A Precious Life Lost, Lesson mustn’t be lost!
Four days back, last Friday, I came across a facebook post from a friend sharing news about a prominent neurosurgeon in the Indian city of Solapur in Maharashtra who took his own life by putting a gun to his head. I didn’t know this doctor but I felt curious to know about him and about what happened. From several old interviews of the doctor himself and interviews of his son and daughter in law, both neurosurgeons as well, I got a fairly good idea of the dedication of this family to their profession and to their patients. News channels fed in the information surrounding the suicide.
The doctor was 69 years old and still practicing as a surgeon although most of the day to day administrative tasks at their big institution were now handled by his son and daughter in law. Friday he had worked all day, then rounded on the hospital patients and checked on the ICU patients before going home. His married daughter was in town that day. The family dined together around 8 pm. He then went to his bedroom and around 8:30 pm the family heard sounds of gunshots from outside. They rushed in to find him laying in a pool of blood in the bathroom. Being a physician family he was rushed to their hospital operating room and a team of surgeons including his son and daughter in law tried hard to save him. But after over 3 hours it all proved unsuccessful.
A suicide note was found in his pocket and was duly handed over to the police by the family. In that note the doctor had stated the name of a long time employee at his hospital. He lamented that she was someone who he had trained and elevated to a position of great responsibility and trust over the years and she had turned against him and caused him great anguish by making false and obscene accusations. He was unable to deal with the trauma of these allegations and therefore ending his life.
The news coming forth in the past 2-3 days is that the concerned woman was an employee at the institute owned by this family for nearly twenty years. In recent times she had become rather overbearing and it was discovered that she was behind a lot of financial irregularities. Despite the institution’s policy to maintain transparency of all financial records she had defied the rules and was taking payments from patients without maintaining records. Once this was realized she was fired from her job. Disgruntled, she began threatening the doctor and his family in various ways. On one occasion she sent an email threatening to kill her children and set herself on fire at the hospital and saying that the doctors would be solely responsible for this. The entire fiasco began to escalate and the senior doctor was becoming increasingly uncomfortable and frustrated with the situation. He was advised to take legal action against the employee but did not agree to it. The next thing that happened was that he shot himself.
The entire community is shaken up. The family is dealing with immeasurable trauma and grief. He was their idol, their inspiration. A brilliant mind, a life lived with impeccable ethics and a sense of purpose and service, a man loved by whoever he met. All came to an abrupt end. A big hollow and paradoxically a big question mark for anyone who knew him or hears this story.
To me suicide is a very personal matter after my brother died under similar circumstances over 25 years ago. There were many questions at that time. Primary question was could we have saved him? Did we miss the signs? After years of processing the grief and trauma I could get the understanding that he was barely 31 and probably not equipped to handle stress and emotional distress.
With the latest incident of a well situated, internationally educated, highly successful and accomplished professional, well liked and revered man with a cohesive family, balanced personality and mature age of almost 70, the question becomes much more baffling. How could he not think through it? Surely there could have been other ways to deal with the situation. What made him not consider those and instead take such an extreme action?
Did he fear public embarrassment from a dirty opponent ? Did he distrust the justice system? Did he fear the circus of a legal battle? Did the anticipated price of a long drawn public melodrama break his spirits? Was there a perceived threat of losing everything he had earned in the entire lifetime? Had reaching the pinnacle of a successful life isolated him from his own family and friends to the point where he couldn’t communicate with them his worst fears and take their advice in the situation?
Probably all of the above may have a role in his ultimate decision. But this brings an important concern to my mind. If this could happen to a person of his caliber and status, who was understandably equipped with maturity and security that comes with age, professionalism, financial stability, family values and support, can anyone else expect to be invincible when faced with extreme stress?
It tells me how even the best of minds and intellects can fall short of survival instincts when challenged by extreme pressure. Is there anything spirituality can do in such situations to give the much needed additional support when the brightest of minds are falling apart?
I came across a pertinent piece of wisdom from the Marathi text called Dasbodh by Samarth Ramdas, the saint from the 17th century.
शुद्ध विश्रांतीचे स्थळ ।
तें एक निर्मळ निश्चळ ॥
तेथें विकारचि सकळ ।
निर्विकार होतीं ॥२५॥
एक निर्मळ, निश्चळ परब्रम्ह हेच शुद्ध विश्रांतिचे स्थळ आहे. तेथे सर्व विकार निर्विकार होतात.
Parabramha(God or divine spirit) is the one and only pure and constant (eternal) restful place. Here all sorts of derangements are auto-corrected.
मनासी वाटे विश्रांति ॥
ऐसी दुर्लभ परब्रम्हस्थिती ।
विवेके सांभाळावी ॥२६॥
त्या ठिकाणी सर्व उद्वेग नष्ट होतात. मनाला विश्रांति लाभते. अशी ही दुर्लभ परब्रम्हस्थिती विवेकाने जतन करावी.
Here all agitations are vanquished. Mind finds peace. This rare divine consciousness must be cherished with good amount of discernment( wisdom/ prudence).
दासबोध दशक १९ समास ८
From the recent incidence in the news, it is obvious that one of the brightest and highly conscientious minds in society today succumbed to helplessness and poor judgement in a moment of extreme crisis. We cannot fathom the true extent of the deep pain in that mind in those last moments. But perhaps we can try to imagine if we were to be in those shoes some other time in our lifetime, to remember the option where we could surrender our minds and seek guidance from that place of peace and comfort that is beyond our human consciousness, one that Ramdas Swami is describing in the two verses above. To have access to that divine consciousness we need to have spent time in the practice during our lifetime before crisis knocks at our doors.
All spiritual endeavors(Sadhana) are directed to gaining access to this consciousness through consistent meditative practices. While diligently carrying out our worldly duties we need to pin our inner eye on the divine principle. Not only does this regular habit help the individual at his/her personal level, it ultimately benefits a larger society through the person. Samarth Ramdas had invested in penance before he became a spiritual teacher and authored the Dasbodh for generations to come. He was the mentor to Shivaji Maharaj, the founder king of Hindavi Swaraj. Today his Manache Shlok, several devotional compositions and the sacred text Dasbodh are guiding light to hundreds of people who are grappling in the dark. The brilliant doctor who lost his life in a personal moment of darkness was a source of light for many people who benefited from his skills and experience. His passing is a loss for a big community. Perhaps if his judgement had made him aware of this reality he would have seen the selfishness in ending a valuable life. Man needs to surrender to a wise teacher or saint or God to think beyond himself. These saint teachings need to permeate the thoughts of family members so they stand united in times of unprecedented crisis. One tragedy like the recent one is too costly to ignore. We must learn from it and prevent such from happening again. There is a legend from the Native American tradition where a kid asks an elder from his tribe, what if I get lost in the forest? The elder tells him “ Stand in stillness. The trees in the forest know the way. If you are still, you can hear them.” Where we don’t see any option, we must trust God to show an option. Where we can’t find a ray of light in pitch darkness, we need to believe light will come from a power higher than us. We need to silence the chaotic chatter of our mind to hear God’s voice. Mysterious are the ways of God. We need to know this much. Giving up hope should not be an option. We need to cultivate this in our kids, in our siblings, in our friends and in all people we serve.
Saree is a printed khadi cotton tussar mix from Vidarbha.
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