Is it possible to be happy
 in this World?

At the beginning of this year is valuable to ask yourself about an oldie question: Why is there so many suffering on Earth?

That quest is more common than you think and it is also widely made in Humankind History. Thus do we see in the book of Jó (3:20 and 23) the big man of Hus land asks the Lord: “Why was the miserable given light to, and life to those are in soul bitterness?”

Updating the concern of who is considered the symbol of patience, it is commonly asked why life force people die while elderly run through long years in hospital.

Allan Kardec, the Encoder of Spiritism, conferred on a whole chapter to human distress and its causes – chapter V from The Gospel According to Spiritism – in which it tells us about the causes of current and past troubles that afflict the human being.

Here briefly the lesson that Kardec gives us:

Current causes: conduct and character effects, hindsight, pride, ambition, misrule and lack of perseverance, bad behavior, self interest and vanity, neglect children’s education etc. If many people examine what they have been doing in their lifetimes, they will conclude out of doubt that their bitterness is the result of their actions. Although, it could be extinguished if their actions were different.

Prior causes: they do not have any relation with current existence and therefore it is correlated with previous existences. How could it be explained to someone though their good present behavior, the loss of their loved ones, inevitable accidents, fortune setbacks, natural scourge, birth disease and the imbecility?    

Studies published by Kardec in 1864, when the referred book was lighted, he received many evidences in the following year with the publication of his book Heaven and Hell, which presents us an extraordinary collection of cases. Many of which are directly related to its past characters.

Time had passed and decades later the same question was reasserted in the works of André Luiz, especially those contained in the Series Our Home (Nosso Lar). In the meanwhile, between the period of codification and André Luiz advent, an editorial appeared in the classical mediumship scenario – Memories of Father Germano, Amalia Domingo Soler – which introduces us, in its final part, a touching story of Count Henoch and his beautiful wife Margarida, who poisoned her husband for two years later, get married her accomplice. Father Germano spirit shows in the book, Margarida’s life on the spiritual plane, where she terribly suffered for twenty five years until her reincarnation as Beast. A name which was known because of the ragged woman, though young, it made laugh whom used to contemplate her unsightly face.  

Obviously the man would like to be happy and then he could be free of any grief. It happens that the human happiness, which constitutes a valid and natural aspiration of mankind, it cannot be discussed without taking into account the divine Law, which defines that everyone should reap in the world the result of their own sowing.

A life on Earth is a very short passage. The man often forgets that there is an immortal soul encouraging a perishable body. And because of ignoring or look down on this fact is that we have been setting the wrong values in happiness or in situations that we would never have seen us into it.

This subject is explored for Spiritism in three successive questions in The Spirits’ Book:

920. Is it possible for man enjoys perfect happiness upon the Earth? “No, because of corporal life has been appointed to him either as trial or atonement. But it depends on himself to lighten the evils and be happy as can be upon the Earth.”

921. We can conceive that man will be happy upon the Earth when the humankind shall have been transformed. But, meanwhile, is it possible to ensure for himself a moderate amount of happiness? “Man is quite responsible of his own unhappiness. If he obeyed God’s Law, he would not only spare himself much sorrow, but would also procure for himself all the felicity compatible with his grossness existence in the Earth."

922. Earthly happiness is relative to the position of each person. What it suffices for the happiness of one would be misfortune for another. Is there, nevertheless, a common standard of happiness for all men? “As regards material existence, it is the possession of necessities. As regards moral existence, it is good conscience and the belief in a future state.” 

Ismália-Alfredo’s case is described in the book The Messengers, chapter 17, André Luiz, where it proves and illustrates the teaching contained in the issues mentioned. Alfredo is a happily married man and well regarded in society. Suddenly he puts everything to lose in the face of a rash decision, which he would later bitterly regret.

Therefore, the spiritist message is quite clear: We cannot endure the mistakes and failures of the past.

Emmanuel warns us about that: “Time never stops and if you find your yesterday now, you will not forget that your today will be the light or the darkness of your tomorrow.” (It is the preamble of the book “Heaven and Earth”, André Luiz)

Spiritism says, we are builders of our own destiny.

Everything will be more beneficial for us if we remember, as Jesus used to say, the planting is free but the harvest is mandatory. If we practice God’s Law, we will avoid many evils and giving ourselves happiness as great as possible in this incarnation, as taught to question 921, transcribed above.