hi  suicide is forgiven

In Jean Ritchie's excellent book entitled Death's Door, she has documented the suicide attempts and subsequent near-death experiences of a woman named Helen. Her near-death experiences demolish the myths held by many religious people that suicide and homosexuality are one-way tickets to hell. Although today Helen is very comfortable with the fact that she is a lesbian, coping with it has not always been easy. By the time she was seventeen, she was drinking heavily and experimenting with drugs. Over the years, her problems greatly escalated which led her to decide to take her own life. After writing suicide notes and taking an overdose of pills and drink, Helen was rushed to a hospital in very serious condition. Her heart stopped four times, she learned later from the medical staff.

I remember clearly floating up above myself, and looking down on my body. It was connected to numerous machines. I could see the drip and the oxygen mask. I could see the doctors working to restart my heart with electronic pads. I could see that my parents were there. It felt very peaceful, much better than where I had been before. I was bathed in warmth and light, and the calm was almost tangible. I felt it was up to me to decide where I wanted to be, up there or back in my body, but the peace was so overwhelming that I knew I wanted to stay.

And then I was in a small supermarket, floating between the aisles. It was like any ordinary supermarket, with shelves loaded with goods. My grandmother, who died when I was very young, was at the checkout, and so was my auntie. I knew without anyone telling me that it was my auntie, my mum's sister, although she had died of a brain hemorrhage before I was born. They were beckoning to me to go to them, but through the plate-glass window I could see my parents and my immediate family, also beckoning and urging me to hurry.

(The next thing Helen remembers is waking from her coma with the oxygen mask pressing on her face and causing some pain. She felt regret at having left the peace behind.)

Helen's second near-death experience occurred a couple of years after the first, after another suicide attempt. This time she took pills and tried to swallow bleach. Her partner found her and called an ambulance. The following is her experience.

I was drifting in and out of consciousness, more out than in, but I remember being wheeled from the flat on a stretcher. Again, I floated above and could look down and see two men carrying the stretcher, and I felt secure and safe in the knowledge that I was walking away from all the chaos of my life. Again, I felt it was my decision to walk away. Then I remember a very powerful force pulling me towards a serene, very beautiful realm, a higher realm. I traveled very slowly along a tunnel toward a bright light, and I could feel an overwhelming sense of warmth and peace and whiteness. I wanted to walk into the whiteness, which was so tranquil and happy. It was like stepping into a vacuum, there was nothing tangible, no scenery to look at, but a tremendous feeling of being somewhere, like nirvana. I felt okay, as though this was where I was meant to be, as if I had arrived home, and I was at ease with myself for the first time in a long time.

I also felt at one with the forces of the universe, as though I was part of something much much bigger, and yet I was also the whole of it. It was a tremendously powerful feeling, and such a contrast to the despair and depression that had led me there.

(This second time Helen did not see any relatives, and although she experienced the same sense of there being an element of choice in whether or not she returned to life or continued in that lovely place, she did not feel any panic when she awoke in the hospital a few days later.)

I knew I had not wanted to relinquish the good feelings the place had given me, but at the same time I did not feel regret at returning. This time, the experience seemed to give me strength. I felt refreshed.

(She was told by hospital staff that she was lucky to have survived.)

Helen's two near-death experiences have taken away any fear she may have had of death, and she now anticipates that when it comes she will once again experience those feelings of peace and tranquility. She does not believe that her near-death experiences encouraged her to make more suicide attempts: suicide, she says, is born of despair with this world, not a hankering after the peace and serenity of the next. Eventually, Helen was able to beat her alcohol and drug addiction. She is back with her partner, studying for a master's degree and doing volunteer work.

http://www.near-death.com/experiences/suicide07.html

love and god bless  love juditha

http://www.near-death.com/dale.html

It is from this page, entitled: Dr. Liz Dale's NDE research.

About 2/3 of the way down the page.

Juditha's link at the bottom of her post has the link to this page on it, under 'Helen's positive suicide NDE', from what I have noticed.

Here's the quote from Robert Monroe's Ultimate Journey pps89-90 in my hardback edition:
Maintain your transient status. You are being human at your own option in the strictest sense. That option remains in force throughout your visit.
You may pack up your experience and leave whenever and for wherever you desire, with no censure or penalties FROM ANY SOURCE THAT MATTERS. If your Human Mind is satisfied, you will do this in spite of local custom or effort. Earth Life System Addicts may not understand, but that is their problem.
(My italics and Caps)

So I'm speculating that from Bob Monroe's perspective, the whole question of suicide is moot, and any karmic repercussions simply don't exist for the different overview he discovered in the last years of his life.
For me at the moment I've given up on anything getting better in my life. That's not to say that will be the case for others, but right now I've had the door spiritually shut in my face and I can see no way out, so right now suicide seems like not only an attractive proposition, but quite a logical one. I've finally failed in this life so maybe I should admit defeat, cut my losses and get out now.
So development, progress and exploring other states of being are great, but it looks like I'm not included in the party. I just have to accept that. There's no other option for me right now.
I'd just like to know from any of you highly experienced folks just what is the point of striving if you're blocked at every turn, and at what point you just give up and go home?

Best wishes,
David.

David,

I hope you reconsider.  Its not that I don't agree with Monroe in some ways.  But there are things to think about.  When we pass away, we are much the same as we were before we died.  If we feel despondent and are in a bad frame of mind, I do not think that dying will solve the problem - the state of mind is us.

You state you have failed in life....perhaps this is by a societal standard but has NOTHING to do with what really matters.  In Howard Storm's NDE, he found to his surprise that succes in school, business, etc. was met with feelings of neutrality or disdain in some cases, but he was given encouragement during his life review for times he expressed love, and compassion.

In other words, perhaps you have been a success at being a loving person - something more important than societal definitions of success. 

The complex web of people usually carries some reactions, and that is another reason that suicide is not the answer for most people.  You may be able to forgive yourself for ending things.  But would others forgive you?  If not, would that hold you back in the afterlife from progressing until that person could forgive? 

It seems to me,  that we stand to make the most rapid advancement in love and spirituality in the physical world.  I don't see death as an escape from anything.  For me, I think of it as circumstances are brought about from our own mind, and interactions with others.  Although death will change our immediate circumstances, our mind is unchanged just by not having a body.  It would therefore attract a surrounding similar to itself.  So it may be a change of scenery, but not the release that some who seek refuge in suicide imagine.

I also tend to look toward the positive.  Who can you interact with now, while alive to show love?  The effects on that person would be profound, and would also change your own circumstance.  Who can you make smile by acts of charity or joy?  All of these things are possible, no matter how bleak other conditions seem. 

I don't believe in judgement or condemnation from an outside source, but I also don't think of suicide as a viable escape, except under very specific physical circumstances.

Matthew

I've given up many times, d, and yet there is always a way provided for me. If your energy is low, it is okay to wait it out, to take some more time, to get some assistance later. I think it is a mistake to act on feelings of futility, rather see if you can find a clear emotional space in which to look at your life. I have 'failed' many times at life, and yet life goes on. Somewhere, someone makes me laugh. Somewhere, someone has a need, and I am able to fulfill it. Somewhere, I have a moment of peace or happiness, and I am able to look at it and wonder, how did that happen? How can that happen again? I don't know your circumstances, so I have nothing to say about your decisions, but I will say that the conversation is one worth having, this one, right here and now.

detheridge wrote on Jan 29^th, 2010 at 11:02am:

Can I ask you, David, how you have had the door spiritually shut in your face?

What does that mean, and what does it mean to you, when you say that?

I just really want to understand what you are going through, and will be sending you some good vibrations, no matter what.

Hi again folks, and many thanks for the comments.
I've come recently to a point where things are beginning to shutdown in my life. In my case I'm a musician who plays, teaches and writes about all aspects of playing music.
With the recession beginning to bite in the U.K. (despite government claims that the recession is at an end!) my teaching is declining in numbers (schools and parents cutting back), gigs have all but disappeared, and earlier in January the magazine I write for was shut down due to lack of advertising.
Now I can understand that happening, but the sense of loss and creative frustration is increasing. It's not that I'm searching for great wealth and fame (the former would be nice as my income is so low I hardly even pay tax, and the fame thing is irrelevant) but after many years of a path that is anything but straightforward I found a path that was for me supremely fulfilling creatively. After decades of blundering through life wondering what the hell I was supposed to be doing in this life I found a situation where I have the ability and knowledge and my seemingly true path in life (doing what I'm supposed to be doing and loving every minute of it) and now it feels like its being taken away bit by bit.
Imagine if you will the analogy of an artists who finds his eyesight failing and can no longer see to paint, a pianist that loses the use of his hands, or an athlete who loses the use of his limbs and try to imagine the loss of motivation and creative frustration that ensues.
The day before I posted my original comment I found that I'd finally run out of money, that nothing new was coming in. At that point I just thought 'right, that's the end of it' and felt as though if I'd had a gun I would have blown my brains out then and there. With no seeming future doing what I feel I am supposed to be doing, what was the point of prolonging the agony any further?
That's why I felt as though I had to admit that my life was a failure as far as any creative impulses were concerned and it was time to go over there and face any guides, and just put my hands up and say 'Okay, fair enough, I failed'. I'm not blaming anyone else -I did it and I'm the one responsible.

Needless to say, I'm not claiming this is the correct conclusion, or even the sane one. It's just how I felt at the time. In addition, I look at the world unfolding and things seem to be getting worse. I read all about the supposedly perfect unfolding of the universe and wonder whether someone up there hasn't screwed up mightily regarding existence and the coming earth changes.
We have David Icke going on about the Illuminati trying to take over the world, those in positions of power and responsibility acting with ever more hypocrisy and incompetence to the point where I thought a few days ago that maybe we should have ended the world with a nuclear war to wrap things up and put the planet out of its misery. Then those beings from other levels of existence would have to admit that this whole experiment was a failure and start again somewhere else in the universe.
Again I'm not claiming any of this to be rational, just how I felt at the time.

b2, thanks for the question on having the door spiritually shut in my face. This is what's happening inside:
I've been working with the Hemisync CDs and taapes for four or more years now and got precisely nowhere. sometimes I think I get to Focus 10 but I don't perceive anything that makes sense or is so intangible that I can't get a grip on it. Sometimes I fell somethign starting to happen and then my mind makes a 'heave' (for that is what it feels like) and I'm wide awake -just as if someone's shut a door in my face.
So while I believe in all the stuff we discuss on this forum they remain that. I can't make them knowns and as a result I don't actually know anything. This leads to a feeling of spiritual loneliness deep within myself, even around family, friends and acquaintances. So while I might forget myself for a day of music making -which in my case is supremely enjoyable and fulfilling- when at the end of it I'm back with myself, it feels like nobody's home.
At times I wonder why I'm here at all, and the feeling that accompanies those thoughts is not a burst of emotional outpouring or self pity, but a cold, hard and emotionless feeling. In the famous Borg saying: 'resistance is futile'.
So from where I am fulfilment, spiritual progress and transformation are all great things, but I just so happen to be excluded from it and I'm placed on the sidelines to watch it happen to others, but not to me.
I'm not upset or angry or resentful about it. I just have to put up with it and accept the situation. But that leaves me feeling as though I have no further purpose being here, and that even if I wasn't here, my function and actions in this life could easily be substituted by others without too much trouble.
That's where I am at the moment. I'm impelled to follow the spiritual path and keep seeking, but the door seems shut in my face. How do I get out of this existential seeming dead end?

Many thanks folks.
Best wishes,
David.

Hi David,

I completely agree with Matthew that intent is at the heart of all creativity. Intent is what moves consciousness along its evolutionary path.  Going into a state like focus 10 to put forth a desire certainly helps to create a stronger more focused intent.

I think when we are not able to create what we desire in our life it is because we have mixed intentions or what I call cross-purposes, which clouds our intent.

All the best to you.

Kathy