Can suicide solve anything?

Suicide will not end our life.

Does suicide solve any problems for the millions of healthy people who commit suicide every year? Will 'ending it all' provide a solution to our problems by making everything go away? Does suicide even really "end it all"?

Actually not - scientifically speaking. And neither will it solve our problems.

The assumption that suicide will 'end it all' is a belief that is not based upon any scientific understanding. The notion that suicide will end it all is simply imaginary. It is wishful thinking.

Yet this very assumption that suicide will 'end it all,' as we'll discuss, is untrue. Scientific research has proved that we continue to exist long after the body dies. This means that suicide will not provide a solution to our problems. Suicide will not actually solve anything - it will only perpetuate our problems.

Suicide only makes things worse for us. Because we will still exist after purposely killing our body, and we will have to return to resolve the same issues that we have before us now.

In other words, this world is like a classroom, and suicide is like ditching and ultimately flunking a class. And like flunking a class, we will simply have to return and retake the class if we commit suicide. We will be faced with the same challenge to overcome in a future lifetime.

For those looking for answers, let's look more closely at the facts.

Climbing suicide rates

According to the World Health Organization, about 10.6 people in every 100,000 commit suicide around the world. This calculates to over 800,000 people a year committing suicide globally.

There has also been an increase in suicides around the world, especially in First world countries. For example in the United States, suicides climbed by 24 percent between 1999 and 2014 according to the Centers for Disease Control.

For some age groups, the increase was even higher. Suicides among girls between 10 and 14 surged by 200 percent during this period. And suicides among adults between 45 and 64 spiked by 63 percent.

The numbers are also shocking. In 1999, over 29,000 people committed suicide. In 2014, nearly 43,000 people committed suicide in just the United States.

What makes a person want to commit suicide?

The main issue that drives a person to commit suicide is hopelessness. The person feels their life will never bring them happiness. This could be related to any number of events or situations that occur, but the bottom line is the person feels there is no possibility of achieving happiness within this world.

And they are mostly right. There is little happiness within the material world. The material world is not a place where happiness reigns. Just look around. Violence, bullying, hostility, competition, lying, cheating, self-centeredness. No one seems to be happy here.

This is because of emptiness. Practically everyone is seeking something else - something more. Even those who have so much wealth, or so many possessions, or a large family or a good job are not satisfied with what we have. As a result, we are not satisfied with our current situation. We want more - or at least something different.

Most of us can logically look around and see so many of the most wealthy, most famous and 'successful' people in the world are still not happy. We see so many of these 'successful' people drugging themselves, or drinking themselves into oblivion. Or we see them committing suicide, despite the supposed success and their supposed adoring fans.

So it is easy to conclude that wealth and material fame do not bring happiness.

But what about family?

But many will undoubtedly interrupt and say, but what about family? Family brings happiness, right?

If it did, then everyone in the physical world would be happy. Every person is born into the physical world from a mother and father. So practically everyone at least starts off with some sort of family. Even if their family abandoned them or their mother died during childbirth, there is typically still some sort of family available. That can include aunts, uncles, brothers, sisters, cousins - some family member or other.

And in the rare case where a person has no family member at all in the physical world - there are still many types of adoptive families - including memberships in clubs or other social groups.

In one way or another, everyone is a member of some type of family. Yet there is still so much loneliness in the physical world. There is so much emptiness in the physical world despite the presence of family. And there are still so many suicides - even by those who are surrounded by a close family.

Therefore, it is only logical to conclude that family in itself does not make a person happy. Otherwise, practically everyone in the world would be happy - because almost everyone has a family of some sort.

Many conclude that it is not family alone, but it is having a close, caring family that brings happiness. And the proposal is that having a close, caring family will prevent any suicides.

Yes, there may be some protective potential due to love. But there are thousands of examples of teens committing suicide despite living at home with a close, caring family. So it is not the presence of a close, caring family that will necessarily prevent someone from concluding that suicide is the solution to their problems.

The only real solution is knowledge. Knowing who we truly are.

What is the problem?

At the heart of the problem relating to suicide is the identification of the self as the physical body. If a person identifies themselves as only the physical body, then happiness can only be found within the realm of the physical.

In other words, identifying with the physical body means that making the body satisfied is the only way to become happy.

Yet so many who commit suicide have all the ingredients to make the body satisfied. They have access to tasty, nutritious food. They have access to sex. They have access to popularity. They have access to all the creature comforts. Yet none of these or the combination thereof bring real happiness. Otherwise, they wouldn't commit suicide.

They commit suicide because they are convinced the material world will never bring them happiness.

The point is, it is the ignorance of our real identity that brings a person to become hopeless. By thinking we are only a physical body, and the fact that we already enjoy all the perks of the material world, we can become convinced that this is all there is.

This sentiment is mirrored by the 1969 song by Peggy Lee. The chorus goes like this:

"Is that all there is
Is that all there is
If that's all there is, my friends
Then let's keep dancing
Let's break out the booze and have a ball
If that's all there is"

Those who commit suicide feel like this, except they don't conclude to keep dancing or break out the booze. They have likely already tried that and that didn't make them happy either. So they conclude there is no reason to live. They decide to in effect stop dancing and kill their body.

Is this all there is?

The reality is, there is more to life than what exists within the material world. The world of the physical body is only a very small segment of the entire creation.

And as we've proven on this website, our composition is spirit, not the physical body. The physical body is merely a shell that we occupy in order to traverse this particular environment. The physical body will only last for a few decades - at the most 100 years or so. Then it will die. And like an old car, we will leave it behind at some point.

But we do not die when the body dies. Each of us existed before this body was born and will continue to exist long after this body has died.

Our physical body is temporary. And each of us is eternal. That is the conclusion of all the world's greatest teachers including Socrates, Aristotle, Buddha, and Jesus.

Once we realize that we are not the physical body, a new realm opens up to us. That is the realm of the eternal. The realm that belongs to each of us as spiritual entities.

Yes, the spiritual realm is beyond the scope of the physical body, the physical senses, and the physical mind. It is that place that houses the eternal spiritual person who temporarily dwells within a temporary physical body.

Suicide will not end our life

Many people who commit suicide look around them at the hopelessness of the physical world and all the hatred and selfishness and just want to end it.

The problem is, suicide will not end it. We will still be left with our consciousness. We will continue to exist, but we will be left with the reality that we left this world without accomplishing what we came here to learn. And everything within our consciousness that made us feel hopeless will remain. Therefore, we will still have to solve the problem during another incarnation.

This is not speculation. This is the scientific conclusion of many medical experts who have examined people following clinical death experiences. Millions of people have died and have returned to life, only to report that they met with those 'on the other side' who concluded that their time is not up and they still have more to learn.

It is the scientific conclusion of many medical experts who have regressed patients into the spirit world after the death of their last body. They conclude from their research that there is an in-between spirit world where there are guides and councils. These help us determine our next life in the physical world and determine precisely what lessons we will be learning in our physical incarnation. (See Dr. Brian Weiss's books, for example.)

These studies and others show that suicide only results in a person feeling - after the suicide - that they short-circuited their intended learning within this lifetime. This results in serious feelings of regret after ending this lifetime prematurely.

A world of challenges - and learning

Our tenure within the physical world and this physical body is about learning. We are in this world - in this body - to learn. We are here to grow. We are here to learn how to love again. We are here to learn how to care about others again.

We are also here to be challenged. Whatever our weaknesses of consciousness might be, the people around us and the situations presented to us all confront us with various challenges.

When we bear through and meet these challenges we grow. We become better persons. Our consciousness becomes more aware and more caring. Even when we experience hardship.

When we experience hardships in life we are facing challenges to our very nature. How do we deal with these challenges? Do we melt? Do we run away from them? Or do we stand up to them and persevere?

Either way, we learn. But for those challenges that we persevere, our understanding grows.

There are also lessons for a person facing a difficult situation who feels tempted to commit suicide. Just persevering through that hardship will grow our consciousness.

Yes, the hardships and challenges we face in this lifetime might feel tough and arbitrary. But they have meaning. They are also temporary. They will not last. Everything in the physical dimension is temporary. The spirit-person who animates the body is eternal.

This also means our learning experiences will last. The learning experiences we come away with will last us through eternity. And these learning experiences will be applauded by our spiritual guides and the Supreme Being - who lovingly watch over us while we venture through the human experience.

This is why we want to stick around and fight it out - until it is our rightful time to leave the physical body.