Osho’s experiences with Suicide

 Once I was sitting by the side of the Ganges in Allahabad alone, in a very lonely spot, and I saw a man jump into the river. I thought he must be taking a bath, but then he started shouting, "Help! Save me!"--he was drowning.

I don't believe in saving anybody, but I thought that this is a totally different case. So I jumped in after him and I pulled him out. It was hard, he was a very big and fat fellow, but somehow I brought him out. And he started being very angry with me. He said, "Why did you save me?"

I said, "This is something! You were shouting, `Save me, help me!' I am not a person to save anybody, but there was nobody else here, and I thought that this is a totally different context. But why are you getting angry?"

He said, "I was really going to commit suicide."

"Then," I said, "why did you start shouting, `Save me, help me'? You should have committed suicide--I would not have disturbed you. I was simply sitting silently, I was not interfering with you."

He said, "What to do? I wanted to commit suicide, and with a total decisiveness I had jumped in. But when the cold water touched me, I forgot all that, and when I started drowning and came up, I don't know how, but I started shouting, `Help me, save me!'"

I said, "Don't be worried. Come here."

He said, "What do you mean?"

I said, "You just come close to me." He came. I pushed him back into the water. He went under once and started shouting again, "Save me, help me! What are you doing?"

I said, "Now I am not going to be worried. I did wrong the first time--please forgive me for that time. Now I will simply sit here and see you commit suicide."

He said, "This is not"--and it was difficult to say anything because he was going down and up--"This is not a joke! Just save me. I don't want to commit suicide!"

Somebody else jumped in and saved him. I said, "You are doing something wrong because that fellow wants to commit suicide."

And that fellow said, "No, I have dropped the idea. It is too difficult, I will find some easier way. This going under water and coming up--it is too much for me." transm32

Once it happened a friend of mine was bent upon committing suicide, so everybody was advising him but he wouldn't listen.

His father came running to me and he said, "Now it seems it is beyond us". The father had always been against me but now he thought, "Maybe this is the last resort". So I said, "I am coming."

I went and I listened to the man, and I said, "Perfectly good! I don't feel it is right, but if still you decide to commit suicide I will help you because I'm your friend! If you want to commit suicide, good! I don't feel it is right because if I were in your place I wouldn't commit suicide because it looks foolish! Because a girl has refused you, you want to commit suicide. There are millions of girls and this is not the only woman. Within a month you will forget; you will fall in love again! But if you still think to, it is perfectly good! It is your life!"

The father became very much disturbed. He said, "We have brought you to help him not to do it!"

I said, "Who are you to help him?--because when you gave birth to him you never asked him if he wanted to be born or not. Now why should you ask? If he wants to commit suicide he should be given all freedom."

I took the man to my house. I said, "Come with me. If you are going to commit suicide, let us enjoy. One night be with me because maybe we will meet somewhere, maybe we will never meet again."

So he came with me, and by and by he started thinking, because I was not trying to convince him. I said, "We will put the alarm on and at four o'clock I will drive you to a beautiful place where you can jump into the river...and I can say good-bye too!"

At four o'clock when the alarm went and I started pulling him out of his bed, he said, "Are you my enemy or what? I don't want to commit suicide!"

I said, "This is not right. If you have decided it is perfectly good!"

He said, "But I don't want to commit suicide. Why are you forcing me?"

I said, "I'm not forcing!"

And he has not committed suicide! Now he has a wife and children and he avoids me because whenever he comes to see me I say, "What has happened now? You were thinking that you would never fall in love again; you fell in love again!"

And he says, "In fact I am happy that that woman refused; she was not for me! I would have always been in trouble, her husband is in trouble. And I have found a better woman."