Between Incarnations

What is the Truth, Skull? Because I've been given various definitions and personal opinions on that one, and every time someone tells me what it is all they seem to do is convince me more that there is no such thing.

To my mind, calling them Masters of Wisdom is judgement. What makes them Masters? We do, we believe what they say and hold their Truth as our own. We judge what they say to be wise and just, and before you know it they are Masters of Wisdom. Yes, I gain any amount of nuggets from a number of sources, much admittedly from those you would call gurus. But you know what? I get just as much from my own intuition and instincts, as much again from the very people who are trying hard to put their feet in the right order so they can take the next step. I stopped believing in gurus a long time ago and things made much more sense. If their Truths work for you, Skull, then blessings to you. It doesn't for me. Nobody has all the answers, everybody has their own perspective. The gurus were perhaps masters of their own perspectives, they weren't masters of mine.

[Skull]

There are forms of death that are exceptional and suicide is one. It is not freeing one from suffering, for one still exists, just without a physical body. And one must continue in this state for the rest of one's natural term of life. So a suicide at age 20, destined to live to 80 would spend 60 years trapped in a horrid state of consciousness.

Here is a little more, from the theosophical point of view:

Suicide is the most unfortunate of all forms of violent death. This is because it means

the deliberate taking of one's own life in order to escape the consequences of what one has earned; and if any man thinks that he can cheat Nature in that way, he greatly errs. He but adds to the heavy burden he has to carry in the future. . . . He has deliberately forced Nature's hand, so to say; he has deliberately exercised his own will-power and consciousness for an unholy deed in an unnatural way, and done an act which Nature, through its unerring laws, has not itself brought about; and when you break a law of Nature, what happens? -- G. de Purucker, Questions We All Ask, Series I, No. 6

The answer is briefly given:

The fate of the suicide is a sad one, indeed a terrible one, and it is good and right that the truth concerning suicide be told. The suicide wilfully cuts short the life that Nature, as we Theosophists say, intended to be longer, and he has thus placed himself in a postmortem condition in which he must live and suffer greatly until the term of his lifetime, had he lived on earth, is closed. The fate of the suicide is an awful one. -- Op. cit., Series II, No. 19

The whole point is indicated here in the statement that the suicide willfully cuts short the life that karma intended to be longer. In other forms of violent death, the accident or crime or execution, as the case may be, was karmic. In suffering such a misfortune the human being is paying his "karmic price." Suffering the consequences of his own actions in the past, he thus wipes the karmic slate clean of that particular debt.
But the suicide, by his act of selfishly shirking the consequences of his failures in this life and -- as frequently happens -- leaving the burden to be borne by others, has set in motion for himself a fresh cause of misery. In his next life he will have to meet again the same conditions which led to his suicide in this, only in a form intensified by the very energy of his refusal to meet them now. Every act of ours is made up of energy and with every intensification of energy the consequences deepen. So the last state of that person will indeed be worse than the first. The postmortem state of the person who takes his own life is the terrible one of living over and over again the horror of his act and the mental torture which led up to it. Suicides, like executed criminals, must in most cases become powerful vortices of diseased thought-energy adding their force to the existing handicaps to the spiritual progress of the world.

[Xanth]

Originally Posted by Skull

There are forms of death that are exceptional and suicide is one. It is not freeing one from suffering, for one still exists, just without a physical body. And one must continue in this state for the rest of one's natural term of life. So a suicide at age 20, destined to live to 80 would spend 60 years trapped in a horrid state of consciousness.

Fortunately, I only agree with part of that. :)

Suicide is never the answer, agreed.
It's not an escape in the slightest, because what you are "Here" is exactly what are you "There". What I mean is any and all emotional problems you're experiencing here are the same ones you'll carry over to the other side with you. The only difference is that now, you don't have a physical body with which to return to.

Frank Kepple, from the Astral Pulse said it best, so I'll just quote a post he made here:

That is how people get "stuck" on the lower planes following physical death. Their emotional outpouring creates what I call a reality sphere within the lower astral. Which is the emotional scenario being played out all around them. The scene they are engrossed within will cause them to react in a certain way; which will cause that same certain circumstance to manifest; which will cause them to react in that same certain way; which will reinforce that same certain scene; which causes them to react in that same way etc., etc, ad infinitum... literally.

People can get locked in these kinds of emotional loops within dreams, but it's only a matter of time before their alarm goes off, or it gets so bad their protective sense of awareness zaps them back to physical, or whatever. Some people suffer from recurring dreams. Which is basically an emotional loop that gets broken during waking hours. But some kind of mental neurosis causes the person to outpour the same emotional feelings during sleep.

However, once you lose the ability to zap back to physical, i.e. following physical body death, it is possible to get caught in a loop for the equivalent of a good many physical years.

People who commit suicide generally do it with the desire to escape from their problems. But they're really only locking themselves into an emotional loop.

Now, where I disagree with you is you don't have any predetermined "life limit". You could, quite possibly, spend THOUSANDS of years of human time caught in these emotional loops.

However, there's also a difference between killing yourself to "escape" from physical reality and killing yourself if you feel that your work here is done, or if you have a terminal illness.

The first one will, most likely, lock you into one of those emotional loops... cause you'd die, then realize, OMG I'm still alive!! And bam, you're nailed.
The second one, you'd die, and accept the transition.

I think that we are the ultimate deciding factor on our own lives. Society and Religion have tried to take that choice away from us by telling us that removing ourselves from this reality is wrong and you'll 'burn in hell' for it. Sorry, but I don't buy that. :)

What if it was that Soul's Karmic Obligation to commit suicide, Skull? If there is indeed such a thing as Free Will, isn't it our Free Will to commit suicide? If it is not then there isn't as much Free Will as there is supposed to be. Destiny is not immutable neither - nothing is written in stone because that would imply limitations on Free Will too.

There is also a huge assupmtion that the person who commits suicide is of a deranged mental state. Have you ever been close to that point, Skull? In my own personal experience once the decision is made then there was complete clarity, probably the most clarity I have ever had before or after.

The problem with copying and pasting someone else's Truth, Skull, is that you may never see your own.

[Skull]

Originally Posted by Greenslade

What if it was that Soul's Karmic Obligation to commit suicide, Skull? If there is indeed such a thing as Free Will, isn't it our Free Will to commit suicide? If it is not then there isn't as much Free Will as there is supposed to be. Destiny is not immutable neither - nothing is written in stone because that would imply limitations on Free Will too.

There is also a huge assupmtion that the person who commits suicide is of a deranged mental state. Have you ever been close to that point, Skull? In my own personal experience once the decision is made then there was complete clarity, probably the most clarity I have ever had before or after.

The problem with copying and pasting someone else's Truth, Skull, is that you may never see your own.

You seem to have used your personal insight to put Skull in a tidy box of robotic cut & paster. So be it. Act as you see fit - I will do the same.

My remarks about guru & personal experience etc. were aimed at a generic aspirant I have seen many of - not to Greenslade specifically.

This is not a private conversation, so I generally address all possible readers.

[Skull]

After-death States

• "Withdrawing into Stillness -- Sleep and Death" by Jim Belderis
• "Children of the Sun, Offspring of the Stars" by John P. Van Mater
• "The Change Called Death" by Elsa-Brita Titchenell
• "Man After Death" (Theosophical Manual) (44K)
• Book Review: Life after Death by Deepak Chopra (rev. Eloise Hart)
• "The Mystery of Death and Rebirth" by Ingrid Van Mater
• "Through the Portals of Death" by Armin Zebrowski
• "Death Is a Season" by Agnes Wengert
• "Sleep and Death Are Brothers" by G. de Purucker
• "The Panoramic Vision" by G. de Purucker
• "The Nature of the Kama-Rupa" by G. de Purucker
• "Kama Loka" by William Q. Judge
• "Devachan" by William Q. Judge

Coincidentally on another 'spooks' thread where I'm a regular contributor we're looking at the issue of how long between incarnations we may experience, and why.

Naturally enough I'd say we're also discussing the nature of multiple incarnations - I'm here deliberately avoiding using the emotionally charged term of 'reincarnation' and all the baggage it's being lumbered with....

So many additional matters get thrown into the melting pot that it rapidly becomes a mish-mash of thoughts, ideas, references and quotations.

The underlying principle is simple and deserves consideration on its own merit, away from such distractions.

It is also an important part of any death and after-death discussion such as this.