They only are not Bodhisattvas who, enveloped in the divine rays of light in a celestial abode, philosophically review the world of tribulations. Even we mortals made of dust are Bodhisattvas, incarnates of the Bodhi, capable of being united in the all-embracing love of the Dharmakâya and also of obliterating the {291} individual curse of karma in the eternal and absolute intelligence of the Dharmakâya. As soon as we come to live in this love and intelligence, individual existences are no hindrance to the turning over (_parivarta_) of one’s spiritual merits (_punya_) to the service of others. Let us only have an insight into the spirituality of our existence and we are all Bodhisattvas and Buddhas. Let us abandon the selfish thought of entering into Nirvana that is conceived to extinguish the fire of heart and leave only the cold ashes of intellect. Let us have sympathy for all suffering beings and turn over all our merits, however small, to their benefit and happiness. For in this way we are all made the Bodhisattvas.[123] _The Buddha’s Life._ This spirit of universal love prevails in all Mahâyâna literature, and the Bodhisattvas are everywhere represented as exercising it with utmost energy. The Mahâyânists, therefore, could not rest satisfied with a simple, prosaic, and earthly account of Çâkyamuni, {292} they wanted to make it as ideal and poetic as possible, illustrating the gospel of love, as was conceived by them, in every phase of the life of the Buddha. The Mahâyânists first placed the Buddha in the Tuṣita heaven before his birth, (as was done by the Hînayânists), made him feel pity for the distressed world below, made him resolve to deliver it from “the ocean of misery which throws up sickness as its foam, tossing with the waves of old age, and rushing with the dreadful onflow of death,” and after his Parinirvana, they made him abide forever on the peak of the Mount Vulture delivering the sermon of immortality to a great assemblage of spiritual beings. In this wise, they explained the significance of the appearance of Çâkyamuni on earth, which was nothing but a practical demonstration of the “Great Loving Heart” (_mahâkarunâcitta_). _The Bodhisattva and Love._ Nâgârjuna in his work on the _Bodhicitta_[124] elucidates the Mahâyânist notion of Bodhisattvahood as follows: “Thus the essential nature of all Bodhisattvas is a great loving heart (_mahâkarunâcitta_), and all sentient beings constitute the object of its love. Therefore, all the Bodhisattvas do not cling to the blissful taste {293} that is produced by the divers modes of mental tranquilisation (_dhyâna_), do not covet the fruit of their meritorious deeds, which may heighten their own happiness. “Their spiritual state is higher than that of the Çrâvakas, for they do not leave all sentient beings behind them [as the Çrâvakas do]. They practise altruism, they seek the fruit of Buddha-knowledge [instead of Çrâvaka-knowledge].