THIS ARTICLE WILL PROBABLY BE READ BY PEOPLE WHO ARE PLANNING ON COMMITTING SUICIDE
I want you to feel calm about the decision you have made, I am not trying to convince you not to do it. I just want to shed some light on this human epidemic.
If one thing is clear it is that suicidal people want to leave a message to their close surroundings. They sometimes even leave it written down down explicitly. But what I am referring to is the implicit message they leave in the act itself which goes beyond any words that could be recorded or written down.
A woman who attended a retreat shared the reason for her depression with me. “One day my son told me it was my fault he was so unwell, sad and unhappy. Then he turned around, ran to the window and threw himself from the sixth floor. I ran towards him, leaned over the balcony and saw him lying there with his head burst open. I will never forget what happened. Guilt follows me everywhere I go. He told me that it was my fault himself. I have not known how to treat or educate my son. I would have liked to thrown myself out of the window too. It is a punishment for me to remain alive.”
The suicidal person’s message is clear: YOU ARE GUILTY OF MY SUICIDE! Who? Those who are going to feel pain due to their absence and could have done something to avoid it. Now they can’t do anything other than feel guilt.
Another clear message is: I DO NOT WANT ANYTHING OR ANYONE TO KILL ME, I WILL DO IT MYSELF! These people want to have control over their life and over the time of their death. They do not want to suffer or feel pain.
Ageing is the most natural way of dying and suicide is the most unnatural way to die. We can choose freely as a result of our free will. This is one of the aspects that strikes a deep chord in the suicidal mind; the thought that in committing suicide they are doing something from a place of freedom. The sense of slavery is such that people commit suicide so that they can feel they are free to do something at least for just a moment. Even if it is to take their own lives.
There are three types of suicidal people. One is the unconscious suicidal person who is killing themself without realising it. Another is the realistic suicidal person who prefers to end their life rather than bear the neurosis that they are living in. They are very sensitive and even brave people, but they miss this great opportunity to live. The third group are stubborn suicidal people who can not end their life because they have become conscious of the stupidity of it. And even though there may be a thousand reasons for them to take their own lives, they decide to live and to do something to make their lives meaningful. They are determined and courageous, and above all, conscious people. This is a good time to ask to yourself: which group do you belong to?
Wanting to die is the most common collective desire that has ever existed. It is said that suicide is the main cause of death worldwide but that this fact is kept hidden to prevent many more people from joining this same initiative. Japan has done a study on this subject as they have a long track record of suicide. They have concluded that almost every Japanese person thinks of committing suicide at least once at some specific point in their lives. The 1% of those who intend to take their own lives also try to do it at least once, and 10% of those who attempt it succeed. Fortunately effectiveness is not very high, because in the end many people do not really want to take their lives but rather draw attention to themselves. It is a convoluted way of asking for help, but it is also a path to healing.
All the existing data related to suicide corresponds only to the concrete and conscious fact of wanting to commit suicide with some traditional method. There are many other methods of suicide that do not put an end to life suddenly, but rather gradually, in a homoeopathic way.
Banning smoking, banning eating fats, or banning drugs would be like banning suicide itself, because people feel very comfortable with those unconscious methods of suicide. They kill themselves gradually with doses of poison, and in fact we all have the right to commit suicide. In addition, suicide has not been banned yet. At least there is something that is not forbidden.
Gender abuse is actually couples suicide, as both people that make up a couple participate in the same suicidal act. One part is active while the other is passive. One does it and the other allows it. Ecological imbalance is a global suicide of which almost all of us, directly or indirectly, are part of. We damage the planet as if we wanted to kill it. Doing harm to ourselves is one of the most common attitudes of the human being which causes us much pain and suffering and that complicates our lives—Is this not a suicidal attitude?—On the one hand we want to live because we are afraid of death, but on the other hand we want to die because we are afraid of living. We do not want to die because we have not lived yet. We do not want to live because it would be necessary for such collective nonsense to die. That is the great human challenge: to put an end to suicidal thinking.
Living with anger, hatred, violence or irritation is like being the living dead, because whoever accumulates aggressiveness accumulates destructive desires. Sometimes they project onto others and sometimes onto themselves. Draining anger therapeutic sessions through emotional release reduces the level of self-destruction, but it does not heal the root of the suicidal tendency. Consciousness is necessary for that. That is the real medicine. Consciousness directed towards the fundamental problem; realising why suicide has occupied such an important place in the human mind. The first human addiction is to the idea of what they believe themselves to be. The second great human addiction is to the idea of suicide. They are intimately related to each other. Depending on what I think of myself determines the intensity of the second addiction.
Not long ago, at an inner evolution retreat, a 16-year-old girl, a 25-year-old woman and many more people stated at the end of an Ayahuasca ceremony: “I am committing suicide by doing cocaine, smoking, going to such unpleasant places…” and these small declarations were the beginning of great transformational processes. But these small declarations have been the consequence of tiny moments of consciousness that occur when the individual can see themselves from a higher perspective, with the objectivity given only when consciousness is expanded. In inner evolution groups, I often suggest to people that they expose their suicidal thoughts because only by doing so they can then be tackled. Keeping the intention secret can be very dangerous.
Everything we do towards realising the global suicide we are committing will help us to stop it. But in order to heal the suicidal root we must become aware of individual suicide first. In my second Ayahuasca ceremony 15 years ago, which I did with my son Elian, he told me he had been able to see how he was committing suicide by being so childish with the acts he was committing and attitudes he had towards life. That realisation was fundamental in his healing process. It can be dangerous when our energy is oriented towards death and we are not aware of it. It is a matter of reorienting this energy towards life, towards living fully. But to do this we have to undertake a deep as well as healing transformation. It is wonderful to go through this process of liberation from suicidal thinking. There is an unconscious death impulse that most people do not even know they have. Once detected and cornered we can begin to root it out.
It seems that the motives of individual suicide are projected onto the collective suicide. Every conscious or unconscious suicide attempt comes from an imbalance created by frustration, dissatisfaction, disappointment, boredom, lack of motivation, depression and lack of meaning in life. This is something that is happening to the human being. It is difficult to feel like we are living a life that has no meaning. That is why we need to put an end to it. But a life with meaning wants to be lived and enjoyed. How can we recover the meaning of life? For me it has a lot to do with changing the meaning of life and death. They are not what we think. Life is the end, death is the beginning. Let’s not deceive ourselves us into thinking that death will liberate us from our suffering. I do not know how it will be in the afterlife, whether there is still suffering or not; I do not know whether we come back to life to continue at the point where the suffering of the previous life had been interrupted either. What I am sure of is that there are a lot of people suffering in the here and now. The suicidal person projects their suffering onto others, whether they know it or not. This is the reason why many people do not commit suicide, because they know they are going to cause a great deal of suffering to those they love.
One of the most powerful antidotes I have ever known to heal suicidal thinking is to start being free in life. If a life is submissive, enslaved and subdued, you will have to give yourself permission to be free. Freedom is one of the most precious values of the human being. If that value is recovered, then the desire to live is restored. But this means taking the leap from a comfortable, known and safe life to a life full of dangers, risks and adventures. It is the greatest human migration we can do to survive so much disaster. This unknown, insecure and uncomfortable path is very easily navigated when there is support and self-restraint. When one begins to be conscious and has self-love, when hope is recovered and when new and different possibilities to those once considered begin to open up. This is when real danger disappears, replaced by the true sense that is obtained when we manage to recover at least a part of our lost, or rather forgotten, freedom. To remember that we are free in essence is the healing of the soul. The original healing that results in the healing of the body, mind, emotions and spirit.
We need courage to put a full stop on a life that has no meaning. Not by taking our body’s life but by ending with the kind of life we have and that we dislike so much. Being reborn to life in an innocent and surrendered, open and receptive, sensitive and affective way. This is indeed freedom. To stop feeling guilty about what we are or what we have done, for what others did or for what they wanted to make us feel. This is to restore purity. Perhaps this is why the philosopher Nietzsche stated: “The seal of liberation is not to be ashamed in front of oneself.”
Alberto José Varela
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