Permanence - the 'never-ending' quest for immortality

My last post on Destination - Truth it is may have been difficult for few of you to either accept or reject.

This is understandable as "Being sensitive is to be aware of all those things that are happening within us and around us without taking a stand for or against them."

After we had this discussion in our group, few of my friends applauded the views shared by me.  Few of them politely said that they were comfortable with their gurus and their satsangs.  One of them rhetorically asked, "Why should we reinvent the wheel when our gurus have already laid down the path and the processes?" 

And then, NC, who initiated the original discussion, asked, "What is permanent?"

I will share what my response was but, before that, let me share some of my reflections on permanence.

This quest for permanence or immortality has been mentioned many times in our mythological stories:

Individuals, who are on a quest to attain immortality, perform strenuous penances to invoke demigods.  When the demigods do appear and offer to grant them boons, the first boon they usually ask for is immortality.  When the demigods express their inability to offer immortality, they then ask for the next best thing - that their death should occur only under some extraordinarily difficult conditions.  Once this boon is granted, they then think that they are invincible and go around overpowering people and demigods.  Then the demigods appeal to the all-powerful God who, through creative ways, fulfills the conditions laid down by the individuals and still destroy them.

Here, I wish to draw your attention to a critically acclaimed Tamil movie, Uttama Villain, which released in 2015.  In my view, it was one of the best performances of Kamal Haasan in recent times and a fitting tribute to his mentor, Director K Balachander.

This movie is about an aging superstar who is diagnosed with a terminal cancer with a few months to live.  This sudden news makes him look back at the life that he had lived so far and the mess that has crept in over the years.

He seeks to redeem himself by producing and acting in a timeless comedy, directed by his original mentor, as a parting gift to all those who love and cherish him.  This movie, within the movie, is about a tyrannical king's quest for immortality and how he is outsmarted by a wise man named Uthaman narrated in a humorous and entertaining manner. 

In one of the scenes, Uthaman mentions that there are 3 approaches to become immortal: 

The second approach is to compose an outstanding literary work, which transcends time, and make both the work and the composer immortal.  

The third approach is to deliver an outstanding artistic masterpiece, endearing to the patrons, and make both the art and the artist immortal.  

In a way, the aging superstar was pursuing the third approach to make himself immortal.

If you observe, in our mythological stories, to be immortal means to live in the same physical form forever.

In the movie, Uthama Villain, as mentioned in the second and third approaches, to be immortal means to live in the minds of people forever.

The quest has always been to sustain the individual either in the physical form or in the mental form.

I'll share the first approach, as mentioned in the movie, a bit later.

To go back to my response to the question, "What is permanent?"

Present or now.

Wherever we go, it is only in the present or now.

Whatever we do, it is only in the present or now.

The present or now is both infinite (space) and eternal (time).  It has no beginning or end.

The mind, through thoughts emanating from stored memories, draws us away from the present either into the past or into the future and creates an illusion of continuity of the past, the present and the future.  The past and the future are only in the mind.  Only the present is true, real and permanent.

Having said that, let me also tell you that the present is not a static reality.  It is a dynamic reality - ever changing.

To live in the present, we need to be sensitive.  All our senses have to be alert and undistorted to respond to the dynamic changes within us and around us.

If we operate from our stored memories, our ability to respond to the dynamic changes, within us and around us, is diminished and may lead to unhappy consequences.

This was beautifully captured by some of my friends in our earlier discussion:

DJ: Eternal life is having that privilege to connect with this true living God while you are still on this earth.

RMM: Realizing there is a greater power and surrendering completely; losing the individual "I".

In Uthama Villain, the first approach to become immortal is this: 

Understand the nature of time - the past, the present and the future, sense the flow of wisdom and stay with it to be among the wisest of the wise.

Here, the individual dissolves.

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