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Summary of Question:	Friend's Suicide
Category:	Other
Date Posted:	Friday, 3/07/2003 10:06 PM MST

Waheguru Ji Ka Khalsa, Waheguru Ji Ki Fateh.

I am a 16-year old female Sikh from Singapore currently living and studying in australia.
My friend's friend just commited suicide. she jumped from the 12th storey of a building and landed on the 3rd storey. she broke her leg and died immediately. we think she had been planning to jump because the only thing the police found on her was her identity card. according to my friend, she heard from friends back in singapore that she was not hinting it or behaving strange in anyway, so they had no idea.
i do not know how to view this. i don't really feel anything now cos i'm still in shock. why would she have done this? in our Guru's view, is suicide a good or bad thing?

thank you.

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Wahe Guru Ji Ka Khalsa,
Wahe Guru Ji Ki Fateh.

Girl, I wish I had an answer for you on this one - but some things are difficult to find answer to. Why do people commit suicide? They're depressed, they feel hopeless, they're crying out for help, they're temporarily insane - the list is endless and it's impossible to know what was in her mind the moment before she leaped off the building. A lot of young people who are suicidal feel like they have nothing to look forward to, that life has no purpose or meaning for them. And the feelings just well up inside, but they can't talk to anybody about it. They pretend that everything is all right, they act "normal" because they don't want to bother their friends or family. And then, at some point, the inability to talk about it coupled with the feelings of helplessness and powerlessness become overwhelming. This is what can prompt a teenage suicide - a combination of intense depression coupled with the belief that "I shouldn't talk about what I'm feeling."

It sounds as if your friend's friend might have been caught in a similar trap. Whatever she felt, she didn't know how to talk about it with anyone and she just acted "normal" until something became too difficult or too overwhelming. The culture of silence can create some of the greatest casualities.

Being in shock is perfectly normal. What is important is that you and your friends talk about your feelings over what happened - either with each other, with a mentor you trust or with a school counslor. Suicide can create difficult emotions for those who are left behind, and the more support you have to process the experience, the better chance you have of learning something from your friend's situation.

As for the Guru - the Guru teaches about reincarnation and says that the human birth is a very rare, special and precious birth. It is through our birth as a human that can we experience the Divine within ourselves and within all of creation. Because of that, this human form is a precious precious gift - and Sikhs are asked by the Guru to see this life as something precious. In Japji, Guru Nanak says - even the lives of those who are beaten, who suffer endless torture and misery - even that life is a very precious gift. The Guru does not teach anything about what happens when a person commits suicide. At the moment of death, most soul go back on the wheel of death and rebirth and, depending on the circumstances, it may take a long time for that soul to have another chance at a human birth. However, the Divine is also infinitely compassionate. Someone who commits suicide is a soul in a tremendous amount of pain, so much pain that they have lost sight of the preciousness of human life. What you can know with certainty is that her soul, wherever it is, is in the best possible place it can be.

May God bless you and Guru guide you to find peace and Truth in this most unfortuante event.

All love,

GPK