The Spiritual Consequences of Suicide (Blog)

[Erin Pavlina]

Use this thread to discuss the following entry from Erin Pavlina's blog:

The Spiritual Consequences of Suicide

[KeithHandy]

Thanks for this one. I've never gotten as far as the planning stages with regard to suicide, but the thought of it does cross my mind occasionally. But usually when I get to the point of having those thoughts, it's when I stop believing the spiritual forces have my best interests at heart and start to think that my life is just a rude cosmic prank. When I get to that point, I'm looking for a way to curtail the abuse. If I can continue to sustain the general belief that there really is a positive purpose for everything that seemingly goes wrong, then the thoughts don't even cross my mind. I'm okay with things going "wrong" for a good reason. I'm not so okay with just being made into a fool.

[confused]

How do you ask for the vacation? or the fewer lines?

I really don't want to end up broken and devastated!

[{aspiring_to_clarity}]

Thanks, Erin. That's a really great perspective. I had really never thought of it that way.

[Erki]

Funny that you parallel life with a play.. I was just thinking that if suicide was not the thing to do, I'd better endure through the life as if I was in a bad movie. Just imagine that once you have committed the suicide, you go back to the start of your life and do all the same things and end up at the same place... I wouldn't want to risk that one...

[Erki]

I was just thinking here about the "vacation" thingy, what if I decide to go on a "permanent vacation", like, moving halfway around the world and starting from scratch again? Would that mean that I bail out of my real "mission" or was it already in my plan before I was born? I think I have to get myself a reading.

[Erin Pavlina]

You can leave your current play and join a new one. You just want to give notice so you don't leave your fellow castmates in the lurch. In fact, that's a good point and I should probably have discussed that in the article.

If you don't like the role you've got or the play you're in, you can definitely change it. My Path to Purpose article will get you there in no time flat.

[XeutonMojukai]

I have Bi-polar among other neurological disorders, so I get suicidal every once in a while.

What's worth knowing is that I have never attempted suicide, ever.

The reason is that I know there will always be a place for me in this life that only I can fulfill.

The way I change that place for me in this lifetime is by raising my own level of living to a state where my role is that of a higher character than before.

Remember the ultimate quality in a play: character development.

If you live your life and never try to improve or break out of your shell, guess what? you're a boring character!

What I've also found is that you need to always think of what you hope for in life, and remember that it is going to happen if you stick to your life, but it is not going to happen if you don't.

That's not a guarantee, but rather a matter of possibility. If you have given up without killing yourself, you've still given up, and you are led by despair into desperate situations, rather than by hope towards inspiring situations.

Read my thread "The Trinity (no, not that one...)" and you'll understand how it is that changing myself will change the world.

And always remember this quote:

"Be the change you want to see in the world"
- Gandhi

~ David

[seeker5]

I've heard it mention that sometimes death is planned for someone. So what if suicide is planned so that the others nearby learn from it? Or is that just not something that is planned?

[carenkh]

Seeker5, I was thinking the same thing... the suicide is as much a part of the play as other types of death.

I attempted suicide once and I learned that I'd just have to come back here anyway and learn the lessons I was trying to avoid (and didn't even know I was trying to avoid). So why not stick around? It did give me a certain kind of freedom - I mean, if I'm contemplating DEATH, then how bad could failure be? May as well go for broke, right?

~ peace ~

[bluesharpist101]

excellent article

[Old Soul]

Hi

I have Bipolor as well, and I have not been suicidal, I've been bed ridden , down and out for a spell or two, but not suicidal......... I think it is because I lost a sister to suicide , when she was quite young 16, and so was I so I have had years to experience the pain of her loss, the effects of her suicide,

However I do believe i live my life in honor of hers..... for her:-)

Remember the ultimate quality in a play: character development.

Exactly:-))

[Erin Pavlina]

Suicide is not part of the play. Now, it can be worked into a scene once the suicider is left behind... I mean, it must be explained to the "audience" what has happened to that character, so lessons are indeed learned. But suicides are not pre-determined pre-incarnation.

[hymalaia]

Hmm, I used to get a lot of suicidal thoughts, though they are happening less and less nowadays. They still happen though and they can be a pain. But I think if I were to ever go through with it I couldn't just "dissapear" from life. I would work to distance myself from the people I know physically and emotionally. I'd move far away and break off all contact. I'd get to the point where if I did kill myself it just wouldn't make a huge difference because I've already distanced myself from everyone. I'm single and don't know many people so it really wouldn't be that hard.

I guess you could say I'd rather fade away than burn out.

My reasoning here is fairly selfish; for example, I really can't stand the thought that I might have a "funeral" in the upcoming future. I'm 24 and funerals for people my age; I don't know the atmosphere just bothers me. They're so tragic and depressing. I would hate to see that happening to me from the other side! I want to say I'd just avoid my own funeral but I think I'd go out of morbid curiosity and to see just who shows up! heh.

All that said, I don't think it's going to come to suicide. I do feel distance from certain people in my life is necessary, but I'm not equating that with a future suicide... yet. The thing is, my "distancing" plan would take years of work. Work that could be used actually living a life, so it's rather illogical to apply. Even if it took no work I'd at least have to wait till I get to an age where death is more "acceptable" like 40 or something. This kind of sounds like taking a "waiting to die" additude, which is what would it would take for me to commit suicide. I sometimes wonder if more people aren't on this mindset, maybe not to die at 40, but 70, or 60, or 50. I wonder if certain behaviors which I consider "passively suicidal" like smoking, drinking, junk food, etc are part of it... obviously people enjoy these things but they also know they kill you. I mean that is suicidal to a certain degree... just a slower more enjoyable form. ;o

Just some cheery thoughts. As I said, my suicidal tendencies improve with time though they have yet to dissapear.

[John Manyjohns]

This cleared a few things up for me.

I am not usually suicidal, but I look at my life 10, 20, 30 years in the future, and I often wonder if I will have the strength to keep going to the end of "the play". I seem to be (mostly) unafraid of death, but I am definitely afraid of pain and suffering in this world.

I suppose knowing that suicide is not really an escape, that we will have to go through the same bitter lessons all over again, certainly provides some incentive to "tough it out", but, honestly, I can't fathom why anyone would actually CHOOSE to incarnate in this "veil of tears".

The ancient Greeks believed that wisdom could only come through suffering, and maybe they were right, but it sometimes seems to me that my "Higher Self", or whoever planned all this is an accomplished sadist.

[Erin Pavlina]

I will say this about suffering... it is very hard to know joy unless you know suffering and sadness. Not saying you should seek out suffering and sadness, but if you've been through it and you've also found joy on the other side then you probably know what I'm talking about.

As for the end of life, try to think of it this way... even a year of pain and suffering is just a blip in the span of eternity. "This too shall pass."

[Mia]

Interesting article.

Erin, I LOVE your metaphors!

[Old Soul]

I will say this about suffering... it is very hard to know joy unless you know suffering and sadness. Not saying you should seek out suffering and sadness, but if you've been through it and you've also found joy on the other side then you probably know what I'm talking about.

As for the end of life, try to think of it this way... even a year of pain and suffering is just a blip in the span of eternity. "This too shall pass."

AMEN!! or "Here Here!! lol.......... said brilliantly!


Tis truly a beautiful view is it not?
Upon a breast of dawn
Especially after a dark night
When the clouds rolled in sight
And the darkness went on and on...

[Lallymac]

Erin, absolutely brilliant once again. Bang on.
I'd like share an experience I had about 12 yrs ago.
I'd just started doing readings and was fast track learning about the after life. For a couple of years prior to stepping out as a medium, I'd meditated every day for peace of mind and to improve my running performance. Spirit guides quickly made themselves known it seemed every corner of my life was luminous. On of my daughters opened up not long after me and we'd explore the spirit realms in private once a week. During one of our early sessions my deceased grandmother had finished conversing with us and a familiar face transfigured through my daughter and and spoke to me using my maiden name.
I recognised her immediately as my best friend from my school days who had committed suicide with anorexia when we were 18. I was in my thirties and had had several clairvoyant readings over my adult life but had never encountered Wendy and no-one had ever picked her up.
Wendy wasn't just a friend. I remember the first day she walked into my school at age 8. I can still see her walking through the school grounds with her parents. I loved her instantly and knew that we would be best friends. It was what my youngest daughter calls 'inside out' love where you are already inside the person and whatever happens happens after that, love is constant. It's totally unconditional. It's not sacraficial in any way because you know you have to always be honest and always be yourself with that person because if you are anything less, they'll know because they are inside you.
When Wendy died, she was gone. She wasn't inside me any more.

In my late twenties and early thirties I was told by a number of people that I was clairvoyant but if I was I would know where Wendy was. I would see her or feel her. But I didn't so I couldn't be.

By my late thirties I had enough other evidence to convince me it was possible and worth exploring but in the back of mind I still harboured doubt.
I had no concepts at that time of where we go or what happens after we die. I knew we still exist, but little else.

Twenty years after she'd died, she's suddenly sitting in the chair opposite me looking exactly as she had the last time I'd seen her. Her speech and manerisms were those of an 18 yr old. She was talking about people we knew and things we did as if it was yesterday. I was having search through the archives of my memories to relate to her. She taunted me about my pronounciation just like she used to when we were kids.

After picking up the threads of conversations, she went very quiet and began to plead with me to help her. She said no-one could see her. She told me about her brother and his children who she could see but they couldn't see her. She said everywhere else was dark. She started to fade out and asked if she could come back and again if I could help her. I said yes of course but felt panicked because I didn't know how.

My daughter and I closed down and later I remembered a magnetic healer I'd met, talking about some rescue work he'd done. I remembered him saying he'd asked the person to think of someone they knew who'd passed over before them. As they remembered them, the person would appear and show them the way to move on. Wendy's aunt had died when we were young so the next time she came through, I asked her to remember her. Then I saw one of my guides and her aunt standing next to her. She went with them.

Wendy was the first of many. For quite awhile afterwards she would pop in while my daughter and I were working and help other people on there way. The first time she came through, her energy was very physical and heavy. After she'd moved on, she was radiant, chatty and happy.

I've found through my work that suicide can take many forms. People opt out of life through recklessness such as drunk driving, sinking into robotic oblivion and not taking care of their health, abusing themselves and taking risks, taking risks to punish other people, and intentional carelessness caused by pain or grief.

Some get lost along the way. But for the majority of people dying is as natural as sleeping and waking.
Lallymac

[Erin Pavlina]

Lallymac, yes! Exactly.

People do eventually find their way. I have seen that some who are lost have these angels around them protecting their energy, even when they cannot be detected by the person who has suicided.

In one of my "cases" for lack of a better word, a sitter I have read for several times had a mom who suicided. The first few readings the mom would come to me and still be in a very low state of shame and guilt and depression. But over time, this improved. Her angels took her back to a place and time in her earthly life where she felt joy and love. This raised her energy and then she was able to see her guardian angels, who then counseled her on sloughing off the shame, guilt, and judgement, and helped her cross over. I'm so glad I got to witness this over the year that I was reading for her.

[cmvincent42]

I know the consequences of suicide all to well. When I was 17 years old, the beginning of my senior year of high school, my father committed suicide. Since then my uncle, best friend's father and good friend have also killed themselves. The hurt and destruction that suicide leaves feels unbearable at times. Sometimes you can logically understand how hard this life is and why people give up but then there are times when your heart doesn't understand. My heart cries wondering why my father didn't love me enough to not devastate me by killing himself and leaving his body and emotional mess to find and deal with. Basically I just want to let people know though today may be cloudy tomorrow the sun may shine. Don't ever give up and don't forget about the people who love you that will be here left to deal while you are gone.

Thank you for this topic.

[John Manyjohns]

If we choose our circumstances, then some people must have chosen a life of suffering, perhaps to learn something valuable from it?

However, if suicide is never "part of the plan", why would someone choose a life filled with more suffering than they are capable of bearing?

There are some people who experience untreatable biological depression so severe and pervasive that there is simply no way they can possibly function; they are incapable of maintaining normal interactions with other people, incapable of supporting themselves, and are basically frozen or half-alive. For these people, suicide seems inevitable --- the natural response of a biological organism to a constant, absolutely overwhelming, agonizing stimulus; under enough torture, ANYONE will eventually pray for death.

(I am not describing myself, despite my earlier pessimistic post. From my own experiences with depression, I simply can't imagine the horrible pain that some of those hardest-hit must be going through; it makes me sick just to think about.)

[Sunsingh]

According to many religions, such as Sikhi, Hinduism, Buddhism, suicide will throw you into a cycle of births and deaths in the lower incarnations - beings such as animals, plants, bacteria etc. If you've ever watched discovery channel, you can guess just how painful that may be. It takes millions of incarnations to get out of it and get another chance at a precious human life.