The Spiritual Ethics of Suicide

[Diana]

People all over this planet are slowly killing themselves every day by disrespecting their bodies, some unconsciously, some consciously. 

Taking one's life is, at least, a conscious choice.

I think there is also a difference between someone who takes his or her life because they have an (as of yet) incurable disease or in an incredible amount of degenerative physical pain, and someone who does it out of general hopelessness of life. Either way, I feel great sympathy for anyone whose level of hopelessness gets to that point.

For someone who is in degenerative pain, it would be a choice whether or not to stay here and bear it, for the sake of finishing karma or whatever. In the case of someone staying to continue to be of service even when in pain (such as Carla), I can't speak to that. But regarding karma, I don't think it's fixed, as I would imagine it is based on personal judgments. I think a paradigm shift can happen at any time, even getting off the hamster wheel of karma completely (if it exists as a function of our existence).