The word nirvana means cessation of the self, arising of a no-self, emptiness... the zero experience. Nothing is, only nothing is.
Then how can you be disturbed? because now there is nobody to be disturbed. Then how can you die? because now there is nobody to die. How can you be born? because now there is nobody to be born. This nobodyness is tremendously beautiful. It is opening and opening, space and space, with no boundaries.
This is Buddha's concept of reality. It is very difficult to understand. We can understand that ego can be dropped -- but the soul? Then we go on in a subtle way still remaining an egoist. Then we call it the soul, the atman. Buddha is very consistent. He says any idea of yourself, that you can be in some way, is egoistic.
Let me try to explain it through modern physics, because modern physics has also come to the same point. Ask the modern scientist. He says the matter only appears, it is not. If you go deeper in the matter, only emptiness. It is nothing but emptiness. If you analyse the matter, if you divide the atom, then it disappears. At the ultimate core only emptiness remains... only space, pure space.
The same analysis Buddha did with self. What scientists have been doing with matter, Buddha did with mind. And both agree that if analysis goes deep enough, then there is no substance left, all substance disappears. Non-existence is left.
Buddha could not survive in India. India is the oldest country in the world which has believed in the self, the atman. The Upanishads, the Vedas, from Patanjali to Mahavira, everybody has believed in the self. They were all against the ego, but they never dared to say that the self is also nothing but a trick of the ego. Buddha dared to assert the ultimate truth.
While he was alive, people could tolerate. His presence was such a powerful presence, his presence was so convincing that they could not deny, they could not say that what he is saying is against human mind, absolutely against human mind. They may have discussed here and there; sometimes a few people came to discuss with him also -- 'What are you saying? Then what is the point of being liberated if nobody remains? We hope for liberation so that we will be liberated.'
Buddha's emphasis is that you will never be liberated, because until and unless you die there is no liberation. Liberation is from the self, the self is not liberated. Liberation is from the self itself.
But his presence was very convincing; whatsoever he was saying must be true. His existence was a proof. The grace that has happened to him, the harmony that was surrounding him, the luminousness that was following him wherever he walked, moved... the glow. People were puzzled -- because this man was saying that there is no self, only tremendous emptiness inside. They could not deny.
But by the time Buddha had gone, they started criticizing, arguing; they started denying. Only five hundred years after Buddha left his body, Buddhism was uprooted from India. People could not believe in such a drastic attitude. Nothing is, the world is illusory, attachments are stupid, and in the final analysis you are not. Then what is the point?
If everything is a dream and even the self is a dream, then why should we go into it? Let it be a dream -- at least something is there. Why should we make so much effort, so many arduous efforts to achieve just to nothingness?
But you have to understand. What Buddha calls nothingness is nothingness from your side. He says nothing remains -- nothing of your world, nothing of your relationship, nothing of you, but he is not saying that nothing remains. He is saying nothing remains from your side, and that which remains cannot be expressed. That which is left, there is no way to express it to you, no way to communicate it. Because in whatsoever way it is communicated, it will be misunderstood.