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Re: Suicide

Posted: Wed Sep 10, 2014 2:32 pm
by Mimesis
Nefastos wrote: But what it creates if our striving has been pure in its core is, that the new seemingly opposite phase will actually bring us closer to the original goal: the movement is the ascending spiral, rather than not-evolving zig zag.
I really like the relation to the ascending spiral, and the fact that providing our spiritual path has been given the devotion and practice throughout the entirety of our form bound existence, our essence is not lost to physical and/or mental regression.
However, in the case of, for example, mental and aging regression; would the uncontrollable loss of understanding and connection with the septenary principles and praxis not impact on the life long work that we had been devoted to up to that point?
If the understanding is not there, does the journey remain intact?
Nefastos wrote: For if we'd just try to unclothe ourselves from the crude matter, that can't be done without a work of very lengthy periods of time; any attempt to do so with the aid of violence will simply create repercussions & hindrances, for these things demand extreme subtlety, their essence being interwoven into most sublime levels of being. Instead, we should accept this state of being as our tools for initiation.
Similarly, I really like the approach to, and completely agree that this state of form is essentially the tool(s) that we must work with(in) for initiation, but if the moment with which an act such as the topics title was absolutely correct and done with love, understanding and will, would it not make any potential violence within the act null and void, and instead an act of love in the name of our devotion, integrity and journey?

Re: Suicide

Posted: Fri Sep 12, 2014 1:46 pm
by Nefastos
JR/O wrote:However, in the case of, for example, mental and aging regression; would the uncontrollable loss of understanding and connection with the septenary principles and praxis not impact on the life long work that we had been devoted to up to that point?
If the understanding is not there, does the journey remain intact?


Only seemingly. It is a fact that the inverted triangle (our threefold world) is in constant flux, & because of that no form is ever free of change. Everything that is built must eventually lose its outer (!!) structure to entropy. But at the same time, the inner luminous being continues on its path, more & more free from the bodily restrictions as the form loses more of its integrity - but only in the case it has earned that right by taking the best of that particular form's possibilities for work when they were present. It's the occult identification & de-identification of the soul with the body. Body here can, of course, be either a physical body of a man, a collective body of a group, a culture, or anything bound to psycho-physical laws. Understanding this two-fold law only partially is where the ascetic orders' error of too severe mortification & self-denial originally stems.

JR/O wrote:but if the moment with which an act such as the topics title was absolutely correct and done with love, understanding and will, would it not make any potential violence within the act null and void, and instead an act of love in the name of our devotion, integrity and journey?


Theoretically yes – but in practice it is extremely rare, for one's thought that suicide (for example) would be the perfect answer is almost always based on incomplete occult world view, not taking the full karma of situations into consideration. Of course it can sometimes be a lesser of many evils, or a compromise. (For example, one's taking of his own life is seemingly only way to save other lives, or one is in a way or another forced to commit suicide, like Plato or so many politics of the Roman era, & so on.) Usually people committing suicide or taking other people's lives simply do not see the bigger picture involving the souls' continuing existence after death, souls' subconscious vital impulses still clinging to the mundane world whether they'd like that or not. It might seem like a good justice to kill relentless criminals of the worst kind, for example, but killing them actually does not solve anything. It is much the same with one's own body: disposing it doesn't make the material magnetism to go away - on the contrary, it makes impossible for one to work on that & slowly lessen the hindrances of that atavistic magnetism. Those people who hate the material life the most are actually those who are among those who are most likely to be bound to the astral stasis of matter-bound postmortem living. Paradoxically, "giving to the Emperor what is his" is the quickest path out of the material world, because it does not bring about repercussion effects. That is why many teachers choose to live in the world like those who love living in it, although they are heading out, so to say.

Light on the Path wrote:Kill out desire of life. [---] Respect life as those do who desire it. Be happy as those are who live for happiness.

Re: Suicide

Posted: Sun Sep 28, 2014 11:52 am
by Cancer
Suicide can be viewed as a way of being absolutely certain about... I'm not sure what. A desperate person might think that it is the only means to really decide something final, to prove oneself that "there never was an escape", essentially to be right about ones own desperate state or the fucked-up-ness of the world. In the long run, no-one can hold onto any such form-bound assumption or personal construct, because as long as there is life, there is the possibility of error (that could maybe even be a definition of life!) - and knowing this can be truly shattering, especially for a very proud individual. He/she might see changing - altering ones views, being wrong - as a humiliation, as I remember doing some years ago. Dying, seen as the end of everything, would then be a way to "score off" life and change, to remain the same for ever.

This might sound like I thought that committing suicide is egoistical. And maybe I do. But, well, so what? OF COURSE fear is egoistical, OF COURSE pain is egoistical. One of the most twisted and disgusting things about exoteric Christianity is the doctrine of suicide as sin. I mean, if it's not allowed to be afraid and in pain beyond ones endurance, how can it be allowed to live at all? This really makes me feel Satanic...

And it's not always only about fear and pain either. I used to spend very much time thinking that I was a failure and somehow destined to either kill myself or live my whole life isolated and unhappy, and when this thought comes back, which still happens from time to time, I get the most intense feeling of despair and with it - in it, the most intense feeling of joy. This joy seems to come from a certainty that no-one, nothing could ever convince me that good things can happen in my life, that the despair I feel is really my "destiny". It's precisely like falling in love: finding the person who is and always was the right one. Love's the funeral of hearts, as Ville Valo put it.

Concerning Camus and other existentialist authors: I don't share their views on death, but I think that their writings can be a good reminder about its nature as a mystery. Studying only occultism, one can forget that in a sense death really is the end, and form a "too easy" concept of immortality. I haven't read the The Myth of Sisyphus, but also Camus' novels like The Plague and The Stranger contain many thoughts of death worth reflecting on.

Re: Suicide

Posted: Sun Sep 28, 2014 12:23 pm
by Kenazis
Cancer wrote:This might sound like I thought that committing suicide is egoistical. And maybe I do. But, well, so what? OF COURSE fear is egoistical, OF COURSE pain is egoistical. One of the most twisted and disgusting things about exoteric Christianity is the doctrine of suicide as sin. I mean, if it's not allowed to be afraid and in pain beyond ones endurance, how can it be allowed to live at all? This really makes me feel Satanic...
Good text and lots of ideas to think about. I however just want to comment the "Christian" part. I also am not a fan of christian view that suicide is a sin. I have always been thinking that the reason why it's a sin, is that man is putting himself to a position of God. In this act man sins by being quilty of Pride (first and the most severe of the 7 deadly sins) by thinking that he have right to control life by ending it (that's only allowed for God), guilty by lacking of faith, mistrust in God's plan (this can be seen as sloth, 4th of the 7 deadly sins), and by guilty of hate (3th of the 7 Deadly sins), for killing demands hate in some form or another. Suicide can be seen very satanistic act because of the many transgressions associated with it.

Taking another view on suicide takes it very hard to understand why christians condemn it so hardly. If suicide is seen (what it in most cases are) as an act of weakness, it makes absolutely no sense that the religion emphasizing weakness and unworthiness of human is so abruptly against it.

Re: Suicide

Posted: Sun Sep 28, 2014 1:20 pm
by Cancer
Kenazis wrote: Good text and lots of ideas to think about. I however just want to comment the "Christian" part. I also am not a fan of christian view that suicide is a sin. I have always been thinking that the reason why it's a sin, is that man is putting himself to a position of God. In this act man sins by being quilty of Pride (first and the most severe of the 7 deadly sins) by thinking that he have right to control life by ending it (that's only allowed for God), guilty by lacking of faith, mistrust in God's plan (this can be seen as sloth, 4th of the 7 deadly sins), and by guilty of hate (3th of the 7 Deadly sins), for killing demands hate in some form or another. Suicide can be seen very satanistic act because of the many transgressions associated with it.
There's one great book about (among other things) Christianity's view on suicide: The Sickness unto Death by Sören Kierkegaard. In my opinion, though, it is also one of the most sadistic and anti-life books ever to have been written, so I'll advise the reader to take it with a pinch of salt.

Kierkegaard claims that there are only two attitudes towards life: faith and despair. Being in despair, a person does not want to be himself, because he sees his incompleteness and cannot accept it: pride here. He may also want to be himself in despair to be a "mistake in God's plan" or, at the most elementary level, his despair may be latent - ignorant of being despair - but the basic idea is always the same. According to Kierkegaard, the only way to get rid of despair is having faith, believing that for God everything is possible; that, for example, if one loses something tremendously important, a beloved child or something, and ones undoing is absolutely certain in human terms, it is not so for God.

So suicide is sin because it is a result of despair, a refusal of the life that God has given us, of the possibility to have faith and to see beyond the flaws of ones personality. All this Christian rhetoric gives me the creeps, but philosophically speaking I kind of like agree: if one had totally given up pride and the idea of separateness, there would be no need to commit suicide, since, well, why try to destroy something that really doesn't exist in the first place? But it's a bit paradoxical that the giving up of this life, my life, is considered a sin, and yet the only way to completely avoid that sin is precisely to give up the said life.

One Finnish poet that I like wrote in an essay on suicide that it's actually an act of too much strength to kill oneself. Because, in doing so, a person shows that he/she still believes that something can be done, that there's a way out. That gave me lots to think about.

Ugh, too much philosophy. This kind of topics always make me feel that it's only shameful to speak conceptually...

Re: Suicide

Posted: Fri Jan 09, 2015 5:06 am
by Nokkonen
This topic really chimes a chord with me today when the life in this society seems too difficult to bare. There was a lot of emotional insight in many posts. Thank you. I really wanted to write something very detailed, but it all goes too deep and far for me to be able to open the whole scope of things in a forum post.

First, I don't thing suicide is wrong in itself. It just is. But these days I'm more interested in the psychology of us who feel compelled to commit a suicide because it seems like most of the people are just able to dabble along in their lives just fine, to fit in, and to live with more or less drama until they die. And then there are people who at some points of their lives find living to be near impossible and who think that committing suicide might be a viable option.

For me the problem is, and has always been, the society and its requirements.

I can really relate to much of what Heith was saying, that ugly buildings can compel people to kill themselves, and to Insanus who wrote about displacedness of people in the society after feudal system. I always remember how somebody wrote that the state of a civilization can be seen from its architecture, which I find ironic because we barely have architecture anymore. We have boxes with windows.

Lot of time has passed since I attempted suicide or admitted myself to a hospital so that I couldn't, and how I got to this point is a long story in itself. But what I'm getting at is that a bit part of my problem was always an inability to fit into the role society expects of me (to be a productive member of the society), and feeling separate from the world that seemed absurd.

After few bouts of gnosis cured me from the illusion of separateness, and hence depression, I have had to make a decision to minimize stress from my life and to always try to live in beautiful and serene surroundings. That's why I prioritize living in Alaska and have rejected the thought of pursuing a career. I don't think I could stay sane if I did. Money is great but not worth it. But it's a constant struggle to try to feel okay with myself and my choices when everything around me says that I'm not.

On a sidenote, one of the worst things I have ever witnessed in my life wasn't a suicide but the deathbed of a Lutheran priest. I visited him at the hospital and I will never ever forget the dread in his eyes when he acknowledged that he was going to die. He was in tears, talking about not knowing if his life had meant anything because he didn't know if there really was a God, or if his life's work had been in support of a lie. He was not resolved and ready to die, but die he did. Of course. At some point body can't resist even if mind is still fighting. And I don't know how all of you feel about life after death, but I don't think he is at peace.

Death is a strange and beautiful thing in that we are absolutely vulnerable and bare as it happens. I try to be in peace with that.

Re: Suicide

Posted: Fri Jan 09, 2015 8:50 pm
by Heith
Nokkonen wrote: On a sidenote, one of the worst things I have ever witnessed in my life wasn't a suicide but the deathbed of a Lutheran priest. I visited him at the hospital and I will never ever forget the dread in his eyes when he acknowledged that he was going to die. He was in tears, talking about not knowing if his life had meant anything because he didn't know if there really was a God, or if his life's work had been in support of a lie. He was not resolved and ready to die, but die he did. Of course. At some point body can't resist even if mind is still fighting. And I don't know how all of you feel about life after death, but I don't think he is at peace.
With the risk of going completely offtopic- I have been thinking about people's attitude towards death lately. Our society doesn't only seem to encourage death to remain as a taboo, but it seems to limit living as well. It seems to me that society would prefer a sort of zombified state of being, where one does not progress, but at the same time, withering is unacceptable as well. In short; do not grow old, and if you must die please do it so that no one sees it. Perhaps this is the reason for the majority of population who settles for what they are given and chooses to remain in their (un)comfortable little cubicles- a stagnation all over. When nothing dies, nothing grows either.

Most western countries are of course only seemingly religious, and very few people really believe in heaven, for example. Or perhaps a more correct way to put it would be that everything is extremely exoteric and when it comes to organised religion it's sort of obvious it must be this way, because the current teachings can hardly stand for more than a surface inspection.

I have been wondering if in time when (and if) I grow old, will I too begin to feel afraid that my time is running out and to fear dying? Most of my time I am in a state of mind where I am alright with the idea that I too will die. Sometimes this feeling intensifies and I expect to drop dead and even think "oh come on, now would be a perfect time! I am feeling very positive about this!" but of course, it doesn't go that way.

Thinking and doing is a different thing. In my every day life I do not particularly wish to die, as things are currently unfolding in very interesting ways and I am reaching some goals, but overall, I do believe that when my body dies, I do not perish. I merely become something else. And as I am already trying to become something else than what I currently am, this feels like it's a natural part of the task at hand.

If there is one thing that I do not want, it's a life prolonged and lived in a nursing home. I therefore hope that if suicide comes my way, I would be able to approach it with a peaceful mind and that it would be a conscious decision because I feel that I am ready and not an act of desperation which I think would be a great set back on my journey. This willingness to step into the unknown is of course very difficult to achieve, as quite naturally my body wishes to go on living.
Nokkonen wrote:Death is a strange and beautiful thing in that we are absolutely vulnerable and bare as it happens. I try to be in peace with that.
Well said.

One of my favourite books by Hermann Hesse is Narcissus and Goldmund. There's a great deal of death in it, and it is written in a very beautiful way. It's a wonderful book and I would recommend it.

Re: Suicide

Posted: Sat Jan 10, 2015 7:26 pm
by Cancer
Nokkonen wrote:...it seems like most of the people are just able to dabble along in their lives just fine, to fit in, and to live with more or less drama until they die.
I actually think that every normal person in our culture does at some point reflect on suicide. I don't mean to claim that everyone seriously considers it, just that questioning life's meaningfullness - maybe only for a fleeting moment - is, I believe, not that uncommon. It might be that all the people I know are either exceptionaly smart or mentally sick, but I think it's more likely that more awareness and, with it, more pain & doubt is the general trend.

I'm saying this because I think it's important to really face these issues instead of being 'scared away' when life starts to feel meaningless or too painful; that is, to want to be somehow cured instead of truly answering the question of life's meaning(lessness). People who think that it is fundamentally unhealthy to feel a yearning for death actually believe that there is an objectively right answer to the question, and the same goes for people who think that suicide is the right thing to do. The most difficult and the most important thing to grasp is, however, that there is nothing but the will of the individual to decide if life is worth living or not.

To be sure is to be asleep; to doubt is to live. At least one can put it provocatively like that.

(None of this is, by the way, meant to counter Nokkonen's post. That one sentence just brought these things to my mind.)
Cancer wrote: I haven't read the The Myth of Sisyphus...
Update on this one. I'm currently rereading this very beautiful and inspiring book. Camus has been called a "high school philosopher", and I could definetly call him that as well, but that would be a compliment. Maybe I'll start a thread about the absurd sometime soon.

Re: Suicide

Posted: Tue Jan 13, 2015 1:20 am
by Nokkonen
Cancer wrote:
Nokkonen wrote:...it seems like most of the people are just able to dabble along in their lives just fine, to fit in, and to live with more or less drama until they die.
I actually think that every normal person in our culture does at some point reflect on suicide. I don't mean to claim that everyone seriously considers it, just that questioning life's meaningfullness - maybe only for a fleeting moment - is, I believe, not that uncommon. It might be that all the people I know are either exceptionaly smart or mentally sick, but I think it's more likely that more awareness and, with it, more pain & doubt is the general trend.
[...]
The most difficult and the most important thing to grasp is, however, that there is nothing but the will of the individual to decide if life is worth living or not.
I like this! The thought of being able to commit suicide is definitely one of the ultimate ways of "taking matters into one's own hands" and feeling in control of one's life. I think that's where Camus was also coming from in lots of his writing where suicide seemed like a very casual option. (I don't really agree with existentialists, by the way, but I am fascinated with their way of seeing the world nevertheless.)

And really, I can't say anything about how prevalent the thought of suicide is, but speaking from my own life, I have lots of friends who are prone to suicidal thoughts, as well as friends who are totally content with life. And it's definitely not a matter of intelligence since some of the most intelligent people I know are also the mentally healthiest.

Re: Suicide

Posted: Wed Apr 26, 2017 4:42 pm
by obnoxion
There are, of course, many varieties of suicidal motivation. On a personal note, I have never seriously contemplated killing myself. I can think of situations where I might kill myself, such like escaping severe torture in a hopeless situation, or perhaps to save the life of a small child or someone I really loved.

I've been, however, in situatoin where life seems completewly meaningless and devoid of any hope or enjoyment, but it turned out that sort thing does not tempt me to sucide.

I just read a Buddhist parable of an old man who made an attempt to take his life in such situation, and I enjoyed it so much I decided to share it.

An old man, over eighty years of age and in poor health, decided to leave home and become a High Master of Buddhism. Now, this took place in the days when Sakyamuni himself still walked the earth. The stoty took place in a park just outside the city of Savatthi, where the famous monastery of Jetvana later stood. When the old man arrived to Jetvana, however, Sakyamuni had gone out to receive offerings, but his Arhats were there.

Arhats used their extraordinary visionary skills, and saw that the old man had not accumulated any merit in 80 000 aeons. So the Arhats said to the old man that he is not fit to become a Buddhist Master.

The old man's heart turned cold and he ran away to kill himself. He was about to throw himself into the ocean when Sakyamuni Buddha caught him and asked what he was doing. He told what had happened. He said he couldn't join the Sangha because he has no merit. "My life is meaningless. I am too old to work, and no one takes care of me. I might as well be dead!"

"Don't throw yourself into the ocean. I am Sakyamuni Buddha, and I will accept you." The old man questioned why. "Although you didn't die, you were already as good as dead. You had relinquished your attatchments to life. You saw right through everything, and thus you have won your independence, and certified the first stage of Arhatship."

I think the lesson of the story is that it is possible to transform numbness, hopelesness and despair into enlightenment. When life becomes devoid of purpose, it might be an opportunity to attain a deep-reaching freedom in this life.