Birth and death are processes required for the soul to come to earth to learn and relearn. Birth is similar to the soul wearing a new body and coming to earth in order to learn its lessons in the session called life. Death is similar to the soul discarding its old body after having completed its lessons. When you say that someone is afraid of death, it actually means the person is afraid of the unknown. Each individual soul has taken birth on this earth, with a definite purpose.

If all who come to earth knew about the whole process of life and death and the reason for having taken birth, none would ever commit suicide. Suicide is similar to the premature ending of the session of lessons we have come here to learn. Committing suicide means terminating the session before completing the lessons one has to learn, ending life without fulfilling the purpose of one’s birth on earth.

Life is a series of lessons that one has to learn and graduate from. The lessons may be a series of events that cause happiness or unhappiness. Some situations arise in life that give us happiness, while others may make us unhappy. It is important to cultivate the ability to tackle both happiness and unhappiness, without getting internally affected by any one of them. Do not give too much attention to any situation in life. Treat every situation as an experience, and deal with it in the best manner possible. In reality, all troubling situations occur in our lives in order to help us become stronger. If this important fact is known to every person on earth, none would ever commit suicide.

Very few people are familiar with the meaning and purpose of this human life. They are hardly equipped to deal with the trying situations in life. So, when difficulties crop up in their lives, they feel defeated and want to escape the situations they face. Few of them think that suicide is an escape from the situations they face. There are so many cases of young children committing suicide because they have failed in their exams, or some other silly reason. There are also cases of adults committing suicide due to failure of crops, or due to failure in business, or some other silly reason. They are unaware of the fact that by committing suicide they are going against the purpose for which they are born. Also, they are unaware that the person who commits suicide will suffer more in the spirit-body, and that too for a longer period of time.

So, it is very important to impart value-based education from a very young age, and also to cultivate the spiritual nature of our children and youth. It is necessary to incorporate Yoga and Meditation in our main-stream education, so that children are introduced to study of the Self, very early in their lives. Presently, our education system gives much importance to filling the minds of children with all kinds of information – an unnecessarily large amount of data about subjects that do no help them to deal with difficult situations in life.

Our ancient Gurukul system of education was conducive to the wholesome development of children, as opposed to the present-day system of education. Yoga and Meditation must be introduced in schools at a very young age. When such well-rounded and well-grounded education is imparted to children, they will be better equipped to deal with whatever trials and troubles they may face in life. This is the only way to prevent suicides.