M3030
On suicide causing suffering and giving rise to experience

Question: Why should waking up in the spiritual plane be so hard for the one who commits suicide? Is not the person on whom are laid such great burdens that he cannot bear them rather in need of help?
Answer As every violation of the laws of Nature create pain and suffering, and every compliance with the same laws creates joy and well-being, so suffering and well-being are the two indispensable factors by whose help the living being can become conscious of how he can preserve his full sensory capacity and his capacity to experience life. A part of this capacity is seated in the being's physical body or organism. If he could now destroy this organism without causing inconvenience or suffering, he would thereby to a corresponding degree reduce his capacity for sensing and experiencing, which is maintained by the same organism, without being able to perceive or notice this undermining of the consciousness. He would not learn to be on his guard against contravening the laws of Nature or the laws of Life. If the physical body was insensible to damage or injury, if one could cut or flay it without causing pain or suffering, how could one perceive that one is sabotaging one's capacity to experience? How should one be able to prevent small, innocent children from injuring or maiming themselves? Pain or suffering is in reality only a danger-signal which warns the living being to appreciate that he is involved in something unnatural or dangerous.
In the same way normal well-being is a signal that the being is situated within the area of what is natural. That suicide, which is in itself a total injury of the being's physical body, cannot be an exception is a matter of course. One cannot cut off one's hand and still use it; one cannot destroy one's eyes and still see with them. It cannot possibly be an expression for something unloving on the part of Providence that one here must experience the inconvenience which it is to be deprived of that part of one's health which is maintained by the hand or the eyes. On the contrary the being, precisely through such inconvenience or suffering, gets a living experience built into his consciousness which, in his future physical existence, to a greater or lesser extent will prevent him from recommitting a similar sabotage of his capacity to experience life. In the same way the inconvenience and suffering which arise from suicide will give the being an experience which will likewise contribute towards preventing him from committing suicide again in future physical existences.
It should, however, be noted that there is much spiritual help for those who have committed suicide, just as is the case of all other unhappy beings. Guardian angels stand at the ready, and anyone who commits suicide will eventually be helped out of his unhappy mental condition on the spiritual plane.
-----------------------------------
Question no. 30 First published in Danish in Kontaktbrev no. 26, 1951. Translated by Mary McGovern, 1985.
Article ID: M3030
Published in the English edition of Kosmos no. 2, 1985
© Martinus Institut 1981, www.martinus.dk
You are welcome to make a link to the above article stating the copyright information and the source reference. You are also welcome to quote from it in accordance with the Copyright Act. The article may be reproduced only with the written permission of the Martinus Institute.