Depression : Getting rid of Depressive / Suicidal Tendencies - I

Depression : Getting rid of Depressive / Suicidal Tendencies - I

We all get a little low at times and we then feel life is too much.   Now that is quite human.

It is but Satan in us that suggests any kind of self-harm and we should never yield to this wicked suggestion.

I live in India, my  younger son has been studying / living in San Francisco.  I have seen pictures of the Golden Gate bridge there. I think it is so beautiful, an engineering marvel. But think of how many use it wrongly, to kill themselves ! I thought bridges were meant to help people cross, and not drown themselves, but alas ...! I was watching the movie 'The Bridge' where I actually saw some in the act - it's so bad, such loveable souls perpetrating such a heinous act ! I read that in 2004 alone, as many as 24 people terminated their lives by jumping down the bridge, and many more thought of, or attempted, it.

Can we blame the bridge for it, no - not any more than we can blame the knife for killing. Give the same knife to a surgeon and he will save a life. Well, suicides occur everywhere ; in India, poor, debt-ridden farmers kill themselves byconsuming handy insecticides - it's sad and terrible.
The world is a school, life is all about learning, each experience is a lesson. Those who commit suicide are drop-outs. And what happens to students who take drops ? They repeat the class.

Those who make a cowardly escape from life by killing themselves unnaturally and cruelly, repeat that 'class', with the disadvantageof an extra karmic debt for killing A murder is a murder, whether one kills another or oneself. Suicide, in a way, is the murder of the worst kind, because love like charity must begin at home, with oneself.

Besides it is so selfish to run away from life like that. Everyone has problems, it is how we look at and treat it, that decides whether it becomes a 'ladder'or a 'snake' in life's game. Those we leave behind, were not having a cake-walk anyway (if ever walking on a cake was actually easy ; wonder how this proverb came into being !) ; they had their challenges. If one had relationship problems with them, they must have had problems with that person too because it is usually mutual. By suddenly leaving them like that, one makes it even more difficult for them - more lonely and saddened.

Nor is there any fun for the person concerned. The whole thing is so unjust. If only one paused for moment and took another perspective !

What is the game behind the creation, what is the mystery ? Is there God and if He is, what is He trying to get out of all this mess ? Can there be a meaning to it all ?

Why a perfect, loving God who sends loving, beautiful prophets like Krishna, Christ and Buddha to earth, permits such pain and suffering for so many, why doesn't He interfere, in stead of helplessly watching all this nonsense ? ….. We shall continue to think over this. - Hans Dholakia