suicide & sanlekhana(santhara):- are anonyms of each other

by:- Dr. A.P. Jain

In the time of great debate on sanlekhna I would like to share something with u

I am an MBBS doctor $ while studying psychiatory I have come accross an interesting thing -

A Psychiatrist Ross has given a theory in which he describes 5 stages of death as follows:

1 denial:- means the person denies fof his death , he says it is not the tine for his deeath {even though he is terminally ill}

2 anger :- means he fights with the death , shows anger on it .It is astage where he cannot simply deny his inevitable death , $ so he is angry

3 bargain:- next he does is that bhe bargains to death{ or rather god} that ok he is dying but-----
4 depression:- now he is depressed $ very sad , knows he is dying but is still not accepting it

5 acceptence :- now he is tired of arguments $ his deppressin becomes unbearable or rather useless $ he surrenders i.e/ he accepts his death

Now , My point is that if in aterminal illness or so one has to finally accept his inevitable death then what is wrong in sanlekhna,here also one is accepting death which is inevitable
The person is not calling or desiring his death{as alleged by some people as sanlekhna being cfompared to sati or suicide} but he is "accepting" it $ there is a lot of difference in acceptence $ desire

suicide is lust for life in deep sense:-

It is very strange but is a fact that the person who comits suicide has the lust for life and that too at its extreme.

How?

The answer is of great depth.Let us analyse it.

Why a person commits suicide? he comits suicide not because he doesn't like life, but he is commiting suicide because he has a strong preoccupation for life- he loved a beautiful lady , she left her, now he can't imagine a life without her- if at the very moment of suicide , his beloved returns to him ,he will not die- so he is dieing because of the lust for life with that lady-there is no desire for death but the desire for a particular life is so strong that it has taken the form of a lust & there seems to us that he is suiciding due to his desire to die- NO HE DOESN'T HAVE ANY DESIRE TO DIE- he has lust for life.

Whenever a person has a strong desire to life, at the same time in his subconscious somewhere he has the suicidal tendency also.

Mahavir says that the saadhak should not have strong desire for life- the sanlekhna or the santhara can be only performed in its real sense by a person who doesn;t have strong desire to life.

So, then will it be correct to say that santhara comes from the desire to die?

No, it is not like that
We must realise that there can be only 2 states- one in which there is no desire & the other where bthere is desire for life- there is no such state in which there is desire for death.
Death can never be desired & a person who don't have adesire even for life then how he could have desire for death?

They are parts of the same thing- 'desire'

A person who do not have desire for life will not have any desire to die & a person who have desire for ,will be also having a desire to die( in cases when he doesn't experiences the life according to his desire)

Or we can say- jeevaneshna & mrityueshna exists in the same person & if the person is able to leave the jeevaneshna then the mrityueshna will automatically go away.

So, suicider is in the greatest depth of jeevaneshna at which the laypersons call it as mrityueshna though in the deep sense they both are same.

And, a saadhak in santhara or the sanlekhna is free from jeevaneshna & so he will be not having the mrityueshna also.

Also samadhi is not an impulsive act like the suicide- the two acts are entirely different.
Psychiatrists says that the suicide is done due to impulse & if we r able to pass the particular moment of impulse then the same person will not do suiocide because for doing suicide he needs an impulse to do it.

In samadhi, Mahavir has asked to stop having food & water. We know that a person can live without food for more than one month .

Now if the santhara is an impulsive act then the time of a month or so must be very long enough for this impulse to be over, but if after that also the saadhak is steady in the samadhi-it means his act cannot be due to an impulse.

Think upon our own thoughts- we think of dieing at 8 am & to kill the other person in the evening - these all are impulses- you avoid your acts at those particular moments & you will find that you don't really had those particular intentions in those particular instances

"Sanlekhna is the opposite of suicide"
"Suicide is the result of strong desire for life"