The Riches of Eternity Are Yours

Recently I listened to the book The Man Who Knew Infinity about the brilliant Indian mathematician Srinivas Ramanujan. The story of this man is incredible—he was essentially self-taught in mathematics in the slums of India and produced such an enormous amount of mathematical insights that it is still being digested today over 100 years later. His genius was recognized by the British mathematician G.H. Hardy who became his champion and collaborator in England for several years. Though I was not familiar with Ramanujan when I listened to the book, one story that the book tells about the two of them I had heard before. G.H. Hardy recalled, “I remember once going to see him when he was ill at Putney. I had ridden in taxi cab number 1729 and remarked that the number seemed to me rather a dull one, and that I hoped it was not an unfavorable omen. ‘No’, he replied, ‘it is a very interesting number; it is the smallest number expressible as the sum of two cubes in two different ways.’” What Ramanujan meant, and somehow knew off the top of his head, was that 12³ + 1³ and 9³ + 10³ are both equal to 1729, and 1729 is the smallest number that can be written like that as the sum of two cubes. That is just one small anecdote highlighting his incredible intellectual powers. Hardy summarized it this way, “His insight into formulae was quite amazing, and altogether beyond anything I have met with in any European mathematician…. Here was a man who could work out modular equations and theorems... to orders unheard of, whose mastery of continued fractions was... beyond that of any mathematician in the world, who had found for himself the functional equation of the zeta function and the dominant terms of many of the most famous problems in the analytic theory of numbers.” From my perspective he clearly had a gift from God, but he would have remained essentially unknown and forgotten had not G.H Hardy taken him in and given him the opportunity to be seen by the world.

His story highlights to me that there is the seed for greatness in all of God’s children. Though most of us will perhaps never be viewed as a genius to the world, we have the same unlimited potential. It reminds me of this quote by C.S. Lewis: “It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree helping each other to one or the other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all of our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations - these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.” The Lord described succinctly His work for all of us to Moses when He said, “For behold, this is my work and my glory—to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man” (Moses 1:39). That “eternal life” part means that He wants us to have the life He has, which implies becoming like He is. The Savior put it this way in the Sermon on the Mount, not as an aspiration but a command, “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). His view of what we can each become is far greater than we can imagine—God wants us to be like Him, which implies a level of knowledge and ability we cannot even fathom today. In the oath and covenant of the priesthood He expressed His plan for us this way: “And also all they who receive this priesthood receive me, saith the Lord; For he that receiveth my servants receiveth me; And he that receiveth me receiveth my Father; And he that receiveth my Father receiveth my Father’s kingdom; therefore all that my Father hath shall be given unto him” (Doctrine and Covenants 84:35-38). All that the Father has surely includes all His knowledge and power and capacity, and unlike us who are usually jealous of others with similar skills to us, He rejoices in the opportunity to share everything He is with all of His children who will come unto Him.

In our mortal, fallen world, though, we may feel very far from this supernal ideal. To us the Lord says this, “Ye cannot behold with your natural eyes, for the present time, the design of your God concerning those things which shall come hereafter, and the glory which shall follow after much tribulation” (Doctrine and Covenants 58:3). Just as the established mathematician Hardy helped to bring out the genius in the obscure Ramanujan, so too will the Savior take us individually and lead us, if we are willing, back to the Father to be with and like Him. However daunting that sounds, He gives us this invitation: “Ye cannot bear all things now; nevertheless, be of good cheer, for I will lead you along. The kingdom is yours and the blessings thereof are yours, and the riches of eternity are yours” (Doctrine and Covenants 78:18).