What is Tom's thoughts on this subject? Either way, the IUOC is collecting data if they do kill themselves to escape suffering and pain, or if they choose to experience it for however the time they do. From a bigger picture, is it positive or negative? Wouldn't it be "breaking a contract" someone makes with the Whole to incarnate in PMR?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gRKNBx9VWY&feature=em-uploademail

As always, my first thing to refer you to or to do myself is to search on the board with twcjr as the poster. That will get you 4 threads in which this was discussed in one degree or another. You should probably read the threads and not just Tom's posts to see what he was replying to. That being said, here is a pertinent and succinct post that he made to a question by Bette.Here is another post clarifying this somewhat.It would be worth your while to read all of these 4 threads for maximum information since so little effort would be required. If this does not answer your questions to your satisfaction, please ask further.

I looked in the index on the Wiki but suicide is not included there, only self destruction of mankind in general and did not seem to be including suicide in the discussion. I presume that suicide is not directly mentioned in MBT and do not remember it.

Ted

i apologize Ted, it was more of an impulse to create this, please bare with me and those that make this same mistake. ♥ :)

Not a mistake really. It took me a while to learn to dig out information and where I could likely find it rather than ask. I still find it difficult to get searches to do what I want at times. Searching for these things refreshes my memory as well.

Ted

Note that Tom is talking about suicide that is different from what is generally known as assisted suicide.. they are not comparable. One is where the individual in a dark and bleak place, usually with severe depression and no hope for life (from their perspective).. while there is hope, if a change in attitude is possible. Tom clearly writes:

"Suicide is considered an experience packet failure if you prematurely (much growth opportunity is still left on the table) end a viable experience packet because you got so twisted up with belief traps and ego that you fail to be aware of or engage any of the usually abundant growth opportunities.", this represents suicide, but generally not assisted suicide. In the cases of assisted suicide, there is not much growth opportunity left on the table, and it is not a result of a failure of intent in the same way, it unlikely that the individual is caught in belief traps and ego (beside the usual) in the same way as a suicidal person.

There is no reason for denying the free will of a mentally stable person, whose life would would consist of being tied to a bed for months or years with nothing but unbearable agony, or maybe be so full of painkillers that the mind is nothing but a haze (just an example). Using Tom's words, it could be considered an unviable experience packet. I do not see any inherent negativity if such a person would make that choice, in that situation, given the right circumstances, it could well be a positive thing. Whether there would be any significant growth potential should be on a individual basis, two people in the same physical situation could have different growth potentials.. so it's not an easy thing to judge.

Another thing to have in mind, pain and suffering does not necessarily equate to loss of growth opportunity, and loss of growth opportunity is not necessarily caused by pain and suffering.

I agree, it's hard to judge if there is still massive learning data from the state that someone is full of meds and unresponsive. However, what if that small portion of their lives is part of the experience packet? The bedridden state of pain and suffering may be what is needed for the transition process and overall growth of the IUOC, no matter how it looks or how much it costs. Including everyone personally involved around the person would be going thru alot of emotional growth and evolution. Even if the person is unable to communicate to stop or to follow thru with the premature death, and putting into account the aspect that either way, alot of data would be gathered from sustaining life or ending life, even if it is de-evolving to the Whole System. I just don't think it would be very profitable for the experience packet to end prematurely due to how unique and long it took to reach that experience in the first place.

To me there would seem to always be the question of whether you could judge properly from here in PMR. And if you are not having any fun, that makes prospects look worse.

Making this kind of decision on the basis of avoiding useless pain and suffering looks good, but one cannot make this kind of decision when loaded up on pain medications as I understand these laws. Your mind must be sound for this kind of judgement to be made.

Ultimately it is an individual decision and there might be negative consequences than cannot be well judged in advance from here.

Ted

I would think that it would always be better to live out your whole experience packet if you can. Even if you are largely incapacitated it may be a learning lesson for those around you. However, I doubt there is much of a regression to your entropy if you decide to check out early in cases of terminal illness. Much less so than if you just can't handle your life and commit suicide early. Tom did say something about this in his last radio interview I believe. Something like if your constraints in the VR are so severe (brain injury) that there is little possibility for growth then getting out of the VR and starting over isn't always a bad thing. It is just one blip in a long line of experiences.

I have observed some very old people, 95-100 years old, at the stage, when memory is gone so badly, that a person doesn't know what to do with food on a table. Day to day life is in total obscurity. I think they are afraid to die, and it holds them back here in PMR.

Recently 94 year old lady, my client of four years, died. Her physical conditions were deteriorating, as well as her memory. A couple of months before her death she told me, that she has two major concerns. What is going to happen to her house after she dies, and what is going to happen to her after death. First we talked about her house. It was easy. After that we talked about what she could expect after death. I didn't present to her MBT after death model, but said, that her loved ones, who died years ago are going to meet and support her all the way through. She is going to have a new beginning and so on. It was 10-15 minutes conversation. She said, that it made her feel comfortable and she is not afraid to die anymore. She died of the heart attach with her family at her bedsite.

Lena

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'Real knowledge is to know the extent of ones ignorance.' Confucius.

It has appeared to me from experience that it is largely fear that holds people here and causes the most problems. My father, with a major dementia known as Progressive SupraNuclear Palsy, was afraid to let go for fear of leaving my mother. I think that his own fear of leaving had already gone and he was ready. Within seconds of her telling him, don't stay here and suffer because of me, he let go and was gone. Can't be sure. He might have been to the point of no choice but that is how it appeared.

My mother had Alzheimer's with Agitation as it is called. It is fear, denial that there is anything wrong with their minds, fear of others causing them problems, fear they will not be looked after and not being able to look after themselves. Tom helped her with this by being able to talk with her mind to mind and reassure her of being take care of, that I was there to help her and the Agitation eased and was gone over a relatively short time. This made taking care of her much easier as she was not fighting against it all the time. Eventually, she asked me what happens when we die. I told her that it was not really like they say at church and in the bible. But that she would be met by Dad and possibly her parents and taken care of, shown the way. That she would live continuously, not in heaven with angels and such, but that there were no troubles as in having to work, find food, have a house and car and all that. Eventually she would live a new life again. She accepted this surprisingly easily as she knew that I was studying a lot about this and she had this friend who she met occasionally in her mind (uncle Tom of course) who eased her fears also.

From that time, she was more accepting and started letting go, loosing her fears. Not much later she became ill in her final hospitalization. She started muttering/praying to herself every time she was not distracted by what was going on around her, something like "Oh Jesus, please take me home/let me go home". She was sent to a 'rehab' after the hospital release where she was unhappy and muttered and prayed all the more. When they used up all her Medicare benefits and sent her home with me, she essentially quit functioning that day. She had achieved part of her desire to go home and was working on the rest. She would not eat. Any food that she took in her mouth with coaxing, she just gradually worked back out again. She stopped even drinking during that day and then urinating. She was not unhappy, she was just letting go. I asked my father in meditation if she was leaving and he told me he would take her home that night. I could not be sure as things were too busy, this was not true meditation with any great depth so I was not sure if it was not imagination. But she did in fact let go completely during that night and was gone by morning. Every time I checked on her during the night, she was apparently just calmly sleeping.

There is a story of a Zen master who was quite elderly who was asked about the old masters who had predicted their own deaths, could he do that as well? He told them that he would show them what he could do after the snow stopped that night. There was felt to be no sign of snow so everyone just assumed it was meaningless. Then during the night it was noticed that he was not in his room which they were concerned about because as he had predicted, a snow flurry had started. It is reported that he was found outside in the meditation garden seated in the posture for meditation, dead and surrounded by snow, as the snow stopped. Don't be misled about something special happening as/because he was a Zen master.

Part of what you should be learning here from Tom is to not fear death any more. Basically you should realize that you are just returning 'home' as in 'rejoining the program already in progress' as you exist continuously in NPMR. When you are ready/ the time is right as no significant lessons left, which anyone willing to listen can be told/nudged by the LCS, you just let go of the PMR data stream and the VRRE converts you into an 'empty' body instead of a live body. In ordinary words, you die. It requires no vast spiritual capability. When it is time, as you can be told with a nudge from the LCS, you just let go. If you are suffering a lot of pain and dementia, this might not be so readily a conscious process. Your IUOC is however not afflicted and your true mind is still 'in there' undiminished by the PMR rule set.

So is my understanding.

Ted

Another thing, that I have observed, a family members with a strong will could hold a dying person back for a long time. I remember one man, 88 year old, with mid-stage of Alzheimer's. Several times he had mentioned to caregivers, that he wants to die, but his wife is holding him back. He asked her to let him go, because pain and suffering were more, that he could endure.

A lady from a previous post had a daughter who was doing everything possible and impossible to keep her mother here. I am not advocating to abandon or neglect your loved one, but I can say, that a fear of death by a family member can prevent our loved one to die at his/her time too.

Lena

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'Real knowledge is to know the extent of ones ignorance.' Confucius.

A Bob Olsen 'video report' on the topic of suicide in general (the current search function malfunction prevents me from finding a more centrally related suicide thread)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59OOCGzd ... ure=relmfu

Looks awesome.
Thanks for your sharing.

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It is just like that you will spend a long hard time to turn the ice-cold water you have drunk into tears.

As far as the negative side of suicide, I think this happens when you have acquired a value system that is so fucked up, your body, mind and soul are so stressed, that certain pain thresholds are tipped and things become unbearable, and you are not aware of your alternatives.

What people don't know is that you can always leave home and join the circus, figuratively speaking. I say this in the context of wanting to kill yourself...not in the context of being bored or looking for an excuse to drop out of school or escape the challenges of your job. There is a price to be paid for doing this, so it should be only used in emergencies.

For me, my reset was hitting the road by planes, trains, automobiles, motorcycle, hitchhiking...living and working in different environments, collecting lots of data on the wide range of choices of human experience. I also did not have the belief that failure once or twice at school meant that this path was blocked...i kept going back until something stuck.

As you acquire data based on direct observation, not only paying attention to your feedback, but seeing how other people find happiness, your personal model starts to evolve toward how life actually is, rather than what you think or wish it to be, or how your mother or gaming buddies think it is, and things get easier once you get your hands on some actual levers, rather than vapor.

Assisted suicide is likely one of those things Tom would characterise as something that might be profitable when all the players are metaphysical adults, the problem being everyone thinks they are said adults, but few are. It always comes down to motivation. The bottom line is that we are in an intent simulator, if we are adopting Toms model. There is nothing that is absolutley forbidden under the ruleset at the action level.

I worry that someone might interpret this implication of the model as a pretense for destructive activity, I saw this implication immediately and wondered why the system was pushing this information into the simulation. My current view is that should someone misuse this information, such a person would attract immediate and severe system nudging that I would not wish on my enemy.

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Does this PMR make my butt look big?