The Effects of Suicide
The suicide, who tries to get away
from life, only finds that he is as much alive as ever, and is in a most
pitiable plight. He is able to watch those whom he has disappointed and perhaps
disgraced by his act, and worst of all, he has an unspeakable feeling of being
"hollowed out." The reason for this is as follows:
The Creative Archetype
When the Ego is coming down to
rebirth, it is helped by the Creative Hierarchies to build the archetype for its
coming body, and it instills in that archetype a life that will last for the
number of. years that the person normally should live. This archetype has a
singing, vibratory motion which draws the material of the physical world into
it, and sets all the atoms in the body to vibrating in tune with a little atom
in the heart called the seed atom, which, like a tuning fork, gives the pitch to
all the rest of the material in the body. At the time when the full life has
been lived on earth, the vibrations in the archetype cease, the seed atom is
withdrawn, the dense body begins to decompose, and the desire body, wherein the
Ego functions in Purgatory and the First Heaven, takes upon itself the shape of
the physical body. Then the man commences his work of expiating his negative
habits and deeds in Purgatory, and assimilating the good of his life in the
First Heaven.
The "Hollowed-out" Feeling
The foregoing describes the ordinary
conditions when the course of nature is undisturbed, but the case of the suicide
is different. He has taken away the seed atom, but the archetype still keeps on
vibrating. Therefore he feels as if he were "hollowed out" and
experiences a gnawing feeling inside that can best be likened to the pangs of
intense hunger, or to toothache over the whole body. Material for the building
of a dense body is all around him, but seeing that he lacks the gauge of the
seed atom it is impossible for him to assimilate that matter and build it into a
body. This dreadful "hollowed out" feeling lasts as long as his
ordinary life should have lasted.
Law of Cause and Effect
Thus the Law of Cause and Effect
teaches him that it is wrong to play truant from the school of life and that it
cannot be done with impunity. Then in the next life, when difficulties beset his
path, the sufferings resulting from his former suicide will prevent a recurrence
and enable him to go through the experiences of life that make for his soul
growth.
Euthanasia
At first blush and from the
standpoint of people not versed in the teachings of occultism, euthanasia would
seem to have considerable claim to commendation. Most people on seeing an animal
suffering agonies and beyond hope of recovery would feel prompted by humane
instincts to put it out of its misery and the questions, "Why should we not
do as much for our fellow men and women! Why should we keep them alive in
excruciating suffering maybe for months or years when we know they have no
chance of regaining their health and that they are looking and longing for death
to put them out of pain?" seem, from the common point of view, to call for
acquiescence. However, when we have a knowledge of the Law of Consequence, and
are sure that what we sow we reap, if not in this life then in some future
existence, the matter appears in a different light.
The Lessons of Suffering
We cannot escape our just dues. The
suffering that comes to us is needed to teach us a lesson or mellow our
character. The only way to shorten such suffering is by an endeavor to
understand why we are in the condition that brings us pain. If it is cancer of
the stomach, then how have we abused that organ? By overindulgence of food of a
nature not suited to our system? Have we been "feeding" our
consciousness with selfish emotions or negative thinking? Is our heart causing
us problems? How many times have we lost our tempers and raged like mad, putting
tremendous strain on this part of the body? Or are other organs of our system
weak and debilitated? We may be sure that, either in this life or a previous
one, we have lived in a way that the effects find manifestation in our
particular physical ailments. Otherwise we would not now be suffering, and the
sooner we take the lesson to heart and commence to live a better life, more in
harmony with the laws of nature we have broken, the sooner our suffering will
cease.
Cosmic Law is not Mocked
It is always in our own grasp to
alter conditions, though of course we cannot remedy in a day what it has taken
years or lives to break down, but certainly there is no other way in which a
permanent cure can be effected. Even if now, by the enactment of a law condoning
euthanasia (or what is erroneously called "mercy killing"), the
suffering is shortened, we may be sure that when the person so released from his
body is reborn his new vehicle will have the tendency to develop the same
disease from which he escaped in such in untoward manner.
Archetype of the Physical Body
Besides, as has been thoroughly
explained in The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception, this physical body of ours is
fashioned in the World of Thought as an invisible mold or template, which is
called the archetype, and so long as that archetype persists our physical body
remains alive. When death occurs from natural causes, or even in the so-called
accidents, (which usually are not accidents at all but events used to terminate
a life according to the design of the invisible guardians of human affairs) the
archetype is disrupted and the Spirit is released. A suicide, however, is
different. In this case the archetype persists after death for a number of years
until death should have occurred according to natural events, and being unable
to draw to itself the physical atoms, it imparts to the suicide during those
years of his postmortem existence a continuous aching feeling, something like a
gnawing hunger, or a dull but exceedingly painful, whole-body toothache. If
euthanasia became a law and people were allowed to obtain the services of others
to commit suicide (for that is what it really amounts to), there is no doubt
that they would suffer in their postmortem existence in the same manner as the
suicide who prescribed his own poison, or cut his own throat. Legalization of
euthanasia would also be dangerous in other respects, and we trust no such
practice will be sanctioned by law.
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