BHAGWAN RAMANA’S GRACE: SUICIDE: MENTAL OR PHYSICAL?

Suicide – physical vs mental

8 oct , 1990

As a child, i wished not to be in this world and before entering teens, got an opportunity to move out of the game forcefully. There was a political movement going on in the country that took an ugly turn and young college going students started burning themselves to death as a mark of protest against certain government decisions.

It spread like a wildfire in entire north india, especially in delhi, Haryana, UP and rajasthan. Day by day more and more students started killing themselves. Then one day I heard on radio that a very young school going kid did the same, poured kerosene, lit himself up and finished his life story. I was looking for a way out too, and the protest and story of that young kid presented an opportunity to move towards the desired goal. I was younger than him, I was barely 12 years old studying in 7th class, the year was 1990.

With these motivations and drive, I was looking for the right opportunity to make a move. On that lucky day, 8th 0ctober 1990, I got an opportunity to join the bandwagon, I got hold of a bottle of kerosene and was able to sneak out of my house to put an end to this drama called transmigratory life.

I was pretty happy and was looking forward to finish the drama, I found an appropriate place and emptied the whole bottle of kerosene on my body, lit the fire and there I was – running on the road shouting slogans against government decision and hoping that my ordeal in this world will finally be brought to a closure.

What I had no idea about, was the fact that my real ordeal was to begin post this event. Doctors were amazed on seeing my condition as 50%+ third degree deep burns were not able to make the kid unconscious, in fact he was fully conscious and talking to everyone normally even after 3 hours of the incident, this much was the time that police team took in taking that child to the hospital because of protest and road blocks in entire delhi city.

Once he became unconscious in operation theatre, he again became conscious only after a month in icu. Its difficult to say whether we should consider him lucky or unlucky as he survived this ordeal and spent an entire year in hospital, where he was initially snatched away from the jaws of certain death, and later operated upon by an expert team of plastic surgeon who ensured that he becomes functionally fit and can operate independently in this beautiful world.

The beauty of life is that it never stops, and adding on this sublime fact is that it presents each and everyone with an opportunity to grow and prosper as per ones accumulated tendencies and desires. The ordeal of suffering that I went in the hospital, the struggles that I and the doctors had to make to keep the body alive, somehow mysteriously and miraculously, transformed my inner core and made my intellect pretty sharp, so much so that I started topping all competitive exams and made it first to IIT’s and then subsequently to IIM’s, considered to be bastions of intellectually sharper ones.

But as I had already seen the worst that one can see in this life, I had no ambitions of becoming rich or becoming big. Since childhood, I was driven by the love of the mysterious and unknown interested me more than anything that can be known. My agenda that was unfinished as a child was a kind of lesson and an opportunity that suicide should be a complete one and not a half baked one.

15 Nov 2002

Of late, Something had been happening in life that was shattering me from within. It was getting difficult to hold on to my sanity and thought of moving out forcefully once again was taking control of my mental energies. I knew that I couldn’t do that as the lesson was given to me soundly that one needs to go through the trial and tribulations that life offers if one has to achieve anything meaningfully here.

Under such a divided personality, I switched on my PC, and out of nowhere a gentleman appeared on some random website by the name Ramana Maharishi. As I read him, he asked “who is suffering” , I was in a very very bad state, I read that and looked within, and answer emerged that “the one who wants is suffering” , a voice ran in the mind saying “drop the wants”, I close my eyes and felt deep within that it is very very tough, dropping the wants, dropping the desire, but I summoned all my courage, came face to face with myself, and as my emotional pain was unbearable, I looked within, faced myself and said, okay, I will drop the want.

Had no idea that with this acknowledgement of reality and my own situation, I had finally embarked on the path of mental suicide, the ultimate one and not the shallow physical suicide, which complicates the situation more than simplifying it.

26 Oct 2022

That year was 2002 when I finally got hold of right path, the path of self enquiry, the detachment within to the knot of i-maker, once I understood what ramana was pointing to, it was a matter of time before he starts devouring of whatever liitle of my I was left. Slowly, as I moved towards my own core, lots of other teachers and practices showed themselves on the path to hasten the “ghar waapsi”

Ramana is a tiger and anyone who comes in vicinity, gets devoured by the mighty one

Ramana is Arunachala in human form, Arunachala itself is Mahadev in physical form

SUBMITTED BY: ATUL AGGARWAL (atula99@yahoo.com)