Years ago I read a short story by the enigmatic author, Jorge Luis Borges, on a man who stumbled on a fantastic find somewhere in north Africa. Coming in to a hidden canyon, he found a hoard of naked people lying around doing nothing, whose interest in him also amounted to nothing. He found with those who cared to talk that this was the valley of the immortals, of people who had been blessed to live forever. Getting little more out of them, he began his long journey back, accompanied by one of the immortals for reasons he did not know. After several days of the journey, during which this naked man simply hung around and followed, he finally began to talk.
"We have lived every life possible. We have been virtuous, and when we tired of that, we have been wicked. We have lived with great power, and when that tired us, we have lived without. We have been warriors and saints and prostitutes and murderers. We have been humanitarians, priests, artists, inventors. And after all, we went to the valley, for there is nothing more to do. We have lived it all." (my rendition).
The sense of ennui was excruciatingly clear in the story - that, at some point, when all possibilities are lived, there is nothing - there is complete boredom. Death would be preferable, although that is not the point of the story. In fact, the point remained purposefully unclear, going no further than stimulating one's thoughts on such a situation, but for some reason that I cannot recall, it made me think of the problem of reincarnation. According to the Hindus, we must be reborn to lives in reaction to our last lives, having to "live off" or burn off our previous imperfections until we are pure enough to reunite with Godhead. This would take eons as they recognize, hundreds of thousands of reincarnations. The thought burdened me then, and burdens me now - please, no! One shot at life and done! Not human life for eternity minus one!
Like all religions, though, it is meant for the contemporary people's imagination. It may not be that reincarnation as we understand it ever takes place. It may instead be a metaphor for how we must lose our egoic (necessarily selfish) selves to be able to unite with God. Such is the old Catholic metaphor of purgatory,and such it is meant to mean. However, Fr. Thomas Keating has put in another idea about this, one that discomforts me: that is, that God must exist in all myriad possibilities to show his infinite love and humility under all conditions. That would include torture cells, rooms of sick, dying children, the worst possible battle fields and so on. A scary prospect, but one in which Keating might also be tending towards metaphor, whether he knows it or not.
The metaphor has to do with the eternally complex idea of suffering under the power of a loving god. Many cultures do not have this problem - some simply believe that with life, God is broken into a prism of gods, where out of the pure light of Being is born such things as good and evil. Others believe even more simply that life is a contest between two gods, one of good and one of evil. The People of the Book's view, as it is told to us, is that we the people have somehow caused a transgression, and our lives are a story of healing that transgression to get back to God. Under Keating's idea, God is then showing himself in all conditions created by our imperfect selves to bring us back to him, showing that God is in all things, even in the most ugly of situations.
And so we do not have to live indefinite lives, but to find in all aspects of life the absolute - which takes a faith almost as powerful as immortality. But what of Borges's immortals? How, after living all possible lives, have they come to such utter boredom?
I think this, too, is a metaphor for desire and the human condition; for as long as we are worldly humans, we will wish for what we do not have. Given infinite time and lives, however,we will grow tired of every temptation and every pleasure or perversion. There will be no will, nothing left to will for in the end, and it is in this end where we understand that we are all equal, that every sinner is a saint and vice versa.
But still, this is incomplete. There is one more step - where our desire ends, another desire takes root. I thought of it this groggy, grumpy Monday morning as my eyes became adjusted to the brilliant light of a clear autumn day: that regardless of the situation, there pulses the beauty, the brilliance of creation; that without having to contrive anything, Spirit is in everything. There is no need to create evil or good or anything else, for spirit is always there. This the immortals still had not found - and this we, as mortals, never find until we understand the drama that is our lives - how behind it, behind the desire and the joy and suffering, is the bright autumn day that was always there and has never left us. FK
"We have lived every life possible. We have been virtuous, and when we tired of that, we have been wicked. We have lived with great power, and when that tired us, we have lived without. We have been warriors and saints and prostitutes and murderers. We have been humanitarians, priests, artists, inventors. And after all, we went to the valley, for there is nothing more to do. We have lived it all." (my rendition).
The sense of ennui was excruciatingly clear in the story - that, at some point, when all possibilities are lived, there is nothing - there is complete boredom. Death would be preferable, although that is not the point of the story. In fact, the point remained purposefully unclear, going no further than stimulating one's thoughts on such a situation, but for some reason that I cannot recall, it made me think of the problem of reincarnation. According to the Hindus, we must be reborn to lives in reaction to our last lives, having to "live off" or burn off our previous imperfections until we are pure enough to reunite with Godhead. This would take eons as they recognize, hundreds of thousands of reincarnations. The thought burdened me then, and burdens me now - please, no! One shot at life and done! Not human life for eternity minus one!
Like all religions, though, it is meant for the contemporary people's imagination. It may not be that reincarnation as we understand it ever takes place. It may instead be a metaphor for how we must lose our egoic (necessarily selfish) selves to be able to unite with God. Such is the old Catholic metaphor of purgatory,and such it is meant to mean. However, Fr. Thomas Keating has put in another idea about this, one that discomforts me: that is, that God must exist in all myriad possibilities to show his infinite love and humility under all conditions. That would include torture cells, rooms of sick, dying children, the worst possible battle fields and so on. A scary prospect, but one in which Keating might also be tending towards metaphor, whether he knows it or not.
The metaphor has to do with the eternally complex idea of suffering under the power of a loving god. Many cultures do not have this problem - some simply believe that with life, God is broken into a prism of gods, where out of the pure light of Being is born such things as good and evil. Others believe even more simply that life is a contest between two gods, one of good and one of evil. The People of the Book's view, as it is told to us, is that we the people have somehow caused a transgression, and our lives are a story of healing that transgression to get back to God. Under Keating's idea, God is then showing himself in all conditions created by our imperfect selves to bring us back to him, showing that God is in all things, even in the most ugly of situations.
And so we do not have to live indefinite lives, but to find in all aspects of life the absolute - which takes a faith almost as powerful as immortality. But what of Borges's immortals? How, after living all possible lives, have they come to such utter boredom?
I think this, too, is a metaphor for desire and the human condition; for as long as we are worldly humans, we will wish for what we do not have. Given infinite time and lives, however,we will grow tired of every temptation and every pleasure or perversion. There will be no will, nothing left to will for in the end, and it is in this end where we understand that we are all equal, that every sinner is a saint and vice versa.
But still, this is incomplete. There is one more step - where our desire ends, another desire takes root. I thought of it this groggy, grumpy Monday morning as my eyes became adjusted to the brilliant light of a clear autumn day: that regardless of the situation, there pulses the beauty, the brilliance of creation; that without having to contrive anything, Spirit is in everything. There is no need to create evil or good or anything else, for spirit is always there. This the immortals still had not found - and this we, as mortals, never find until we understand the drama that is our lives - how behind it, behind the desire and the joy and suffering, is the bright autumn day that was always there and has never left us. FK
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