We are builders of
our destiny

Contrary to what many people think, the Doctrine teaches us that most of the trials and human affairs have their causes in events that occurred in this life and that man is, in general, the author of its own misfortunes.

Of course there are evils in our lives whose causes are not completely in the present, and Allan Kardec lists in item 6 of the chapter V in the book The Gospel According to Spiritism. But the Spiritism encoder points very evidently that even in these cases, the man is the cause of its own woes, since the fate of people is traced by their attitudes and their behavior in the face of God, of others and themselves.

We are, therefore, the builders of our destiny.

Spiritism teaches that the time has come for a new return to the earthly scene, the Spirit chooses the evidence it wants to submit, and such evidence is always in relation to their needs and the faults that it must atone.

To sum up perfectly the issue of free will, Kardec explains that this freedom of choice is exercised by the spirits in two very different ways.

When they are disembodied, it consists in the choice of the existence and nature of the evidence. When they are incarnated, in the hability they have to give or to resist the hauls that voluntarily they submitted.

It is up to education - complements Spiritism encoder – to combat these evil tendencies. (See The Spirits' Book, question 872.)

Kardec does not refer here to instruction, but education, which he defined as the set of habits acquired in which duty guidance and example of parents and educators are of fundamental importance.

There is in the history of education a known way. The great Lycurgus, Greek legislator who lived around the fourth century BC, was invited to deliver a speech about the value of education for young people. Lycurgus accepted the invitation, but asked for time to prepare, a fact that was surprising, because everyone knew he was capable and able to speak on the subject at any time.

It passed the period requested, Lycurgus appeared before the assembly that had gathered to hear him. The speaker stood in the gallery and, soon after, entered two servants, each carrying two cages. There were two hares and two dogs. At a predetermined signal, one of the servants opened one of the door of one cage and the small white hare came running, startled. Soon after, the other servant opened one of the cages where there were the dogs and one of them went in headlong in pursuit of the hare. The dog caught it deftly, slaughtering it quickly.

The scene was shocking. No one could understand what the great orator intended with similar aggression. Still, he said nothing. He repeated the agreed signal and another hare was released; then the other dog. The people, fearing new scene of aggression, barely contained breathing and some more sensitive, took the hands to the eyes not to see the replay of the barbaric death of the defenseless animal that ran and jumped around the stage.

In the first instant, the dog lunged at the hare. But rather than grasps it it gave it with its paw and it fell. Then it got up and the two stood to play. To everyone's surprise, the dog and the hare were to demonstrate peaceful coexistence, skipping from side to side of the stage, as two great friends.

Lycurgus then spoke:

- Gentlemen, you just watch a demonstration of what education can do. Both hares are daughters of the same mother; were also fed and received the same care as well as the dogs. The difference between the first and the second is simply education. The first dog was bred to kill.

He continued his speech by saying the excellence of the educational process and reaffirming that education based on an accurate conception of life, can transform the face of the world.

Making our own the words of the great speaker, we also will say:

- Let us educate our children, clarifying their intelligence, but above all, speak to their heart, teaching them to divest themselves of their imperfections. Let us remember that the wisdom of excellence is to become better and that our fate, happy or unhappy, depend only that.