On Suicide
Questioner: Pranaam Acharya Ji. I am a doctor by profession, gynecologist. I work in a rural health sector. My question is about sufferings in the lives of the people and about suicidal tendencies as today is the World's Suicide Prevention Day.
There are many patients I see, they are suffering like anything. They are very poor and illiterate. And even the disabled people come full of tears in their eyes and telling, “It's because of our last janma’s (previous births’s) curse and I have become disabled like that.”
And every alternative day, I see there are cases of the suicides. Two of the people, I have myself done the postmortem of that. The age was around 24 and 26. In 2021, there were about 164,000 suicides in India, and around 800,000 suicides worldwide.
Sometimes by seeing all these sufferings, even I feel like ending my life. Where is the root of this problem? For me it is a challenge to be peaceful by seeing all these things and work at that place and top of that I want to fight my own suicidal tendencies.
I've seen so many people who are well-educated and affluent and they have committed suicide. My own colleague, being a doctor, she had committed. So by seeing all these things sometimes we feel like what is the end of all these sufferings? If Samādhi is the state of being unaffected, of simply being in Samādhi, then it is very difficult. Sometimes we feel like suicide is the easy route.
Acharya Prashant: See, the primary cause of suicide is birth itself. The data that you have that 1.5 or 2 lakh people committed suicide in India the last year is actually existentially wrong. The thing is that the entire population, every single human being born, ends up committing suicide. Birth itself is suffering and the purpose of life is to get rid of suffering.
Even if you live for 80 years or 100 years without attaining that sole purpose of life, what you have died cannot really be called as proper death. It is suicide. You have ended life without letting it attain its climax. What do we call it, if not suicide?
In general, when a person who is 25 or 40 or something or 15 dies by suicide, we find it so regrettable. Why? Because there was so much more to be done and that person ended his or her life, and therefore deprived himself of the opportunity to do more and be more in life, right? And that's why when there is a suicide, we all feel sad. Because a suicide is wastage of opportunity, right? That’s how we define it and that's why suicides are so very lamentable.
The moment we hear that especially if a young person is gone because of suicide, it hurts us badly. Why does it hurt us? Because there was an opportunity and that opportunity was wasted. That person will not be able to now live, learn, grow, experience, realize and be liberated, right? Do we see this? Otherwise why would we find it sad or bad that a fellow is gone early? “Oh! he's gone early. There was a potential to be met, a possibility to be realized.” The potential and the possibility have been squandered, right? That’s the reason suicide is a curse, correct?
Now tell me how many of us even if we live till 80 actually manage to realize our possibility and potential? Hardly anybody. So are we all not then guilty of suicide? But then we say a fellow has committed suicide only if he hangs himself or poisons himself or jumps from a building.
That's when we feel because we are body identified people, and we give credence only to tangible events that are gross Sthūla. So when that kind of a sight appears in front of us, we label it suicide. “Oh this fellow is gone by a suicide because I can see him hanging there, I can see, my eyes can see. There is a tangible event happening. The body is there. The body is hanging and therefore it is possible for me to call it a suicide.”
Why not call it a suicide when the body is not hanging that way but the mind is hanging that way all your life? The body is alive, the mind is suffering. The body is walking, moving, eating. The mind: it can't breathe, it can't fly. Is that not suicide?
Remember the definition of suicide and remember why a suicide is a sad event.
A suicide is a sad event because it prevents us from realizing our possibility, right?
And when you know that there is no chance of realizing your possibility, then even euthanasia is allowed. I might be only 22. But if it is fully established that due to physical reasons I will never be able to move or live any kind of half-decent life, then even law in several countries allows me to end my life, right?
Why is that kind of suicide permissible? Because it is known then in such cases there is no point living on. You will not be able to as we said experience, learn, grow and be liberated. And if you cannot learn and grow and be liberated, then even law allows you to end your life. So you must remember that it is not the end of body that you must call as suicide, it is the end of possibility and potential that you must call as suicide. That is the real definition. Do we see this? Do we see this?
It is not merely the end of the body that is to be labelled as suicide, it is the ending of potential that is to be called as suicide. And when the potential is not available to be realized then we are saying that even the society and the law allow us to end the body. Because the body by itself means nothing, the body by itself is just biology and we are creatures of consciousness, not just biology. Biology is secondary. Consciousness is primary. The consciousness has to be alive. Being alive just bodily and physically does not suffice at all.
So if suicide is to be defined as the ending of potential and possibility, please tell me are we all not guilty of suicide? Please tell me. We have come to our respective ages. Somebody here is 25 there is, somebody is 35, somebody's 55; how far have we come in the direction of our absolute potential? Do we even intend to live fully? Then are we not committing suicide every passing day? Please tell me.
But we live very unsubtle lives. So we do not see that the mind is dying. We are just relieved and satisfied that the body is alive. But then the body being alive cannot be termed as life in case of human beings. We are not animals. How do you know that an animal is alive? You will perform some physical tests and the tests are positive, the animal is alive.
That cannot be the definition of life when it comes to our species. Just because a person is moving, walking, seeing, hearing, eating, inhaling, exhaling, you cannot call that person alive. We are alive when we are conscious and the extent of our aliveness depends on, is proportional to the freedom and the height of our consciousness. That's the definition of life when it comes to Homo sapiens. Now are we alive or are we just walking around like machines, like robots?
Robots do walk. They even talk and if you are not attentive enough, you might feel the robot is a sentient being. We have very advanced robots now. They can almost emote. They can read your face. They can judge your expressions. They can respond accordingly. What's the difference between a robot and a human being? You don't call a robot as alive, right?
Why do you call a human being alive? Because we are conscious. We can understand. No robot can ever understand. We'll be taking up the Bhagavad Gīta today verses from chapter 4. Even the most advanced supercomputer can translate those verses, it can never understand them. Get the difference right, please. No robot can ever understand what the Gita is saying. Not today, not 10,000 years into the future.
That’s what is the definition of life. Your ability to understand and understanding comes with freedom. Understanding and freedom are actually the same thing. No robot will ever yearn for freedom. No robot will ever say why am I programmed and every machine is programmed, right? No robot will ever rebel against its internal conditioning and programming. A human being does, and the intensity of your rebellion is the extent of your aliveness. If you cannot rebel against your inner conditioning, programming, your inner bondages, your biological patterns, how do you call yourself alive?
The robot never rebels. Ever seen a machine rebelling against itself? And every machine is designed by somebody else, controlled by somebody else, programmed by somebody else. No machine rebels.
And if we do not rebel against our external and internal masters who drive us, program us, control us remotely; how are we alive? And if we are not alive, how are we not very very sad and guilty that suicide is happening each passing moment? Suicide is not just an event. It is a process. It is a process and that's the reason saints have cried in compassion.
They see corpses walking all around. They see life being turned to ashes. They see a man spending 60-80 years of his life and then dying without ever coming close to what he could possibly have been. Ask yourself honestly, “How close are you to the best you could have been?”
I repeat how close are you to the best you could possibly have been? Why have you killed your potential? Why are you so suicidal? Go back 20 or 30 years in time. The life that you are living today, would you have settled for this life 20 years back?
20 years back, had someone come and told you, “This would be your life 20 years from today,” would you have taken the deal? Then why are you content with your current situation today? When you were 20 or 25 or 30 or whatever you had great dreams for yourself. You wanted to be big, you wanted to be best, you wanted to soar high.
How today are you satisfied in your chained, controlled, caged condition and how is that very different from someone who just hangs himself? We are born in chains. Someone said, man is born free but is everywhere in chains. The fellow didn't really go very deep. The fact is we are born in chains. The purpose of life is to set yourself free.
There are only two solutions. The suffering self has to come to an end because we are born suffering, right? And you cannot carry on with the suffering self. It has to come to an end. There are only two ways: one suicide, second Samādhi.
What I am calling as suicide happens in two ways: one man-made suicide, second biological suicide. What I am calling as biological suicide you call as natural death. What you are calling as natural death; someone dies at the age of 90, peacefully in his sleep, he has a heart attack and he's gone. And you say, “Oh! He was already 90.” And it is a natural death. It is not natural death, it is biological suicide. The body is gone. Consciousness did not get what it craved for its entire life.
So, we said there are only two possibilities when it comes to the life of a human being, either suicide or Samādhi and suicide is of two types; one, when you throw yourself on a railway track; two, when you live the so-called normal life and pass away in a hospital when you are 80 or 90. The state, the doctors, the society, they will certify that you have died a natural death. No, it is not a natural death. It is natural suicide. So there is suicide and there is Samādhi and suicide is of two types.
We regret only one type of suicide. We do not regret the other kind of suicide that we witness every day, that we commit every day to ourselves. Is it not so? One kind of suicide cannot be better than the other kind or can it be? Yes? So, instead of opting between 1A and 1B; 1A is what you officially call as suicide.
Somebody jumped from the 10th floor; that's what we officially call as suicide. 1A is official suicide.
1B is biological suicide. What is 1B? The fellow lived for 80-90 years his usual mediocre, enslaved life and then died.
Is 1B really better than 1A? I'm asking you.
So do not try to reduce 1A so that 1B increases. No. Chuck both 1A and 1B, opt for 2. That’s what mankind needs today.
A movement from 1A to 1B is no progress at all. The real movement is, the real progress is when you move from 1 to 2 and 2 is Samādhi. If not suicide then Samādhi is the only option because the thing has to end. We are born suffering. Suffering has to end. It can end only in these two ways — either suicide or Samādhi.
Now instead of Samādhi, we go for 1B. 1B is “Oh! come on, come on, don't commit suicide, just live on, keep suffering, keep bearing all the humiliation life heaps on you and continue living, continue living life till the age of 90. 1B is no better than 1A.
2 is better than both 1B and 1A and 2 is the real solution to the problem of human suicide rather to the problem of human birth, human suffering, the very human condition, only 2 is the solution. Samādhi is the solution and if not Samādhi, you will either hang yourself or will continue to live a tortured life which is hardly better than hanging yourself.
What is Samādhi? Nothing exotic, nothing of the kind that our fantastic storytellers have fed us. Samādhi simply means a deep true lasting solution. A true and lasting solution, that's what is called Samādhi.
Life itself is the problem. When the kid is born, the problem is born. When the kid is born, the bondages are born. And therefore life itself is the problem. How to solve that problem? The solution is called Samādhi. How to solve that problem? Know the problem. Can you solve a problem without knowing what it is? Get into the problem.
Observe your daily movements. See what you're doing. See where it is coming from and it will become very clear to you whether you must continue doing what you do and continue living as you do. That simple thing is called samādhān, more precisely Samādhi.
Life is a challenge. Meet it with wisdom and courage and then life is good fun. No? What better than having a good challenge to deal with? Is that not exciting? Does that not elevate you? Does that not awaken and arouse you when there is a proper challenge in front of you? And you're not afraid of the challenge, you want to meet it head on and you don't want to ram your head into it, you want to meet it head-on wisely, we said with wisdom and with courage.
Most of us simply balk at life. Life hurts us so much that we become insensitive to ourselves. That's the only way we think we can survive. If we do not become numb, it pains. So, we choose to become insensitive. No, gather some courage. Open up to your own hurt.
Admit that you are suffering and that is not a sign of weakness.
The day you open up and acknowledge your sufferings is the day you are standing up to your suffering.
What's worst is when we refuse to acknowledge that life is really bad for us. That's the worst we can do to ourselves. That's a sign of deep cowardice, weakness and lack of faith. The moment you say, “Yes it is bad, very bad.” How is it? Smile and say, “Very bad.” There's no reason to keep uttering to others, “Oh! Good, good I am doing good.”
You don't need to weep, but you also don't need to be a liar. You are entitled to smile but smile and express the Truth. With a smile, say, “Yes, I am hurt. I am vulnerable. I am beaten. I'm bruised. There are so many wounds. It pains everywhere. Life is not good.”
And I say that with a smile — life is not good. Life is not good but I have not been finally beaten because I have not yet surrendered. I have faith. I'll fight it out.
I'll look my enemy in the eye. If you do not squarely look at your enemy, how will you identify it? How will you know it? In the doctrines of warfare they say, “Śatru bodh is very important.” What is Śatru Bodh? To really know who your enemy is. If you do not even identify and acknowledge your enemy, how will you win the war?
Yes, Mayā is immense, big, huge and she kicks us in the face every day but call her out with a smile, obviously. You don't need to turn bitter. And then you will realize that Mayā will also by herself provide the solution. She is the problem and the solution also goes from within her.
Being beaten is all right. Opting out of the arena is not all right. The worst defeat is when you decide to not to fight, otherwise biting the dust even a hundred times is okay. After all it's a rigged kind of match, a rigged kind of battle. No? We are born in chains. We cannot say it's a level playing field. So it's okay. It’s okay to meet defeat daily but it's not okay to surrender. It's not okay to be so intimidated by her that you run away from her.
Stay close to her, watch her. Even if coming close to her would mean that you land some extra punches on your face, that's okay, still come close to her. See how she operates and who where is she? She sits within each of us.
She sits in the body and then after the body she sits outside of us in the society, in the world, everywhere. First of all, she sits here. (tapping on the arm to signify the body). See, how she functions. Observe her. That observation of the problem will lead you into the solution. That solution is Samādhi, the only alternative to suicide.
It’s not that we are bad problem solvers. The problem is that we do not even know the problem. The problem is that we address the problem by very decorated names. We are so attached to the problem that we hesitate calling the problem a problem.
It's okay. A problem simply means something that troubles you. It has no moral connotations attached to itself. It's something very factual, right? You’re infected by a virus that does not mean you have to curse the virus, but you must know the facts of your condition. Why don't we know the facts of our life? Why are we so afraid? What has sapped away our energy, our honesty, our courage? Why are we so reluctant calling a spade a spade? What will you lose? What do you have to lose? What really you have to lose? Why are you so afraid? You only have lots to gain and that's what we are calling as your potential, right?
Life can be tremendously rewarding but life rewards only those with guts, guts and wisdom, that's all. And where guts and wisdom combine, there is true love.
Questioner: My other question was how to remain unaffected by the sufferings of patients and the physically disabled. When they come to hospital, it makes me depressed and…
Acharya Prashant: No, no. There is something missing here. You know when you say you are affected by the others' suffering, please ask yourself is it not because you take the suffering as something exclusive to that person?
Questioner: If all are suffering…
Acharya Prashant: Forget about all. Do you see yourself as suffering in the same way and equally? Once you see that, you'll find that you are not affected rather you are compassionate. That's the difference between being affected, between being merciful and being compassionate. Compassion is when you can see that condition within yourself as well. That's when you realize that in helping the other, you are helping yourself. That's compassion.
Questioner: I try to help sir but what happens like, daily from 10 to 2 o'clock I see everybody coming and telling their suffering. It's always it makes me feel like There is a proverb in Kannada: in samsāra, there is sāsiveyaṣṭu sukha, sāgaradaṣṭu duḥkha. It means that the happiness in the life is like a mustard seed kind and the sadness is like an ocean.
But always we are zooming in that mustard seed and thinking like somebody is happy and like you know the only the particular people are in that suffering.
Acharya Prashant: So you get to hear people's problems and see their suffering every day and that influences you badly.
Questioner: I feel like what to do for these people.
Acharya Prashant: How am I supposed to feel now?
Questioner: That is what even I wanted to ask. How you feel like every people come and tell you the sufferings. How do you manage the stress?
Acharya Prashant: There is no special or additional stress, whatever stress is there is already there. So it is just an extension of my own battle. I'm not fighting any special or exclusive or additional battle for your sake. Life is the same. Be it in my form or your form.
Our predicaments, our agonies, our hopes, our disappointments — they are also the same. So what I hear from you is nothing but my own story narrated in another form in another situation and that's why I think sometimes I'm able to offer solutions. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. We all are one. There are no different stories, right?
Questioner: As I am a gynecologist, I see many pregnant patients in the rural areas. They don't even have money to live a good life. They give birth, go on giving 3-4 births. I got fed up of explaining them like no. Still they will have three females and they want one more male.
Just last week, I conducted a cesarean section. It was her third cesarean because she still refused to undergo a tubectomy, insisting that she wanted a male child.
Acharya Prashant: Is this condition specific to that patient? Think of it.
Questioner: Everywhere it is.
Acharya Prashant: Repeating the same mistake over and over again and again. Is this something only that particular patient is doing? So, on one hand it's something that really concerns us, on the other hand it should bring that little smile to us.
That patient is who I am, who you are, no? Do we ever commit a mistake only once? Has it happened? Are there any new mistakes ever? She has given birth three times. She is pregnant the fourth time again.
We all are pregnant people ready to give birth to another mistake.
It's just that the woman you are talking of will give birth in the form of a baby. We will give birth in other forms. This day itself so many of us will give birth.
A new mistake is born and that mistake will now run its course. Mistakes have their own life cycle, and before one mistake is expired, five more are born and these five, that's the worst thing, are nothing but mirror images of the previous one. We don't learn. We don't learn.
For those who learn, a few years are enough. Sage Ashtavakra is said to have taught King Janak at the age of 11 or 14. It's possible. Even by that age you have sufficient experience and exposure to have known all the possible mistakes one can commit. That huge universal set is actually contained only in a few basic elements that we somehow manage to combine through various permutation combinations in an infinite ways.
If you have three variables x, y and z, how many numbers or how many possible points can result from just these three variables? An infinite number, right? In Cartesian geometry, x, y, z represent the entire universe. So all that we have is just x, y, z. You could call that sat, raj, and tam, and from these, the universal set of our mistakes is born.
