual the self-extinction of an empty self in an empty
world which the ecstatic experience of the jhanas achie-
ved temporarily. Through wisdom alone can the 'great
emptiness' be realised and lived, and wisdom alone leads
to Nirvana as an object, or, better as the replacement of
all objects.