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Do you want to be immortal?

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Immortality? But why? Life is so short-lived and and we in point of fact choose to be immortal. We are not fully satisfied the amount of life we have. We want more of it and part with everything and everyone unsatisfied.

And we will remain completely un-satiated even after a lot of consumption and this is the tragedy of life.

There is void within us, and that void is so awfully wide and it cannot be fulfilled easily in point of fact.

And we want to be immortal but the paradox of life is such that afterward again we become tired of life.

All I feel is what have is enough and to want more of life to the extent that we can keep ourselves is something that leads us to an abysmal gulf of woes.

The right way is to be satisfied with what we have in life. The middle path of the Buddha is somewhat oriented to this way of life.

@haribol acharya,

Contentment is hard to realise if your aims are grounded in purely material objectives.Leaving loves ones is never easy but then would we have prefered never to have loved.We have our time and we should be satisfied,with luck there maybe more.

@haribol acharya,

At the moment, on my summer holidays, I don't feel like I could get tired of life. Given that my girlfriend could be immortal too and people kept writing books, I think I could go for a little immortality. Would I have to keep working though?
Dan.

@haribol acharya,

Immortality was at one point in time, historically speaking, an idea reserved for nature and celestial bodies. Most mythologies, including current Christian mythological texts, revolve around the connection between astrological motion and nature (plants, animals, healing compounds, etc.).

Before the advent of the Neolithic Revolution, man stood in awe of nature and of what he saw as the stolid and unmoving Will of Nature. Man saw his own Will as subservient, weaker, more fleeting than Nature's. As such, all gods were designed as animistic, or perceived as disembodied "energies" which could account for/explain the various forces of nature man encountered.

Returning now to the previously mentioned Neolithic Revolution: Man domesticates plants and animals, and we see one of the biggest steps in man's voyage toward attaining the Godhead. He is able to use his Intellect to 'conquer' Nature's Will and thus he projects himself into the spiritual realm. We now see the advent of anthropomorphic polytheism, wherein the forces of nature are personified as dancing deities with human characteristics. Man recasts himself as god and the roles are reversed.

Thus, mortality is a gate that *can* be opened by human hands. Power is consolidated in the halls of the dead. The very first class distinction is between mortals/immortals. Those who give over the experience of the spiritual realm to the "superhhumans" become subservient to their spiritual knowledge and a lineage of inequality and class society begins.

Today, power is consolidated in the economy/resources. Class is entirely based upon money, but the concept is the same. The dread has been shifted and the immortal rise through the stock market.

@rhinogrey,

I dont think I would enjoy it personally, after all what would your life be reduced too and how over crowded would the planet be or are we talking about a post physical state of immortality.

Which brings me to raise the point if we are immortal and exist in Heaven once the physical body is gone. How old would I be? Would my heavenly body be the age of which I died? Is age a factor? Would I still have to shave? Would I still wear glasses? And what would I wear? Prada? Armani? Or would we all be reduced to wearing white flowing robes?

From a theological perspective this is a serious question, just ask a Mormon!:devilish:

@Paracelsus,

i wouldn't want to be immortal unless the world had a perfect anesthetic on hand at all times, and everyone else was immortal so that i wouldn't suffer grief through death. Otherwise i might be very tempted to give it a go .... if the devil offered it to me

@pagan,

I think to really be able to answer this question, or even just to understand the reasoning behind the answers that some may give, you really need to consider personal interpretation of 'immortal'.

Okay, so to put it simply, immortality is living forever, right? However, to be able to achieve this, humans must overcome the main causes of death: ageing, disease, and trauma.

Therefore, when looking into immortality a bit deeper, and perhaps considering individual views, it would more than likely be a very different case to wanting to life forever.

I, personally, would not want to live forever, and cannot really understand why anybody would wish to live on for eternity. From this simple perspective, I suppose you could say that my answer to the initial question is 'No' - I don't want to be immortal.

However, if you then consider the more serious side of mortality, then the view shifts considerably. Many people are scared of death. Is that a good enough reason to want to be immortal? Many people do not want to have to endure pain and suffering. Is that a good enough reason to want to be immortal? Many people do not want to see the people they love in pain, or suffering. Is that a good enough reason to want to be immortal?

I think that the last point is the most striking, as, although less personal, I believe that it would be relevant to the vast largest group of people. This is intriguing because it could easily be classed as selflessness, something which seems to be disappearing, at least in Western society.
Overall, however, there are therefore three reasons that I can see for one to want to be immortal:

Because they don't want to die.
Because they don't want to endure pain and suffering.
Because they do not want those they love to endure pain and suffering because of their own mortality i.e. due to them falling ill or dying.

This raises quite an interesting quetion, and one that I think is worth asking:

Is to be offered immortality, yet decline it, selfish?

@haribol acharya,

haribol acharya;79445 wrote:

Immortality? But why? Life is so short-lived and and we in point of fact choose to be immortal. We are not fully satisfied the amount of life we have. We want more of it and part with everything and everyone unsatisfied.

And we will remain completely un-satiated even after a lot of consumption and this is the tragedy of life.

There is void within us, and that void is so awfully wide and it cannot be fulfilled easily in point of fact.

And we want to be immortal but the paradox of life is such that afterward again we become tired of life.

All I feel is what have is enough and to want more of life to the extent that we can keep ourselves is something that leads us to an abysmal gulf of woes.

The right way is to be satisfied with what we have in life. The middle path of the Buddha is somewhat oriented to this way of life.

Damn. I misread you, and thought the question was, do I want to be immoral. I got all excited, and thought you had a way of being even more immoral than I am. I was so disappointed! My fault, I guess.

@haribol acharya,

But what kind of immortality do you mean? The immortality of Achilles or the immortality of Avalokita? The immortality of the immortal song, the tale, the memory, or the immortality of perfect peace?

@haribol acharya,

yeah... it would be specifically different... depending on the situation... whats the limitations and side effects...

do you still need sleep? do you still feel hunger?

if i were immortal and cast out into space would it be a painful eternity?

if my body were chopped up in pieces and scattered... am i still conscious?

no no... despite the many circumstances i think of..... losing the people around me is the least of possible problems... think more long term.... what about when the sun dies, as all suns eventually do... what then...

i would decline... i dont even think prolonged life is approvable... i think it is more towards the selfish side to live forever... besided who knows whats next... a better dimension? are you afraid of hell or what? na... ill pass. our time here should rightfully be limited... the way we live is not the best possible way... we need to move aside so the next generation has there turn at a life.

@haribol acharya,

I don't think 'immortality' is like your mortal life, prolonged indefinitely. It is not as if 'you' will go on forever, because by your very nature, you are always changing. So you're on the right track with Buddhism, but I don't know if this is what it means really. Certainly the Buddha points to something beyond mortal suffering, but it may not be a matter of 'oneself living forever'.

Maybe this 'void within us' which you refer to is actually the 'thirst' which the Buddha shows is the cause of suffering in the Second Noble Truth? So perhaps you are thinking that release comes from filling this void, whereas it might come from understanding how it arises and bringing it to an end. As you notice, it cannot ever be filled. This is the nature of craving.

'Being satisfied with what we have' is not a bad thing. But I don't know if it points to the end of suffering as such. Maybe it is just learning to adjust to an unsatisfactory situation. But keep considering this question and the Buddhist attitude to it.

@Paracelsus,

Paracelsus;79727 wrote:

I dont think I would enjoy it personally, after all what would your life be reduced too and how over crowded would the planet be or are we talking about a post physical state of immortality.

Which brings me to raise the point if we are immortal and exist in Heaven once the physical body is gone. How old would I be? Would my heavenly body be the age of which I died? Is age a factor? Would I still have to shave? Would I still wear glasses? And what would I wear? Prada? Armani? Or would we all be reduced to wearing white flowing robes?

From a theological perspective this is a serious question, just ask a Mormon!:devilish:

i think you came to an awkward assumption that we will indeed have any physical form at all. the after-life that you are questioning now is the same as what we are taught when a loved one dies when we are children. a social crutch for them, and a metaphysical crutch for those you fear death or in search of something more than what we can physically see

@haribol acharya,

Life is meaningful only if it is eternal.

@Shlomo,

Shlomo;94107 wrote:

Life is meaningful only if it is eternal.

I would somewhat agree with that. Our lives now seem to be without meaning. "Born from oblivion. Live our lives lacking anything better to do. Bear children as hell bound as ourselves. Go into oblivion. There is nothing else." -Watchmen
We are creatures that are born, live, will die and be forgotten; this certainly feels meaningless.

You have to ask, though, how would an eternal existence give us true purpose? I will go read a book and I know it will end. I'll enjoy the story and its development, and I'll be sad when it ends (if I liked it, that is). But this is better than reading a book that will never end. A never ending story seems almost more pointless than a story that has an end.

@Shlomo,

Shlomo;94107 wrote:

Life is meaningful only if it is eternal.

I would be interested to hear an explanation of 'eternal'. On face value, life is definitely limited to a pretty short period. So what does this actually mean?

(I know some people in a minority Christian sect whose beliefs include 'physical immortality' - something along the lines of the 'chosen 144,000' who will be selected for eternal life, which means exactly that - individual humans that live 'forever'. They don't talk too much about it to outsiders.)

@haribol acharya,

People have to stop equating the fact that there's no meaning for your personal ego, with the broader statement that there is no meaning.

The ego is simply a particular convergence of the Will, such that the elements of possibility are choked into a thought-pattern. The Self moves beyond the phenomena to grasp the essence of being, through the act of becoming.

@haribol acharya,

Well, if passing value from one generation to the next, evolving consciousness, is immortal...

@Smiley451,

Smiley451;94171 wrote:

You have to ask, though, how would an eternal existence give us true purpose? I will go read a book and I know it will end. I'll enjoy the story and its development, and I'll be sad when it ends (if I liked it, that is). But this is better than reading a book that will never end. A never ending story seems almost more pointless than a story that has an end.

Einstein's theory states that if you move with the speed of light, time stops. In other words, you can throw away the useless piece of metal called watch, time is abolished. That does not mean everything procrastinates, to the contrary, everything happens instantly. Instead of boring routine - the ecstasy if instant realization. But this is true for insider, not for outsider.

Eternity is not endlessness, it is timelessness.

---------- Post added 09-30-2009 at 12:49 AM ----------

rhinogrey;94184 wrote:

People have to stop equating the fact that there's no meaning for your personal ego, with the broader statement that there is no meaning.

ValueRanger;94197 wrote:

Well, if passing value from one generation to the next, evolving consciousness, is immortal...

One my friend put it this way: "Life is eternal, we are not".

I do NOT agree with this. Death of spirit is absurd. It could only be possible if spirit was derived from matter. But even when an organism dies, the matter does not die, it goes on. So why should spirit die?

@Shlomo,

I think most, if not all, people want immortality. Whether it is nominal, memorial, or belief in a physical or supersensible afterlife, we seek some form of it when we find that our biological life will end.

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