Real Suicide

 

Photo Credits: IdleHearts

Real Suicide

Taking one’s own life is considered to be legal suicide, but the real suicide is to die while one is alive. Meditation under the guidance of a living Master does that to you. Become a meditator and suicide becomes redundant, because the same result as suicide is achieved through meditation. As it is, death always comes on its own – why should we be in such a hurry? Death will come even if we don’t want it too – we need not go to meet it, it comes uninvited!

It is out of anger, out of desperation, that one wants to commit suicide. The real suicide is to become a sannyasin. And the ordinary suicide will not help much, we will be born immediately into some other womb somewhere. Some foolish couple will be making love somewhere, remember…and we will be trapped again. We cannot escape so easily — there are fools and fools. Before we escape from this body we will be caught in another net. And again, we will have to go to school and college and university — just think of that! Think of all those miserable experiences - that will prevent us from committing suicide.

Why does one want to commit suicide? Maybe life is not going the way we want it to go? But who are we to impose our way on life, our will on life? Maybe our desires are not fulfilled? But then drop the desires! Why drop one’s own self? Maybe our expectations are not fulfilled, and we are feeling frustrated? In frustration one wants to destroy. And there are only two possibilities — either murder somebody or murder oneself. Murdering somebody else is more dangerous, so people start thinking of murdering themselves. But it is murder of the self, suicide.

With real suicide, we can go on for ever. Getting self-realisation and then moving towards liberation by freeing oneself of desires and ego. One can attain the state of liberation and merge with universal consciousness through one’s regular meditative practice, then physical death by suicide will not be required, as one attains the state of death while being alive. One becomes void and lives from moment to moment.

The state of samadhi is attained through regular practice of meditation by living a life of purity and selflessness. This is as good as physical suicide, if not better, because we live in society and still not in society.

It is like becoming a Buddha, dying spiritually. Buddhism has a special name for it – ‘Anagami’ – one who does not return. One who has gone to the farthest shore and will not be coming back. Then no womb can be a trap for such a person again.