A “natural” end

A ‘natural’ end of life

Kees Boukema

In “Sri Ramakrishna and His Divine Play” (p. 212), Swami Saradananda wrote: “The Master related that one day he was singing and praying in the temple to the Divine Mother; that he crying bitterly implored piteously: ‘Mother, I have been praying to You for so long. Why don’t you listen to me? You showed Yourself to Ramprasad. Why won’t You show Yourself to me?’
“There was an unbearable pain in my heart”, he continued, “because I could not have a vision of Mother. It was as if my heart was being wrung out like a wet cloth. I began to think I should never see Mother. I was dying of despair. In my agony, I asked myself, ‘What is the use  of living this life?’ Suddenly my eyes fell on the sword that hangs in the Mother’s shrine. I decided to end my life then and there. Like a madman, I ran to the sword and seized it. Then I had a marvellous vision of the  Mother and fell down unconscious. Afterwards what happened in the external world, or how that day and the next passed, I do not know. But within me there was a steady flow of undiluted bliss that I had never before experienced and I felt the immediate presence of the Divine Mother.”
    The thought that he himself would never experience God was apparently so unbearable for Ramakrishna that he had decided to kill himself. “Suicide is a heinous sin, undoubtly” he said later. “A man who kills himself must return again and again to this world and suffer its agony.” “By unnatural death one becomes an evil spirit. But if someone decides to leave his body after a vision from God, I don’t call it suicide.’ (The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, p.163/164, 721 and 723).                                                                                                  Previously Ramakrishna had vowed to the Divine Mother that he would kill himself if he did not see God. He had said, “Oh Mother, I am a fool. Please teach me what is contained in the Vedas, the Puranas, the Tantras and the other scriptures.” The Mother had replied: “The essence of Vedanta is that Brahman alone is real and the world is illusory. The Satchidananda Brahman described in the Vedas is the Satchidananda Shiva of the Tantra and the Satchidananda Krishna of the Purana.” (The Gospel p. 544).
The spiritual practices (‘sadhana’) of Ramakrishna had brought him to the brink of life and death more than once (see ‘The Gospel’, pp. 159, 275, 644, 739 and 747.) Once, when he was asked how to realize God, he said: “Through selfless love. But one must force one’s demand on God and be able to say: ‘O God, wilt Thou not reveal Thyself to me? I will cut my throat with a knife.’ “This is the tamas aspect of bhakti,” he added (The Gospel p. 186). 

In the ethics of Jainism, ‘ahimsa‘, the pursuit of non-violence towards all forms of life, including towards one’s own life, is paramount. Mahavira, the most important teacher, contemporary of Gautama Buddha, traveled through India for thirty years to teach the people how to give up pride and how to defend themselves against superstition and evil influences, in order to free themselves from the cycle of life and death . For ‘self-realization’, i.e. the full development of what man has potential, Jainism attaches more value to an ethical life than to intellectual speculation.    
    Followers make vows regarding their lifestyle; they adhere to a certain code of conduct to develop self-control, self-discipline and detachment through fasting, meditation and other spiritual practices. The vow to fast may include depriving oneself of one’s favorite foods, reducing the amount of food or abstaining from all food and fluids for a period of time.
  “Sallekhanā” is a special vow, when a normal religious life is no longer possible, for instance due to old age, terminal illness or famine, to gradually give up all food and drink and to face impending death voluntarily, without sorrow or fear. This vow can be taken both by monks and lay people, by men and women. The vow can be broken if one no longer feels able to continue the process, or if the desire to continue living manifests itself.
Sallekhana is only for a few; an average of two hundred devotees practice this discipline every year (Express India, September 30, 2006). It is considered a form of self-realization by overcoming all forms of attachment, fear, regret, sadness, aversion and other passions. It is the completion of a spiritual life that has been characterized by purification and asceticism. In this sense, Sallekhana is a ‘natural end of life’. 

Literature: Dr. Sanjukta Bhattacharyya, Sallekhana, Euthanasia and Suicide: Moral Distinctions, Prabuddha Bharata, Volume 117, No.7, July 2012, p. 347 – 352.

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Mr Kees Boukema is a scholar in Vedanta and Comparative philosophy. His brilliant and thorough-going articles on various philosophical and spiritual subjects  are being published since the first issue of the magazine. His latest work is De Beoefening van Meditatie.