Question 29: Does suicide cause a dark fate in the spiritual worlds or in one's next incarnation?

Answer: As the capacity to experience life is maintained and renewed solely through the experiencing of experiences, all this experience, whether it appears as pleasant or unpleasant, as light or dark fate, becomes the life basis for every living being's eternal experience of life. As suicide, where it is not through unsoundness of mind, is always an attempt at freeing oneself from a dark fate or dark experiences one has encountered, then it is in reality a sabotage of the normal and absolutely necessary renewal of life. But as suicide in the absolute sense cannot take place, because no living being can truly die either by his own hand or at the hand of others since any such attempt can only affect or destroy the physical organism, then suicide is only a further addition of yet more dark fate to the already existing bleak mental condition which drove the being to suicide. Instead of being freed from its dark fate the being's condition becomes exacerbated by the suicide.

As suicide can only be promoted by a combination of thoughts whose collective final result for the being in a given moment is total depression, then this depression or this evil from which the being is trying to free himself through suicide is not identical with the physical organism but constitutes material which lies beyond the physical plane. It is therefore futile to free oneself from this organism. The problem is not a bodily matter. On the contrary, it is in all situations in its final result a mental or spiritual matter. The above mentioned problem, this depression, will therefore still be experienced by the being whether he has his physical organism or not. The being will therefore, after suicide, perceive the death or unconsciousness he believed he would achieve by means of suicide does not exist at all. He still has his mentality intact and will consequently also still be bound to his depression, bleak thoughts and dark fate.

By freeing himself from his physical organism, which is his basic tool for manifesting and experiencing on the physical plane, he has further exacerbated his situation, for he has now no further normal possibility of overcoming the physical inconveniences or hindrances in which he has involved himself and which were the cause of the suicide. He can only achieve this possibility again when he is once more incarnated in a physical organism and sometimes not until he has reached the age at which the suicide was committed.

The being who has committed suicide find himself still in the same bleak, dark condition of consciousness from which he can no longer free himself unaided. This will eventually lead him into the care of guardian angels who will then by means of suggestion free him from the dark layers of consciousness so that this side of his mentality will lie in a trance until in a future incarnation it will again unfold and then be overcome by the being on the physical plane. But the first period of its existence in the spiritual plane after suicide prevents him because of the dark mental condition in which he is situated from experiencing the otherwise normal light spiritual existence encountered by every being who has died a normal death and at the time of death does not find himself in any kind of dark mental layer.

This dark mental condition, which a being from the physical plane can bring with him through death into the spiritual plane and which for a time darkens the being's experience of this plane, is known as Purgatory. To commit suicide therefore invariably means Purgatory and can never in any case whatsoever mean freedom from the darkness which caused the suicide. All physical fate must be acted out and mastered on the physical plane. If it is not mastered or surmounted before one dies in this incarnation, one will meet it both physically and mentally in the next physical incarnation. And here this experience, according to its more or less dark nature, will to a corresponding degree become respectively a more or less pronounced hindrance for the being's acquisition of a light fate.

Question 30: Why should waking up in the spiritual plane be so hard for the one who commits suicide? Is not the person on whom are laid such great burdens that he cannot bear them rather in need of help?

Answer: As every violation of the laws of Nature create pain and suffering, and ever, compliance with the same laws creates joy and well being, so suffering and wellbeing are the two indispensable factors t j whose help the living being can become conscious of how he can preserve his full sensory capacity and his capacity to experience life. A part of this capacity is seated in the being's physical body or organism. If he could now destroy this organism without causing inconvenience or suffering, he would thereby to a corresponding degree reduce his capacity for sensing and experiencing, which is maintained by the same organism, without being able to perceive or notice this undermining of the consciousness. He would not learn to be on his guard against contravening the laws of Nature or the laws of Life. If the physical body was insensible to damage or injury, if one could cut or flay it without causing pain or suffering, how could one perceive that one is sabotaging one's capacity to experience? How should one be able to prevent small, innocent children from injuring or maiming themselves? Pain or suffering is in reality only a danger signal which warns the living being to appreciate that he is involved in something unnatural or dangerous.

In the same way normal well being is a signal that the being is situated within the area of what is natural. That suicide, which is in itself a total injury of the being's physical body, cannot be an exception is a matter of course. One cannot cut off one's hand and still use it; one cannot destroy one's eyes and still see with them. It cannot possibly be an expression for something unloving on the part of Providence that one here must experience the inconvenience which it is to be deprived of that part of one's health which is maintained by the hand or the eyes. On the contrary the being, precisely through such inconvenience or suffering, gets a living experience built into his consciousness which, in his future physical existence, to a greater or lesser extent will prevent him from recommitting a similar sabotage of his capacity to experience life. In the same way the inconvenience and suffering which arise from suicide will give the being an experience which will likewise contribute towards preventing him from committing suicide again in future physical existences.

It should, however, be noted that there is much spiritual help for those who have committed suicide, just as is the case of all other unhappy beings. Guardian angels stand at the ready, and anyone who commits suicide will eventually be helped out of his unhappy mental condition on the spiritual plane.

From Contact Letters Nos 25 & 26, 1951 Translated by Mary McGovern, 1985

© Martinus Institut 1981

Published with permission from Martinus Institute