Reparation, therefore, can be carried out through the practice of good, which includes forgiveness, gratitude, and devotion to people or causes. Corroborating this point of view, Carrara ends his article, asserting that:

“On the other hand, by way of illustration of the subject, I ask the reader to also consider that not every past mistake can currently present itself through difficulties. Mistakes can often be repaired through work and dedication to causes and people. This is all because, as we already know, "love covers a multitude of sins".

THE FUNCTIONING OF THE LAW OF CAUSE AND EFFECT: A CASE STUDY

Given what has been exposed so far, it is necessary to ask the following question: To whom do we owe? To the Law or to the offended?

Studying a case called “the interrupted rescue”, which is found in chapter XIV of the work Action and Reaction, Andre Luiz and Hilario started to cooperate in the re-harmonization of a small family domiciled in the suburbs of a populous capital.

Ildeu, a man a little over thirty-five years old, was married to Marcela, a selfless wife and mother of their three little children: Roberto, Sonia and Marcia; however, seduced by the charms of young Mara, a light and inconsequential girl, he did everything to make his wife leave him.

Despite the efforts of Assistant Silas, Andre Luiz and Hilario, who daily performed assistance tasks in the tormented home, Ildeu showed himself, each day, more indifferent and distant.

Irascible and bored, he did not even say hello to his wife, whom he came to hate because of his fascination with Mara. He intended to divorce Marcela and set out on a new path. Thus, anticipating the pleasure and freedom he could enjoy in living with his mistress, the idea of murdering his wife was born in the brain of the head of the household, hiding the crime itself, so that her death in the eyes of the world would pass as being authentic suicide.

To do so, he would try to put aside irritation and pretend tenderness to gain trust. After a few days, when Marcela was asleep, carefree, he would put a bullet through her heart, outwitting the police.

Naturally, realizing the thoughts expressed by Ildeu, disembodied homicides began to influence him. Thus, on a given night, the head of the family would try to annihilate his partner.

For this reason, Assistant Silas did not hesitate, which is why the three workers of the Good demanded the single house.

Covering all of Ildeu's brain, the scene of the murder, calculatedly predicted, appeared, moving in a surprising succession of images.

The thoughtless father was thinking of going to the children's room, to lock them up, so that they wouldn't witness the fact, when Silas, all of a sudden, advanced to the girls' bed and, using the magnetic resources at his disposal, called little Marcia , in a spiritual body, in order to contemplate the paternal thoughts.

The child, in communion with the terrible picture, experienced a tremendous shock and promptly returned to the physical body, screaming, frantic, as if escaping from the grip of a suffocating nightmare:

“- Daddy! Daddy! Do not kill! Do not kill!"

Ildeu, at that moment, was already at the door, holding the gun with his right hand and trying to open the lock with his free hand.

The girl's screams echoed throughout the house, causing an uproar. Marcela then got to her feet and, unable to suspect her husband's intentions, cautiously picked up the gun and, believing that he had intended to commit suicide, begged in tears:

“- Oh! Ildeu, do not kill yourself! Jesus is witness that I have fulfilled all my duties correctly... I do not want the remorse of having cooperated in such a folly, which would throw you among the reprobates of God's laws! Proceed as you wish, but do not fall into suicide. If you want, build a new house where you can live with the woman who makes you happy... I will consecrate my existence to our children. I will work, earning bread for our house with the sweat of my brow... However, I beg you do not kill yourself!

That was how, in effect, Ildeu left home. Faced with such a scenario, Assistant Silas, responding to Hilario's question, asserted that Marcela, with her husband's desertion, had been called to double responsibilities:

“We sincerely want her to be strong and overcome the vicissitudes of existence. However, if she slides into criminal imbalances, which compromise her domestic stability, in which the children must grow up for good, the more complicated and more extensive the debt of Ildeu will become, since the faults she may commit will be mitigated by the unjustifiable abandonment into which her husband has thrown her. Whoever makes himself responsible for our falls, experiences in himself the magnification of his own crimes.”

Faced with the answer, Hilario meditated and then said:

“Let us imagine, however, that Marcela and her children manage to overcome the crisis, over time crushing the needs they are now victims of... Let us imagine them ending the current reincarnation with full moral victory in confrontation with Ildeu, retarded, unrepentant, debtor. If the wife and children, then definitively raised in the light, dispense with any contact with the shadow, in frank ascension to the superior lines of life, to whom will Ildeu pay the amount of the debts in which he aggravates?

Stamping a significant facial gesture, Silas explained:

“Although we are all, one before the other, in a process of repairing reciprocal faults, in truth, first of all, we are debtors of the Law in our consciences. By doing evil to others, we practice evil against ourselves. If Marcela and the little children rise, one day, to the heights of Heaven, and in the event that our friend is kept immersed in the Earth, Ildeu will see them in his own conscience, suffering and sad. Thus, made them, tormented by the memories that he traced for himself and will pay in service to other souls on the evolutionary path the debt that burdens his Spirit, since, injuring others, in essence we are injuring the work of God, whose sovereign laws we make ourselves unhappy defendants, claiming discharge and readjust.”

This is how the Law of Cause and Effect works. Harming others or ourselves, we will have to account eventually, for the consequences of misconduct. In addition, if by chance someone with a lot of love built up in the intimate comes to forgive us, we will not stop being out of line with the Law. It is up to us, therefore, as soon as possible, to repair the evil committed, in order to be in harmony with the Law and with our own conscience.

However, if we remain behind in evolution, we can only complain about ourselves. In this sense, Kardec states, “[...] While some advance quickly, others drag on for long centuries in inferior places. They are, therefore, the very architects of their happy or unhappy situation, according to these words of Christ: To each according to his works. Each spirit that lags behind can only complain to itself, as the one that advances has all the merit of its progress.”

Finally, at the end of the study of the Ildeu case (“interrupted rescue”), Assistant Silas states that those who delay for pleasure cannot complain about those who advance.

On the other hand, as already mentioned, the pendencies that we may acquire now

will be carried over to the next existence. It is for no other reason that the Spirit Emmanuel, in the preface to the work Action and Reaction, emphasizes that reincarnation “is a sacred stage of recapitulation of our experiences”. Recapitulation is, according to the Minidictionary Silveira Bueno, a repetition.

In this way, we bring the trends - good and bad - from previous stocks to the current one. Regarding bad tendencies, there is the possibility that they will affect our conduct again. Therefore, we may come to repeat, in the present existence, the mistakes of past existences. For this reason, Spiritism teaches that we must work to improve ourselves morally, being better today than yesterday, and tomorrow better than today. Such improvement is based on self-knowledge. After all, we need to know ourselves, because those who do not know themselves do not know what, within themselves, needs to be modified.

Commenting on the importance of the Doctrine of the Spirits in our existence, Emmanuel points out that “the Spiritist Doctrine, reviving the Gospel of the Lord, is a shining torch on the evolutionary road. It helps us to regenerate our own destiny by building real happiness”, which is a result of the joy we bring to others. We receive love in proportion, as we love, since no one receives what he does not give. It is from the Law.

CONCLUSIONS

In view of all the above, we draw the following conclusions:

a) Reincarnation does not have the purpose of paying debts contracted in past existences, as it aims at the intellectual-moral improvement of the Spirits and their consequent progressive improvement;

b) each bodily existence represents an investment made by the Cosmic Consciousness in us, so we will have to account for the application given by us of the resources – both material and spiritual – that we brought with us to the terrestrial stage;

c) the need for readjustment before the Law of Cause and Effect is inherent to existence in expiatory worlds, hence why on Earth we are faced with so much pain and miseries;

d) the “debt” (for those who prefer) is contracted before the Law and not before the offended party;

e) no one advances spiritually with an uneasy conscience;

f) reparation can be effected through doing well, because “love covers a multitude of sins”.

Finally, we emphasize that the only debt we owe each other is love. However, this is not just any love. Indeed, the teaching of Jesus is, “A commandment I give to you, that you love one another, as I have loved you. By this all will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (John, 13:31-35, our emphasis).

Moreover, for us to be able to reach that maximum point of feeling: love, we will need to be born again, as many times as necessary.