Religion is about eternity.

Paradise in its variant forms is, by definition, eternal.

Nirvana, by negating the ephemeral, is eternal.

For mortals, eternity is beyond reach.

Yet, in another sense, everything is eternal. This thing may not last forever in this form; when this thing ceases to be manifested in this form, it moves on and continues to exist in a changed form. In essence, this thing, whatever it is, never ceases to be. It is the form that changes and gives the impression of one thing dying and a discrete new thing being born. The existence of this thing never ends.

Or does it ever?

Beyond the theoretical, we have no definitive answer.

There is a shortcut ladder to eternity: since eternity can be equated with timelessness, to transcend the temporal dimension is as good as achieving eternity.

But who can attain that, except in the conceptual world of the mind?

It does not matter, for this conceptual realisation in the mind will create euphoria and a sense of elation in the physicality of our being. That's good enough. It's good enough because we experience our existence through our physical senses. We therefore judge the quality of our existence by comparing and contrasting the data captured by our sensory organs when we find ourselves in different states of being.

On a slightly different note...

Think, for a moment, about the origin of the universe: that moment when matter came into being... what has happened since seems to prove that whatever comes into being has an innate tendency to prolong its existence.

Maybe that innate tendency is the gene that is embedded in everything in this universe as we know it.

In physics, that tendency is manifested as an array of forces that bind particles together.

It is easy to impart a personified spirit to these forces: God.

The very existence of this universe, and everything in it, proves the existence of these forces and, thereby, proves the existence of God, the personified embodiment of the creative, the generative and the promotive.

But do these forces have an "intention"? Or is there an "intention" underlying these forces? Is there a "plan"? I will discuss that in a future article.

Celestial bodies come and go; matter goes through metamorphosis; the cosmic landscape mutates...

But that "gene" is eternal: the innate tendency to be born and to remain in existence, be it a life form as commonly defined or an inanimate object.

Once you recognise this "gene", you see eternity.

It is that simple.

Any pursuit of eternity by attempting to prolong the existence of a particular form of being is doomed to failure, because of the dialectics of change and eternity:

It is through change that the eternity of the gene is preserved; it is thanks to the eternal nature of the gene that change can happen: if this thing ends and ends for good, there would be nothing left to change.

At this point, I am beginning to see that I have, in fact, been unwittingly explaining the meaning of "The Book of Changes", i.e. the triple-layered import of the character 易: Ephemeral, Eternal, Easy.

That was not my intention. I wanted to write something on a different topic, a topic that goes to the heart of the art of meditation.

It seems that my thought on this premeditated topic is not ready to be spelt out yet. So be it.