Nirvana literally implies cessation, the stopping of the wheel of karma, of life and death. It is the state that transcends duality of every kind including that of form and formless, existence and non-existence, birth and non-birth. The formless is only the obverse side of form, nirakar and sakar, the unqualified is only the background of qualified, Nirguna and Saguna, birth is only a self-limitation of that which is not yet born, Sambhuti and Asambhuti, the Unmanifest is only a holding back of the yet to Manifest. Being is only the formal expression of the Non-Being. True Nirvana is yet beyond, in a state that precedes even these, in fact beyond all terms. It is simply a Silence and a Stillness in which the power of the Self is absorbed entirely within Itself.
What we can however say that the fullness of Nirvana comes through the road of the formless and the Impersonal. They are experiences on the way but the actual realisation goes yet further. It is indeed That of which Nothing can be said, hence the word ‘Nothingness’ or neti neti.
Here is a beautiful description from Savitri.
‘In infinite Nothingness was the ultimate sign
Or else the Real was the Unknowable.
A lonely Absolute negated all:
It effaced the ignorant world from its solitude
And drowned the soul in its everlasting peace.’
Of course to arrive at this one has to pass through the impersonal and the formless. Its closest would be the passive Brahman, Akriya Brahman, a state of complete cessation of all movement of Prakriti. When That puts out the Shakti again IT is Sakriya Brahman but that is unique to Sri Aurobindo.
Affectionately,
Alok Da
