Editorial 

 

Dying does not solve problems


In Brazil and also in the United States, the greatest expansion in the number of suicides among young people has been recorded in the days in which we live. The main weekly magazine of our country dedicated in its edition of June 20 an extensive report on the subject. According to the report, the decision to end one's life is already the fourth most frequent cause of death among young people.

It is evident that suicidal occurrences are old things in our world. But it has reached, in greater number adults, a data that has undergone significant change, as we see.

Several Spirit works have dealt with the subject, which was also the subject of study by Allan Kardec, as we recently showed in the editorial published in issue 566 of this magazine, which the reader can review by clicking here.

In the book Astronauts of Beyond, the result of a partnership between Chico Xavier and J. Herculano Pires, the theme was focused on chapter 3, which originated in a note written by a friend of Cornélio Pires, who requested the opinion of the well-known poet respect of suicide.

At the public meeting in which Cornelius answered the request of his friend, after the initial prayer, the question 943 of The Spirits’ Bookcame to the study: - Whence comes the disgust for life which, without plausible motives, seizes some individuals? "Effect of idleness, lack of faith, and generally of the weariness," answered the Spirits.

Cornelio Pires responding to the query wrote by the hands of Chico Xavier the poem Suicide, which consists of eight blocks, in which he says that we should not think of suicide even by jest since such an act results in the pain of a lifetime. Then he summarized the drama of six suicides and their consequences. Quim drowned in a well and was reborn in emphysema. Dilermanda shot himself and now he does not talk, he does not see, he does not walk. Dona Cesária da Estiva set fire to her own skin and returned to a body that is a living wound. Maricota da Trindade committed suicide by ingesting formicide and returned, dying of cancer at age of four months old. Columbano hanged himself and he is paraplegic now. Dona Lilia Dagele was burned with gasoline and now suffers from scabies that resemble fire on the skin.

After the account, Cornelius closed the poem with admirable advice:

Tolerates with patience

Any problem or regret;

It's no use dying,

Good to improve.

In his commentary on the same question and its effects, Herculano Pires reminds us that it is not God who punishes suicide, for it is the individual himself who punishes himself, by his course in the consequences of the law of cause and effect.

No one is taken in the stream of life by the exclusive force of circumstances. In addition to holding within himself the faculty of free will, in order to be able to control and direct himself, man is always supported by the spiritual forces that govern the flow of things. Hence the recommendation of Jesus: "Pray and watch." says Herculano.

Herculano adds "Material life is an exercise in the development of the powers of the Spirit. Who abandons the exercise on his own, it is giving up on own development and suffers the natural consequences of this negative option." "A new opportunity will be granted, but already to the weight of the previous failure."

To tolerate difficulties and sorrows is therefore a wise attitude, because seeking death does not solve any problem, it only aggravates it.

 

Translation:
Francine Prado
francine.cassia@hotmail.com

 

 

 

     
     

O Consolador
 Revista Semanal de Divulgação Espírita