Rogério Coelho

Spiritism and Evolution  The main purpose of evolution is the spiritual ascent

“Spiritism teaches us how to live the human dimension
in a balanced and safe manner without conflicting
with the awareness of our spiritual nature”.
-  Adenauer Novaes^[1]

The clear experience of Spiritism induces us to culminate in the delta of our self-knowledge, which, in turn, entails the action that leverages our evolution, like a chain reaction...

To discuss and better understand this issue, let us read the final pages of the book "Psychology and Spirituality", where the confrere Adenauer Novaes accurately develops this issue:

(...) The human being must make its knowledge of life more holistic, that is, it must seek to expand its vision of the world, accumulating knowledge already achieved. Each day it should better understand how the spiritual laws are processed, in order to live well in society...

The ultimate goal of evolution is to ascend spiritually and this occurs through the acquisitions of the paradigms of God's Laws and the ability to distinguish self-emotions when they occur. This knowledge implies in knowing and experiencing, in knowing and practicing the Laws of God through the love for life. The laws are known due to the coexistence and social participation, but to have knowledge is not the same as to know, in the same way that to like somebody is not the same as to love. We have to learn how to use the Laws of God, but also to distinguish feelings.

The impact of a new incarnation, the connection with the same or a new family group, the establishment of new relations, the reconstruction of a new social identity, social changes, the internal pressures of the memories of past lives, the challenges of evidence and expiation, as well as the need to progress lead the Spirit to taking attitudes and behaviors increasingly complex, settling in its sum what we call a full personality. It is a set that consists of its individual essence and the reactions to these motivations. By taking just one of them does not allow us to recognize the level of evolution in which that Spirit is. 

Spiritism allows us to know the Laws of God 

One single behavior is not enough to reveal a personality. With each incarnation it will learn something more about the Laws of God, and it's always a surprise to return to the physical body, and its past reincarnation, then unconscious, is like a latent propellant, reminding him at all times of its already accumulated potential. It will live moved by it, by external stimuli, by the inevitable progress and its inner will. The evidence and atonement for which it will have to go through will be present to stimulate its life, not allowing it to overcome a border without the proper knowledge.

(...) When we say that Spiritism allows us to know the Laws of God, we need to understand that law is a process whereby what is unknown is accomplished, i.e., everything that happens takes place within the limits of law. The Laws of God, or spiritual laws, give meaning to life. Laws are processes of creation and materialization of life itself. We can say that the Laws of God, far from being only moral, are general or spiritual laws, in a broader sense, where life happens.

(...) Spiritism is not a straitjacket for human behavior. Being a knowledge that liberates, it leads to happiness and not to banishment. To ban does not belong to its principles, however, to take responsibility for one’s actions consciously is a Spiritist conduct. The human being in its evolutionary path should be entitled to choices and should seek for what suits it according to its time of life. The basic guidelines can be found in the Gospel of Christ.

(...) To know one-self is a process that has the limit of the consciousness's ability to retain the content to be known. Consciousness is limited as it excludes, divides, discriminates, concentrates and focuses... Our conscious life is not able to perceive everything that refers to the Spirit. Even the disembodied, belonging or not to a higher spiritual plane than ours, have limitations as to what they know about themselves and the Universe of which they are part.

If Spiritism applies to beyond, does it also apply to life here? 

There will come a moment when consciousness – that has already expanded to the limit of its capacity – will need to transcend and seek fundamental changes and transformations for its own psychic development. We still do not know the psychic functioning enough to understand the processes when the Spirit is released from the body and is in higher evolutionary levels. However, one must understand that by judging from the incarnated paradigm without similarity to the necessary real understanding, we cannot enter its entirety.

Our choices in life are also, and mainly, a consequence of the worldview we have. The more we expand our perception of reality the more learning options are available. Ignorance of the full personality of the Spirit in its entirety entails difficulties in the evolutionary process, creating barriers, causing the extension of repetitive situations, which are sometimes painful...

(...) Although Spiritism is an eminently consoling doctrine of moral compass, it also has the feature of implementing the happiness of human beings, not only in the hereafter, as a disembodied Spirit, but also still incarnated. Speaking of happiness on Earth does not exclude the consciousness of its relativity and smallness of the material life in relation to the spiritual one. But if Spiritism applies to the beyond, it must also apply to life here.

To experience Spiritism is not just to exercise doctrinal practices, even though they may be essential. This exercise serves as prophylaxis and as learning, but it is necessary to incorporate Eternal truths to be used in social life, in different life roles.

Not always has the Spiritist a clear perception of his true path. He often mistakes his path with that of missionaries, very high level Spirits, who walk towards their own destiny, living a personal process that should not be copied. To copy the other’s path is to distance oneself from its own. 

We are embryos of God’s love... 

Certainly Spiritism will carry man to the state of happiness he craves, not just after death, but even when incarnate, through the liberating transformations that it entails. This may be the great asset to a Doctrine that proposes the regeneration of Mankind.

Spiritism teaches us to cultivate the seed of the Well in ourselves and in our neighbors, not just as a rule of religious conduct, but as a principle of life. Life presents us with processes that can strengthen this internal principle. It teaches us to give energy to life; to donate things with detachment: an object, a word or a prayer; to be always grateful first to people and then to life itself. Thus we grow and make others grow. It shows us that to be grateful does not only imply in the gesture of expressing retribution, but also be grateful without the other knowing it. It leads us to the discovery of the importance of empathy and lovingness towards people.

We are embryos of God’s love, created to develop our potential and, when we become aware of His Laws, we extend them and build a better world. The experience of Spiritism enables us to reach this one day. It entails the knowledge and the discovery of the essential nature, singular, unique and indecipherable of the Spirit. With it we begin to enter the intricate mechanisms of the human "psyche" and divine essence that is the Spirit. It paves the way for the science of the Soul and the deciphering of codes that structure life; it allows our mind to free from the shell of the physical body, making the spiritual fruit sprout, freeing us from the prejudices and fears that delay our upward march.

Spiritism is a kind of telescope with which we can see beyond the clouds of the body, the true and rich life of the Spirit. It enables us to reach the condition of evolved and prepared beings for our future and raises the human being from the simple category of animal endowed with reason to the condition of Spirit, lord of emotions. 

Spiritism enables us to become aware of ourselves as Immortal Spirits  

The evolved human being is the one who discovered his uniqueness and works in favor of God's objectives.

(...) When it is well understood Spiritism allows us to drop the fantasy that our personal transformation is magical or that a spiritual Entity can provided it instantly. It removes us from the condition of immature children and changes us into adults aware of our responsibilities regarding ourselves and the world. It teaches us not to become mere followers of charismatic leaders, which are alienated from the personal spiritual growth process. It is not based on people, idols, or ideas whose authority is not confirmed by the Universality. It is a dynamic doctrine that allows rereading at every era of Humanity [without prejudice to its doctrinal structure, the basic points of which are monolithically signed in the Kardecian Pentateuch].

It teaches us to become humanized before or at the same time we seek to spiritualize ourselves, so we will not take steps so wide that our legs cannot reach; it puts us in a position to identify our mistakes seriously and with responsibility and to transcend the Manichean dialectic good/evil, reaching an awareness of our actions with balance, and taking the natural consequences resulting therefrom. It helps to eliminate our faults and makes us aware of our personal value to grow with one's past without being moored, but taking responsibility for the faults we committed”.

Ultimately, Spiritism allows us to know Him - holistically - as Immortal Spirits that we are and reveals the Truth, the knowledge that frees us from the sealed cell of ignorance and selfishness, where we lived for untold centuries, and according to Emmanuel, we would continue to live there if God’s mercy had not sent us Jesus and Kardec to rescue us.