Greetings of peace to all!
I was reading an article yesterday which mainly talked about Buddhist nuns..and i came across a concept called “Nirvana”. Does anyone here know what is Nirvana as in regards to Buddhist religion.
I would really appreciate any help 
Thanks!
Were'nt they a heavy-metal rock outfit?
Nirvana is a purified state of the mind where all forms of desire are quenched. Not only the wicked cravings, but also the carnal pleasures and comforts that most of us deem innocent and lawful. Absence of pain and pleasure. To do this, Bhuddists adopt a quiet, secluded, contemplative life. True nirvana occurs after death and is very different than religions that promise sex, food and all earthly pleasures in paradise.
Buddha was Sidharath when he left his palace in search of God. He roamed around jungles, accompanied many saints, meditated but there was no God waiting for him. He gave up food, water in search of God and for forty days had nothing.
This happened at Gaya, he was sitting under a banyan tree and the fortieth day of his fast he saw no God, no Nirvana….he opened his eyes, there was a village lady standing in front of him, carrying food for him.
He ate that food and felt himself OK……That was his stage of Nirvana.
After that he never talked of God any where in any of his lectures.
In fact Buddha became an atheist.
All rest of definitions of Nirvana were created after him only, by Buddhist school of thought.
you know its funny...maybe I'm completely off track here, but there seems to be an equivalent of "nirvana" in Islam.
Uh...sometime ago, I learned that there are 5 states of "being" (or something to that effect) which correspond to spiritual maturity. The lowest is animal-like -- where one is only concerned with animal instincts and can't understand anything beyond that....
And the highest seemed a lot like nirvana to me - although not exactly - there's no reincarnation involved, but its a state of complete connection with God...
Of course, some may argue that being one with God and being in "ohm" and "nirvana" as perceived by hindus and buddhists are two different things, but I just see a pretty strong similarity there...
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by PyariCgudia: *
you know its funny...maybe I'm completely off track here, but there seems to be an equivalent of "nirvana" in Islam.
.....
[/quote]
Well would u mind specifying from where did you get this IDEA???
This whole theory sounds new to me...
Thanks everyone for the replies..specially Seminole and anand :)
hehe, if you give me like one month's time...I'll find out from my old Islamic school teacher.
Nirvana does not occur after death, it releases a person from the sufferings of a mortal death. 
Buddhist philosophy is very deep. Buddha was also not an atheist, in fact he was a devout believer in God as an Eternal Ever-present Being.
To understand Buddhism in its purest form, think of all the temptations of the earthly world, including sex vices alcohol greed etc etc… and how to abstain from them. Then, after that one level is reached, start on the abstaining from lower temptations - hunger, clothing, comforts, etc..etc.., to a degree, but not completely.
When you can abstain from the pleasures of earthly life, and give yourself up to being the humblest meekest creature on the surface of the earth, yet go on living not as a body but as a being.. you have attained Nirvana. This is a very very high-level definition.
Siddharta, or Gautam Buddha searched for the answer to life. He searched for God, and found that wahtever a human being desires to have answered, comes from himself. So the essence of God is self.
If you free yourself from yourself, you become one with God, after which there is no need to anything in life, and there is no death. Life and Death, in an obtuse way, is a state of mind. Nirvana uplifts the soul to reach Enlightenment, or the highest state of knowledge of God and Being. Buddha, if you know, was a very wealthy prince with lavish estates and lifestyle. He grew disillusioned with the shallowness of life, and in what is called The Great Renunciation, he left his comfortable existence and set out to search for the Truth. He lived austerely, severely curbed his lifestyle.. for seven years he wandered with ascetics and others to learn about the Truth… he became known as a sage, but he still felt unfulfilled. Then, after contemplating all the harsh life he had given to himself, he found that severity was not the answer, and he became less austere. There needed to be a balance - he learnt this from nature, that balance fulfilled certain terms of living, and gave freedom. Reincarnation, rebirth and the other concepts of Hinduism in relation to life and death especially .. endless suffering, etc.. - he looked at each of these and discarded what he thought were not worthy ideals. He took the good from each philosophy and combined it into what is called the Middle Path - harmony and balance in all. Finally, he settled upon desire being the root cause of suffering, and discarding desire from life in various stages, he was able to gain release from suffering. Under a Buddha Tree, he finally ultimately one day gained spiritual release during his intense meditations. This is known as Enlightenment, when one has reached the state of eternal fulfilment, bliss, peace and Oneness with creation and the Creator… hence attaining Nirvana.
Yes, it is very possible to gain Nirvana in Islam. It is not a wholly mutually exclusive concept. Islam also advocates the Middle Path - balance and rationality in all, tempering desire with abstinence, alleviating self-suffering and the suffering of others, harmony with nature… peace and contentment. When your soul is at peace, you can contemplate more freely on the wonders of the world around you, created by God and of which you are a steward. This realization, this self-actualization, is akin to Nirvana. Nirvana is only a concept, not a divine guidance or ideology. It can be attained through religious meditations like the Sufis and derwaish are prone to do, where they too seek the Truth and enlightenment. It can be achieved through peace with prayers, understanding of the world around us, balance in our community, etc… there is no one right way to get to it.. all paths lead to wisdom, and in wisdom is salvation. However, unlike the tenets of Hajj, Zakat, Prayers etc.., Nirvana is not a tenet of Islam.. it is only infused in it just like your blood is infused in your veins and courses thru your body. It is similar to the concept of Good that exists in all mankind.. only Nirvana is a Higher Good, that promotes self-esteem and love for all creation around you.
Dear Ana, Buddha was an atheist in totality. Whatever you are writing has nothing to do with Buddha, but is a Buddhist thought and nothing else.
Nirvana simply means Salvation, and this salvation Buddha felt when he had some food after a fast of 40 days.
Later Buddha preached equality, fraternity and off course opposed the existing Hindu pattern of life, opposed the cast system.
Buddhist school was the first revolution against Brahmin culture in India.
After Buddha’ death, after many-many years this school took the same shape as you are expressing.
Thru meditation, or by repeating of some words, or concentrating the mind on something particular…mind becomes deaf and dump.
Do you know that all those people who spend much time of life in meditation, or in temples, in prays, at an old age they all are very egoist? And pls have a look into their eyes…are totally idiot eyes.
Buddha’ salvation has nothing to do with meditation.
:). Anand, pls. provide links or references to validate your argument of Buddha having no belief in the existence of God. My thinking is otherwise. Some historians have documented that Buddha did not have any belief in God because he thought religious ideas orginated in fear, and there was no logic to support the presence of a God. But I have read thru accounts where he does not give any logic that supports the absence of God either. Therefore I do not believe he was an atheist.
Whatever you are writing has nothing to do with Buddha, but is a Buddhist thought and nothing else.
Buddhist "thought" is derived from Buddha. They do converge. *Modern *Buddhist leanings go against Siddharta's original teachings... Buddhist thought, so to speak. Modern Buddhism idolizes Buddha as an image of the Lord.. Siddharta, as you (incorrectly I may add) elevated to atheist, would not have approved of the idolatry of modern "buddhists". Modern accounts - esp. internet accounts - do, I agree, give a very general image of Buddha as an atheist, but perhaps if you were to do that route, it would be better to call him a deist who believed that there was a God but relied soly on reason as God had created the world and then left it to its own devices. However, if you wish to concur with my own analysis, I refer you to Siddharta by Hermann Hesse, and any or all of the Discourses of Buddha.
Buddha focused on human life and suffering, more than supernatural belief. He was more concerned with the human condition and alleviation of that condition, he did not concern himself with how the world was created and who ruled it. It was a done deal to him, that the earth and human life existed because they just did. That does not make him an atheist - someone who has thought about or spent a great deal of time going thru a believe-and-discard process concerning a possible Creator. It simply means, he was resigned to the fact that humans did exist, for whatever reason, but if they had to live, might as well be by doing things right. Why only right? Because man's first natural instinct is to do good, therefore the first natural instinct must be correct and muct be acted upon.
"Bear always in mind what it is that I have not elucidated, and what it is that I have elucidated. And what have I not elucidated? I have not elucidated that the world is eternal; I have not elucidated that the world is not eternal; ... I have not elucidated that the soul and the body are identical; I have not elucidated that the monk who has attained (the arahat) exists after death; I have not elucidated that the arahat does not
exist after death; ... I have not elucidated that the arahat neither exists nor does not exist after death. And why have I not elucidated this? **Because this profits not, nor has to do with the fundamentals of religion; therefore I have not elucidated this.*
And what have I elucidated? Misery have I elucidated; the origin of misery have I elucidated; the cessation of misery have I elucidated; and the path leading to the cessation of misery have I elucidated. And why have I elucidated this? Because this does profit, has to do with the fundamentals of religion, and tends to absence of passion, to knowledge, supreme wisdom, and Nirvana." * - Gautam Buddha
Later Buddha preached equality, fraternity and off course opposed the existing Hindu pattern of life, opposed the cast system.
...
Buddhist school was the first revolution against Brahmin culture in India.
Yes, it was. I take it you are Hindu, hence understandable that you oppose original Buddhist philosophy.
Thru meditation, or by repeating of some words, or concentrating the mind on something particular…mind becomes deaf and dump.
If you remember, Buddha did not advocate meditation himself. The ascetics he dwelt with, practiced it, and he followed them. However, after attaining Nirvana, he did not preach meditation but wisdom.. like Confuscius. His first disciples likewise, did not practice extensive meditation, but sought knowledge through periods of meditation, but Buddha himself did not advance it.
that all those people.... have...totally idiot eyes.
Well of course, if one does mindless meditation without having undergone a strenous life, one will have idiot eyes, similar to junkies, drug addicts and other fools. Ek dhoondo hazaar milengey.
The reason Buddha is followed is not because he had the capacity to meditate long hours and hence gain idiot eyes, but because he was a wise man. After discovering the Four Noble Truths that lead to a knowledge of suffering, the truth of suffering, the extinction of suffering and the last one I forget.. truth that leads to the extinction of suffering I think... Buddha did not keep this knowledge to himself, instead he went about the world and preached it. He was very young when he gained Enlightenment - less than 40 years of age. At that age, for a noble prince to go about the world spreading his learnings whatever they may be, was a great deal... especially to go on doing it for forty odd years. I think it was in Benares that he gave his first non-tuition class, to just a handful of diciples. The Eightfold path - Right Understanding, Right Thought, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, and Right Concentration - knowledge of these things did not come to him just thru sitting under a Banyan tree for a forty day stretch. The man was truly worthy of being followed, listened to.. he deserved an audience. His first few disciples took his words and spread them.
Now, even in this day and age, when information is dissemated, there is a tendency for something to fall thru the cracks. Likewise, in Buddhist philosophy, from the orginal teachings there were twists and turns and modifications made here and there... and we end up with the current schools floating around.
Like you say, Buddha's salvation had nothing to do with meditation, but it has everything to do with knowledge. Knowledge does not come thru immersing yourself in stress, but contemplation of stress, struggles and suffering. Like I said b4, one need not solely meditate for hours and hours to gain knowledge.. you become wiser simply by applying thought to the proceeds of an action. That is the essence of true Buddhist philosophy.
Dear Ana, Your reply is very nice, though I cannot make out if you contradict me.
I am sorry, I do not know have much knowledge of Buddhist thought and you can easily count me among those thousands found easily.
I have no information of any Internet link to prove that Buddha was a total atheist. There are many books written on this subject and it seems that you have read a lot.
May be, you know of J Krishnamurty! In some of his lectures I have read that Buddha was the first to understand the mind and functioning of mind and after he had nothing to say of divine or divinity.
What is meditation? You can decorate this word with a vast vocabulary, but the simple thing is that for centuries people have tried to control the mind thru meditation.
Can one control the thought? No, it is impossible.
People have achieved some absent mind ness thru a compelled stage of so-called meditation. And the result is ego, and a dull mind.
Do I say that Buddha preached or practised meditation?
Buddha’ nirvana or salvation, I repeat, that when he had food after a fast of forty days, he felt himself OK and he understood that there was no use to run after a fake thought of divinity.
Here is a legend story about Buddha life, very recently a friend told me….
After achieving nirvana, once Buddha came to his former palace and met his wife. He asked her if she could allow him to her living room. She replied, ‘When I was looking for a Siddhartha, you were longing to become a Buddha. Today I have come to see a Buddha and you prefer to become a Siddhartha.’
With best rgds
I think one can reach Nirvana through prayer.
Concentrating on God.
I have much respect for Buddist Monks. I don't find them Evil et al.
When I think of Buddist Monks ... my thinking is that they live simply, are wise, and kind. Though I have never met one.. I imagine they are kind spirited. I picture them Gentle.
Kindness, gentleness and wisdom are noble qualities...... I think Our God had something to do with that.
The One God.
Maybe Nirvana is what makes Buddhists the most peaceful people of all.
thanks Ana, anand, AAG and kareem :)