Suicide

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My Letter to a Friend

You once mentioned that I am somewhat alone in holding the views and positions that I do in life. You once mentioned that I’m labeled a liberal, even though I don’t think of myself as fitting under a stereotype, yet others think of me that way. But, I’m not really alone and so, I will answer the unasked question of why I feel and think, and act, as I do.

My answer is this.

….Because I see how people are treated in the world. I’ve seen people of all walks of life – normal people, people who struggle to get by, struggle to eat, struggle to find work, struggle to stay alive, struggle against despair, and struggle to not commit suicide, because they’re buried by unending hardships of life, and drowning from going so long with the lack of any hope. This is happening to more and more people in this time and place. I see people who through whatever circumstances – get bent and broken, hurt, harmed and killed. I witness people who oppose others living their own life differently, and ask myself, why don’t they have the right to try to live their life, and live it as best they can.

My answer is this.

….I have the right to care about other people if I so choose to. I have the right to help another person if I want to help them. I have the right to feel what I feel about helping. I have the right to choose to help when and who I can help, and especially when I know someone absolutely needs help.

I know what suffering and pain is. We all know what it is. We see it in our own life, and sometimes we see it in others’ lives. I have the right to muster whatever effort I can to help end whatever suffering may be possible, with me only being one person…. who could join with another one person…. who could join with another one person….

My answer is this.

…When someone’s belief is “Those people are evil.” I have the right to say, “I disagree”, and I believe, “No, they’re not evil just because you name-call them that.” When someone’s opinion and belief is, “Those people deserve to suffer.” I have the right to say, “I disagree”, and then believe, “No, they don’t just because you say they deserve to suffer.”

When someone believes the Internet rumors, or the powerful people’s name-calling, the Internet speculation, the claims of those on TV, and “he said it, therefore it’s true”, I have the right to believe that the rumors, the name-calling, opinions, speculation, claims and “HE SAID IT THEREFORE IT MUST BE TRUE” are only that – opinions and beliefs, which just as often are proven not true as they’re presented, and yet still cause pain, suffering and harm to people. I have the right to say, “I disagree”, and then oppose the words, and demand proof. And I’ve witnessed that the proof, many times, never shows up.

When someone says their beliefs about others are Facts, I have the right to say “I believe they are not FACTS, because you don’t prove them, while there can be opposing FACTS which have been proven.”

I have had experiences being the target of prejudice, of disrespect, of hatred, of harm, of rumor, name-calling, claims, and “he said it, therefore it’s true.” I’ve been the recipient of religious people “bearing false witness” against me for whatever reasons they have. I’ve been targeted and harmed from it.

All of these actions of mankind are chosen actions. No one is a programmed computer who has no freewill. When human beings choose to target someone, humans do it – very many times – because it is a belief, and we humans hold within our hearts and minds the willingness to target and harm another human being. In our world now, with the choosing of impatience and animosity, the greatest majority of targeting and attacking is ONLY based on beliefs and attitudes, and not actual proven FACTS.

My answer is this.

…I choose to work hard to help prevent and oppose threats and bullying. I choose to add effort to helping people who want the right to live their life as best they can. I choose to work hard at helping to prevent and oppose prejudice, and rumor and the harm that comes from “somebody said it somewhere, therefore it’s true” or “The President said it, therefore I believe it.”

And each time someone says, I’m a fool or says I’m stupid or I’m an idiot, to be this way, with insults and raging at me, I will continue to work to say, “That’s only your opinion, and I disagree with it, but you have the right to choose what thoughts live within your own mind, your own heart, and within your own soul.”

And so do I.

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Question on Suicide: Part 1. Of the Heart

This is a 3-part series of articles, written to respond to a reader’s question.

Part 1 of 3: Of the Heart

Part 2 of 3: Of the Mind

Part 3 of 3: Karma

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“I have been suicidal many times in my life. I have studied metaphysics most of my life. I believe that we, along with our guides, plan our next incarnation and the lessons we will take on. If we and our guides plan our next incarnation, can suicide be written into our ‘blueprint’? If so, would this being planned ahead of rebirth, doesn’t that alleviate the bad karma associated with suicide? It seems if it is planned it is part of our spiritual evolution, yes? Or maybe it is the big picture and the bad karma is part of the learning process as well.” V.

I will start this way. You’re asking about a larger topic than you might think. I could write several books to explain. The real answers, or rather, the answers I see and offer, will take one far beyond the questions and topics you are asking about. I do not have every facet and issue related to suicide. I can only offer that which I see.

So, here we go.

Part 1 of 3: Of the Heart

First, I suggest that there are very few people who have not thought of suicide. It is part of the realities of human life. But, suicide is not just a “mind” thing. It is not a “logical” thing. It can be and is a “heart surrounded in unrealized and unrecognized emotions” thing. It can be a “feelings unknowingly overwhelming a person” thing. When injured, harmed or ill, rational thought and logic does not heal the mind.

Secondly, from a different take on it, I will offer that one of the practical spiritual lessons of experiencing the desire to end our life, is to reach a point in our own consciousness where we step back and begin to understand how any human being at all can reach a point in one’s life where we desire to end our life in suicide. When whatever has come forth in life to move us to reach this point in our own life where we desire suicide, we can begin to understand how others can reach points in their life, where they desire it. Ultimately, this practical lesson, can help us to begin to have the compassion within us for others who turn to suicide as their solution. This growing compassion and understanding can serve us greatly as humans in this world leading us to ever more ways to connect to those who are struggling and suffering with suicidal thoughts. 

If we had been judgemental in past lives about people who commit suicide – and many have been extremely judgemental about this, especially the Churches through the centuries – then us now having these feelings gives us a very real perspective to help us have compassion of how difficult it is to deal with this.

This awareness, deeper understanding, and connection are no small things. We gain when we can learn and understand what it’s like for human beings to be human beings with real human turmoil, loss and pain, etc. which can lead to this choice. As humans, the questions related can deal with the despair we feel, the grief we feel, the sorrow and suffering we feel, the experience of being lost in life, the disconnection from others we may experience, as well as the pain of loss of that which we hoped for and sought in our lives. And not all of this is necessarily recognized in our conscious mind all at once. We can be unaware of what drives our considering/grasping at suicide.

When we reach what feels to be the darkest place in our minds and hearts – and possibly finding it to be one of the most alone places within ourselves – then it can become possible to be able to understand why we think that ending our life might end the feelings, sorrow, grief, despair, loss and whatever else which may contribute. Although reaching this newly recognized understanding of humanity from this experience is a seemingly small idea, it has a very big effect on the connecting process of many human hearts. We can easily find that we believe that ending the human experience will end whichever deep black-hole we experience ourselves in.

When we become more aware of this human experience, we can then see what drives humans to believe that stopping this life must be a solution. We can see what drives us humans to WANT the ending of this life to be a solution.

There is loss which we can go through, which we can’t readily identify. We can feel grief which we don’t know where it comes from. We can feel sorrow and pain which we have no understanding why. There are losses in our life – loss of our hope for better in our lives, loss of our intentions, loss of our dreams, loss of our desires, loss of our beliefs about life, and loss of our valuing of different parts of life and on and on. All of these aspects of life are very important to us and for humans, loss of ever kind is felt deeply and impacts our hearts and minds. We even feel it in our bodies.

In our physical life in the physical universe and in our spiritual life in the spiritual realm, it is ourselves who are the voices crying out in the wilderness. We cry out from that place within our own unfinished heart and, as yet, not-fully-discovered mind.

But, coming from this crying out in the wilderness, sometimes, one day in the healing process, we can slowly, slowly learn and recognize the notion that we would never feel any of these things unless we first had an ability to somehow and somewhere have the capacity to grasp there is a God and there is love existing somewhere, and grasping at any/all of this comes from inside our own self – from inside our own heart and from inside our own soul. It is the love patiently waiting and tucked away inside us – and the suffering we recognize we go through connected to a love we can’t even remember – which originally led us to hope earlier on, to have better intentions and beliefs, and to value whatever in life we have found valuable – and have these at the beginnings of our sojourns to experience being human – at the very beginning of our life or lives.

It is the love inside of us which we so many times forget, with having forgotten the awareness that love is our very nature and the center of our life. Yet, the Love at our core of life can help us to find ways, with others’ help, to walk a “seeking for healing” path which can lead, in turn, to reconnecting, communing, and sharing with others, in their lives. It can be these moments, in turn, when we hope that our own healing path of slowly discovering our center, again, that our core awareness of love could help us help our neighbor to come to know they are able to find themselves loved and able to love, eventually, too, thus connecting to an unending circle of help, and then even giving us opportunities to express the compassion we begin to find within us and we have heretofore been relearning (even from the seed of compassion within which we can have for our self.)

All our spiritual lessons will always be centered on and born from loving God, and loving others. Christ’s words, “Love God above all else, and love your neighbor as yourself”, are the words which are the foundation of every spiritual discovery and healing principle. All spiritual teachings flow from the spring of this pure source. For not only is it true that God is Love, but Love is God – the God energy and the God center.  Love is healing because of this.

Our struggles, our pains and our sorrows many times involve, at some level within us, our forgetting that we are asked to bring love with us as we walk through our life, (sometimes one life at a time, one day at a time, and one moment at a time), so that we can know this love is within us, this love can grow within us, and that we can never be separated from this inner healing love. It can never NOT exist as our very being and essence – even if we’re totally clueless about this reality. In addition, in turn, then when we can consider helping another life to learn before their time is up – that they are loved and they now, might know how deep love can reach into every part of us, and out from every deep part of us.

All of us are ambassadors of some kind – whether of harm or of healing. We can be ambassadors of healing, if we are willing to love even one other life, and through the sorrow, the pain, the grief, the despair that we all have known and still know and go through, realize that through all this, we can still love someone or something in life. We can still love, even when we ourselves are on our cross with the nails through our hands and feet, and with the sword piercing our own heart. We can still love when we are in our deepest pain. In turn, any love we give to another is indeed the savior of both of us – is indeed the greatest lesson we can hope to one day grasp – to love God and others – and in turn, this leading to loving the Oneness of all life which begins within our own individual nature.

Loving is always a choice and can be chosen even when we’re on our own cross and we ask, “Father, please forgive us, for we don’t know what we’re doing.” The act of loving is an act of healing and is the act of giving of our self for the benefit of helping others to heal, beginning from ourselves and expanding to more than ourselves.

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We are the voices crying out in the wilderness, “God, please, help me!!!” We are the voices crying out, “I don’t understand!” We are the voices suffering. We are the ones whose tears create streams within our soul so that healing waters, the water of love, may begin to flow forth.

We love, and because we love, we experience sorrow and grief, loss, pain and despair. Just ask any parent who loves their child as that child grows and struggles through life. And in these moments of our strongest pain, we know what it means to need help, and we know what it means, when we realize we’re not alone in these feelings, and we’re not alone in the very moment of needing help.

It is the human condition to know sorrow, pain, loss and despair – a few of many triggers for suicide. Yet, when we are nailed upon our own cross, the challenge is at the greatest – to decide to end our life and take ourselves down off the cross, or instead to turn to the one on the cross next to us, reaching over to Him asking to be remembered, or to let someone else know that today, we/they are together with our/their crosses, in the same way that He remembers us to let us know that on our cross, we are with Him and He is with us. And He will never leave us or forsake us when we are on the life path we walk.

Our greatest lesson is Love and in loving, to join with each other and show whomever comes into our lives that love is real, and love can exist in our life. We are meant to both give Love and receive Love. We are not alone – we are meant to become one more person who can come to learn to love and learn to be loved. In turn, because we can choose to love and seek to show love in real ways, then we are united, and then no longer alone in our life. When we love, we are not alone. In this joining based on loving, we are then in that better place we have always been seeking since the beginning of all times.

It may seem disconnected to the response, but I’ll add this…

God designed us to need one another…
and to learn this is a great lesson learned.

Part 1 of 3: Of the Heart

Part 2 of 3: Of the Mind

Part 3 of 3: Karma

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Suicide

Sadness and grief permeate all facets of suicide. The human experiences of those who commit suicide and the human experiences of those who are left behind contain all manners of sorrow and pain before, during and after it is done. From the spiritual side of life, there is another consideration – an  opportunity to grow as a soul is lost.

Many humans will discuss the subject of suicide and condemn the act. Many say it’s not a problem at all.  Many say that it is an unforgivable sin. Many say that the person goes to hell for committing suicide. Many people say many things about what others do or don’t do leading up to or afterwards.

But, God does not take instruction from mankind. Like so many other things, our experience on the other side is very much based on our beliefs on this side. The standards we set for others are the standards we must be judged by – to some degree.  Our own judgment of ourselves (and others) gives us the most difficult challenges.  The point being that God determines what God’s perspective and stance on something is.

In the process of soul growth – regarding the expansion and evolution of the consciousness of an individual spirit inhabiting or not inhabiting a body – we are afforded many opportunities to learn of our relationships to God, to each other and to ourselves. Suicide, like many other things of this type in life, (murder, drug addiction, etc) prevents or stops particular opportunities for the soul to face certain necessary challenges.  But in the eternity of Infinite time, something else is the case.  Remember, God’s ways are not man’s ways.

First, suicide, like so many other experiences, is a personal choice. How we treat others is a choice. How we treat God is a choice. How we treat ourselves is a choice.  And many times in life, under countless circumstances, we fall short in the immediate moment in having the people or the tools to help us when we need help the most.  This means that all human beings at some point in life, are the ones who are the voices crying out in the wilderness “God, please help!”

When suicide is chosen and acted out, very little of our personal pain, challenges and lessons change for us, the soul(s) experiencing. Challenges don’t go away. Suffering doesn’t go away. If nothing, through suicide, we learn a lesson in what it is that drives human beings to commit suicide.  In other words, “Now we know why people choose suicide.  We now know how deep into despair and other emotions people can go which lead to this choice and act.

However, is the connection to others on Earth who may have been helpful, the opportunity to ask someone in the Earth for help when faced with these choices and experiences does go away, but only for a while. Each opportunity to continue learning in the Earth of the issues at hand does go away, but only for a while.

And, learning as a whole, does not go away. God does not abandon the soul experiencing suicide.  Starting over at some point in the future and eventually facing and overcoming the same challenges, returns to us. While we will one day be required to rebalance/resolve/heal/clean up our exact same issues with regards to the people who had been in our physical life, the fact that “God loves a soul who is willing to start over” (Edgar Cayce) means that we are not abandoned in our soul growth after an act of suicide. It will just take longer… and we won’t readily have the opportunities to return to address these factors and issues.  It also means we don’t escape from learning a “particular lesson”.  God’s ways are not man’s ways, and God does not abandon any soul/individual.  AND we have Eternity to walk our path of learning.

As souls, we have much to learn. As human beings, we have much to learn in the extreme. One of these things to learn is that while many think and wish it to be, suicide isn’t the escape people think it is. There is no escape from the soul work we have for us to become the companions of the Infinite Loving Consciousness or the issues, circumstances, and challenges that we must eventually and one day address/rebalance/resolve/heal/repair or will face.  And while in the Earth, we are called to practice the inner soul work of helping each one that calls out in the wilderness, “Help!”

As human beings we have many experiences that can lead us to the despair and pain making us think that suicide is the only door open to us. So many of us, if not all of us, must face this perspective that we have potentially within us. One thing to remember, (when the time comes for each of us to answer this question for ourselves,) is that we are not designed to go through life alone. We are designed to need one another.  The need for one another can be said to have been built into our “spiritual DNA” – the very energy/essence of our existence.  It is Truth that we are all in this boat together whether we believe it or not. We are teammates, whether we believe it or not. We can make it through these experiences by connecting to our teammates, relying on others to help us, and one day in turn, maybe our helping another teammate.

Another thing to remember, is that Christ can truly be thought of as one of our best friends. (We will always have this one best friend.)  When we face the challenges that we will face, we can reach out to our best friend(s) – the friend who is most able to understand and have room for us in their heart.  We can also reach out to any teammates who are “in the boat rowing along side of us (any human whom we find to reach out to.)

While we may argue this point, it really is true – God designed us to need one another. Problems arise when we try to ignore this need.  Problems can be healed and resolved when we understand and act on this need.

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“We aren’t meant to go it alone.  God designed us to need one another.” (The Rainbow Cards, ©, 1996 – 2023, Jodie Senkyrik)