Feline Musings

As a conscious observer of the different life scenarios that permeate our society, I have been seriously thinking and rethinking over the concept of Euthanasia. Ever since I wrote my last post on the subject – Killing me Softly! – the subject remained at the back of mind and I would often go into serious contemplation that how can an individual ensure on his own that he leads a dignified life, and ends it in a dignified manner.

Paulo Coehlo says that when you really want something the whole Universe conspires to make it happen for you! And while I was seeking answers to these questions, I started reading a book on dream analysis and how dreams can hold prophetic messages for our lives. Its really strange that a book dealing with dreams had a lot of discussion on death and dying and a long commentary on how modern science and medicine has changed our perspective towards dying! This text contained worthwhile interpretation (and answer) to the queries that lay within me, and I would like to share it on this blog, with due credits to the saintly person, who with honest precision, spoke in favour of dignified dying and assisted death.

In the ensuing paragraphs, you can read the excerpt from the book, “An Open Window” by Sri Madhava Ashish (1920-1997). “In India it is evident that a great change took place in the attitude towards death with the introduction of modern medicine. One may assume that similar changes took place elsewhere in the same context. It was easier to adopt an accepting attitude towards the inevitability of death when the limitations of local medicines were well known and there was neither rapid transportation nor rapid communication to carry sick people from rural areas to city centers. The introduction of air travel also affected the manner in which dying parents would cling to life while a beloved son flew home from America, and families preserved bodies on ice so that relatives living far away could come to look their last on the body.

All this goes to show how shallow the effects of religious teachings can be. In the old world, many were the people who, in the last stages of an illness that was felt to be terminal, would stop eating and leave the body with dignity; the family would normally support such a decision. But the moment the opportunity for prolonging life was offered, the very idea of fasting is abandoned, and not reverted to even when modern treatment fails.

The rapid disposal of dead bodies which was customary often within an hour or two of death was not merely because of rapid decomposition in a hot climate, but importantly from the genuine perception that the person had gone; what was left was merely “earth”, to be disposed of as quickly as possible. Yet the moment refrigeration became available, this high detachment from sentimentality could not hold against the down-dragging pulls of family fixations. As Sri Krishna Prem pointed out, “In the West they say, “The Spirit left him”, or “He gave up the ghost.” In India we say, “He left the body.”" It is not only the population explosion that we have to thank the Western medicine; it is also for the degradation of the Indian spirit. Yet we all know that had that spirit been truly integrated, those fine perceptions that the individual’s significance does not lie in the body would not have crumbled easily……..

……….. Indeed, one gets the impression that thousands of people lie suffering in hospitals, living from crisis to crisis, not because the law is against alternatives but because their world view provides no space for non-physical co-existence and a meaningful evolution of the individual soul through the accumulation of experience in many lives.

And so there has to be suffering, driving people to understand that, while one can have great pleasure and enjoyment in life, life itself is not for pleasure. Life’s purpose is beyond itself.

Some doctors in hospices, caring for people with terminal illnesses beyond the reach of medicine, have testified to learning much about dying from watching their patients go through stages of anger, resentment, and despair-and sometimes into a calm acceptance of death as a transition. Sometimes the patients find, or are helped to find, a deep level within the being which knows that life does not end….

… There is no theorizing here; theory follows to fit the facts. In the face of these demonstrations of the power of consciousness, what is to be gained by repeating the old lie that all things are material and that when the brain dissolves into a putrescent liquid consciousness disappears. The Hindu Mahavakya (great saying) is more to the point: All is Brahma….

…One must spend many years struggling to make sense of a seemingly purposeless life, and seeking to isolate, identify, and to enhance the strange power of self-awareness which lies at the root of our beings and is the central essence of all that survives the death of the body.”

I do hope that the  above text can provide guidance to many who seek answers to the dilemma of approving mercy killing or euthanasia.

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