From Karen Armstrong’s A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam:

The notion of an enlightenment that was impersonal, beyond human categories and natural to humanity was also close to the Hindu and Buddhist ideal in India … Thus despite the more superficial differences, there were profound similarities between the monotheistic and other versions of reality.  It seems that when human beings contemplate the absolute, they have very similar ideas and experiences.  The sense of presence, ecstasy and dread in the presence of a reality – called nirvana, the One, Brahman or God – seems to be a state of mind and a perception that are natural and endlessly sought by human beings.