End of the World

Painting by Adolph Hiremy Hirschl

I grew up listening to a lot of stories about the imminent end of the world.  Jesus spoke pretty much about it and we listened to those biblical verses in the church often enough.  The romantic dreamer in Jesus conjured up a vivid image of “the Son of Man” coming in his glory on the final judgment day, escorted by all the angels.  In that glorious vision, God is a King ensconced on a glittering throne.  The entire mankind will assemble before him.  No one is given a choice, of course.  The King will weigh the virtues and sins of each person and accordingly assign heaven or hell.

It was my childish fancy that the gala event would come soon and I would escape from the misery of life on the earth.  I don’t remember whether I gloated about sitting in heaven and smirking at all the sinners burning in hell. 

As I grew up I realised that Jesus had imagined all those things long ago and nothing happened in all those 2000 years.  In my own little lifetime I came across many other prophets who smugly predicted the end of the world.  Some of them became fabulously wealthy as many people set store by the prophecy and donated their wealth hoping to secure seats in heaven.

I’m now reading a novel, The Book of Strange New Things by Michel Faber, which is set on an alien planet that is being domesticated by the Americans who hope to sell seats to the privileged rich on the earth as the planet is nearing its end.  [My review of the novel will appear in this space tomorrow.]  It is typical of Americans to think of a heaven whose seats will be sold commercially.  They have not left anything more on the earth to be commercialised.

The novel made me ask a question to myself: would I like to buy a seat in that American heaven?  I scorned myself for asking that question.  My childish longing for Jesus’ heaven was less ridiculous. 

What if the world ends?  Nothing, I guess.  I escape from what the Buddha called a misery, life’s misery.  The Buddha wasn’t romantic enough like Jesus to imagine some fantastic heaven up there.  He was profoundly practical to understand that existence was the biggest pain.  He hated existence.  Would he have welcomed the end of the world gleefully?  I can’t imagine the Buddha smiling anyway, even at the prospective end of the world. 

But I prefer the Buddha to Jesus, notwithstanding the fecundity of the latter’s imagination.