The Purpose of Life - Gilgamesh Imortality Story

The journey of Gilgamesh-Wisdom and Goodwill= Imortality
Gilgamesh quest for imortality end up to discovery the purpose of life-

In Babylonian legend, king of Uruk, is the hero of the Gilgamesh epic, It tells of the adventures of the warlike and imperious Gilgamesh and his friend Enkidu. When Enkidu suddenly sickened and died, Gilgamesh became obsessed by a fear of death. His ancestor Ut-napishtim (who with his wife had been the only survivor of a great flood) told him of a plant that gave eternal life. After obtaining the plant, however, Gilgamesh left it unguarded and a serpent carried it off. The hero then turned to the ghost of Enkidu for consoling knowledge of the afterlife, only to be told by his friend that a gloomy future awaited the dead.



Gilgamesh started a journey to discover the cure for death ,he must be a curieus person-- it sound mythy thus, he went through hurdles, he faught monsters, he risk his life , but after he got the plant just a mere sleep took imortality from him , then he has to come back home empty handed, lucky he was loved for what he has done , he has built great during his reign and he could finaly claimed that he actually got imortality because his name is writen in plata of gold in the front of the city for leading challenge to build great civilization among is people. Also , he was a bully in his earlier life but he finaly became a good peron, exemple of this lies how he met Enkindu who does not even have 1 single cloth - but Enkindu has wisdom and the sixth sence to see beyond , and this is what raised him - But since nobody knows tomorow, is better to be good all the time .

What we are going to learn in the story of Gilgamesh?

The stories of Gilgamesh tell us about a triad of human experience:

(1) Our relationship with ourself , ourprophet and God

(2) Our relationships with each other and "Self";

(3) And our relationship with the natural world and the other species that inhabit it. The first category is the house of cosmogony, theology, death, and destiny.

The second, the reside of agriculture, culture, humanities and science, civilization, technology, and genuine warfare. Then there is the planet earth, our environment and stories of homo sapiens living on the land and sea. The categories overlap, evident in seminal essays like "The Land Ethic" where Aldo Leopold suggests that the law of ethics, the evolution of human rights, will be extended to include the land itself and all species that inhabit it.

Mythology of State/ Mythology of Self: a common theme in mythology which underscores the tension between the individual and what the individual desires (private agendas) and the individual and the obligations to the group in which he or she lives (public agendas). Ultimately in most stories the outcome demonstrates how heroes come to understand the necessity of community and thus come to see themselves more clearly as interdependent members of a particular group or society.

Triumph and Tragedy: the twin pillars at the Lion's Gate of Western Thought. Triumph is the genre of the romance/ adventure where the hero overcomes all obstacles; it is the story of unlimited possibility regardless of the agony one faces. In Homer, Odysseus epitomizes the hero who gets it all. On the other hand, Tragedy is about limits to human freedom. Tragedy teaches the consequences of excess. However tragedy as a genre can still be a celebration of life as in the end of the Oresteia.

Someone once said that our secrets are all the same. While I believe in universals among humans, the notion seems difficult to realize in a world of such diversity. In truth, perhaps the best of all of us do share a common hope: to be at peace with the world, to come to terms with the failings of love and the ramifications of hate, to shed the strategies of division that systematically teach us to think narrowly. I believe that mythology often includes a bewildering story of a hero's capacity to do good, to be a living creature with soul and reason--regardless of the agony of life. In this, a great many of the mythic voices are consistent even in the matter of details.

1. The individual in the world, particularly in relationship to others and to the natural world.

Begin with the assumption that storytelling is vital to human health. In History , our relationship to the world at large has been, in part, the story of ethics and humanity, the actualization of equality and peace through narrative art. The central theme of Gilgamesh begins with a simple question: Gilgamesh is portrayed in the prologue as an oppressor or tyrant. What happens to this view of him as the story progresses?

Other themes are worthy of in-depth discussion. Heroes are people who know secret things. Plato's allegory of the cave characterizes the place of the hero within the world. Are heroes ever to be pitied?

2. The limits of creative imagination and human possibility. Gilgamesh pushes the boundaries of known human experience.

3. The significance of history

4. The quest for peace.

5. The role of wilderness in shaping human identity and consciousness

6. Nature and culture: the coming of Enkidu

7. The hero's journey: Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949) delineates the stages of the heroic quest--the call to adventure, the aid of mentors, the crossing of thresholds, the trials and tribulations, the supreme ordeal, the road back, and the revitalization of the community.

Enjoy the poem of his journey:

The one who saw all [Sha nagba imuru ]I will declare to the world,
The one who knew all I will tell about
He saw the great Mystery, he knew the Hidden:
He recovered the knowledge of all the times before the Flood.
He journeyed beyond the distant, he journeyed beyond exhaustion,
And then carved his story on stone.

The skies roared with thunder and the earth heaved,
Then came darkness and a stillness like death.
Lightening smashed the ground and fires blazed out;
Death flooded from the skies.
When the heat died and the fires went out,
The plains had turned to ash.

Father, let me have the Bull of Heaven
To kill Gilgamesh and his city.
For if you do not grant me the Bull of Heaven,
I will pull down the Gates of Hell itself,
Crush the doorposts and flatten the door,
And I will let the dead leave
And let the dead roam the earth
And they shall eat the living. The dead will overwhelm all the living!
The house where the dead dwell in total darkness,
Where they drink dirt and eat stone,
Where they wear feathers like birds,
Where no light ever invades their everlasting darkness,
Where the door and the lock of Hell is coated with thick dust.
When I entered the House of Dust,
On every side the crowns of kings were heaped,
On every side the voices of the kings who wore those crowns,
Who now only served food to the gods Anu and Enlil,
Candy, meat, and water poured from skins.
I saw sitting in this House of Dust a priest and a servant,
I also saw a priest of purification and a priest of ecstasy,
I saw all the priests of the great gods.
There sat Etana and Sumukan,
There sat Ereshkigal, the queen of Hell,
Beletseri, the scribe of Hell, sitting before her.
Beletseri held a tablet and read it to Ereshkigal.
She slowly raised her head when she noticed me
She pointed at me:
"Who has sent this man?"

The gods shook like beaten dogs, hiding in the far corners of heaven,
Ishtar screamed and wailed:
"The days of old have turned to stone:
We have decided evil things in our Assembly!
Why did we decide those evil things in our Assembly?
Why did we decide to destroy our people?
We have only just now created our beloved humans;
We now destroy them in the sea!"
All the gods wept and wailed along with her,
All the gods sat trembling, and wept.

I [Utnapishtim] released a dove from the boat,
It flew off, but circled around and returned,
For it could find no perch.
I then released a swallow from the boat,
It flew off, but circled around and returned,
For it could find no perch.
I then released a raven from the boat,
It flew off, and the waters had receded:
It eats, it scratches the ground, but it does not circle around and return.
I then sent out all the living things in every direction and sacrificed a sheep on that very spot.

At one time Utnapishtim was mortal.
At this time let him be a god and immortal;
Let him live in the far away at the source of all the rivers.

O woe! What do I do now, where do I go now?
Death has devoured my body,
Death dwells in my body,
Wherever I go, wherever I look, there stands Death!

For whom have I labored? For whom have I journeyed?
For whom have I suffered?
I have gained absolutely nothing for myself,
I have only profited the snake, the ground lion!

When Gilgamesh returns to Uruk, he is empty-handed but reconciled at last to his mortality. He knows that he can’t live forever but that humankind will. Now he sees that the city he had repudiated in his grief and terror is a magnificent, enduring achievement—the closest thing to immortality to which a mortal can aspire. The story tell us that life is about doing good, when we do good , we will remain alive forever, Analyzing leaders that have done good and comparing them with tyrant show that they weekend are easy to forget , that also that human actually goodness .

The story also show that - Life is a journey toward wisdom( experience + knowledge /goodness + love) to building commuinty and raise a good generation , not toward death. After we die, we will surely somewhere whee we shall acount for these things - the reality this lie in the shor sheep we have every night , and of course the seasonal of color of the plants every year- the fact we remember good people forever show that we are made in the name of goodness, and goodness is imortality -.

Thus Gilagamesh set out on journey and quest to seize the fruit of imortality- life is sweet and he really want to enjoy it forever , he risked everything , he was determined , he goth there -but no,atter what he cant come back with the precious fruit of imortality -- but he end discovering nothing but the purpose of our existence and living --- wisdom and goodwill-- the importance attched to this to build develop great society and raise good kids or protegee that will make a good generation .