Osho on Suicide

Question : I want to commit suicide.
Osho
– Then first take sannyas. And you may not need to commit suicide, because sannyas is the greatest suicide possible. And why should one want to commit suicide? Death is coming on its own — why are you in such a hurry? Death will come, it always comes. Even if you don’t want it to come, it comes. You need not go to meet it, it comes uninvited.

But you must be missing your life badly. It is out of anger, out of desperation, that you want to commit suicide. I will teach you the real suicide: Become a sannyasin. And the ordinary suicide will-not help much, you will be born immediately into some other womb somewhere. Some foolish couple will be making love somewhere, remember…and you will be trapped again. You cannot escape so easily — there are fools and fools. Before you will be escaping from this body you will be caught in another net. And again you will have to go to the school and the college and the university — just think of that! Think of all those miserable experiences — that will prevent you from committing suicide.

You know, Indians don’t commit suicide so easily, because they know that they will be born again. In the West, much suicide and the suicidal idea exists; many people commit suicide. And psychoanalysts say there are very very rare people who don’t think of committing it. In fact one person has investigated and gathered data, and he says every person, every single person, thinks at least four times in his life to commit suicide. But he must be thinking of the West. In the East, because of the idea of reincarnation, nobody wants to commit suicide — what is the point? You escape from this door and from another door you are in again. You can’t go so easily.

I will teach you real suicide, you can go for ever. That’s what it means to become a Buddha — to go for ever. When somebody used to commit this suicide in samadhi, Buddha had a special name for him, he would call him ANAGAMI — one who will not return. One who has gone to the farthest shore and will not be coming back. I can make you anagami, a non-returner. Then no womb can be a trap for you again.

Why do you want to commit suicide? Maybe life is not going the way you want it to go? But who are you to impose your way on life, your will on life? Maybe your desires are not fulfilled? But then drop desires! Why drop yourself? Maybe your expectations are not fulfilled, and you are feeling frustrated? In frustration one wants to destroy. And there are only two possibilities — either murder somebody or murder yourself. Murdering somebody else is more dangerous, so people start thinking of murdering themselves. But it is murder.

Why not change your life rather than destroying it? And please don’t commit it here, otherwise you will create problems for me.

I have heard: A policeman saw a man standing on the parapet of Blackfriars Bridge one evening, obviously about to jump. Rushing over to him, he tried to talk him out of it. ‘If you jump, sir,’ he said, ‘it will be my duty to jump in after you to try to rescue you. Then I’ll get wet, catch pneumonia, and die too. So why don’t you just go home quietly and put your head in the gas oven?’

Please don’t create any trouble here. And don’t talk about it, because there are many people who would like the idea — you may convert a few people.

I have heard: A man was walking across Waterloo Bridge late one night when he noticed another man on the parapet about to throw himself over. He rushed up to the would-be suicide and shouted, ‘Wait a minute! Don’t jump! Come and have a drink and talk things over.’

The two men went off to a nearby pub and spent the next hour chatting over the state of the country, inflation, taxes, and the future of Western civilization. Then they finished their drinks, walked back to Waterloo Bridge, and both jumped.

So don’t spread this idea here. If you want to commit suicide just come in the evening to darshan and I will help

Source: Osho Book “This Very Body the Buddha”

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