Letting Go

Letting Go

You write about your friend Ken’s cancer diagnosis, and his assurance that he is “seeking a treatment plan.” You add: “I see no point to this…I would not seek to prolong my life. And I remember reading that Krishnamurti did not seek treatment.”

True; after it was clear that Krishnamurti had cancer, he accepted only pain relief (morphine) until his death in bed. I have known a number of people who were influenced by Krishnamurti; they have tended to die peacefully. Krishnamurti did, at one point (after a final meeting with his assistants), decline any further morphine or medication, allowing himself to die. One of his “followers,” whom I knew, ceased all eating and drinking in the hospital, allowing herself to die. I’d say the attitude is to employ no “heroic measures” to remain alive, retaining the option to hasten one’s demise when it is evident that recovery—and “quality of life”— will not be regained. Considering what you’ve told me about Ken in the past, my guess is that he will decline radical “life-prolonging” measures, and allow nature to take its course.