Questions On Suicide
Another very serious issue faced today in every society is suicide. The percentages are too high to ignore the problem that exists in far too many Hindu communities. Well, we can advise, as many elders do: “Don’t kill yourself.” After all, they became elders by avoiding such extreme solutions. But do those who are all wrought up with emotion and confusion listen to such advice? No. Many die needlessly at their own hand. How selfish. How sad. But it is happening every day. Suicide does not solve problems. It only magnifies future problems in the Antarloka—the subtle, nonphysical astral world we live in before we incarnate—and in the next life. Suicide only accelerates the intensity of karma, bringing a series of immediate lesser births and requiring several lives for the soul to return to the evolutionary point that existed at the moment of suicide, at which time the still existing karmic entanglement that brought on the death must again be faced and resolved. Thus turns the slow wheel of saṁsāra. To gain a fine birth, one must live according to the natural laws of dharma and live out the karma in this life positively and fully.
Suicide is termed prāṇatyāga in Sanskrit, “abandoning life force.” It is intentionally ending one’s own life through poisoning, drowning, burning, stabbing, jumping, shooting, etc. Suicide has traditionally been prohibited in Hindu scripture because, being an abrupt escape from life, it creates unseemly karma to be faced in the future.
However, in cases of terminal disease or great disability, religious self-willed death through fasting, prāyopaveśa, is sometimes permitted. Hinduism is not absolutely black and white in this matter. Rather, it takes into account the broader picture. How will this affect the soul? How will it affect humanity? How will it affect one’s future incarnations? All that must be taken into account if a wise and compassionate, right decision is to be made on so serious a matter.
There are very few extraordinary situations in which self-willed death is permitted. It is not enough that we are unhappy, disappointed, going through a temporary anguish, such as loss of loved ones, a physical injury, a financial loss or the failure to pass an exam and the fear of an angry thrashing from parents when they find out. That is called life. It is not enough that we are filled with sorrow. None of these reasons is enough to justify suicide, and thus it is in such cases an ignoble act. It is not necessarily even enough we are suffering a serious, terminal illness, one of the thousands that beset human beings on this planet.
NANDINATHA SŪTRA 229: FAMILY RETREAT AFTER A BIRTH OR DEATH
Śiva’s devotees observe a thirty-one-day retreat after the birth or death of a family member, not entering temples or home shrines, not attending pūjā or religious events, but continuing their japa, study and meditations. Aum.