Nirvana — the extinguishing of the fires of craving, hatred, and delusion — is Buddhism's supreme goal, and one of the most misunderstood concepts in world religion: not annihilation but the cessation of unnecessary suffering, not emptiness but the fullness that remains when the self stops grasping. Its analogues appear across traditions: the Hindu moksha, the Jewish devekut (cleaving to God), the Christian theosis, the Sufi fana (annihilation in the divine), the Daoist return to the uncarved block. What all these visions share is the claim that the ordinary condition of the human being is not the best available — and that a radical transformation is possible.
Rumi