Is It Better to Let the Poor and the Sick Die?
Questioner: We know that currently the Earth is overpopulated. People around me very loosely say that the people who are physically, mentally, or economically not so well off, they are better off dead. So, I want to ask, what is your take on this? And what do you think is the reason for such insensitivity?
Acharya Prashant: Basic lack of love towards life, which is consciousness, what else? This question should be accompanied by the query—how do people manage to kill so many animals for flesh every day? Billions of animals every day! And someone who gleefully gloats over animal flesh and stuffs it in, how far is he from demanding that all the disabled, and the poor, and the destitute people be simply jettisoned?
We are cruel people. We are very animalistic and if we can’t see that, that’s just because of our animalism, that’s the problem, right? The more animalistic you are, the less you see that you are an animal. And we are doing that every day and we call ourselves cultured and civilized and what not. And look at the way these trucks and carriers full of chicken and goats, and lambs, they weave through our cities. So many times, your own vehicle would have stopped behind one of those vehicles that carry those small cells in which chicken are stashed, have you seen one of them? And you would have seen those birds and you would have just gone on, continued with your day; that’s the kind of people we are.
And you visit a great restaurant, a very expensive one; and the more expensive it is, the more you have food items marked with red dots on the menu. In fact, it is becoming difficult to get even vegetarian food, leave alone vegan. I was travelling by these important airlines and they brought the food menu. This was just three days back, I was returning from IIT Guwahati and happened both ways to and from. First of all, there was only one vegan option and that too was not available. So ultimately, in their vegetarian section, they had chole and paratha (Indian chickpeas curry and Indian bread), and the paratha too was made of ghee (clarified butter). So, I said, “Just give me the chole , that’s all, nothing else and some salad if you may.” That’s the kind of people we are, you know.
Think of an aircraft, a sophisticated piece of technology flying at thirty-seven thousand feet. Think of that—thirty-seven thousand feet above the clouds and yet we kill like beasts, that’s what it is. In absence of self-knowledge, our intellect has fallen prey to the inner beast; the inner beast is commanding the intellect. So, we have come up with sophisticated methods to kill. If you look for a modern slaughterhouse on the internet, it is very well managed, very professionally run and uses state of art technology; that’s the kind of people we are.
Now, how does it surprise you that if we look at someone who is debilitated and needs help, we start wishing that this person is gotten rid of asap (as soon as possible), because we don’t want to take care him. And yeah, it’s all quite bad and all very violent.
Though there is something, I would like to add to this. If I ever get terribly sick, obviously I hope I would have lived the kind of life in which I would not have surrounded myself with people who wish me an early exit ,just because they don’t want to take care of me. So, obviously there will be people around who will say, “Let him stay, let him stay. Let’s take care of him. Even if he is on his death bed, even if he is turned almost a vegetable, even if he has to be on the ventilator for long; let him be.” That’s what those people must say, if I have lived rightly, right? That’s their Dharma , that’s their love, that’s for them to say.
But if I am that critically, and that chronically, and that irretrievably ill, my Dharma probably would be to choose my own departure; though that’s my Dharma , not yours. If you are by my bedside, you should be prepared to invest everything in my return. You should say, “It does not matter how much money it takes or whatever, but I want this person to survive?” And it’s not about me in particular, it’s about anyone you truly love. The role of the care taker is to say, “I want to see him back. I want to see him on his feet. Even if there is zero-point one percent probability that this person can be retrieved from his death bed, I am prepared to bet.”
But the one who is in kind of terminal state, hopeless state, it is upon him to then say, “I am choosing to go!” But those words must come from the one who is ill, not from the ones who are to take care of him. And both must follow their *Dharma*—the one who is so ill that he sees that there is no point living on. “It’s just that too many resources are being spent on me, and my life itself is now a waste on the time and energy of so many care takers. So, money is being wasted on me, time, energy is being wasted on me and my life itself is of no good because I cannot do any creative work anymore.”
He should, all by him then say, rather declare that, “It’s time for me to go. Give me a loving and respectable farewell now. I am going!”
So, it’s not as if being compassionate would mean that the society must necessarily be full of old, and sick, and comatose people. No! If we have a society that has real compassion, and real compassion arises only from true understanding; then the dying one would also have the compassion to say that I want to now go. And I think, this is something that each of us must necessarily choose. We are conscious beings you see, and consciousness is choice. Death is not something that we should ever leave to chance.
Just as all scientific progress is a choice to improve the quality of life, and so much progress in medical science is a choice to elongate both the quality and length of the life. Similarly, you should exercise choice in the matter of your departure; never leave it to chance. When you know for sure that you are not redeemable anymore, then it is my personal conviction that you should not just needlessly keep hanging on. You should have courage to say good bye at the time of your choice, right?
That decision obviously cannot be made in a moment of desperation or despondency—you are feeling very ill or there is a lot of pain and then you say, “Oh, I want to die.” No! No, not that kind of a choice, but a very informed and calm choice, made with a still and sound mind.
Such a double standard we have: when it comes to others, we want to kill the others for the smallest and the lowest kinds of reason possible. “I want to kill a little lamb because the meat is tender.” What stupidity! What Stupidity! It’s not even a grown-up sheep, you are talking of a little lamb—sometimes just a few months old. And you are saying the flesh is soft and juicy—I hate to use that word ‘juicy’ for flesh. And you want to see it killed and the lamb is just what three months? Five or six months something?
And when it comes to your own life, you want to keep hanging on even if you are ninety-five. The three months old lamb is to be slaughtered, and you are ninety-five now. Go! You have over stayed than your time. Go! And it’s not about being ninety-five, it’s about being useless now. And it’s not about being useless to the society, it’s about being useless to yourself now—you are of no use even to yourself. Half the time you are unconscious, the other half you are preparing to be unconscious. What is this life? Purely on medicines you are surviving. Go, make an honorable exit! Let there be dignity even in death, do not drag on.
Questioner: Hello Sir. Following up on previous discussion, my question is about Euthanasia. As we know there have been many movies made on mercy killing and euthanasia is also being legalized in seven countries now—with Canada recently extending the law to people with mental illnesses. I wanted to know your views regarding this and if you believe that it is morally justified or not?
Acharya Prashant: Obviously it is and it should not be even called as mercy killing. It’s a part of your fundamental right to be alive. Today itself, one of your batch-mates queried me on Article-21. Article-21 is not just a right to live, it’s the right to a dignified life. That’s what the court have said—the right to a dignified life. And a dignified life includes a death of dignity, there is no mercy in that. It’s my right to die, it’s my right to die!
Obviously, I repeat, the decision to depart has to be made in equanimity, in calmness of mind with due attention, deliberation. It cannot come from an emotional state, it cannot come from a state of pain, it cannot be akin to suicide. There has to be a difference between dying by suicide and choosing a death of dignity. When you say suicide, usually that comes from an impassioned state of mind; usually that comes when you can no longer bear the suffering that life is.
So, I am differentiating this thing—the right to go, the right to depart. Just as Article-21 says ‘The right to live’, it should include ‘The Right to Depart’. So, the right to depart—this must be a very inalienable human right, a very fundamental right. Yes, it should be there. It should be there and if we live rightly, then we will find that we are not leaving our death to chance. I repeat, consciousness is choice. If everything in life must be subject to your conscious choice, then so must be your death. Why must death be random? Why must death be accidental?
The more medical science progresses, the more you will have control over everything that is accidental. You see, we have already increased our life spans so much, correct? The number of octogenarians and nonagenarians is at an all-time high, we never had so many old people in history. The number of people beyond hundred is rushing into an unbelievably large figure. Average life expectancy in many countries in Europe, for example, is well beyond eighty; even in our own country it is entering mid-seventies. When we will have the census—it is due—we will have more precise figures.
So, you have extended life and it is possible that average life expectancy can be stretched to even hundred, or hundred and twenty-five. Medical science is at its job—researchers and scientists are doing what they must. So, you can be made to live for many more decades even after hundred. Then it will become even more imperative that you get the right to depart.
Choice must not lie only in extending life, choice must lie also in ending life. Life cannot be just about being able to breathe or to see; life has to be purposeful.
When you are alive, there has to be a purpose to the life. It’s another matter that those who have known life, they say that the purpose of life is to come to a point to purposelessness. Alright, at the cost of sounding conceited, that was my own quote. What is the purpose of life? To come to a point where you laugh at this question. Coming to purposelessness is the purpose of life—so there is a purpose. You cannot just randomly start saying that you are purposeless.
At your stage, where you are, you cannot be purposeless. You ought to have a purpose. And when you find that you are no more in a state to pursue that purpose, come on tell me why do you want to live any longer? Just lying somewhere like a vegetable, for what? For what? Let your life be high and let your death be an equal to your life.
I just hope, I am not encouraging with suicidal tendencies. People can misinterpret anything, what I am saying is—live a great life and when it’s your time to go, then just don’t stick around and delay, and weep, and what not.
