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