A viewer asks: “My father is asking for medically assisted suicide as he is losing hope he can heal and is in chronic pain. I am opposed. I think there’s hope for healing. And I don’t think his mission is over. We just recently discovered Advil overuse, and that stopping it can help reverse his severe weight and muscle loss. This is cause for hope. He is getting angry with me and accusing me of not understanding. He says he feels his time on this side is up and wants to return to the nonphysical. It’s true that he is a major burden on me and the rest of the family, but I see it as a duty and this is what family is for. I don’t think I can bring myself to signing off on what he is asking for. I think it’s selfish of him and giving up too soon, and potentially regretting his decision when he goes to the light. And leaving his family with a karmic burden and guilty consciences for a divinely misaligned action. What’s the truth in this tricky situation? What’s the divinely aligned path for me?” What is Creator’s perspective?

Loving support is the goal for each human, to both receive and give in return. Ideally, this is learned from childhood, being in the arms of loving parents who model this deep and highly spiritual energy, and then it is returned again with maturity to care for the parents and guardians and other family, especially if things have not intervened to cause some corruption or distancing because of adversity to cause trouble, usually at the hands of the interlopers. We are on record as honoring individual sovereignty as the highest obligation we have, and promised to each one of you, and that includes members of a family unit, that even though there are love bonds and interdependencies and much karmic interlinkage with responsibilities and obligations of many kinds, individual sovereignty is a higher right and responsibility to safeguard one's own soul and well-being as a sacred duty. There are, of course, many circumstances when people lose perspective, become distorted in their thinking, and even delusional when they may not be competent to make sound judgments about their own welfare and direct their own life and lifestyle because of diminished cognitive function or impairment, emotional illness, and so on. We have made it clear that even though each has a responsibility to their life, there are circumstances of diminished capacity, whether mental or physical, especially when approaching the end stage of life when healing needs become too daunting and uncertain and this is accompanied by great suffering, especially situations involving chronic pain. It is not a dishonoring of the soul or one's life mission to seek relief by exiting the physical and returning to the divine realm. It is not a failure or cop-out as though a dereliction of duty is taking place and a failure to face the music, so to speak, of one's life and soldier on despite the challenges and even suffering. There are many circumstances when it is a blessing and actually a more divine choice to not continue suffering that can degrade not only the quality of life but cause mounting harm to the very soul of the being and add much karmic adversity, in the form of that wounding, because it is a form of torture for the sufferer, and that gets registered as a harmful occurrence and, in not being avoided, becomes the personal responsibility of the individual. So someone, by suicide, escaping an intractable situation of great suffering is not a dereliction of duty that incurs a karmic penalty, but may well be promoting a higher duty and responsibility to safeguard the soul, as well as the future of the individual, to avoid accruing an ever-growing karmic burden that could be avoided by cutting losses and cutting short the remaining lifespan. After all, what will be gained mentally, physically, emotionally, or spiritually if the remaining days are lived with pain and suffering and perhaps, in this circumstance, growing resentment and disaffection in feeling disregarded and even manipulated by being under the control of someone else when there is a very clear awareness of a better possibility? We understand it will not be a perfect arrangement, particularly for surviving family members, in watching a loved one surrender their life when that might be delayed for some time but chooses to leave regardless, but this is part of the cycle of life and is unavoidable that all will leave eventually. The question then becomes, what is the sum total of the benefit and liability experienced and contributed on behalf of others? When the quality of life diminishes to a point where someone is living in torment, not only will they become nonfunctional in other respects due to diminished capacity, they will, in fact, inflict their suffering indirectly on those around them who may be forced into becoming caregivers or, at a minimum, witnesses to suffering that is prolonged and does damage to the witnesses. You are all corded to one another and feel each other's pain. So karma goes both ways. What hurts one will hurt the others, and that is as true of living in difficult and painful circumstances as well as leaving the scene and causing sadness on the part of surviving family in particular. From our perspective, we take his side in this discussion because we know that he has done enough to make contributions that are meaningful and it is time for others to pay him back in kind with love, understanding, and support under these trying circumstances. You may be asked to shoulder tremendous grief and loss and understandably want to avoid this, but there are circumstances when time will likely run out before everything is resolved. So it is fair to ask, what has been served through prolonging unhappy circumstances? We also see the timeline in terms of the karmic liabilities underlying his dilemma and its challenges to resolve, so this is far from a clear situation where someone is perhaps depressed, in a doomsday mentality, and feeling hopeless when, in fact, things could change and be resolved for the better. So we take his side here in honoring his sovereignty and his wishes, to be a free being, to do what is best for him as he sees it. Part of the duty as a recipient of love is to return it with understanding, forgiveness, and support in times of need.