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Sikhi view on assisted sucide??!?


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I have heard both opinions for and against assisted suicide. But what does Sikhi Sidhant says about this very touchy topic here?

Some may call it act of compassion, following hakum for letting other person go naturally instead of leaving him/her supported on just machines., some may call it karma and don't agree with interfering with Vahiguroo's hakum/razza/will.

Please discuss sikhi take on assisted sucide.

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birth and death both in the hands of kartar, whether u assist or dont, its not in your hands whether the individual bein assisted dies or not.

IMHO It depends on the niat of the individual helping, if its out of daya then go for or, but always remembering that you arent the liberator, but the puppet whose strings Kartar pulls

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Well said Maha Kharag Singh. I do NOT know what is the verdit of Sikhism on "assisted suicide" but still I want to share.

"Suicide" (killing the physical body by ourself) is a great crime in Sikhism. "Suicide" is the greatest sin on this earth.

"Assisted Suicide": Helping someone to die (because of some reasons: another person is in coma, his/her incapacity to do anything etc. etc.) is the thing that confused me a lot.

But my personal thinking is that: Another person whom we are assiting to die may or may not get punishment (it a kind of suicide for that person), but the person who is assisting will also get punishment depending upon his/her mind set during assisted suicide.....but again we are helping someone to commit a greatest sin on this earth.

On another note: Let's say there is some big insect (e.g keera) who came under my feet by mistake and I crushed to the extend that he is disabled or crying with pain..........then in most cases I will kill him by saying "WAHEGURU".................actually this happened lot many times........now, let me clear what I was thinking at that time......

- I said "WAHEGURU" NOT to liberate the insect. I don't have the capacity to liberte someone. ONLY those can liberate who are libertated themselves.

- I said "WAHEGURU" so that the dying insect can hear it and it might help him in Dharamraj court or in the next birth because he heard GOD's name; and at the same time to ask for forgiveness from GOD because I am killing some being intentionally.

- I will get punishment (bad karam) because I killed somebeing intentionally, but at the same time I feel comfortable that even though I will get punishment; the dying being will at-least proceed to his next scheduled birth in next scheduled jooni.

It is a kind of thing where purbale karam will be combined with udham in his current birth in order to get a result and this result will again become purbale karam in the next birth.

so, on the whole I am still not sure whether "assisted suicide" is valid in Sikhism or not.

das

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There is a difference between killing an animal and killing a person, it's not comparable.

Does the theory that we must suffer/pay for our karam (bhugat-ne) not come into this somewhere?

If we ease our or somebody elses pain, are we not just prolonging that which was meant to be suffered by stalling the karam until the jeev reaches it's next body... is the act of compassion not just really an act of compassion on ourselves rather than the person being assisted? Is it not ultimately done to relieve our pain at seeing the other person suffer rather than excepting that is Gods will...?

In my limited study, I have found that up until the partition where suicides and murder were known to have taken place in Sikh circles to save izat, there was no previous culture of suicide in 'Sikh' panth. All sakhis relate to how Singh/Singhnian bore the worst torture imaginable...

Even today in India generally, we see absolutley amazing people who have nothing more than a torso, horrible diseases etc fighing to survive everyday - with a smile on their face!

Just some thoughts.

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Hard to say. Both sides have very convincing arguements. I guess we can only determin this if this were to happen to us. What would we want?

Say if you are suffering from a very painful desease and you know that you will die within a couple of weeks and the time leading to your end will be extremely painful, would you want to go through that pain or just end it painlessly?

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if we do not dedicate ourself and obtain the great charan of akaal then this life was a waste, isnt that the same as suicide ?

the charan are only graced by Satgur Parsad, so how do we ensure that we are not already committing suicide by wasting this life. after all we can only do what we think is the best, we will not know if it was worthwhile until its over.

Or can we assume that we have free will and the day one must die is hukam, yet we have the choice to die if we so wish? Does a martyr not choose to die for his belief ? In the same way is suicide not dying according to your belief that your better of ending it? (for clarification im not saying shaheedi and suicide are the same thing, im asking a question about the principle) also there are many types of suicide are all wrong, many sikh women killed themselves during partition to avoid being captured by others and destroying the family isaat etc, where is the line drawn between suicide and serving your community and family,

If those women are accepted as dying for their community and family, then a man who needs 24 hour treatment just to have machines keep him alive, even though by all means in nature he would have died, is costing his family their lives, their time, and all tax payers a hell of alot of money, if they all choose and decide to let the man die in order to lift that burden on society and on the other family members is it still suicide?

Its easy to make a blank statement but as a Sikh its our duty to try to understand from the other perspective and not just harp on about our own views, which may be more cultural and socially based then spiritual.

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