It would be controversial indeed to produce a writing that informs people how they can intentionally die best. So am I actually doing that here? No… and yes.
Let’s discuss, for a moment, the notion of suicide. I appreciate that anyone who is in a place where suicide seems to be a reasonable or even optimal solution is, on some level, suffering. But suicide is not really much of a serious situation for this reason: suicide is simply a response to thinking.
That’s it.
Suicide is never about something that happens within the life experience — never. Suicide is not about whatever “problems” we may have; suicide is about accepting a story about these problems as the truth.
If we do not accept as the truth a negative story about our life circumstances then we would not be suicidal. Period, end of story. Don’t get the reality of the situation confused: life is not causing us to feel despairing, we are doing it to ourselves.
Life is not causing us to suffer, we are — again — doing it to ourselves. This is absolutely undeniable.
For proof of this, let me demonstrate how emotional suffering works:
Some event does, or doesn’t, happen “in the world”. A story about this event happening or not happening comes into our awareness. This story essentially says that this event happening, or not, is a bad thing. We accept this story as the truth. An emotion — emotions are physical body responses to thought — arises. A new story, about this emotional response, comes into our awareness. The new story says this emotional response is despair, and despair is a bad thing. We accept this new story as the truth. Our world view as a result of all this, naturally, becomes extremely bleak.
There it is. Where in that descriptive is life to blame? Who is really doing what to whom here?
The real issue in all of this is a rejection of life. We, on some level, believe that we know better than life does. We know what should, and shouldn’t, be happening. We certainly know what’s in our best interests and when life doesn’t oblige our egos as we want it to we may threaten to take our ball and leave the game.
Suicide.
Is it possible that life — the universe, God, whatever descriptive you want to use — knows more about what should be happening than we do? Is it possible that whatever happens, ultimately, serves our best interests? Perhaps to wake us up? Perhaps to get us in touch with our authentic selves? Perhaps some other outcome?
I am not denying that certain life circumstances can appear extremely challenging. I appreciate how painful it can be to feel ourselves financially destitute, or to have a significant relationship fall apart, or to lose someone we dearly love, or to be diagnosed with a terminal health condition. It is not always easy to deal with the experiences life leaves at our door.
It can be so hard…
But listen closely and you will find that all despair — all emotion of any kind — follows a story. You may have to listen closely because the stories can come quickly, but they are always there. Always.
What if we didn’t accept these stories as our truth? Should we deny them? Absolutely not — what we resist persists. Instead allow them, in their exact form and exactly as they are, but don’t grab hold of them by accepting them as truth or through trying to push them away. Observe them but beyond this allow them to be… no matter what they should say or do.
What would happen then? The stories would soon go on their way. The ego thus would be denied being fed “proof” of life’s unfairness and miserable nature. It would be a form of suicide, as we would be killing our selves…
Our ego selves.
What would be left then? What we really are — contentment and peace. Don’t take my word for this… know it for yourself.
