1. ES 78 - 04 - 02 Translator: She wants to, she would like to know your opinion on suicide. Gururaj: Don’t think of it. Now, let me tell you what suicide is, I will tell you of the mechanics that happen behind the scenes of suicide. Good, now when a person contemplates suicide, then you can be sure that that person is going to extreme hardship and -- and unhappiness. Or else, that person would not think of ending this life. The misconception here is this that by ending this body, all our troubles will be over, but that is not so. As I said in previous talks that man is composed of three aspects, the physical body, the subtle body and the spiritual body. So when a person commits suicide, he is only getting rid of the physical body and not the subtle body. Not the subtle body which is so much more important than the physical body. Because once the subtle body separates it self from the physical body, then the physical body is nothing better than a piece of wood. All – even all the sufferings of the sick person of the physical organisms can only be recognised and the pain felt by the subtle body which is and composes the mind. Now, when we get rid of the physical body, the subtle body continues and all the problems and troubles and sufferings of this physical lifetime is carr ie d forward in the subtle body. Now, as we said that when a person commits suicide, that person is suffering but his suffering is recognised only by the smal l per cent of the conscious mind. But the – that does not end there. The conscious mind transmits all those experiences to the subtler sections of the mind in all its subtler and finer levels. So your suffering does not stop the body and the small s ection of the mind that you use. Now let us say the person has committed suicide and after leaving the physical body, that person has to exist in the subtle body with all that suffering. Now you will know that any feeling or suffering of the grosser body is far less intense than the suffering and experience of the subtler body for that whichever is subtle is always more powerful. I always say that if you throw a 2,000 tonne bomb, it will only make a big hole, but if you split a subtle atom, it will destroy a whole city – split – the whole city. So it means that anything used or experienced in the subtler state is a million times more powerful than the grosser substance. So when the person commits suicide and leaves his gross subtle body carrying over the suffering and experience in the subtle body, his suffering is intensified. So people think that by committing suicide their troubles are left behind, <0:08:12.4> . But they are actually intensifying their problems and the suffering in the subtle state is a million times greater. So never think those thoughts. Let the thoughts commit suicide. (Laughs) You see, so that is why – that is why life has to be lived – life has to be lived and life is given to us to gain certain experiences. Life is a school where we come to learn and all our pains and pleasures and sufferings are of our own making. Patterned and conditioned by ourselves, perhaps not only in this life, but in so many previous lives. This will bring us to the question I see in someone's mind that what is the position when a person is totally ill and that person has to be put to death? The English word is – putting a -- a doctor putting a person to death.

2. ES 78 - 04 - 02 Translator: Euthanasia. Gururaj: The English word is euthanasia. Now is that right or wrong? That question I see rising up there. Now, if the person has become a total vegetable and the mind has stopped functioning and the body is just existing on its own momentum with the power generated by its cellular cell, then to end this extreme suffering would not be a crime because this is not the decision of the sufferer but the decision of the doctor. And the true doctor who has the welfare of the patient at heart, and he will do his best in making a proper decision and in such cases it is not always one doctor’s decision that counts, but they have a council of doctors to decide this factor and this has become a law in many countries. But as long as the mind retains some thought of consciousness, that pe rson must not be put to an end because in the evolution of that particular person, that consciousness is a necessary experience. So that is the question. Okay. Translator: he would like to know your opinion about those words of Jesus Christ according to the gospel when he says, “Go to the Gehenna ” -- that is go to the eternal fire, go to -- to hell, what does it mean when he sends away the – the sinners or some people, he says, “Go to the eternal fire.” To the gehenna, I think it’s the word that is used in the gospel . Gururaj: Eternal damnation. Translator: Yes. Gururaj: Is that what you're talking about? Translator: Yes, yes. Gururaj: I do not like to interpret scriptures because one sentence in a scripture could be interpreted in so many ways according to a person's understanding. It depends a lot upon the development of a person’s consciousness how to interpret scriptures. Now, most people take scriptures and I'm not only referring to the bible, but to the Bible, the Vedas, the Quran, the Avesta, all the scriptures of the world. – Avesta, all those – all those, they are taken mostly literally and not figuratively. Now, eternal damnation is a contradiction of terms if it is not understood properly because in the very same scripture it is said there is no hope lost, everyone has hope. So if everyone has hope for salvation, where is eternal damnation? But what is meant by eternal damnation is something different altogether that man do not condemn yourself to suffering for you with your own freewill can swirl around and round and round in the whirlpool of suffering. Because in the progress in evolution there cannot be stagnation for damnation is stagnation. So

3. ES 78 - 04 - 02 whatever circumstance we have landed ourselves in, we can get out of. For divinity has also given us the power to prove the saying that man is a master of his destiny. The question should be how to be away from the suffering. What is interpreted as sin is a moral and ethical concept made for the stability of society so that a greater harmony can be produced. That is why we have the Ten Commandments and all the commandments of other scriptures, which in different words, mean the same. So having been given this freewill to choose our way of life, there could never be eternal damnation for every experience, how bad it is, is a lesson in life for in every adversity there is an opportunity but it depends on man which way he wants to choose and the greatest and best way he can choose is to align his freewill with the divine will. So even for the worst sinner there is hope and after all, who is the creator of heaven and hell? Man himself. Man passes judgement upon himself in the subtle state of existence when he leaves this body. In that subtle state of existence beyond the level of the physical body, man evaluates all his doings in this lifetime which is inextricably connected to all the lifetimes he has lived. So divinity does not judge you, you judge yourself. For in the subtle state you have to be honest with yourself and you formulate the next life to learn the lessons that have to be learnt in the path of evolution and progress, for our destiny is to reach back home. Our destiny is to reach back home and merge away within our own essence which is divine. That is why scriptures say, “Seek ye first the kingdom of heaven within you.” But if we should live a life in such a manner where we move further and further away from the kingdom of heaven within , then all the experiences which we term to be misery is hell, HELL. You see, so we can condemn ourselves and we can save ourselves.