It may now be history but on the final month of 2014 (16th Dec) and the first month of the upcoming 2015 (7th Jan) occurred incidents of such horrific nature that stunned, devastated, and infuriated the entire world and kept the global atmosphere clouded with a gloomy helplessness.
In the first incident, jumping into the compound walls of a school in the city of Peshawar, a group of terrorists startled everyone with their cries of Allah-Hu-Akbar and right after proceeded to shoot and kill close to 150 students across different classrooms; they even went to the extent of forcing some students to watch while they tied one of their teachers to a chair, poured petrol on him and set him ablaze. It’s difficult to estimate how many more teachers, students, and staff would have been injured in the said incident.
It is pointless to call these terrorists Muslims. In fact, the people they massacred were Muslims, they were children of the army staff, that was their crime. Apparently, the army is an enemy of these terrorists.
All four of those wretched terrorists were killed. They had come prepared to die concealing explosives underneath their garment, they would have died otherwise, as while they were busy spraying bullets, security forces had surrounded the compound.
The perpetrators of the Paris massacre were also suicide attackers. But they could manage to escape. Most of them have later been captured and eliminated by the police.
In many a minds arises this question, this curiosity — while hundreds of innocent, children were looking on blankly or crying out petrified with fear, pointing their automatic machines guns at them and showering bullets on them, these assassins must not have imagined that they are doing something noble, performing some holy duty. Then how and from where do they get their enthusiasm to perform these actions unperturbed, and if necessary, to even commit suicide?
A simple answer to this question. The source of that delusional enthusiasm is a terrible ignorance and a toxic sense of ego. Throughout the ages shrewd, cunning beings with vested interests have taken advantage of this ego and ignorance in men.
From the famous travelogues of Italian explorer MarcoPolo, who during the 13th century was a part of the royal court of the then Chinese emperor Kublai Khan, we get to know of a certain ambitious and ruthless warrior who withdrew himself from the traditional Muslim community of those days, retreated into a treacherous mountainous region of Iran and built a fort there. He deployed quite a unique strategy to build up his army. His lieutenants will scout the nearby localities for energetic young men and invite them to the fort. The guest is then served a drink. Thanks to the recipes of this drink, the guest is now suspended in a state of hypnotic, weakened awareness. At this state, he is taken into a secret garden located within the fort. There he will find beautiful maidens at his service, the fountains overflowing with the choicest wine, a non-stop feast of most delicious cuisines, so on and forth. The ideas that the young man would have accumulated about heaven, in that hypnotic half-asleep state, considers that setup to be its manifestation and his ultimate destination. He is then presented back in front of the “old man of the mountain”, as he was known popularly. The old man asks of the young lad while fondling a fat bunch of keys in his hand, “Got a taste of Heaven? If you wish to relish that same taste for eternity after your death, then I am willing to open the gates and grant you a permanent citizenship. Here’s the key.”
The mesmerized and elated youth at once surrenders himself in its entirety to the old man and becomes a part of his army. He gets trained in blazing-fast horse riding, pillaging, fighting, plundering. In the barren desert regions at times, the wind blows violently. Precisely at those times, the army of the “Old Man” consisting of brainwashed young men, ride skillfully keeping rhythm with the wind towards nearby settlements. Seeing this, the terrified inhabitants of the settlement conclude that those mysterious attackers have tamed the wind itself and made it their ally in the ambush. Consequently, the folks don’t even attempt to put up a fight.
At last Mongol emperor Hulagu Khan descended upon that ‘heaven’ with a level of savagery that was few notches above that of the old man’s army. And annihilated the fort along with all its clandestine operations. There ends the tale of the “old man of the mountain”.
The primary ingredient that the old man used in the drink to dull the senses of the young men and turn them into his ruthless puppets was “Hashish”. That army, therefore, had become notorious as Hashshashins. That, in fact, was the origin of the word “assassin”.
An absurd superstition
The extremists who were behind the massacre at the school in Peshawar were actually given a deep conviction that if they did so, they shall become the beloved of the almighty. After their life ended on earth, they will become eligible to reside in the luxury of heaven for all eternity. To put it simply, a terrorist becomes a slave to superstition or an absurd belief that he is earning the favor of God. Violent acts carried out in the name of a religion by misguided terrorists still subscribe to this belief, even to this day.
A human being may commit suicide for various reasons. For some life becomes unbearable, maybe due to a prolonged and painful illness, due to an unforeseen tragedy, uncontrolled anger and sorrow. Shining light on the Upanishadic philosophy Sri Aurobindo shows us that eternal bliss is the foundation of life itself. We consider it our right. So when we experience an event of the opposite nature and it intensifies, then we feel suffocated, limited and suppressed (as if imprisoned). Revolt against this suppression finds expression as suicide.
Meaning suicide shall rid him/her of all limitations, all suffocations, this is the conviction (sometimes strong, at times weak) of the victim. But this notion is completely wrong. The spiritual wisdom has made it abundantly clear in the third verse (shloka) of Ishopanishad.
asuryA nAma te lOkA andhEna tamasA&vRutAH |
tAMste prEtyAbhigachChanti yE kE chAtmahanO janAH || 3 ||
Pitch dark (sun-less) are those worlds, where the self-killers must go.
When brought to the notice of Sri Aurobindo, (the very first Indian revolutionary to demand complete and unconditional freedom of India from the British and later revered and followed globally as a spiritual beacon and as the proponent of Integral Yoga) that someone is contemplating suicide, he responded via a letter -
“Suicide is an absurd solution; he is quite mistaken in thinking that it will give him peace. He will only carry his difficulties into a more miserable condition of existence beyond and bring them back to another life on earth. The only remedy is to shake off these morbid ideas and face life with a clear will for some definite work to be done as the life’s aim and with a quiet and active courage. (Letters on Yoga; Vol-24)
In another letter Sri Aurobindo writes:
“Moreover if one throws away the body wilfully, one suffers much in the other worlds, and when one is born again, it is in worse, not in better conditions.”
On more than one occasion The Mother (born as Mirra Alfassa. A seeker from France, guided by an inner command, she arrived in Pondicherry to become Sri Aurobindo’s spiritual collaborator) also has explained that our psychic being (we may also refer to it as our “Soul”) manifests or accepts a physical body with the goal of gathering certain experiences. “Then if you leave before its work is finished it will have to come back to do it again under much more difficult conditions. So all that you have avoided in one life you will find again in another, and more difficult.”
Self-killers are totally unaware of a certain psychological truth. They subconsciously believe that even after they commit suicide and leave their body, they will get to see or feel the resulting consequences or reactions to their action.
This can be illustrated with the help of a true incident from half a decade ago that took place in Cuttack, Odisha. In the spare room of a non-Odia poor man, a certain “gentleman” lived as a tenant. That gentleman also happens to be a sleek, con-man whose sole medium of earning a livelihood was to swindle people using various creative means. It would have been foolish on his part to do such a thing as to pay the rent to his soft-spoken, migrant, lonesome landlord after occupying his house.
The helpless landlord could extract nothing more than few sarcastic guffaws out of his tenant even after year-long begging, requesting, and threat-issuing. During this phase, someone planted an idea into the tormented man’s head, that if he commits suicide holding that wretched tenant responsible for his unfortunate ending, then he (the tenant) will most certainly be hanged.
He proceeded to carry out this plan by authoring two letters. In the first one naming the tenant which he tucked under his waist belt. The second secret letter that he addressed to his son elaborately narrating his master-plan to make the con-man pay. He indirectly hinted that he might be crying today, but his time too shall come, in fact he shall have the last laugh from the other side, when the tenant is dragged away from his house in handcuffs. And his son too shall enjoy this from this side. (The gentleman did have to pay for his deeds in few different ways in accordance to the principle of Karma; but that’s outside of the scope of this discussion)
That helpless man was under the influence of this false notion consciously, but many self-harmers nurture similar beliefs, albeit unconsciously or subconsciously. When someone attempts to commit suicide holding a grudge against an individual or an entity, he or she is possessed by an indomitable impulse for revenge, an intense wish that may this person or entity be insulted, shamed by society. And he will get to enjoy it, subconsciously he craves this joy.
Warning of the Cosmic Consciousness
But how much do we know of the occult world? It doesn’t happen the way intended by the suicide victim. The moment a victim exits his physical body (sheath) forcefully, his vital body gets surrounded by pitiless, compassionless, fickle, blind forces. Leaving aside spiritual scientists well-versed with occult concepts, authors of Upanishad or seers (rishis) of rare yogic attainments, even present-day psychological research is proving this point using its own methodology. The human being without its physical body doesn’t get a chance to “enjoy” the intended or expected reactions. The equation of action-reaction formulated by the mind of the living human being isn’t really valid or followed on the other side. In response to a letter, The Mother writes:
“Know for certain that to commit suicide is the most foolish action that a man can do; because the end of the body does not mean the end of the consciousness and what was troubling you while you were alive continues to trouble you when you are dead, without the possibility of diverting your mind which you can get when you are alive.”
A glimpse into a certain psychological research:
Some of the readers must have read “Life after Life” by Dr. Raymond Moody. This esteemed scholar had chosen a rather unique area for his field of research. There are many instances where a victim after being declared clinically dead, unexpectedly came back to life. Dr. Moody took personal interviews of such individuals, did thorough and deep research, and published them. Those whose death was due to natural reasons such as terminal illness, old age, etc., their post-death experience was described by the victims to be peaceful, tranquil. But those who came back to life after attempting suicide, their experience during that phase was depressing, comfortless, dark and somber.
The illusion woven by hostile forces:
A relatively deeper fact is that at times human beings can get possessed by wicked hostile forces. Under its influence, one loses his fortitude, courage, self-confidence, and ultimately faith in the Divine power. By and by that hostile force governs the life of the possessed. Sometimes that force even reveals itself to its victims in a semi-aware state, even offers suggestions. Needless to say, nothing noble comes out upon the execution of those suggestions.
An unmistakable instance of such a phenomenon was narrated by the Mother. At the time she was in France. A gentleman established contact with a non-physical (vital) being. He happened to be an expert gambler specializing in the game of roulette. That vital being used to reveal to this man the exact number that will be chosen the winner in a game. He complies, bets on that number and voila!, wins. This winning streak didn’t seem to be ending. He almost worshipped that vital being. In no time he amassed an exuberant amount of wealth. The being’s predictions were proving to be infallible. He kept on accumulating more and more wealth. He even bragged to his friends about his closeness to this being whenever he got the opportunity. One well-wisher advised him to cut ties with this being immediately, warning him of the possible consequences. Without a second thought, our gentleman severed all ties with this friend instead.
One fine day the being advised this man to bet every last bit of his wealth on a certain number. The gentleman complied promptly.
But alas! He lost this time. Meaning he became penniless the next moment.
What should he do now? “What is there to do? Just put a bullet in your head!” was the nonchalant advice of this vital being.
By then this man’s own personality, his own inner strength was very feeble and weak. It was in no condition to resist. The villainous being’s will was his command. He shot and killed himself.
An individual with faith in the Ultimate Divine Reality, who is also the source of our own consciousness, he who understands the basics of spirituality would just naturally stay away from even the thought of suicide.
Suicide is an unforgivingly cruel act committed to one’s own soul (psychic being), an insult towards one’s parents, is an injustice to the society as it creates and sustains an atmosphere of despondency and ultimately ingratitude to the Divine Consciousness.
Those who attempt to kill themselves with the selfish ambition of earning a seat in heaven after their death or to bring blame and shame to another person or organization are possibly more demented, deranged and possessed than other categories of suicide victims.
