We have all experienced different dimensions in our life, to name just three: waking, deep sleep and dreaming. Yet when it comes to describing or imagining the afterlife, I’ve read very few accounts postulating how awareness could shift between various levels; rather, life (or lack of life) after death tends to be portrayed as an uninterrupted hum all at one frequency, the three major frequencies:
1) awareness within a specific form, like a light body ;
2) formless awareness, that is, our consciousness merging with undifferentiated oneness, an ocean of universal consciousness;
3) complete obliteration without a trace of conscious awareness.
Why is this? Why can’t we think in terms of alternating between various frequencies or modes of awareness, perhaps even with an occasional shift into oblivion? And these questions are compounded if we also think of our bodily existence on Planet Earth continuing forever, that is, if we, in effect, become part of the race of The Immortals. Welcome to the world created in this Borges tale.
FRAMEWORK
A narrator, a man we can envision as having much in common with Jorge Luis Borges, provides a verbatim transcription of a document a French princess purchased in an old London bookshop after a conversation she had with the grubby old bookdealer in various languages: French, English, Spanish, Portuguese.
Ah, that extraordinary document. As we learn, the princess walked out of the shop with Alexander Pope's rendering of Homer’s Iliad in six volumes and later found this rare document on The City of the Immortals squeezed in the pages.
Oh, yes, vintage Borges: the narrator isn’t claiming to invent the story; quite the contrary, he's sharing a story contained in a rare document.
NARRATOR OF THE IMMORTALS
The document’s narrator provides us with his backstory: he's an officer in the Roman army in Egypt, part of the Roman legions that have recently defeated Egyptian forces. However, since he himself didn’t participate in any of the bloody combat, he's inspired to embark on an adventure through the deserts in quest of the secret City of the Immortals.
Interesting to note: the narrator is an adventurous soldier, hale, hearty, a bold leader of men and lover of the god Mars. In many ways, he functions as the complete opposite, the alter ego, to the frail, bookish, solitary Borges.
THE SPARK
Here's how it all began: one day a stranger, exhausted, covered in blood, rides into the Roman camp and, prior to dropping dead that very evening, speaks of how he is searching for the river that purifies men of death. He goes on to say beyond the river lies the City of the Immortals, a city filled with bulwarks, amphitheaters and temples.
With the inclusion of amphitheaters as part of his description of the City of the Immortals, we are given a direct signal that what is contained within its walls shares a common culture with the Greco-Roman world.
Anyway, the stranger’s words fire the narrator's spirit and imagination - thus, primed for an astonishing discovery, off he goes with two hundred soldiers under his command, soldiers provided complements of a high-ranking military commander.
GOING SOLO
As the narrator informs us, the first part of the journey proves harrowing, grueling and strenuous beyond endurance - most of his men are either driven mad or die, while others, attempting desertion, face torture or crucifixion. Also in this initial phase, the seekers cross lands and deserts inhabited by fantastic tribes, including the Troglodytes who “devour serpents and lack all verbal commerce.”
Events reach such a pitch he's informed by a soldier loyal to his cause that the remaining men wish to avenge the crucifixion of one of their comrades and plan to kill him. The narrator subsequently flees camp with several soldiers but disaster hits: in the fury of blinding desert whirlwinds he quickly gets separated - from now on, he is on his own.
TURNING POINT
Our narrator wanders for days in the desert, forever scorched by the sun and parched by thirst until his living nightmare shifts and somehow he finds himself bound hands behind his back and lying in a stone niche the size of a grave on the slope of a mountain. There’s a stream running at the foot of this mountain and beyond the stream he beholds the dazzling structures of - miracle of miracles, the City of the Immortals.
Marcus Flaminius Rufus (yes, at this point the narrator lets us know his name) can also see numerous holes riddling the mountain and valley and from these holes emerge grey skinned naked men with scraggly beards, men he recognizes as belonging to the race of Troglodytes.
INITIAL EXPLORATION
After many days and having finally freed himself from his bonds, Marcus enters the City of the Immortals. Soon after he explores the periphery, we read, “The force of the day drove me to seek refuge in a cavern; toward the rear there was a pit, and out of the pit, out of the gloom below, rose a ladder. I descended the ladder and made my way through a chaos of squalid galleries to a vast, indistinct circular chamber. Nine doors opened into that cellar-like place; eight led to a maze that returned deceitfully, to the same chamber; the ninth led through another maze to a second circular chamber identical to the first.”
Anybody familiar with Jorge Luis Borges will recognized recurrent themes: mazes, caverns, ladders, doors, circular chambers.
FURTHER EXPLORATION
Having spent what appears an eternity underground, Marcus spots a series of metal rungs on a wall leading to a circle of sky. He climbs the ladder, sobbing with tears of joy, until he emerges into a type of small plaza within the brilliant City.
Marcus senses the city's antiquity and wanders along staircases and inlaid floors of a labyrinthine palace thinking how all what he sees is the work of the gods or, more accurately, gods who have died or, even, perhaps, since much of the architecture appears to lack any trace of practical purpose, gods who went mad.
“I had made my way through a dark maze, but it was the bright City of the Immortals that terrified and repelled me.” And this is only the beginning: as Marcus further discovers, there are revelations even more astonishing, including the shocking true identity of one of those Troglodytes.
UNIVERSAL QUESTIONS
The second half of the tale takes a decidedly philosophical turn and, in the spirit of this Borges classic, I will conclude with a series of question posed either directly or indirectly by the narrator:
• How does memory relate to immortality? Is the erasure of our memory the first step in achieving immortality?
• Likewise, how does time relate to immortality and is the erasure of time a critical step in experiencing immortality?
• If we were to experience a state free of memory and time in this life, through powerful hallucinogens, deep meditation or otherwise, have we achieved a kind of immortality, at least for a time?
• What part does ecstasy and bliss play in the state or experience of immortality?
• How far does the consequences of our action extend? To a subsequent rebirth or afterlife in another state?
• How much weight should we give to history or a specific epoch of history? To our own personal history? How much of history is so much smoke and mirrors?
• What role does transformation on any level, physical, mental, artistic, spiritual, play in our life?
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