A conflict that seems
to be forever

 
The international news at the beginning of the year can be divided into the economical crisis that keeps shaking the world and the latest conflict between Israel and Palestine.

The relation between the two topics with the Christian ethics is more than evident. The financial crisis, which became greater than expected, was product of sheer greed, also called as cupidity, one of the seven capital sins according to the Catholic theology.

The cupidity, the endless rapacity, the greed are of those who don’t have any idea of the human existence, a brief period of time, transitional, from which no one takes anything, but the knowledge and virtues conquered.

Those who make war and understand that in war they’ll find solution for human problems, show, likewise, as the greedy ones, that they don’t get the meaning of our existence here, this passage of our soul through successive existences whose goal is the progress itself, of the Spirit and the world where we live.

The international agreements, often based on economic interest, will never solve the problems which lead to war. Only the progress of man and society will put to an end this state of things where everybody loses and no one wins.

One of the constant lessons of “The Spirits’ Book”, the Immortals teaches that is the predominance of the animal nature over the Spiritual nature, added by the passions, which leads the man to war. As men progress, war becomes less frequent, through their avoidance of the causes which lead to it; and when it becomes inevitable they wage it more humanely. Will wars ever cease on the earth? "Yes; when men comprehend justice, and practice the law of God; all men will then be brothers." (The Spirits’ Book, items 742 - 743.)

In the same book, they say: “The purification of spirits determines the moral excellence of the corporeal beings in which they are incarnated. The animal passions become weaker, and selfishness gives place to the sentiment of fraternity. Thus, in worlds of higher degree than our earth, wars are unknown, because no one thinks of doing harm to his fellow-beings, and there is consequently no motive for hatred or discord.” (S.B., 182).

Once upon a time, in a Spiritist conference in Santa Catarina, a confrere asked why, according to Spiritism, the material progress is faster than the moral one. The opinions were various and, in general, it was said that the moral progress is slower because it’s harder. Learning a new subject is, according to common sense, easier than correcting a moral imperfection.

After everybody answered, the confrere asked again: “What if the moral progress is slower because we don’t give enough importance to it?” And added that the parents, whenever they can, enroll the son in the best school, making him to study music, ballet, judo, languages and so on. Daily, follow their school development and, if the kid is not doing well, they look for make-up classes. But all this effort, with the aim of preparing the son in intellectual terms, and we don’t see such effort in the moral area. His negative tendencies, habits, low leanings are, most of times, ignored and sometimes enlarged by the bad examples given.

It’s a pacific point, according to Spiritism, that the reform of the world in which we live starts with education, not merely the education of the intellect, not even that of the moral nature as given by books, but that which consists in the formation, of characters and habits; for education is the totality of the habits acquired.

We can compare the youth, says Emmanuel, the departure of a boat set for a long voyage. The elderly is the arrival to the port. Childhood, the preparation. We should never forget that, especially in the state of violence, war and greed that we see in the cover of the papers.