Suicide

Firstly, everyone has the right to kill themselves, being their own body, life and mind, and it is not for others to interfere with that decision.

Secondly, there is no god or higher entity that will torture or punish the individual for suicide, these are fears created by organised religions who feel they own the individual body and soul.

When you die, you still exist. There are many situations where suicide is desirable, the world is unjust and it can screw you up. The option is there to kill yourself and then be reborn hopefully with a better set of cards than in your previous life.

Note that each life time (I support the idea of reincarnation) is an opportunity for growth in the evoluton of the soul and killing yourself also kills the chance for making progress in a particular lifetime for your soul.

[Internal Queries]

Originally Posted by LadyVirgoxoxo

People change for the better through suffering.

right right. "suffering is good for the soul". i'm not Catholic anymore so i no longer find martyrdom appealing.

"Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved."

But seriously, whats with the debate, guys? Whos to say that a person should or shouldnt kill themselves? You have no right to try to impose your righteousness on people who will do what they want anyways. Its like saying "I love God" and another person saying "Blahblahblah God doesnt exist who cares". Its a personal matter, something that you cant prove regardless of your arguement because its an idea and not some scientific fact. *Sigh*

[Sarian]

Originally Posted by pitchfork

Hi there.

I was wondering today - presuming that our consciousness doesn't die with the physical body - what's wrong with suicide? Why shouldn't I kill myself to finally know for sure what if anything happens afterwards? ;D

All of world's religions have some sort of an opinion. What do you think (or know)?

I've not read many replies on this thread. I think we would regret if we dropped out of class so to speak. We are here for a reason. It's a touchy subject for me because I have had the desires to end it all too many times, since I was 3 or 4 years old.

Maybe off topic, but while I toyed with the idea more than I care to admit because I felt so weighted, so heavy and when joy and beauty is stolen from my soul it seems and I can no longer even see beauty, life has felt more than excruciating to say the least and that would not be an exaggeration at all. One day I took a whole bottle of pills and laid down. I will say that I was a little more than scared after I ingested them...I thought why did I do this? I have three totally amazing and beautiful kids whom I love more than life, and here I am doing this and it will grieve them so...but my pain, too was that great that I did it. Peace came over me and I drifted to sleep. Now maybe it was the ingested pills? I don't know, but what I do know is what I saw was something familiar to me. Three orbs, I saw black for the eyes, no nose, but beautiful smiles, and I heard the sweetest sounds as well, like music, but who knows if it was music, the kept looking at me and I was awoken to hearing my name called over and over and over and telling me to wake up, wake up and go back. I then felt myself 'go back' and it was with a jolt and it wasn't pleasant after that. I jolted upright so fast, I thought my head split in two and vomited profusely. I looked at the clock and it was 3 hours after I had laid down. Again, maybe it was the pills, it seems the mostly likely reason for it all, but I know I took enough to kill a horse too.

2009 turned out to be a particularly horrible year for me...every damn day I was hurting. I cried so much and wondered where all the tears came from. My kids could see my suffering and I hated that...I wrote letters and went to my favorite place and decided that I was going to jump. I know it sounds so very selfish and it is, but you don't think so much of those things all the time...all you feel is consumed by fear, consumed by pain and the fear it will never end (mental and emotional pain)... I had a calmness come over me as I stood and looked over the cliff. Then I heard "RUN" Loudly. I have no idea where it came from, but the way it came, I knew it was for me and I did not think of questioning, I just ran. I jumped over the fence and I ran around the whole gorge. My adrenalin was pumping...I was crying, but I was living, I was breathing and I was fighting again.

The following week my daughter's boyfriend was killed in a car crash. I grieved for him and I grieved for my daughter's pain and also all I could think about was if I jumped that day, my daughter would be grieving for me and her boyfriend and she needed me. She is an amazing young woman....

I guess my point for this lenghthy reply is that we are here for a purpose. We can end our life if we so chose for whatever reason...but we are here for reasons, many reasons, even if just to be here for another, but to learn, I know we are here to learn...maybe it's to learn how to cope? To figure out the wrong things and make them right?

I made up my mind to stop what ever is going on and fight for myself, for my life, for my kids and be the person I was intended to be and I took up hiking again, jogging, I have returned back to school, I am divorcing my husband who is a great source of pain for me.

And you know, I have been with people who were dying and I have sat with a 17 year old who shot himself in the chest and it's so hard, but yet, oddly enough, I feel sure that one of the things I am here for is to comfort and help bring peace and take away their fears as they transition to another journey.

sorry so long.

That's a peaceful way of answering the question of 'what happens afterwards' : )

I personally don't care for knowing, I only care about here and now. I think the only heaven or hell is what we create for ourselves 'down here', and I somehow feel that all that we'd find without our bodies is pure love and safety, but I do feel that we're here to learn our lessons, and I think leaving our bodies, we'd possibly just look 'down' and laugh at how seriously we take our fears, and want to jump right back in and keep playing the game ..

[BlueSky]

Originally Posted by Sarian

I've not read many replies on this thread. I think we would regret if we dropped out of class so to speak. We are here for a reason. It's a touchy subject for me because I have had the desires to end it all too many times, since I was 3 or 4 years old.

Maybe off topic, but while I toyed with the idea more than I care to admit because I felt so weighted, so heavy and when joy and beauty is stolen from my soul it seems and I can no longer even see beauty, life has felt more than excruciating to say the least and that would not be an exaggeration at all. One day I took a whole bottle of pills and laid down. I will say that I was a little more than scared after I ingested them...I thought why did I do this? I have three totally amazing and beautiful kids whom I love more than life, and here I am doing this and it will grieve them so...but my pain, too was that great that I did it. Peace came over me and I drifted to sleep. Now maybe it was the ingested pills? I don't know, but what I do know is what I saw was something familiar to me. Three orbs, I saw black for the eyes, no nose, but beautiful smiles, and I heard the sweetest sounds as well, like music, but who knows if it was music, the kept looking at me and I was awoken to hearing my name called over and over and over and telling me to wake up, wake up and go back. I then felt myself 'go back' and it was with a jolt and it wasn't pleasant after that. I jolted upright so fast, I thought my head split in two and vomited profusely. I looked at the clock and it was 3 hours after I had laid down. Again, maybe it was the pills, it seems the mostly likely reason for it all, but I know I took enough to kill a horse too.

2009 turned out to be a particularly horrible year for me...every damn day I was hurting. I cried so much and wondered where all the tears came from. My kids could see my suffering and I hated that...I wrote letters and went to my favorite place and decided that I was going to jump. I know it sounds so very selfish and it is, but you don't think so much of those things all the time...all you feel is consumed by fear, consumed by pain and the fear it will never end (mental and emotional pain)... I had a calmness come over me as I stood and looked over the cliff. Then I heard "RUN" Loudly. I have no idea where it came from, but the way it came, I knew it was for me and I did not think of questioning, I just ran. I jumped over the fence and I ran around the whole gorge. My adrenalin was pumping...I was crying, but I was living, I was breathing and I was fighting again.

The following week my daughter's boyfriend was killed in a car crash. I grieved for him and I grieved for my daughter's pain and also all I could think about was if I jumped that day, my daughter would be grieving for me and her boyfriend and she needed me. She is an amazing young woman....

I guess my point for this lenghthy reply is that we are here for a purpose. We can end our life if we so chose for whatever reason...but we are here for reasons, many reasons, even if just to be here for another, but to learn, I know we are here to learn...maybe it's to learn how to cope? To figure out the wrong things and make them right?

I made up my mind to stop what ever is going on and fight for myself, for my life, for my kids and be the person I was intended to be and I took up hiking again, jogging, I have returned back to school, I am divorcing my husband who is a great source of pain for me.

And you know, I have been with people who were dying and I have sat with a 17 year old who shot himself in the chest and it's so hard, but yet, oddly enough, I feel sure that one of the things I am here for is to comfort and help bring peace and take away their fears as they transition to another journey.

sorry so long.

I think you are a wonderful, compassionate human being Sarian.......
Thank you for sharing that........I felt its sincerity

Originally Posted by WhiteShaman

Hi Greenslade,
I found your post to be moving and very much from the heart. I just wanted to thank you for it and say that it was nice to hear such a perspective form someone who has experienced what you have with your friend.
My brother took his life some 30 years ago. I don't what to make of it and still don't, maybe that is why your post touched me like it did.
Thanks for sharing..............Blessings, James

Thank you, James.

When people die a death other than suicide, at least there's some kind of closure. If someone gets run over by a bus or dies of cancer it's easier to accept that these things happen. Not so with suicide though, because it leaves so many things unanswered. You ask yourself what brought them to that choice, was there something you did/didn't do, why didn't you see it coming? And on it goes. You never get to the bottom of it in this Life anyway.

Boom, I believe that there is something long after death. There has to be. I've spoken to people who have known each other through a few different Lives and by the way they talk, it can't just be coincidence. Science doesn't have all the answers - ask the microbes that live in the methane lake. But how many religions promise a better Afterlife of some description? While Christianity says it's a sin, it's also very easy to argue your way out of that. I also believe it takes courage to commit suicide, it's not a simple choice of leaving your woes behind for the belief of a better Life elsewhere. I wonder how many people on these boards, even with a consolidated belief in reincarnation etc., would consider committing suicide? Even if, given family/friends/peers with the same beliefs? One of those in-built controls could well be fear itself, because sometimes a even a strong belief in an Afterlife of some description isn't enough to give you the courage. It's probably one of the biggest leaps of Faith that anyone can take, if they believe in Life after death. Society also has in-built controls in the form of taboos and religious beliefs.

Perhaps there is a reason why we need to be in this Life as long as possible, but then sometimes those reasons can pale into insignificance. What about voluntary euthanasia? A few months back my friend's wife died of cancer. Near the end she was bed-ridden, in pain and losing her lucidity because of the high doses of morphine she was on. Her dignity had gone, there was no quality of Life whatsoever and her and her family were just hanging on for the inevitable end. My friend expressed a few times that he wished he could end it all for her because she was no longer the woman he knew. She was no longer the woman I remembered, and quite honestly I could come up with no Spiritual reason for her to suffer the way she did. As Internal said - "some animals will kill themselves if their life becomes so unnatural as to be meaningless to them". And yes, there are far too many artificial taboos that should be thrown out with the trash.

Perhaps people do change through suffering, LadyVirgo, but I have yet to see any kind of physical or Spiritual sense in a long, slow and painful death. And if all you have in front of you is more pain and suffering like you've already had, what then? What do you do when you feel as though your very Soul has been destroyed and all you see in front of you is more of the same?

Originally Posted by Sarian

I guess my point for this lenghthy reply is that we are here for a purpose. We can end our life if we so chose for whatever reason...but we are here for reasons, many reasons, even if just to be here for another, but to learn, I know we are here to learn...maybe it's to learn how to cope? To figure out the wrong things and make them right?

That's actually something that has gone through my mind a lot in this particular case. We both believe(d) in Past Lives and explored quite a number of issues that needed resolving. We had just turned a corner, and what gets to me most is the post potential. Could those issues have been resolved better or were they resolved enough? Was turning that corner enough or was there much more that could have gone on between us? Perhaps I'll never know for sure in this Life, but doesn't everything happen for a reason even if we don't know what those reasons are? Perhaps we had figured out the wrong things and made them right enough - for now at least.

[LadyVirgoxoxo]

I believe if there was no suffering in the world, there would be no compassion. And anyone can come here and tell me how wrong that statement is and how stupidly Christian it is but I don't care because I believe it. If our lives were perfect, what would be the point of living? Life is all up the ups and downs, and it sure isn't fun when it's all ups.

[Chrysaetos]

Originally Posted by LadyVirgoxoxo

I believe if there was no suffering in the world, there would be no compassion. And anyone can come here and tell me how wrong that statement is and how stupidly Christian it is but I don't care because I believe it. If our lives were perfect, what would be the point of living? Life is all up the ups and downs, and it sure isn't fun when it's all ups.

Yes I would agree with that.

'Perfection' as generally understood by people would mean no more process, evolution, inspirations, dreams, change, learning, adventure, engagement. Absolutely nothing.
Sounds exciting doesn't it?

Maybe change is part of 'perfection'. It still doesn't explain why some parts exist tho', but who knows..

[daisy]

The option is there to kill yourself and then be reborn hopefully with a better set of cards than in your previous life.

EHHHH??????

That's right let's top ourselves to see if we get a nicer, richer kind of life, with perhaps nicer parents or a sister who doesn't pinch your clothes and make up, perhaps this time we won't get bullied at school or whatever...!!!!

What an irresponsible statement, if reincarnation is true, what if you got a WORSE life, what then???

Obviously some people don't understand the impact suicide has and comments like this get me mad as not only are you trivialising suicide you're trivialising life itself.

Suicide is fine in some circumstances such as assited suicide, I also believe in euthanasia done for the right reasons.
I do not like people talking about suicide just because someone is unhappy with their 'lot' if you don't like your current cards, deal some more don't throw in the towel.