A dreamer dreamed that he was suffering. To escape the suffering he dreamed that he should destroy his body. He destroyed his body but realised that the suffering had not been destroyed. So he then wondered about the nature of suffering. Following back the thread of his dream, he understood that he himself was only a dreamer being dreamed and that the mirage that he believed himself to be was the very cause of his suffering. Having nothing more to lose, he decided to follow the thread of the dream further. Then he disappeared into the light which gave birth to the dream. The dream, the dreamer and the dreamed disappeared and no-one remained to witness their disappearance. The light itself could not disappear because it had never been born. Such is the story of the dreamer who had dreamed that he could escape his dream, but did not realise that he himself was part of the dream that he dreamed of escaping.
The relatives who watched the dreamer and his dream leave, did not realise that they themselves were part of the dream. They imagined that the disappearance of the beloved dreamer was the cause of their suffering. One of them was not satisfied with this response. So he went to look for the true cause of the suffering and came to understand that he himself was the creator of the suffering. He looked for what this ‘himself’ could be and found nothing which looked like anything that could be called ‘himself’. Then even the idea of a 'himself' disappeared from his mind. As he was no longer anything, who could then still be suffering? Suffering and the person who suffered disappeared for ever, for each is closely tied to the other, as are the candle and the flame which both disappear at the same time when they burn away.
Only that which has been born can die. How could the unborn die – never having been born?
The only cause of suffering is non-acceptance. This is as true for the person committing suicide as for his relatives. Non-acceptance is the habit of imagining that the moment could be different from how it actually is. The mind invents multiple scenarios with the sole aim of avoiding a confrontation with the moment as it really is, as this confrontation would mean the death of the ego. The ego only lives through projections into the past and into the future.
In this very moment, can you localize yourself anywhere? Can you say that what we call the ego is in a foot, a hand, a head, the space in front of you, behind you or elsewhere? Non-localization arises when it becomes impossible to localize the self. Being neither here nor there where can we go? Where is the 'I' which wishes to go somewhere? Elsewhere and later are panaceas for the ego. Here and now are the kingdom of consciousness. Consciousness does not know time. Time is a thought. Apart from this thought neither the past, the future nor even the present exist, for the thought of the present belongs to the past.
So long as the person who has suicidal tendencies, the soul who has actually committed suicide and their relatives are unaware of this truth, they live in a world of projections. Their minds conjure up multiple strategies to escape the dissolution of the ego in the omnipresence of consciousness. For the relative of a soul who has committed suicide, this experience of loss is the perfect occasion for giving up all pretension to power. For the person who has suicidal tendencies, the temptation of escape is a lure which leads him to believe that joy belongs to the future. For the soul who has committed suicide, the disillusion concerns the mirage of suffering which cannot be dissipated simply by cleaving it with a sword.
* * *