An Eternity of Imperfection

It was the smell, or smells rather, that first captivated Eddie as he pushed the door open. He had been instructed to enter the apartment without knocking and without waiting to be shown in. The heady aromatic cocktail reached his nostrils before the door was open enough for him to see inside. He paused a moment to attempt to distinguish all the different fragrances that welcomed him, and concluded that the ingredients were the following: stewing vegetables, spices (particularly ginger and cumin), unvarnished wood, musty books, and incense. This established, he pushed the door further and was immediately impressed by a hushed sense of calm. No voices, no footsteps, no television or music broke the silence. He stepped inside, acutely aware of the sound his own shoes made on the wooden floorboards. It was quite a relief when he noticed, to the left, shelves with several pairs of shoes on them, over which hung a small sign that read: "Please leave your shoes on the shelves and your phone, completely switched off, in the bowl on the adjacent cabinet." He took his shoes off as quietly as possible and as he did so, he looked around. He found himself in a wide corridor with wooden floorboards, lined with bookshelves stacked with old books (he had been right about that smell), and ornaments, little statues of Indian deities and ceramic candle holders. Some framed abstract pictures leant on the books. Only two or three closed doors were interspersed between the shelves. The corridor led to a wooden staircase, it was one of those top floor duplex apartments. From the outside, the door had looked like any other in the grey block. But inside it was unlike any other dwelling Eddie had entered in a long while. Most habitations today were seemingly designed with only functionality, comfort and entertainment in mind; this one seemed to speak straight to his soul, and the silence let him believe he might finally hear what this deeper version of himself had to say. Eddie began to make his way down the corridor, pausing occasionally to read the titles on the tattered spines of the books. When he looked again at the stairs, he suddenly noticed a figure standing at the top, where he was sure no one had stood a minute ago. The man who looked down at Eddie was draped in white robes, with one bare shoulder and a shaved head. A red dot was painted on his forehead. So this, thought Eddie, was the great Baba Chidananda, or Babaji, as he was affectionately referred to. The man he had dreamt of meeting for so many years stood silently at the top of the staircase in front of him with clasped hands. Eddie cleared his throat to introduce himself, but Babaji placed a finger on his lips and gestured to Eddie to follow him.

Eddie was aware of the smooth floorboards under his socks as he walked, treading gently up the stairs, wishing his thighs were thinner as even the sound of his trousers rubbing together seemed too much. Babaji seemed to glide, as if his feet didn't actually touch the floor underneath the long white fabric. Bookshelves lined the corridor upstairs, just as they had on the ground floor.

A few agonisingly self-conscious steps later, Eddie followed Babaji into a room which contrasted starkly with the corridor they came from. There were no books, no paintings and no ornaments in this room, not even any furniture. No windows interrupted the expanse of white wall, but rays of sunshine bore directly down from a skylight on to two hard round cushions placed in the middle of the floor. The floor too was white, as was the ceiling above it. Here in this almost empty space, the silence felt more pregnant even than in the hushed corridors.

Babaji sat on one of the cushions, arranging his robes around his crossed legs. He gestured to the other cushion, which Eddie took as invitation to sit down. Now more self-conscious than ever, he stiffly made his way down to the floor, opting to sit on his knees. He looked at the man opposite him, sitting effortlessly straight, and tried to pull his own shoulders back, only feeling that this made his belly protrude more. His legs underneath him already began to tingle. Joyful awe and admiration fought against crushing thoughts of inferiority for a place at the forefront of his mind. Questions wrestled there too, that Eddie had practised over and over in anticipation of this meeting. Babaji however, only brushed his hand over his face, in a silent invitation to Eddie to close his eyes. Eddie did so, and waited. The silence pressed against his ears, as minute after minute he hoped for Babaji to utter some opening words of a discussion. Eddie was not able to say how long he had waited when Babaji finally did invite him, verbally this time, to open his eyes. He had to admit that the long silence probably had something to do with the way the words entered his consciousness with razor sharp precision, now that Babaji finally spoke. Eddie only hoped his tingling legs would not bring the meeting to a premature end, they were increasingly uncomfortable.

‘What brings you here, friend?’ came Babaji's measured voice.

‘Babaji, forgive me if I repeat untrue things, but it is said that you have opted out of the immortality programme, that you do not take the pills which promise us eternal existence.’

‘What you have heard is true,’ replied the sage. ‘It pains me that longevity, or indeed even immortality, is no longer tied to the notion of merit. It is two thousand and twenty-nine, that is to say, only five years since the pills were introduced. In this short time, people have learnt to live with unnameable arrogance. Longevity and good health were, previously, things which most often had to be earned through self-discipline. Of course, there were always lucky people and unlucky people, but as a general rule, sensible living led to long living. Some people were still unable to discipline themselves, even as they watched their body decay. They knew they were partly responsible for their decrepitude, but still they could only observe. Some people strived for greater perfection, and were rewarded. Today, people can live eternally in complete imperfection.’

‘Yes,’ replied Eddie, ‘and in the past, the natural reward for healthy living was only longevity, not immortality.’

‘Perhaps,’ said Babaji, ‘but if a person can live a hundred years or more because they have achieved a greater balance, who's to say they can't live two hundred, or a thousand, or a million years, if that balance is maintained? Many ancient spiritual texts imply that a fully evolved human being is indeed immortal. I do not cheat with their immortality drugs, but I fully intend to prolong my own existence by my own means.’

Eddie was stunned. He had come to this meeting expecting to hear a different kind of wisdom. He wanted to nurture his own intentions to return to the mortal state by listening to someone else's experience of resisting the treatment. Babaji had indeed resisted the treatment, but not the ideal it promoted. He was just taking a different path to the same place.

‘Why would you do that Babaji?’ he asked after long silence. ‘I used to dream of immortality when it was still only a scientific fantasy, dream of all the extra time it would give me to work. Now that I have it, I feel I have lost everything.’

Babaji raised one eyebrow and his head leaned to one side, inquisitively.

‘I had a dream,’ continued Eddie. ‘I had something important to accomplish. I wanted to write a book about this crazy time we live in, about the humanity we are slowly losing touch with. I wanted to leave my mark on the world, go down in history as a great writer. It felt urgent, but now... now nothing is urgent. Why start tomorrow when I have a thousand years if I want them?’

‘Why start at all?’ Babaji's words cut into Eddie's heart like a knife wound. ‘Only your ego needs to leave its mark. Your soul only needs to be.’

‘Is that what you intend to do?’ replied Eddie, hurt now that his dream had been dismissed as an ego trip. ‘Just be, sitting in this white room, for thousands of years to come? Will you not be bored, Babaji?’

 ‘No,’ replied Babaji, his measured voice becoming more forceful now. ‘I will be in ecstatic bliss, but you have no knowledge of that state, evidently.’

``‘I don't think I want to know it,’ replied Eddie, suddenly calm. ‘I want.... I want to feel I have achieved something great in my life. And I realise now that I don't care if I end up shooting a bullet through my head like Hemingway, or drowning at the bottom of a river with rocks in my pockets like Virginia Woolf, or weakening slowly, my lungs riddled with tuberculosis like D.H. Lawrence. One great novel, even just one, with or without recognition, would have been enough for one lifetime. But what can be enough for all eternity?’

‘You, Eddie, you are enough,’ replied Babaji. ‘You, in perfect balance. You, as living proof that vital energy can be eternally renewed, and your physical body pure enough to last forever.’

‘Forgive me, Babaji,’ replied Eddie, increasingly sure of himself, ‘but I think you are missing the point. My physical body is of no importance to humanity, and neither is yours for that matter. It can only give you the understanding that comes from one person's experience. But if we succeed in encapsulating the truth of that experience in words, or in pictures, or any other durable medium, then what we leave behind as our physical bodies wither is truly eternal.’

Something in Babaji's posture weakened then, possibly a slight drooping of the shoulders, or a misgiving in his facial expression, betrayed a loss of composure.

‘I'm going to stand up now,’ said Eddie, ‘because my mind doesn't work so well when the veins in my legs are crushed to a point of disfunction. I'm also going to call you Steven, because we both know that's your real name, don't we?’

Babaji, or Steven, remained seated, looking through narrowed eyes now at the man standing above him.

‘And that truth,’ continued Eddie, riding triumphantly on a flow of incisive, victorious words, ‘that truth is supposed to grow from generation to generation. We each contribute something to the bank of knowledge and experience that belongs to all humanity, and that can only be built upon by that same humanity constantly renewing itself. For as long as we live forever, whether it be through artificial or authentic means, our evolution grinds to a halt.’

Eddie paused then and threw a packet of pills on the floor.

‘Here Steven, I don't want these anymore, but you'll be needing them, because you're nowhere near the balance your ego loves to talk about. White robes and bindis won't take you there.’

‘I will never take the pills,’ said Steven. ‘I would rather die trying to be perfect than live forever in eternal imperfection. I know I am not there yet, I know the risk I am taking, but I am slowly working through my tainted self to higher things.’

‘Oh you'll take the pills alright,’ said Eddie. ‘You tell yourself that pretty story, but you're not ready to die. You will only be ready to die when you realise how important death is. Death gives us everything worth living for. It gives us the desire to leave a mark on the world we will one day leave. And whatever we have to do to leave that mark is urgent, a matter of great importance and priority, because we don't know how much time we have to do it in. Death also makes us love life, because life is limited, and so it is precious. Or at least it did, it did do all that. And it did all that so decisively, so powerfully, because it was unavoidable, unstoppable. No human had ever resisted its grip, cracked the code. It was crushing, unpredictable, cruel, capricious, and yet so generous. It was the source of everything we knew, the beating pulse of urgency and renewal, courage and greatness, achievement and creation, humility and gratitude. And now... now where are we? We don't even know if the pills actually work yet, they've only been here five years, but we believe they do, and that's enough for all that to evaporate. My dream has gone, and so have billions of others.’

Eddie paused then, which added great dramatic effect to this climatic part of his speech, then continued, quietly:

‘The worse thing is, that there is no turning back now. Even if I stop taking the pills, death will not take back its power. They've made it optional, pathetic, avoidable. How can I ever feel the urgency to act, the satisfaction of achievement, the preciousness of finite life, when I can never be entirely sure that the pills will never tempt me back? How can I yearn to leave a mark on a world where that is a forgotten concept? They call it an optional programme when actually they have chosen for everybody.’

Steven let his head fall in his hands now, and stayed there, his shoulders hunched, cradling his head, and rocking gently backwards and forwards for a few moments. When he looked up the red dot on his forehead was smudged.

‘Please leave now,’ he said to Eddie. ‘I feel that my energy is depleted by your presence.’

Eddie sighed. There was nothing left to say anyway. The short conversation had annihilated the wise image he had upheld of Babaji all these years. He took one last look at the bent shaven head. The naked pink shoulder looked rather pathetic now. He slowly left the room and walked pensively down the corridor, letting his eyes travel absently over the book titles. One of the spines caught his attention then, and he pulled an antique copy of The Picture of Dorian Gray, from between two Sanskrit titles.

‘How fitting,’ he muttered softly to himself. ‘Come with me Oscar, you won't be missed here.’ He tucked the book into the inside pocket of his jacket.

He stood then for a moment at the top of the stairs, looking down at the cosy corridor below him, trying to make sense of all the contradictions he had discovered since entering the scented abode earlier that day. As he stood, looking and thinking in silence, a door opened between two bookshelves. Eddie jumped at first, he knew Steven lived alone in celibacy, and wasn't expecting to see anyone on the ground floor whilst he had left his old idol behind him on the first floor. His surprise was even greater when he saw a woman coming out of the door, walking towards him. She hadn't noticed him yet. She wore a black silk kimono, which only covered the top third of her thighs. The rest of her long slim legs were bare. Her long chestnut hair was piled on top of her head, and a few curls fell around her face. She hummed softly. She looked up as she began to walk up the stairs, and stopped in her tracks when she saw Eddie. Her long lashes didn't look real as she looked at him, wide-eyed and startled, and drew in a quick breath through very red lips. Then she turned and ran, disappearing back between the bookshelves. She closed the door behind her, but the space struggled to regain the hazy aura of spirituality, as her sweet, clinging perfume hung in the air, between the stewing vegetables and musty books.