The Point of View

5. The clear and precise idea that one holds of the future life provides an unshakable faith in the future. This faith carries enormous consequences for the moralization of human beings, because it completely changes the point of view from which they consider earthly life. For those who through their thought place themselves in the spirit life, which is limitless, corporeal life is no more than a passage,  a brief stay in an ungrateful country. The vicissitudes and tribulations of life are no more than  incidents which they bear with patience because they know that they are only of short duration, and that they must be followed by a happier state. Death no longer has anything terrifying about it and it is no longer a door to nothingness, but rather the deliverance that opens to the exile the entryway to a dwelling place of happiness and peace. Knowing they are in a temporary, not final situation, they accept the worries of life with more indifference, which results in a composure of spirit that mitigates their afflictions.

Due to the mere doubt regarding the future life, people direct all their thoughts toward the earthly life. Uncertain of the future, they give everything to the present. By not foreseeing possessions that are more precious than those of earth, they are like children who can see nothing beyond their toys; there is nothing they will not do to obtain them. The loss of even the least of their possessions causes pungent hurt. A disappointment, a frustrated hope, an unsatisfied ambition, an injustice of which they are the victim, wounded pride or vanity are also torments that  make their life a perennial agony, and in this way they intentionally cause themselves true torment  at every moment.  Taking their point of view from earthly life, at whose center they place themselves,  everything around them assumes vast proportions. The evil that reaches them, as well as the good that falls on others – everything takes on a great importance in their eyes. The same occurs with those who are inside a city, where everything seems big; the individuals who occupy high positions seem like monuments. However, upon ascending a mountain, individuals and things both seem quite small.

This is what happens with those who contemplate earthly life from the point of view of the future life: like the stars in the firmament, humankind is lost in the immensity. They then perceive that great and small things are all mixed together like ants atop a mound of earth; that proletarians and potentates are of the same stature, and they lament those ephemeral individuals who  hand  themselves over to  such worry in order to win a place which will elevate them so little, and which they must occupy for such a short time. It is thus that the importance attributed to earthly things is always in reverse proportion to faith in the future life.

6. If everybody thought in this manner, one might say that, with no one being any longer concerned with the things of the earth, everything would be endangered. No; people instinctively look after their own well being, and although certain that they will remain for only a short time in a place, they still want to feel as good or as comfortable as possible. There is no one who, upon finding a thorn under his or her hand, will not remove it in order not to get pricked. Well then, the search for well-being forces people to improve everything, possessed as they are of the instinct for progress and self-preservation, both being contained in the laws of nature. Therefore, they labor out of necessity, enjoyment and duty, thereby fulfilling the designs of Providence, which has placed them on the earth for such a purpose. Only those who consider the future attribute a relative importance to the present, and they are easily consoled in their failings by thinking of the destination that awaits them.

Accordingly, God does not condemn earthly pleasures but rather their abuse at the expense of matters of the soul. Moreover, it is against such abuse that those who apply Jesus’ words, “My kingdom  is not of this world,” are protected. Those who identify themselves with the future life are like a rich person who loses a small sum without being disturbed by it; those who concentrate their thoughts on the earthly life are like a poor person who loses everything he or she owns and becomes desperate.

7. Spiritism broadens one’s thought and opens up new horizons. Instead of this narrow and small-minded view that concentrates on the present life, which makes the instant that one passes on the earth the unique and fragile pivot of the eternal future, Spiritism shows that this life is only one link in the harmonious and magnificent whole of the Creator’s  work. Spiritism also demonstrates the solidarity that interconnects all the existences of one being, all beings of the same world, and all beings of all worlds. It thus provides a basis and a reason for universal fraternity, whereas the doctrine of the creation of the soul at the moment of the birth of each body renders all beings strangers to one another. This solidarity among the parts of the same whole explains what is inexplicable if only one part is considered. It is this whole that at the time of Christ people would not have comprehended, and that is why he reserved such knowledge for another time.