Suicide on your mind?
I know why you are planning to end your life.
I get it.
You don’t have a job. Nobody loves you. The circumstances are less than promising. And your future looks bleak, like a dark, nasty, haunted forest with no exit in sight.
In other words, your life sucks.
And so, you think committing suicide is the only viable option.
No more hungry stomach. No more teary eyes. And no more dying inch-by-inch. Farewell, cruel world!
Pretty neat, huh?
But what if you’re wrong? What if suicide is not the answer? What if killing your body does not kill you?
Doesn’t make sense?
It will.
Just stay with me.
Let me give you a glimpse into my life and how I realized that one cannot kill oneself by killing their body.
It was 1995. Things Were Bad. And I Was Drowning in the Sea of Depression
My family was in our native village.
And I was living in Delhi, all by myself—doing a computer course. Since money was a challenge, things were hard for me. In fact, it was so hard that after paying for the course fee, stationery, and other basic utilities, I had hardly any money left.
My institute was 4 kilometers from my place, and since I couldn’t afford bus tickets, I had to use a fake ID card of a B-grade college to pretend to be a student. Some bus conductors believed me, while some others didn’t. And the days I had to buy a ticket were nightmarish because spending money on a ticket meant sleeping hungry that night.
In other words, my life was a freaking ugly mess.
I Decided to “End It All”
The hunger, the stress, the misery—it was killing me day by day. And then came a time when I could not bear it. So I decided to end my life and put a full stop to my misery. I tried once to kill myself but couldn’t succeed.
Things worsened, and life stopped making sense. But somehow, I kept dragging myself like a zombie in a post-apocalyptic movie.
A Book Saved My Life
Fortunately, I found a book that ignited a spark within me. It was a book by Osho, titled Rajneesh Dhyanyog. The book covered many meditation techniques. Out of which, a particular technique intrigued me. It was a method to separate oneself from his body.
“You’re neither the body nor the thoughts or emotions. You’re beyond them—you’re the soul. One could come out of his body and see it from the outside, just like others see it.” Osho said, introducing the technique.
And I thought to myself:
Seriously? Could it be true? Is there really a “soul” inside me? Or is it just some esoteric nonsense?
And then, after days of contemplation, I decided to give the technique a try.
The Experiment
My institute had declared a two-month break. And since I had nowhere to go, I began level one of the technique: Living with total awareness.
But I didn’t know that I was in for a great surprise. As the days progressed, a strange thing started to happen: I could watch my body from the inside. Eating food, sweeping the courtyard, taking a bath, walking on the road, reading—I could see that the actions were being done on the level of my body. In other words, I could see that I was the watcher—every damn thing was happening to my body, not to me.
And then after almost 15 days, came level two:
“You’re not the physical body but an energy form. You can expand or contract yourself with just your intention of doing so. Once you succeed in seeing the day-to-day life happening to your body, take the next step: practice concentrating the energy (yourself) at your navel.” Osho instructed in the book.
And so I did.
The Day I Realised I Was Not My Body
It was a hot afternoon (I don’t remember the date).
I started the experiment as usual, and it seemed I was a little too tired that day because I fell asleep after a while—still immersed in the experiment—keeping myself concentrated on my navel.
And a strange thing happened.
After a couple of minutes, I realized I was awake but I could not open my eyes simply because I had no control over them. And not only my eyes, I had no control whatsoever over any part of my body. I was inside of my body, able to see the whole body from within—stretched for miles like a dark landscape.
I was aware of my breathing, the heartbeat, the outside sounds, and even the humid air on my skin.
But I couldn’t control the body.
Damn!
If I Couldn’t Control the Body, Where Was I, What Was I?
I was inside my body.
And I had no shape—I was an insanely bright navy blue-ish, dense, fog-like entity—roaming from one end to the other. It was an out-of-the-world experience, both exciting and terrifying at the same time.
Of course, I had started the experiment hoping that something might happen someday, but I didn’t expect that something to happen so soon. So there I was—floating inside my own body like the wind, with no name, no shape, and no control over anything. I became desperate to get hold of my body.
Can I tell you the truth?
I was fucking scared. Seriously.
I Regained “Control” of My Body, One More Time
And then I thought:
“If “contracting” could separate me from my body, “expanding” should make me one with it again, right?”
And so, I tried expanding—into my legs, into my hands—everywhere, and within 5–10 seconds, I was again “in” my body. I opened my eyes and noticed my body was drenched in sweat, and I was gasping for breath.
Bloody hell.
I was terrified and elated at the same time. And why wouldn’t I? I saw myself separate from the body—something most people only hear or read in the scriptures. Or, at the most, they believe.
But they never get to experience it like I did.
Here’s Why Committing Suicide Cannot Kill You
The day I saw myself separate from the body, I realized the true meaning of the shloka from Shrimad Bhagwad Geeta, where Bhagvan Krishna says:
“नैनं छिन्दन्ति शस्त्राणि नैनं दहति पावकः । न चैनं क्लेदयन्त्यापो न शोषयति मारुतः ॥.“
“The soul can never be cut to pieces by any weapon, nor burned by fire, nor moistened by water, nor withered by the wind.”
But I still regret one thing:
Osho explains even further, “Once you find yourself contracted at your navel—when you see yourself separate from the body from within, then if you just intend to jump out of the body, you shall be out—able to see your body from the outside like others do—still connected to the body through a silver cord. Then, when you wish to go inside, just think in your mind, and you’ll be right back in.”
Now, can I be honest with you for a moment?
I was traumatized.
And that’s the reason why watching my body from the outside didn’t even occur to me. Later during my intense reading (which was actually a re-reading) of the technique, I realized that the price of jumping out of the body for just one time was six months. So had I taken the plunge of jumping out of the body, it would have cost me six months out of the total years of my lifetime.
“But why so?” You must be wondering.
Here’s why.
Your Body is Like a Motorbike
Osho explained that the human body has seven Chakras.
These Chakras are points of contact between you (the soul) and the body. Now, if you jump out of the body even once, the alignment of the Chakras with the physical body will be ruined. Forever. It’s kind of similar to the mechanism of a motorbike.
The motorcycle runs smoothly as long as the engine’s original seal remains intact. If you tamper with the original setting, the factory alignment and refinement go for a toss. Of course, you can make everything fit into its place, but it’ll not perform the way it used to. On the contrary, it shall start giving you trouble.
The same is the case with the human body. Once tampered with from within, the body may start catching serious illnesses—unknown, inexplainable diseases and may even develop life-threatening conditions.
Osho says, “Every meditator must experience at least once in his life that he is not the body. Doing so will free you from the fear of death. But remember: experiment only in the later years when you’re free of your family responsibilities. It’s important so even if something goes wrong, you won’t regret it. Because then it won’t matter to you if you lived six months less or six months more. You would realize that you’re not the body, you’re the soul. And the soul cannot die.”
So I guess my fear was a blessing in disguise. It was in my best interest that I reached the navel but didn’t try to jump out of the body.
And with that, we now come to the question…
Can You Kill Yourself by Killing Your Body?
The answer in traditional terms is a “yes” because we identify ourselves as our bodies: The body lives. You live. The body dies. You die.
In other words, when somebody commits suicide, he’s assuming that he’s the body. And by killing his body, he is killing himself.
Of course, one can kill their body by committing suicide, but killing the body does not mean killing oneself. Because it’s the body that dies, not the soul.
So here’s the thing:
People who commit suicide, hoping to set themselves free, need to realize the truth that one can surely kill the body, but then they’ll need to take another birth. And if they decide not to, they’ll have to wander in the paranormal world, the ghost dimension for god knows how long. That is exactly what ghosts are—souls without bodies.
So if you are planning to end your life, remember this:
The body dies. The soul doesn’t.
You can kill your body. But you cannot kill yourself.
Simply because you’re not the part that dies.