Jorge Leite de Oliveira

Total happiness does not exist in this Earth… not yet

What is happiness?

According to the Houaiss Dictionary of the Portuguese Language, happiness is a state of a fully satisfied consciousness; satisfaction, contentment, wellbeing "[...] f. eternal bliss, eternal salvation".

According to Yuval Noah Harari (2015), we are never satisfied with human progress. The Homo sapiens, our current genus and human species, is on this Earth for 200,000 years. However, only in the last 70,000 years did it predominate over the last species of the genus Homo, the neanderthal, which became extinct 30,000 years ago after the current humanity appeared. There was still another species, Homo floresiensis, extinct 13,000 years ago, when only the Homo sapiens was left.

In the last five hundred years, however, there have been changes of such magnitude in our planet, caused by man, now also mentioned by myself, as sapiens, which completely changed the habits of these primates, so named for their kinship with chimpanzees, with something that differentiated them from these primates six million years ago.

Seventy thousand years ago, the sapiens made the first great revolution, which would differentiate him from all other primates: the cognitive revolution. But 12,000 years ago, we stopped being "hunter-gatherers", and created agriculture, our second great revolution. With the agricultural revolution, we ceased being “wanderers”, we began the permanent settlements and domesticated plants and animals.

What the learned author above ignores, voluntarily or not, is the existence of three universal principles: God, the first cause of all that exists, since always, because "the nothingness does not exist", the spirit and the matter. This is the "universal trinity" as stated in the Questions 23 a) and 27 of The Book of Spirits, by Kardec (2013), and Harari seems to ignore this "Trinity" in his work, indeed very good, if we consider his studies only referring to the biological evolution of the human being. 

"But are we happier?"

According to Harari (2015), the first kingdoms arose about 5,000 years ago, and together came the writing and money as a way to replace the barter or exchange. Then the empires arose, and the "universal" currency too. Then follows Polytheism, which is the belief in many gods, and in India some 2,500 years ago, Buddhism appears, the "universal truth" to get rid of the "suffering". Judaism gives rise to Christianity and Islamism, as a belief in one God.

In the last five hundred years, the "Scientific Revolution" occurs with the conquering of America and other continents, and capitalism begins to influence all mankind. A little over two hundred years ago, Britain promotes the "Industrial Revolution" and since then, the state and the market replace the family and the community, according to Harari (2015). However, this Doctor in History, a world history expert and professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem asks:

But are we happier? Does the wealth accumulated by Humanity for over the past five centuries mean contentment? Does the discovery of inexhaustible energy sources open before us inexhaustible deposits of happiness? Going back further in time, has the approximately 70 millennia since the Cognitive Revolution made the world a better place to live in? The late Neil Armstrong, whose footprint remains intact on the moon where there is no wind, was he happier than the anonymous hunter-gatherers 30,000 years ago that left their handprints on a wall in the cave of Chauvet? If not, what is the meaning of developing agriculture, cities, writing, currency, empires science and industry? (HARARI, 2015, page 386). 

Purpose of incarnation

The creation of living beings, and in particular of man, was due to the necessity of universal evolution. Its laws require that all that exists has to evolve, in a chain from the atom to the angel, according to an answer given to Kardec by a Spirit (2013, Question 540). The Higher Spirits clarified Kardec (2013, Questions 85 and 86) that the primitive normal world is the Spiritist World, pre-existent, eternal and it outlives everything. The physical world is secondary and may even cease to exist, or never have existed without this altering the presence of the Spiritist World.

The purpose of the incarnation of the Spirit is to attain perfection (Ibid, Question 132), but what is eternal in us is the soul (the Spirit embodied). The body has a short life.

The Spirit Emmanuel tells us that every life is like "a book" we are writing, and every day is like a page of this book. Our way of being is shown at all times through the contact with people, and situations, that approach us. (XAVIER, 2008, page 16). 

While we do not achieve perfection, we have no complete happiness, regarding our physical body, even if we meet the five most desirable conditions for everyone: youth, beauty, health, money and power.

However, when we practice the Law of God, we are enjoying "a happiness so big as to fill [our] gross existence”, so say the Higher Spirits (Kardec, 2013, Question 921). 

What it takes to be happy 

Regarding the happiness in the Spiritual World, the Spirits teach us that it is achieved when the good Spirits

[...] know all things; do not feel hatred, or jealousy, or envy or ambition, or are taken by any of the passions that cause men to fall in disgrace. The love that unites them is a source of supreme happiness. They do not experience the needs or suffering, or the anxieties of material life. They are happy for the good they do. However, the happiness of the Spirits is proportional to their individual enlightenment. Only the pure Spirits enjoy the supreme happiness, but not all of the remaining is unhappy.

Among the evil and perfect there are plenty levels in which the enjoyments are related to their moral state. Those, who are already advanced, quite understand the happiness of those who preceded them and wish to reach it, but this wish is in a sense of emulation, and not of jealousy. They are aware that it only depends of them to reach it, and to get it they work, however, they do it with the calmness of a serene conscious and are fortunate because they do not have to suffer as those who were evil. (Kardec, 2013 Question 967). 

Based on the foregoing, we conclude that, for now, there is still no complete happiness on Earth, but we can be happy as much as possible, when we break free from our pride and selfishness, the two wounds of Humanity, according to the answer given by the Higher Spirits to Allan Kardec. (Ibid, Question 785).

Therefore, I conclude these modest notes with the following poem, dictated to the psychic Chico Xavier  by  the Spirit Cruz e Sousa. (XAVIER, 2002, page 251): 

Happy are those, who have God

Between this decayed world
And a life with a free soul, a pure soul,
One can still see the dark immensity
Of the boundaries of gray and forgetfulness.

Only the thinker, who suffers, and is looking
For the truth and light within his feelings,
Can save that dazzle
Of Faith – the source of mystical bliss.

Blessed is he who has God in this battle
Of earthly misery, which shatters
All the longing of love or peace!

Fortunate is the one, who goes through pain,
Crossing the ocean of bitterness,
In the sacred sailing ship of Hope.

References: 

HARARI, Yuval Noah. Sapiens: a brief history Humanity. 8th edition.

Porto Alegre, RS: L&PM, 2015.

KARDEC, Allan. The Book of Spirits. Translation of Guillon Ribeiro. 93rd historical edition. Brasilia: FEB, 2013.

XAVIER, Francisco Candido. Words of Emmanuel. 10th edition. Rio de Janeiro: FEB, 2008.

______. Parnassus from beyond the grave: psychic poetry. Commemorative edition. C16th edition. Rio de Janeiro: FEB, 2002.