The order here observed is very remarkable. The way to be freed from doubt and heresy lies through freedom from impurity and revenge, and evil longings of all kinds; or, in other words, if a man awakened to a deep sense of the mystery of sorrow wishes to understand the real facts of existence, wishes to believe not the false or the partly false, but the true altogether, Buddha tells him not to set to work and study, not to torture himself with asceticism or privation, but to purify his mind from all unholy desires and passions: right actions spring from a pure mind, and to the pure in heart all things are open. Again, the first enemy which the awakened believer has to fight against is sensuality, and the last is unkindliness. It is impossible to build anything on a foundation of mire; and the topstone of all that one can build, the highest point he can reach, the point above purity, above justice, above even faith, is, according to Buddha, _universal charity_. Till he has gained that, the believer is still bound; he is not free; his mind is still dark. True enlightenment, true freedom, are complete only in love. The believer who has gone thus far has reached the last stage; he has cut the meshes of ignorance, passion and sin, and has thus escaped from the net of transmigration; Nirvāna is already within his grasp; he has risen above the laws of material existence; the secrets of the future and the past lie open before him; and when this one short life is over, he will be free forever from birth with its inevitable consequences, decay and death. No Buddhist now hopes to reach this stage on earth; but he who has once entered the “paths” cannot leave them; the final perseverance of the saints is sure; and sooner or later, under easier conditions in some less material world, he will win the great prize, and, entering Nirvāna, be at rest forever with other triumphant victors. WHAT IS NIRVĀNA?