As was mentioned in class, while in many religions the end goal of the spiritual journey is something on par with eternal life in some kind of paradise, Hinduism effectively already has eternal life, and wants to be rid of it. What I find interesting about the difference is how it mirrors those who want to attain immortality, and those who already have it, in fiction.
As a general rule, those who once sought immortality (and then obtained it) generally end up thinking that it is really more of a curse than anything else, usually for reasons such as seeing friends age and die, or watching the world around them change while they stay the same. Perhaps it says something about how people always want what they cannot have: Many times those who have an immortal or eternal life would do almost anything to be rid of it, and those who do not have such a life would trade almost anything for one.
So it seems that whether an eternal life is good thing or a bad one depends on your point of view.
Thoughts?
There are so many ways to go from here, and I'm glad you brought this up. Immortality is an interesting goal, but that alone seems the most boring hell possible, no?
ReplyDeleteConcerning the Twilight Zone episode "A Nice Place to Visit" an eternity seems like the worst possible way to carry on. A brief recap: In this episode, a crook is shot and goes unconcious as he tries to escape a jewellery store. As he wakes up, he finds himself in the presence of a man in white who leads him to a lavish hotel room where the man has anything he could ever want. The crook wins every single game he plays despite the odds he is up against, gets every woman in his company, and gets everything he could ever want. But then he starts to wonder why he would have earned such a reward, and finds that winning all the time at everything (even when he didn't want to anymore) is horrible. He asks the man in white why he deserved to go to heaven and wanted to be sent to the other place, and is met with the reply that he was in the other place.
There's a nugget of wisdom in that episode. Even an eternity of winning seems boring after a while. But that's not what heaven is all about, simply an eternity to do whatever you want. It couldn't be, because that would be horrible. And I think that's where the Hindu perspective could be understood from a western mindset.
I agree with Al.
ReplyDeleteEternal life would be bad and/or frustrating in the view of the Hindu religion because they are constantly being reborn if they did not do something correctly in their past life. They are reborn in hopes that this time they will be freed finally after successfully going through Tamasih, Rajash, Satwihs, and Ignorance, as explained in class. Once they have, they stop being reborn and have reached the ultimate goal.
I agree completely. Whether or not immortality is a positive thing or not is based on one's point of view. It's interesting to sit and listen to both arguments, the double edged swords. I believe debate makes your beliefs stronger.
ReplyDeleteJust acknowledging different points of view might let us off too easily -- what if there are objective features of eternal life that suggest it's not all it's cracked up to be?
Delete