Where there is true brotherhood, pride is an anomaly

It is not difficult to ascertain the quality of a fruit when we are on the market before a stall. In the case of watermelon, to convince the client, many clerks have the custom to offer a piece of fruit and there, to experience it, the taste leaves no one in doubt.

Regarding to the quality of the society we live in, the assessment is done by the examples we have encountered every time.

On February 12th, Wednesday, at a football match played in Huancayo, Peru, every time the player Tinga, from Cruzeiro team, touched the ball, fans of the team Real Garcilaso imitated sounds of monkeys, an episode of racism that affected the world of football here and outside of Brazil, even public manifestation of President of Brazil, Dilma Rousseff, and the government of Peru, which rated the "unfortunate" incident.

In the previous Wednesday, the 5th, a professor, teaching at PUC - Rio, posted on Facebook a photo of a man in shorts and tank top by adding the following sentence: "airport or bus station?". Those who do not know, we explain it: PUC -Rio is the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, an educational institution that has provided and has been providing outstanding services to education in our country.

The contents of comments posted on the same page with respect to sentence the teacher also involved criticism of the presence of poor passengers on flights. "The 'glamor' went into space", wrote the president of the Federal University of the State of Rio de Janeiro (UNIRIO), to which the professor replied: "Wow, but for glamor it misses a loooooot!! It is more stowage."

Then another professor, also from PUC-Rio added: "And you know what is worse? when such passenger sits just beside you and rubs his hairy arm in yours, because - of course – he does not respect (or? does not fit in) within the limits of his seat."

The fact reflected in the aforementioned social network and was immediately censored by thousands of people, just nonconformist with the absurd social manifestation of prejudice expressed - oddly enough - by three professors. (To know more about it, just click at http://educacao.uol.com.br/noticias/2014/02/06/professores-universitarios-postam-no-facebook-critica-contra-pobre-em-aviao.htm/.) 

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Any form of prejudice – racial, social, and religious – is a daughter of pride, as it is known the root of all our evils. It is at least like Adolfo, ex-Bishop from Argel, wrote a published message in The Gospel According to Spiritism, chapter VII, item 12, it is partial written here:

You cannot be happy without mutual benevolence, but as grace can coexist with pride? Pride is the source of all your ills.

Liken yourselves, therefore, to destroy it, if ye will not you perpetuate the dire consequences. A single medium offers you for this, but infallible: take it for the invariable rule of your conduct to the law of Christ, law that you have misrepresented or repulsed in its interpretation.

Why ye shall have in higher esteem that sparkles and delights the eye, than what touches the heart? Why do ye addiction opulence object of your flattery, while disdain the true merit in the dark? Introduce himself anywhere a rich debauched, lost in body and soul, and all the doors are open to him, all eyes are for him as the good man, who lives from his work, hardly everyone greets him with air of protection.

When the consideration given to other is measured according the gold they have or the name that uses, what interest can they have to correct their defects? (Adolfo, Bishop of Argel. Marmande, 1862.)

Regarding the pride we should all bear in mind the following sentence that integrates the Prolegomena of The Spirits’ Book: "The pride and ambition will always be a gap raised between man and God."

While there are not among us, humans, the actual feeling of brotherhood, it is obvious that pride continues reigning and as a consequence, we see here and there acts of racism, as occurred with the player Tinga, and social prejudice against non-rich, to which we referred above.

However, when the fraternity within the people is indeed a reality, we can repeat the phrase Allan Kardec inserted in Part III of the Conclusion of The Spirits’ Book: "Where there is true brotherhood, pride is an anomaly." That was the phrase that we have chosen to give title to this text.