Why do people commit suicide? || (2016)

Questioner (Q): Why do people commit suicide?

Acharya Prashant (AP): They still have a lot of hope. They feel that suicide would redeem them. They have not given up everything. They are still carrying a lot of hope. If I do not know what is beyond life, how can I enter that which is beyond life? Surely, I am placing my hopes there.

Even in suicide, there lies a lot of arrogance. I'm asking you, what if your troubles continue even after suicide? Now, what would you kill? There is a lot of knowledgeability contained in suicide. You feel that suicide would bring your troubles to an end. What if it does not? Now, what would you do? And it is irreversible.

If you are really disappointed, then you would be so disappointed that you can't even commit suicide. You would say, "I am disappointed with everything, including suicide." You'd say, "I'm sure nothing works and everything that I will try for myself would backfire." Now how can you have the doership to commit suicide?

Q2: Is acknowledgment the only way for self-realization?

AP: Of course, because there is no way that is needed. Acknowledgment is spontaneous. To experience is to acknowledge. If you are experiencing trouble, you have already acknowledged trouble. Now, why do you impose non-recognition upon it? It's like you coming to me and I know who you are and I say, “Ah, do I know you?” Women often do that, by the way.

Why must you pretend that way? If you are experiencing something, have you not already acknowledged it? Then, why must you pretend this way? “Excuse me, but have we met somewhere?”And you must excuse the speaker for bringing in his personal experiences sometimes. Is there anything that we do not know, seriously? Is there anything that these books contain and we are oblivious of? And had we really not known, how would these books teach us? Reading a book is so convenient, acknowledgment requires courage. Fortunately, we all have that courage. It only needs to be awakened. You only need to be reminded that you are unnecessarily afraid. Rise up, speak up, call the lies, nail the lies, confess and surrender.

Q3: Being fearless means that fear should go?

AP: When you are acknowledging fear, do you know that you are already on top of fear? The greatest mischief that fear can do to you is that you even stop calling fear as fear. Now you are dead afraid. When you are calling fear as fear, then you have moved beyond fear. If you can stand up in the middle of all your trembling and say, “You know what, I am so afraid.” That is the moment of your greatest courage. Courage does not lie in not being afraid. Courage lies in accepting that you are very afraid and not pretending that “I do not know fear, what is fear?” And even as you say that, you are wet in your pants.

Q4: I worked a lot of my years using fear as my guardian, as my way to feel secure. Now it feels it was all fake. At that time it seemed the best way to protect myself…

AP: Do you honestly feel it was all fake or do you fakely feel it was all fake?

Q4: That time, it was honest, now…

AP: At this moment as you say this, is this an honest statement? Are you still faking? That is the only thing that matters. It does not matter whether you faked it then, what matters is whether you are still faking it now. So, is this an honest statement that you faked it? That's all that matters. It is no great tragedy that you faked it. The tragedy lies in faking that you never fake. Faking is not a tragedy, we are born to fake.

You look at the young ones of some animals, animals that are conditioned to camouflage. And even the young ones know how to deceive, camouflage, slip away, fake death. Even the animals know all that, and very young ones. So, faking is not a problem. This body is designed to fake a lot of stuff. You have looked at the lizard, how it fakes death? It gives you its tail so that you can be busy pounding the tail. Faking is not a problem, but faking that you didn't fake is a problem.

So accept that, "I fake" or that, "I am faking". Accept that, "Yes I am faking, obviously." That is the only honesty possible to a human being, to honestly say that he is a fake. You can never honestly say that you're honest. Now that is very dishonest. Honestly you can only say that you are a fake. That is enough. Enough. Stop there.

Q5: We need to be honest because only we can be dishonest.

AP: Obviously. You are faking it, you know you are faking it. Now if you lie about it, you are creating an inner war. You will be burning inside. The mind will not know what is really happening. The mind would say, “Experience tells me I am faking it, but intellect tells me I should not admit that I am faking it. So am I faking it or not?” That would result in a lot of chaos, inner turmoil. You would not even know whether you are faking it. Because the intellect would then dictate experience.

Q6: As I sit here right now, I still have the fear of what may be going on back at home, and I acknowledge it, I understand it. But I am still afraid.

AP: So, don’t hope for a result. What’s the disappointment? I acknowledge it, I know it, but I am still afraid, yes of course. What's the disappointment? You wanted freedom from fear? Don't you see that is another fear, fear of fear? Why do you want freedom? Live in what is and that is freedom.

Fear will never go away. Kindly get rid of this illusion that there is a state of total fearlessness possible. As long as you are there, fear will be there. As long as you are there, suffering will be there. And if you want to test that, punch yourself in the teeth and you will know what I'm saying. What do you think, the enlightened ones felt no pain, no fear, nothing? These are stories spread about them by those who came after them and didn't know. Are you getting it?

There is something called 'you' that cannot get rid of fear and there is something called 'you' that can never be afraid. That something called you, that can never be afraid comes into its own, becomes available to you only when you are first at peace with fear. When you are not so afraid of fear that you can't even look at it, then fearlessness comes into being.

Have you seen little kids? If they are too afraid of something they won't even look at it. We also do that, if there is a mutilated corpse lying in front of us, often we refuse looking at it. That's how scared we are.

Q7: It often happens that if I acknowledge something… because of my habitual activities… for example, if I am addicted to something, if I acknowledge it today, it will be repeated again after three or four days…

AP: Let it be repeated, but don't you see that if you expect a cessation of repetition, then you will not even acknowledge. You will say, “What is the use of acknowledging?” The cycle does not get broken, even after I acknowledge, no change comes. So you will be disappointed and you won't even acknowledge.

Acknowledge without expectations. And often you know, acknowledgment comes not with expectations but with apprehensions. You say that, "If I acknowledge that such person terrifies me, then I will be under a compulsion to get rid of that person." And this apprehension will block you from acknowledging. So acknowledge without having anything for results. Neither expectations nor apprehensions. Just acknowledge.

More than expectations, actually apprehensions block observation because you already know and you have already imagined what would be the result of acknowledgment and you say, "If I acknowledge, then I will have to dissociate myself from this. And dissociation would have its own costs, a price that I don’t want to pay. So I'd rather not acknowledge, have neither apprehensions nor expectations." Just acknowledge. Just keep acknowledging and don't keep checking what is the result. "You know I have been in this practice for six months now. Has there been some change in life?" You will never know the change that is coming and if you can see what change is coming, it only means that the change is as per your planning. So, it is no change at all.

Real change would be very invisible, very subliminal. You will not be able to detect it easily. It would take either depths of attention or a very long time for you to realize that change has already happened. So, don't keep on trying to detect change. "I have been doing this, I have been going there, I have been trying this, what is the change that is coming?" That change is beyond you, don't rush to figure it out. Just faithfully keep knowing, keep acknowledging. And don't be ashamed, don't feel guilty and if you do, acknowledge it.

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