Prasoon Joshi: There are few people who go through this life support.
Now, what do you call that? Is that a period the person is there,
and also when you’re you’re talking about samadhi and
and unconscious dying. You know, one has seen in India
there was a way people used to leave the place and go to a
a place like Kashi and will die the preparation for death.
And in… in today’s context how do you see that
the preparation for death or drying dying gracefully or going somewhere else.
Please… And, sort of two questions one is about life support.
What is the state of life in the life support? Sadhguru: See, the business of the doctors
and the medical science should be to help the living.
It's not for them to enter the realm of death. As you said it's life support, not prevention
of death, okay? So somewhere this line must be drawn.
It would be fantastic if you can train medical professionals to be able to see when it is
not so, but that would be a dangerous things because
misuse will happen. People will pull the plug on people who can't
pay the bill or whom they don’t like, you know (Laughs)?
Things will happen. So because of that we are just allowing it
to go whichever way it goes because if you touch it all the consequences
of it you cannot control. So you support the life only with the hope
that it will recover and once again be back to life.
There is Nobody is supporting it with the intention
that you just want to put it on the machine then run it forever.
The hope is because a few have come back after years of comatose
and the people who love them and the families they are hoping against hope
that this person will come back and maybe a doctor is trying to assist that.
Sometimes it goes to absurd levels because nobody can take the call, tch.
Nobody is able to take the call because nobody is authorized to take the call
as such. So because of that it goes to certain levels.
But life support is only with the hope they will bounce back.
Now, if you observe a person in comatose there are two types of people
with… One type of people the body is refusing to respond
but their mind and emotion is active, this is torture.
Prasoon Joshi: Sadhguru, this is not exactly true.
Sometime the family, the people, the doctors together,
all of them somehow almost sure and I’ve seen such situations
that the guy, the person is not going to come back
but there is a kind of human consciousness, a kind of guilt,
a kind of responsibility, a kind of love keeps the person in that state.
What I wanted you to, you know, throw light on is
is - what is the state of this life at that point?
With this Because the life is not manifesting itself
through this body and neither it has taken,
if you talk about rebirth or reincarnation an… an… another life,
it has not done that. So where… What is the state of this life?
Sadhguru: Above all these things that you mention there is a law.
If you pull the plug there is a law for that. And that’s what I was coming to
there are two conditions in this. In one condition the body has become inert
that you are not able to get the body going but the one who is within - the mind is active,
emotion is active, all perceptions are there –
this is torture because the body is refusing to move.
But there’re other kinds of situations – the body seems to be reasonably vibrant and
active, digest food, everything is happening but inside it's become
blank. If inside has become blank,
if you wait for five cycles of twenty-one days
then for sure life is gone but body can be still kept alive.
Because of various medical processes you’re keeping it going.
Body may not dwindle because body is still strong –
without a life you’re just keeping a body alive.
This is like an empty shell but shell is kept alive.
This is not a good thing to do but if the person inside is alive but the
body has gone blank, now it's a very difficult decision for anybody
to take. And for all you know many times all the things
that you’re talking whether to pull the plug, not to pull the
plug, all this the person understands.
It's… It's a very bad situation. It shouldn’t happen to anybody but when
it happens how to deal with it? There is no particular way because it's individual
sensitivities. Just because the pody… the body cannot get
up and the person understands everything, feels everything, you can't cut him up
pulling the plug is as good as cutting up, you know?
So this is a hard decision to take - there is no particular way to do it
but if only the body is vibrant but inside has gone totally blank –
twenty-one… five cycles of twenty-one days you can wait.
After that very comfortably you can pull the plug,
for one hundred percent it's gone. Prasoon Joshi: And Sadhguru, then what is
your take on euthanasia or where do you… Because here I’m… I’m
also going to come to… to to the will
how much of will this life has and how much is it left to others.
Your… your point about euthanasia? Sadhguru: In my opinion nobody has a right
to hold a opinion on euthanasia because it's your opinion,
you’re not making a judgment. It's not an informed judgment, it is an opinion.
As I said, if life is gone but only body is there you can pull the plug,
but still for the people around, including the doctor and the relatives and
whoever that person means something to them, they see the body is good, the heart is beating
good, all the parameters are good –
why would they want to pull the plug? You cannot tell them to pull the plug because
they think it's on. So I don’t think
Prasoon Joshi: So if it was left with an individual then if he
he wants to willingly give up life Sadhguru: But the problem he’s not in a
state to say that. He might have said it before
Prasoon Joshi: Suppose he’s in a state to say that – so that brings to a suicide.
So do you think he has the will and… and and the right to… to exercise that?
Sadhguru: See the simple thing that we did in this country is,
if an individual decided, those who do not have the capability to smoothly
exit this body, without causing any damage to it,
those who did not have this, they always walked away into the forest and
just sat under a tree. After some time, without eating, they would
just go. This is the normal vanaprastha.
You’ve heard in Mahabharath all these Kunti, all the Dhritarashtr and even the Doordarshan
guy Sanjaya. All these people went into the forest.
to live on dry leaf and this and that for some time and slowly dwindle the body and
exit. The body begins to understand.
All the creatures – most creatures do this. You must see how a cobra dies.
It's unfortunate that no documentation about these things have been done.
If a cobra realizes it's time to die it will go up to some place
where it will not be eaten by predators and things.
Usually it’ll ci…climb… climb up a tree and sit on one branch.
And it just sits on the branch and that’s it.
In about twenty to twenty-five days it will die.
Because the cobra can easily exist - its normal meal itself is spaced out somewhere between
eleven to fifteen days. Because of that,
beyond twenty - twenty-five days, thirty days it will die.
So it will simply sit without eating and slowly dry up just like that.
Even a creature, a crawling creature like that, has this much awareness.
This would be the best way to do, but even if I talk about it today the so-called
modern society which eats five meals a day they will be terribly upset
and they won't let me into America because they eat twelve meals a day
Everybody’s recommending this So this has been the normal process.
If you’re not a yogi, if you do not know how to exit,
you come to a place, you sit quietly by yourself. If your relatives are around they won't let
you do that, they will stuff food into you, you know.
Because our idea of love is to stuff the people with as much as we can
So they won't let you do those things. That’s why people went to some place,
sat in a place where the energies are good because being in a positive, live energy space
is important because to be without food becomes very effortless
if the outside energy is conducive and supportive. If the outside energy is little depressive,
you will see you will need lot more food and the compulsions of food are strong within
you. So this is a way
but you can't suggest that to modern life. They will, you know