3rd February 2024, Southern Africa - My Last Wish

Well, there we go!

I've traveled the Earth, for the third time now, from West to East, from North to South - and here I am, at the end of my journey.

I've dedicated my life to the cause of Peace and Justice, I've spelled out thirty-three times three concrete wishes for the realization of Peace on Earth - and now, here I am, with one last wish, which I present to you in the name of Peace and Justice.

 My last wish on Earth is to be allowed to die.

Yes. I've lived my life, I've done what I had to do, there are no pending matters – except to bid farewell. Farewell to this world, to the members of my family, my friends and colleagues, to all the chance encounters I happened to meet throughout the world.

I wish to thank all of you for the time we spent together, the joy you have given me, the inspiration you bestowed on me, the love and affection I was privileged to feel in your company.

Surely I was not always the impeccable gentleman I was supposed to be. Surely, sometimes I must have hurt your feelings, surely sometimes I must have misbehaved. I'm extremely sorry that I did not live up to your expectations at all times. For all these shortcomings, I most sincerely ask you for your forgiveness.

And it goes without saying that myself I fully forgive all possible misdemeanors or misunderstandings that sometimes do happen in relationships, there's not the hint of any grudge left in my heart as I'm preparing to leave this world. I'm leaving this world fully at ease and at peace – at ease with myself, with humanity, with the world at large.

Now, I know that it's not easy for anybody to let someone die. How could we? After all, we don't wish death to anyone. On the contrary, we wish everyone to live as long as possible - although what exactly a long life is good for is not clear. People are getting older and older - what exactly are we doing with our long lives?

To live as long as possible cannot be a goal in itself. The real goal must be to live a meaningful, joyful, healthy life, not just a long life.

And, while living our happy life, we try to avoid the topic of death altogether. It's not a cheerful topic. It tempts us to fall into immediate depression, and it risks to deprive us from enjoying our happy life. We instinctively try to ignore death - until it hits us straight in the face.

In ancient times, it was not uncommon for entire rituals to be performed to remind people of the fact that we are all mortal, as is every other living creature and every other form of existence that has ever come into being. The Memento Mori of old, the call to remember one's own mortality, was meant to encourage people to lead a respectful, responsible life – neither to indulge in presumptuous self-importance, nor to succumb to ignoble self-pity about a perceived unfair fate.

In other words: The point of the Memento Mori is not only to be constantly aware of one's own mortality, but also to take responsibility for one's own life.

The question of course is, how far are we willing to go with our willingness to assume responsibility for our own life? Until shortly before death - say: one hour before death, or a day or a week before death? As a rule, we don't want to take responsibility for death itself. Where would that get us? No, no, no, we vehemently reject this responsibility, we prefer to leave it up to God, or fate, or nature, or the doctor, or someone else, to decide when and how we die.

In India I had come across the religious community of the Jains. Like Hindus and Buddhists, the Jains believe in reincarnation, which they see as a punishment or reward for a previous life. The cycle of birth and rebirth can only be broken by those who have found absolute enlightenment - or have led such a perfect holy life that they transcend directly into Nirvana, or Moksha, a state of non-being or all-being, a state of eternal bliss.

The Jains have developed their own tactic to avoid endless rebirth: they fast themselves to death. The reason, as I explain in my Wish 87, is simple enough, and I quote: ”Since the main reason to reincarnate is the desire to live (meaning, in its most basic form, to eat and drink), the solution not to reincarnate is to stop eating and drinking.”

The Indian government, for some inexplicable reason, is trying to stop this tradition of fasting to death (the Jains call it Santhara) and declare it illegal, arguing that it is suicide, and suicide is not appropriate. But for the Jains themselves, Santhara represents the highest level of holiness, people who pass through Santhara into Nirvana are in fact venerated as saints, and their death fast is publicly witnessed by the family and community, with great compassion.

The Jain path of Santhara can definitely not be described as suicide. Suicide is a desperate act of self-killing under emotional stress, committed mostly on the spur of the moment and in secrecy, when someone is at his wits' end and decides that he can no longer cope with the challenges of life. In a sense, suicide is a tragic manifestation of failure and defeat, an admission of incompetence, engulfed in a strong and painful feeling of personal guilt.

Santhara, on the other hand, is performed at the end of a fulfilled life, in a spirit of joy and elation, in the knowledge that all earthly aims have been attained, all duties done, with no pending matters left that have to be taken care of. It is a conscious, well-prepared act of self-affirmation, publicly announced long in advance, and performed in full public view. It is the proof of one's willingness to assume fullest responsibility of one's own life to the very last breath. At the same time, it is a manifestation of one's firm determination to overcome the basic instincts of lust and craving in favor of a fully liberated state of non-attachment.

This whole concept of fasting oneself to death really impressed and inspired me. I decided to embrace this technique and end my life by way of Santhara – or, rather: by way of PEKhara (PEK standing for my initials), a term I would prefer in my case in order to set it apart from the irrational restrictions imposed by the Jains on their members, who only allow terminally ill people to follow the path of Santhara. It's not obvious to me why healthy people should be deprived from reaching Nirvana.

The question arises, of course, why a healthy person should seek his premature death in the first place?

Well, in my case, it was a simple question of life planning. I explain:

It was at the time when I turned 37 that I sat down to ask myself the question what I was really doing in life? It all seemed to me so aimless and without any purpose. Did my life so far make any sense? Could I detect some kind of logical development or direction?

I'm not going into any detail here about the external motivation that led up to all this existential questioning (I explain it in more details in my memoirs, Gott war ein Mittelkind. Ein Vermaechtnis (it's written in German). But the immediate outcome of my soul-searching was that I spontaneously decided that this very moment should be the turning point of my life. I decided to live for another 37 years, as in a sort of mirror reflection (from birth onward to 37 / from 37 backward to death) - and then call it a day!

The rest was pure maths.

Fist, I aligned my private turning point with the universal turning point on 20th March 1986, which I had defined earlier on in my presentation of a new Universal Peace Calendar (it's written in German).

Then, I calculated the number of days that had elapsed so far from my birthday on 19th February 1949 up to above-mentioned turning point - projected the same number of days into the future – and arrived at my suggested death date on 19th April 2023. I called it my Happy Day.

Well, as things goe...: Later on, I found a good reason to postpone my death date, with the irresistible argument that, as an individual, even before I was born, I had already existed as a fetus in my mother's womb.

So, following the logic of the mirror image, I added another nine months (nine pregnant months, as I called them), plus an additional Month of Peace for the appropriate act of dying - and thus I arrived at my new and now definite death date on 18th February 2024 (I call it my Happy Day 2) - which is somewhat funny because this new date falls exactly on the day before my 75th birthday, meaning that I would still die at 74 as originally planned but by living it out until the very last day. (You can check on my calculation at HappyDay2.ods).

I must point out and insist that in the whole course of my last 37 years, there was never the slightest doubt in my mind that this was the right path for me to follow.

As for the location where to perform PEKhara during my Month of Peace, I would have preferred the Temple Mount in Jerusalem as the most appropriate place. I consider Jerusalem to be the key to World Peace, and my dream would be to see a Peace Temple erected on the Temple Mount to symbolize our firm belief in Peace and the human predetermination to establish Paradise on Earth.

For all practical purposes, this wasn't an option.

The alternative of an accompanied exit in India turned out to be impractical as well.

In the end, I opted for a quiet, pleasant hideout somewhere in Southern Africa, where to pass my last days on Earth. Africa is considered to be the Cradle of Humanity – and I love Africa, I love humanity, I believe in the peaceful future of humanity - so this surely must be a very appropriate final resting place for me.

With this, I was all set up. I had decided on my time of dying and on my manner of dying - what was still missing was a kind of approval by the rest of humanity.

In the manner of an anecdote, but a very serious anecdote, I mention the following story: As you well know, I had received this divine message, at a very early age, about the Savior, the Messiah, who, according to the message, was alive and would reveal himself to humanity at a time of his choosing. This message was directly linked to the obligation for its recipient to make the content of the message known to humanity. I refused to accept such a mission. I'm not a communicator, I argued - and I informed God accordingly. That was when I was in my early 20s.

God's reaction? He laughed! And he told me that I was totally free to live the life I chose - but, he pointed out, I had to understand that this was my destiny, my real reason to exist.

I took note of the first part of his statement, namely that I was free to live as I wanted. At that time I was not interested in the second part of his statement, namely that this was my real destiny.

It was only when I approached my retirement at the age of 65, when it was getting time to plan the last nine years of my earthly existence until my planned exit at the age of 74, that this pending matter of the divine message came up again. A definite decision had to be made, once and for all!

I withdrew to a monastery in the Swiss mountains in order to ponder the matter. After one week, I decided - I had no other choice! - to accept the order, but under one condition: That I had the right to die at a time of my own choosing. God agreed without hesitation, and he added, somewhat out of context, almost in passing, that I would meet the Messiah face to face before the end of my planned nine-year trip around the world.

So, this is what it looked like: I had the divine approval to die at a time of my own choosing, and by whatever manner I wanted.

What about humanity at large? Would they accept my request to be allowed to die?

I asked my family members. They all rejected my request, and most of them broke off all contact with me immediately. Some would heap me with curses, or they would simply ignore my request and start suggesting some new, far-fetched project for me to follow up on.

Most of my closest long-term friends were not enthusiastic about my decision, they deeply regretted my premature departure, but overall they expressed their understanding and respect.

It goes without saying that the Jains, with whom I had established some intense contacts in India, flatly refused any practical assistance in my endeavor, insisting that I was strong and healthy and totally unqualified to follow the path of Santhara.

So, in the end, I'm on my own, stowed away somewhere in a foreign land, renting an apartment for the duration of my last farewell - left to the mercy of an unsuspecting landlady, for whom I'm leaving a farewell letter expressing my regrets, together with a few handwritten documents, like a Sworn Declaration of my free will to die, a Living Will (refusing all life-saving interference, and donating my body to medical studies or transplants), and a Testament (donating my last personal belongings to the landlady).

On 19th March 2023, in Jerusalem, based on the divine message I had received, I had declared the long-awaited arrival of the Savior, under whatever name he would make his appearance - Messiah, Mehdi, Jesus, Maitreya, Kalki, True Man.

A True Man is someone who has become fully aware of his true humanhood and is ready to take full responsibility for it - full responsibility for himself, for all of humanity, for nature, for the entire universe. Then he takes on the role of God. Man becomes True Man when he becomes God.

With the arrival of the Savior, all Gods of old have left this Earth, we True Humans have become our own Gods.

I consider myself to be a True Man, someone who has reached true humanhood, and who assumes full responsibility for it - for myself, for all of humanity, for the whole world, for the universe from beginning to end – and the end includes my own death. Such is my conviction, such is my belief.

In this sense, me as my own God, who defines my own destiny – me as a representative of humanity and, as such, representing all of humanity - I hereby decide to grant me permission to die.

When I announced the arrival of the Savior, I made it clear that, following the divine promise I had received, the Savior, that's YOU.

My wish is that YOU and all of humanity take note of the divine message and accept your role as the Savior, whose sole purpose is to establish Peace and Justice in this world – in a world where people can live a peaceful, happy life.

Death being an integral part of life will necessarily become an integral part of this new world of Peace and Justice. And then, even if today you may have some difficulties to understand or accept the spiritual approach to what I call PEKhara, maybe one day you will grow more familiar with it, to the point where, in hindsight, you can make peace with my final act.

As we grow older and older, I have no doubt that there will be more and more people who will say: Enough is enough! And then it surely would be nice if the conditions for a self-chosen act of dying, and the practical circumstances surrounding it, would have greatly improved, in such a way as to enable anybody who chooses to follow the path of PEKhara will find a pleasant, soothing, comforting place where to say goodbye to this world – in the company of their beloved ones, and in the knowledge that they and all of humanity will continue living in a safe and peaceful world.

This would be close to a place we might then call Paradise on Earth.

With this, and in the hope that my last wish may come true, I'm saying goodbye to you all, wishing you all a happy life.

In the name of Peace and Justice

Peter Ernst Kasser