Euthanasia: Is “Mercy-Killing” Right or Wrong?

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Euthanasia: Is “Mercy-Killing” Right or Wrong?

There are few people who go through this life support. Now, what do you call that? Is that a period the person is dead, and also when you’re talking about Samadhi and unconscious dying, one had seen in India there was a way people used to leave the place and go to a place like Kashi and will die. The preparation for that. In today’s context, how do you see that, the preparation for death or dying gracefully or going somewhere else? Please, and there’s two questions, one is about life support, what is the state of life in the life support?

See, the business of the doctors and the medical science should be to help the living. It’s not for them to enter the realm of death. As you said, it’s life support, not prevention of death. Somewhere this line must be drawn. It would be fantastic if you could train medical professionals to be able to see when it is not so, but that would be a dangerous thing because misuse will happen. People will pull the plug on people who can’t pay the bill or whom they don’t like. Things will happen. Because of that, we’re just allowing it to go whichever way it goes because if you touch it, all the consequences of it, you cannot control.

You support the life only with the hope that it will recover and again, to be back to life. That is, nobody is supporting it with the intention that you just want to put it on a machine and run it forever. The hope is because a few have come back after years of comatose. The people who love them and the families, they’re hoping against hope that this person will come back, and maybe a doctor is trying to assist that. Sometimes it goes to absurd levels because nobody can take the call. Nobody is able to take the call because nobody is authorized to take the call as such. Because of that, it goes to certain levels. Life support is only with the hope they will bounce back.

Now, if you observe a person in comatose, there are two types of people. With one type of people, the body is refusing to respond, but their mind and emotion is active. This is torture.

Sadhguru, this is not exactly true. Sometime the family, the people, the doctors together, all of them, some are almost sure, and I’ve seen such situations, that the guy, the person is not going to come back. There is a kind of human consciousness, a kind of guilt, a kind of responsibility, a kind of love keep the person in that state. What I wanted you to throw light on is what is the state of this life at that point with this because the life is not manifesting itself through this body, and neither it has taken, if you talk about rebirth or reincarnation and another life, it has not done that. What is the state of this life?

About all these thing that you mentioned, there is a law. If you pull the plug, there is a law for that. That’s what I was coming to. There are two conditions in this. In one condition the body has become inert that you are not able to get the body going, but the one who is within, the mind is active, emotion is active, all perceptions are there, this is torture because the body is refusing to move.

There’re other kinds of situations, the body seems to be reasonably vibrant and active, digest food, everything is happening, but inside it’s become bland. If inside has become blank, if you wait for five cycles of 21 days, then for sure, life is gone, but body can be still kept alive because of various medical processes you keeping it going. Body may not dwindle because body is still strong. Without a life, you’re just keeping a body alive. This is like and empty shell but shell is kept alive. This is not a good thing to do, but if the person inside is alive but the body is gone blank, now it’s a very difficult decision for anybody to take. For all you know, many times, all the things that you’re talking, whether to pull the plug, not to pull the plug, all this the person understands. It’s a very bad situation. It shouldn’t happen to anybody but when it happens, how to deal with it? There’s no particular way because it’s individual sensitivities.

Just because the body cannot get up, and the person understands everything, feels everything, you can’t cut him up. Pulling the plug is as good as cutting him up. This is a hard decision to take. There’s no particular way to do it, but if only the body is vibrant but inside has gone totally blank, five cycles of 21 days you can wait, after that very comfortably you can pull the plug for 100% it’s gone.

Sadhguru, then what is your take on euthanasia or where do you … Because here I’m also going to come to the will. How much of will this life has and how much is it left to others? Your point about euthanasia.

In my opinion, nobody has a right to hold an opinion on euthanasia because it’s your opinion. You’re not making a judgment. It’s not an informed judgment. It is an opinion. As I said, if life is gone but only body is there, you can pull the plug. Still, for the people around, including the doctor, and the relatives, and whoever that person means something to them, they see the body is good, the heart is beating and all the parameters are good, why would they want to pull the plug. You cannot tell them to pull the plug because they think it’s on. I don’t think-

If it’s left with an individual, then if he wants to willingly give up life.

The problem, he’s not in a state to say that, he might have said it before.

Suppose he’s in a state to say that so that brings trust. Do you think he has the will and the right to exercise that?

See, the simple thing that we did in this country is if an individual decided, those who do not have the capability to smoothly exit this body without causing any damage to it, those who did not have this, they always walked away into the forest and just sat under a tree. After some time without eating they would just go. This is a normal scenario. You heard in Mahabharat all this Kunt. All these people went into the forest to live on dry leaf and this and that for some time, and slowly dwindle the body and exit. The body begins to understand.

All the creatures, most creatures do this. You must see how a cobra dies. It’s unfortunate that no documentation about these things have been done. If a cobra realizes it’s time to die, it will go up to some place where it will not be eaten by predators and things. Usually, it will climb up a tree and sit on one branch. It just sits on the branch and that’s it. In about 20 to 25 days it will die because a cobra can easily exist, its normal meal is spaced out somewhere between 11 to 15 days. Because of that, beyond 20, 25 days, 30 days it will die. It will simply sit without eating and slowly dry up just like that.

Even a creature, a crawling creature like that has this much awareness, this would be the best way to do. Even if I talk about it today, the so called modern society which eats five meals a day, they will be terribly upset and they won’t let me into America because they eat 12 meals a day. Everybody is recommending this. This has been a normal process. If you’re not a yogi, if you do not know how to exit, you’ll come to a place, you’ll sit quietly by yourself. If your relatives are around they won’t let you do that, they will stuff food into you because our idea of love is to stuff the people as much as we can. They won’t let you do those things.

That’s why people went to some place, sat in a place where advantages are good because being in a positive live energy space is important, because to be without food becomes very effortless if the outside energies is conducive and supportive. If the outside energy is a little depressive, you will see you will need lot more food and the compulsion of food are strong within you. This is a way but you can’t suggest that to modern life, they will … you know.