If someone has committed suicide, how can we help their relatives?

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Disclaimer: This transcript was generated using AI and may contain occasional errors or inaccuracies.

Lecture Summary

Losing an aspiring devotee to suicide is a deeply traumatic experience that leaves families grappling with immense grief and survivor’s guilt. Here is a compassionate guide on how to comfort grieving loved ones while helping them anchor their spiritual lives in Krishna consciousness.

• Avoid Harsh Speculations: Refrain from immediately discussing complex philosophical details about ghosts or premature bodily loss, as non-agitating speech is essential in moments of intense grief (Bhagavad Gita 17.15).

• Address Survivor’s Guilt First: Help survivors recognize that they could not have anticipated the tragedy and should practice self-kindness rather than harboring self-blame or recrimination.

• Trust the Supreme Caretaker: Remind families that the Paramatma (Supersoul) remains the ultimate well-wisher and caretaker of everyone, even through extreme life choices and beyond bodily death.

• Lean Into the Vertical Relationship: When a horizontal human relationship is suddenly shattered, encourage individuals to strengthen their vertical connection with Krishna through prayer, chanting, and kirtan.

• Embody God’s Compassion: Offer practical help, company, and human-level support, stepping in to mirror Krishna’s love when survivors are too wounded to feel it directly.

• Patiently Handle Anger: Understand that survivors may express anger or harsh words toward God or devotees out of deep pain, and respond with empathy rather than taking it personally.

Key Takeaways

• Be Gentle with Speech: Prioritize comforting, non-agitating words over rigid philosophical warnings immediately following the tragedy.

• Forgive Yourself: Release misplaced guilt and recognize that you acted with love and without malicious intent or foresight of the crisis.

• Strengthen Spiritual Practice: Turn to chanting, prayer, and compassionate association to steady the mind and experience Krishna’s enduring grace during the healing process.

Full Transcription

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Question. If somebody who is an aspiring devotee has ended their life by suicide, what can we speak to their family to console them and to study them in their spiritual life? Answer.
It’s an extremely difficult situation where we need to be very sensitive about what we speak. The first thing that we should not speak, or at least it should not be the first thing that we speak, is anything about ghosts. Yes, philosophically, it is said that if a person ends their life prematurely because they lost their body, they may not get another body, gross body immediately.
However, karma is complicated and we don’t know for sure what destination someone is going to get. The important thing is, in such a situation, to speak that which will help the survivors to gain strength and move on with their life. Krishna says, First thing he says is, speak in a non-agitating way.
This is 17.15 in the Gita. So, especially if someone has ended their life, there is a survivor’s guilt for all those who are associated with that person. Did I speak something that pushed this person over the edge? Or could I have spoken or done something that has stopped them from taking that fatal step? And that can be haunting.
It is that we need to address first and foremost. So, ultimately, whatever choice anyone makes in their life, it is that the Supersoul, the Paramatma, is always with them. That God is the ultimate caretaker of everyone.
He is the greatest well-wisher of everyone. And he doesn’t stop being a well-wisher even when somebody takes an extreme step like ending their own life. Actually, life never ends.
It is just that they end the body in which they are presently living their life. But even then Krishna loves them and even then Krishna accompanies them as the Supersoul. So, we may have the opportunity to be caretakers in some capacity as assistants to Krishna.
When parents bring a new life into the world, they are taking care of that life. But it is Krishna who is taking care through them. A mother offers her breast milk, her own breast milk to the child who is newborn.
But yet, the mother doesn’t do anything special to manufacture milk in her breast. The same God who sent a child through her womb into the world also sends milk into her breast to nourish that child. So, that Supreme Lord who used us as a caretaker, who engaged us as a person to administer care, is now in charge of that person.
And we can pray to that Lord that he extend his loving hand and offer his care and guidance more and more, both the person who has departed and the persons who are left. And when love is centered on Krishna, then love is eternal, even if the specific relationship may not be lasting for very long. And beyond that, we have horizontal relationship with others in the world and we have a vertical relationship with Krishna.
And ideally speaking, the horizontal and the vertical, they harmonize and synergize. Those whom we love and care for, they are devoted to Krishna and their devotion inspires us. And if we are devoted to Krishna, our devotion inspires them.
In this way, the horizontal and vertical relationships synergize. But sometimes, for various reasons, the horizontal relationships may sometimes be abruptly cut off. It could be because of separation or betrayal, it could be because of detriment due to death by natural causes, death by any other cause.
At such times, when the horizontal relationship is suddenly shortened, then we need to take shelter of our vertical relationship. That is what will ensure that we don’t go off the deep end, that we don’t overreact, that we don’t beat ourselves with guilt, or we don’t start blaming others for what happened. Because once something has happened, the main thing we can do is accept it and not move on with our life.
Sometimes some events are too to move on from, but sometimes we have to move on with those events. It’s like sometimes some injuries create a scar which may not be ever removable. So we don’t move on from that injury, we move on with that injury.
But still, the important point is that we have to move on. And that means coming to a certain level of acceptance. That even if somebody makes a grievous choice like ending their own life, still they are within the purview of Krishna’s plan.
And Krishna will guide them to a place where they will be able to move ahead in their lives, in their spiritual evolution. And in this way, at least in the immediate situation, we need to make sure that we don’t beat ourselves or beat others down with guilt or self-recrimination. And as far as the thought that we may have not done enough, or we might have done something to trigger that, there has to be a certain level of kindness that we need to have toward ourselves.
We couldn’t have anticipated what anybody might have done like this, and we need to give ourselves the benefit of the doubt in the situation. Certainly, we didn’t intend that person to do like that. And we didn’t, probably we didn’t even suspect that they were as disturbed.
If we had known, we would have gone out of the way to do what we could to help them. So, be kind to ourselves, and that will help us to move on from the injury or with the injury. But along with that, when we are interacting with others, it is important that we also learn to value others.
If we see signs where somebody is extremely distressed, then we can do whatever is possible in our capacity to try to comfort and strengthen them. And apart from this broader philosophical understanding of how we are united through our love centered in God, while this can be consoled in this understanding, sometimes a person is angry with God, and they just don’t want to hear anything about this. We don’t have to see that if they speak any angry words toward God or toward God devotees, we don’t have to take it personally or we don’t have to make it treated as a devotional offense.
We have to be understanding that sometimes when a person is wounded, they speak harshly. And we can, while protecting our own faith, offer whatever support we can at a human level. So if they need some comfort, if they need some company, if they need some practical assistance, we try to do that if it is in our capacity.
And that way, when they can’t see God’s love because of the terrible thing that has happened in their life, then we embody God’s love for them in whatever small capacity we can. And certainly, increased praying in terms of chanting or kirtan or anything that helps us feel the presence of Krishna can stabilize and strengthen us in this situation. And if those survivors are also at least somewhat emotionally or theistically inclined, then we can encourage them to do those activities which will help them, which help them experience the presence of Krishna.
And that way, they can also be stabilized through their vertical relationship. So broadly, three points. First is philosophically, we explain that we are caretakers in the service of the supreme caretaker.
And irrespective of why or how a particular relationship ends, everyone is under the shelter of the supreme caretaker. We pray that he take care of the one who has departed and that we entrust ourselves to the care of those of, we means those who are survivors, entrust more ourselves to their care by connecting with him. And that connection is when a horizontal relationship is shaken or shattered, we need shelter of the vertical relationship, which we can find through those devotional activities that can give us the experience of Krishna.
And that we can also find through the compassionate association of those who can embody Krishna’s love for us and for others. And if we feel guilt, then we need to be kind to ourselves and know that what we did was not what we never intended something to happen. And we may have to move on from the pain or with the pain.
And we try to be more alert to some alarming signs that others in future may exhibit. And prayers are especially helpful, especially prayers in a form that can help us personally connect with Krishna and experience his presence and his enduring grace that can help us heal and move ahead. Hare Krishna.