Special

por Tiago Antonio Salvador

Love your enemies:

Forgiveness as proof of

Love and Charity (Final)

It is following this path that we again have to revisit Chapter XII of The Gospel According to Spiritism in order to understand that "to love our enemies is not to have an affection for them that is not natural" [1], as Kardec tells us, because, truly, there is no way that we can be fond of the one whose thoughts and actions do not appeal to us, on the contrary, they drive us away, according to the physical laws regarding fluids and vibrations that the Encoder explains so well.

On the other hand, we can conclude that the Moral Law of Preservation also stems from the instinctive or rational conduct of man to move away from those people who can do him harm, because the instinct of conservation encourages him to stay alive and healthy to collaborate in the designs of Providence[2].

So, in what sense should we love our enemies?

Kardec, with the simplicity and clarity that marks his work, teaches us that to love our enemies is:

 [...] not having against them any grudge or desire for revenge. It is to forgive without ulterior motives and unconditionally, the evil that they did to us. It is to put no obstacle to reconciliation; it is to wish them good in place of evil; it is to be happy instead of being annoyed with the good that happens to them; it is to help them out in case of need; it is to abstain, in words and attitudes, from anything that might harm them. It is, finally, to pay them good for evil, with no intention of humiliating them. Whoever does this fulfills the conditions of the commandment: Love your enemies. [3]

Lastly, to love our enemy is nothing more than to fulfill the Christian commandment to love our neighbor as ourselves, paying him the evil he has done for us with the good we desire, in order to end the cycle of hatred and offenses and to point out that love is the path that brings us closer to God.

One realizes that, as the Encoder explains, the love to which Christ refers to is not that based solely on the sublime feeling of loving, of liking with affection and tenderness, this one more difficult and proper of the more perfect Spirits. What Jesus seeks to promote is the practice of love through acts of kindness and charity, which are capable of being realized from rational decisions, for the benefit of others and especially of our enemies.

In fact, to love, as a divine feeling, does not derive from a simple decision. We do not choose simply to love or not to love a person. Love, in this sense, derives from the soul itself and demands learning through different experiences, which almost always cannot be done in a single incarnation, with the exception of maternal, paternal and filial love, provided by God just so that we can learn to love.

But the love that Kardec refers to when interpreting the commandment of Jesus is love materialized in deeds, acting, in thinking, in wanting, that is, in our experiences as humans, and this yes can derive from rational deliberations that we take for our own good and our neighbor. In this sense, it is perfectly possible not to feel love for someone who has done us wrong, but for a rational decision, based on moral precepts and love for God, to love this person and do him good.

Obviously, it's not that simple. However, love, in this sense, is something that can and should be exercised by us, depending on whether we want to or not. The important thing is to decide, within ourselves, to do good, to forgive, to help, which will put us in a psychic-spiritual state that will allow us to practice, through practical experience, good and charity, so that, we will be loving our neighbor and ready to love our enemies as well.

4. Forgiveness as a manifestation of Love and Charity

When it is decided to study love as a Christian commandment, special attention should be paid to the act of forgiveness, one of the most important issues, and latent among those mentioned in the Gospel and also in the works of the Encoder of the Spiritist Doctrine.

At first, it seems simple to understand that it is important to forgive the offenses that are directed to us, and that this would be a decisive step to loving our enemies. But what, after all, is forgiveness and why is it so difficult to do so? To forget what happened is to forgive? To not want the evil for those who offended us is this to forgive? To want the good for your enemy is that to forgive?

These questions show us that it is not so simple to define forgiveness, much less to know whether or not we really have forgiven someone who has hurt us at any given time.

A starting point for our reflections is to know the origin of the word "pardon", which, according to etymological studies, comes from the Latin perdonare, per “total, complete” plus donare, “to give, to hand, to donate”. [4]

To forgive, in this sense, is the act of giving, handing, give something to someone else, but in a complete, full way, relating to the idea of ​​"total acquittal" of someone, which shows that the word "forgiveness" since its origin, is closely linked to the conception of charity.

In fact, to forgive someone for the practice of some evil, by absolving it in its entirety, is one of the essences of charity, as the Superior Spirits have explained to us in question No. 866 of The Book of Spirits: "What is the true meaning of the word charity, as Jesus understands it?

It means benevolence towards all, indulgence towards the imperfections of others, forgiveness of offenses". [5]

Continuing the reflections and looking at the above questions, it seems important to understand that forgiving is not forgetting the offense, because to forget something in our corporeal life is related to our mental faculties, that is, with a good or bad memory, not depending on simple wanting or not wanting.

It is a fact that the events that affect us emotionally are more strongly engraved in our memory, so that forgetfulness, in these cases, depends much more on the overcoming of emotional factors than on our own mental faculties.

In fact, the forgetting that brings us closer to Divine Laws is that which derives from forgiveness, that is, it takes place after the act of forgiveness, which does not happen immediately, but by means of a process in which, first, one learns to forgive the offenses, and then to find the quarrels completely overcome, to be the individual capable of forgetting them, as if they had never existed.

This is the constructive process of mercy toward our enemies, as Allan Kardec bequeathed to us in The Gospel according to Spiritism, in explaining that "mercy is the complement of meekness, for those who are not merciful are not meek and peaceful; it consists in forgetting and forgiving offenses".

To forget, without forgiveness, is not a virtue, but an indication of some memory disorder. To forgive, without forgetting the offense, on the other hand, is a virtue and the surest way to achieve merciful oblivion, the one that is not linked to the fact itself, to the offense as a reality experienced - which is neither recommended to be truly forgotten, but to oblivion (in the sense of overcoming) the evil that has been done to us, which must not be revived, fed, resented, only to be remembered as an instrument, a proof or an atonement, which allows us to find a constructive solution of our spiritual evolution.

In other words, forgetting the evil suffered by forgiveness is different from forgetting the fact, which is nothing more than an important experience for our progress as an eternal being and, more often than not, does not need to be forgotten.

Likewise, not wanting the wrong to the offender is not forgiving, but it is part of the process that leads to forgiveness, because there is no way to forgive someone wishing her wrong. Forgiveness is an act of love, therefore, one must not want evil to his offender so that he can truly forgive him.

 

On the other hand, to love the offender is not, by itself, to forgive, but almost always results from forgiveness, just as forgetfulness is very difficult, if not impossible, to love someone sincerely when you hold your grievances and resentments. In these cases, indifference turns out to be the tonic, which is also not compatible with forgiveness. Loving well, as a rule, is a consequence of forgiveness granted, and the unarmed Spirit of the ego's traps is wounded and ready to love without hindrance.

  Allan Kardec points out, however, that true forgiveness is unconditioned, with which we must agree.[6] To condone forgiveness to an action, to a behavior, to a conduct of the offender is not to forgive, but to humiliate, diminish and put the disaffection as the sole culprit, reversing the responsibility for the decision, so that forgiveness would depend upon him, offender, and not upon the offended and should forgive the offense.

Unconditional forgiveness is the only one compatible with the teachings of Christ, because forgiving is an act of love, and love is not conditioned to anything, rather it is free and liberating, without limits, without beacons.

For the act of forgiving has the power to free the soul, and not only the one who is forgiven - who frees himself from the shackles of guilt (when he feels it) or at least experiences the noble experience of forgiveness in his favor - but mainly and especially of the forgiver, whose Spirit will be free from any negative feeling and ready to follow in his march of progress and evolution. In this sense, forgiveness is undeniably an act of extreme charity, which comforts the forgiven and enlightens the forgiving.

An important aspect to be highlighted is that forgiveness, like every act that departs from the heart of man, as a spiritual being, can and must be learned and exercised during the different experiences in the corporeal plane, becoming a habit that, chiseled by the noblest moral values, becomes a feeling, incorporated into the Spirit as a perpetual and inviolable moral patrimony.

The way was left to us by Christ, in teaching us to "love God above all things and neighbor as you love yourself". Is it the process of reflecting on what God expects of us, the forgiveness or maintenance of pain and heartache? What would we like to receive if we were the offender, the forgiveness or the resentment and the pain?

Forgiveness, therefore, is a resolution of the heart, born of the Spirit, a decision to overcome the hurts, the pains, the wounds, to shake the dust and throw out all the filth and debris of the soul, in order to rebuild a new path, a new tomorrow, based on love and mercy for others.

 

5. Conclusion

The teaching of the Christ concerning the love of our enemies is undoubtedly one of the rich and most important of the Gospel, and remains unmistakably present and universal, like all the moral teachings of the Gospel.

Of course, this Christian postulate is not restricted only to those situations in which we are faced with capital, serious and bellicose enmities, but also, in the face of all the antipathies, malcontents, misfortunes and sorrows that we dedicate to someone else, or even cultivate in relation to us, which, to a greater or lesser degree, poisons the soul and creates an environment conducive to diseases of the Spirit that will reflect in the physical body.

Spiritism, as a scientific, philosophical and religious Doctrine, has greatly contributed to the dissemination and better understanding of such important subjects as the present one, in begging vital lessons of Christian morality, especially by the works of the Codex Allan Kardec, where we find explicit clearly that the love of God for the love of the neighbor, even the enemy, are the two main commandments of the Christ, moral definers that must prevail on our planet, on the way to the World of Regeneration.

In its feature of Revived Gospel, Spiritism revisits the teachings of the Christ and shows us that love, in its sublime manifestations, in the form of forgiveness and charity, is the true transformer of souls, which enables us to see and understand our enemies as brothers and sisters, and our problems and sufferings as steps of a divine ladder that allows us to elevate the Spirit in the direction of the possible perfection of our human condition.

Loving our neighbor and our enemies is therefore a personal choice and Spiritism calls us to decide still today, beginning at once to pave the way for the construction, in the soul, of the sublime and divine love to which we are all destined.

It is not a simple and difficult journey, but it is up to us Spiritists to raise our thoughts to the higher spheres with humility and devotion to God and to use love as a balm of good and charity towards our neighbor.

Thus, if "in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" (John, I: 1), Love is the Word, and living in love and consecration to others is an inescapable step to all who walk towards the necessary evolution of the Spirit.

 

References:

KARDEC, Allan. The g

Gospel According to Spiritism. Translation by Karine Rutpaulis. 6. ed. São Paulo: Mundo Maior Editora, 2012.

________. The Book of Spirits. Translation by Sandra Keppler. 6th Ed. Sao Paulo: Mundo Maior Editora, 2012.

link sobre perdão - Accessed on: 12/15/2017.

 

The author is a Police Officer in the State of São Paulo. Professor of the Police Academy "Dr. Coriolano Nogueira Cobra". Professor at the University Center Anhanguera Sao Paulo - Campos Vila Mariana. Teacher in preparatory courses for public tenders. Postgraduate in Criminal Law and Criminal Procedural Law. Student of the course of Spiritist Doctrine of the Spiritist Center Nosso Lar Casas Andre Luiz.

 


 

[1] Ibidem p. 164-165.

[2]The Book of Spirits, Question 702. Is the self-preservation instinct a law of Nature? "No doubt. All living beings possess it, whatever the degree of their intelligence. In some it is purely mechanical, in others it is rational". Question 703. With what purpose did God grant to all living beings the self-preservation instinct? "For all must collaborate in the designs of Providence. That is why God gave them the need to live. Life is necessary for the beings’ perfection; they feel it instinctively without even realizing it". KARDEC, Allan. The Book of Spirits. Translation by Sandra Keppler. 6th Ed. Sao Paulo: Mundo Maior Editora, 2012, p. 331.

[3] Ibidem, p. 164-165.

[4] Available in: https://goo.gl/7VZmEg.Accessed in: 12/15/2017.

[5] Ibid, p. 396.

[6]  Ibidem, p. 164. 



Translation:

Eleni Frangatos - eleni.moreira@uol.com.br


 

     
     

O Consolador
 Revista Semanal de Divulgação Espírita