What happens to a person who commits suicide while remembering Krishna?

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yes Hare Krishna what happens to a person who dies while remembering Krishna yes who not just dies but who commits suicide while remembering Krishna normally when we say that if a person dies while remembering Krishna they will attain Krishna but if a person commits suicide then that person will get a degraded destination like becoming a ghost so when these two principles are happening at the same time then the result will be such that both principles cannot be reconciled at the same time but we can see something similar happening in the case of Bharat Maharaj Bharat Maharaj was a very exalted soul who had come to spiritual advancement which is almost near the stage of prema so he was absorbed with ecstasy in remembering Krishna but then he became attached to a deer so when he became attached to a deer the result was and he died remembering a deer so then the fact that he had made enormous spiritual advancement that was not lost but at the same time he remembered a deer that also had its consequence so in his next life because he was remembering a deer he got a deer’s body but he did not get deer’s consciousness he still had spiritual consciousness in fact his consciousness was more spiritual than even that of most human beings what to speak of deer now he as a deer lived near hermitages where he could hear spiritual sound vibration so nature under the expert supervision supervision of Krishna will arrange to reconcile contrary principles if they apply at a particular situation so with respect to somebody who remembers Krishna and commits suicide then the result would be that they will get the consequence of the suicide in some way but they will also not lose the fruit of remembering Krishna now when you talk about remembering Krishna we also have to see what does it mean is it that the person has lived a sinful life or a sensual life throughout their life and then at the moment of death they are trying to trick Krishna by just putting a gun one way one thread and just saying Hare Krishna and committing suicide Krishna says that anta kaale cha maameva smaran muktva kalevaran so the moment of death is not some we need to remember Krishna at that time and although somebody may chant the name of Krishna but if they are not attached to Krishna they will not be able to remember Krishna so just as for example we also we chant the holy name so many times but how often are we remembering Krishna at that time even when we are sadhakas our mind wanders to various distractions to various things that we are attached to similarly if somebody has lived a sensual life and they just try to remember Krishna at the time of death even if they utter the words Krishna they will not remember Krishna so they will remember whatever they are attached to and the words will just be in the background yes utterance of the word Krishna will give some auspiciousness to them but if we see the flow of verses that Krishna talks about in the Bhagavad Gita 8.56 and 7 8.5 he states that those who remember Krishna attain me, 8.6 he gives a general principle whatever we remember at the time of death we attain that and 8.7 states that the application what should we do so Krishna says that always remember me absorb your mind and intelligence in me then you will attain me so Krishna is giving assurance in 8.5 but the application is in 8.7 so Krishna is not just saying that you remember me at the time of death you will attain me but to be able to remember him at the time of death we have to cultivate remembrance of him throughout our life and we have to absorb our mind and intelligence in him so those who have not done that those who have not even tried that the remembrance the utterance of the name of Krishna will not benefit them dramatically some benefit will be there but it will be based on the karma that they have cultivated the consciousness overall that they have cultivated and especially the karmic consequence of having destroyed their own body through suicide will come to them so generally if a person commits suicide the result is that the person gets a ghostly body and in the ghostly body the remembrance of Krishna might surface the utterance of Krishna at the time of death may have a marginal consequence that as a ghost they may be attracted to some devotional situation but largely the consequence of their action will come now if you consider somebody who is a devotee who has practiced sadhana throughout their life but somehow they experience some unbearable frustration and because of that that person commits suicide so it’s not just trying to trick nature but they have remembered Krishna throughout their life then in that situation the remembrance of Krishna will not go in vain the remembrance of Krishna will have its fruit now the most extreme positive example of this we see in the case of Chota Haridas in Chaitanya Charita Amrit Chota Haridas because Chaitanya Mahaprabhu rejected him for a very minor fault he felt so distraught and hopeless that he ended his life but then the result was that the devotees and lord Chaitanya saw him they heard his voice singing the holy names singing Krishna’s glories for the pleasure of the lord and the Acharyas explain that Chota Haridas did not become a ghost actually he got a divine body he could not get the association of lord Chaitanya in his physical body but then he got a higher body in which he got the association of lord Chaitanya which he came in the presence of lord Chaitanya and sang for his pleasure so he was elevated he did not get ghostly body as a consequence because his consciousness was very different now of course we cannot assume that we are having the same mood of repentance of Chota Haridas or even for that matter we have the exalted spiritual advancement of Chota Haridas because for him to be an associate of lord Chaitanya requires an exalted level of devotional consciousness so if a devotee out of frustration in life commits suicide then we have to see like Krishna talks about in the sixth chapter of the Bhagavad Gita what happens to a person who is unable to complete the yogic path and moves on and leaves the body since if one is very spiritually advanced one has done a lot of spiritual advancement in one’s life then one will be directly born in a devotee family and will continue one’s bhakti but if one has not done much devotion and has had a lot of desire for sense gratification then that person will be elevated to heavens where they can enjoy a lot of sense gratification and then they come to the earth where in a pious family or a wealthy family they can continue their spiritual quest so similarly if a person has actually done a lot of bhakti and then there is some frustration which is unbearable when one commits suicide then the result will not be so inauspicious there will be some consequence of the act of committing suicide say one may go into a ghostly body for a very brief period and there somehow in the ghostly body one will go to a place where one hears Krishna katha, one hears the Bhagavatam one hears Krishna’s name and one becomes liberated from the ghostly body so there are stories in the Bhagavat Mahatmya of somebody who may have died because of who may have died in a way which made them into a ghost but if they hear the Bhagavatam then they become liberated from the ghostly situation and get a more auspicious position so that can happen that one may just go into a ghostly body for a very brief period but it may also happen that somebody if they have committed, if they have done little devotion and they have committed suicide then there will be some benefit of that so there was a group of devotees which was once going for a yatra and then one one Mataji, young Mataji in that group she suddenly started acting speaking in a male voice and started behaving in a very unusual way so then the devotees became concerned and eventually they figured out that she was haunted by a ghost and then they were chanting Mantra Narasimha Mantra and others for exorcising the ghost and the ghost suddenly spoke in a male voice came from there, he says don’t try to drive me away, I am not going to leave they were all on yatra to Mayapur, he says I want to go to Mayapur and once I reach Mayapur I will myself leave, don’t try to drive me away and so apparently this was a devotee ghost and the devotees finally they went to Mayapur and as soon as they entered Mayapur, immediately this Mataji, she came back to consciousness what had happened in the last sometime she was blank the ghost had left the body so somebody might get a ghost body but in the ghost body instead of desiring ghostly activity they are desiring to go to Mayapur so what we understand is Neha Bhikramana shows that as 2.40 Bhagavata says that what we do spiritually is never lost but that doesn’t mean that what we do materially doesn’t matter what we do materially will have its material consequence and the exact magnitude of the consequence will vary depending on time, place circumstance but what we do spiritually will always be with us of course we as a devotee community should create a situation where anyone who has come to the path of bhakti never faces such unbearable frustration even if somebody faces frustration if they have good relationship with other devotees and other devotees offer support then they will be able to face that frustration without having to take this extreme step of destroying one’s own body through suicide.
Krishna always protects those who have surrendered to him even if they do something as terrible as committing suicide but we also know as Krishna’s devotees we also need we have duty to manifest Krishna’s protection and we try to protect each other by supporting each other amidst our difficult situations Thank you. Hare Krishna