- Wow, I'm glad I woke up... What a weird dream! I dreamed that when I died it was all over! Nothing was real! I couldn't see anything, didn't feel anything, didn't believe in anything, just realized that I was somewhere, that it wasn't possible to describe because this place was the nothingness ...

The feeling that the nothingness exists continued to stun the young man who sought help from his Spiritist friend. They started chatting and the young man had a bewildered expression on his face.

- Ivan, I can't say what I felt. It was really weird! I had the impression that I was awake, but there was nothing and not even I existed! How is this possible?

Ivan, the Spiritist friend, remembered the reflections developed by Allan Kardec in the first chapter of Heaven and Hell – or Divine Justice according to Spiritism, and started talking to Dimitri.

- My dear Dimitri - Ivan addressed the young man - you took me to the teachings of a French master, born in Lyon, who, like many thinkers, went unnoticed by the general public for dealing with subjects that were exclusive to religions, such as continuity of life. This master is called Allan Kardec.

- But isn't this Allan Kardec the head of Spiritism? I don't know if I want to talk about these things... just imagining it gives me the creeps... (Little did Dimitri know that the shivers were not due to the topic but to the possible presence of a spiritual friend who was also interested in the dialogue between them. It smiled inside, Ivan!)

- Dimitri, I would never approach a subject that hurt your religious preferences or that forced you to an understanding contrary to your beliefs! You have always trusted me and in the name of that trust I make these comments. These are just reflections! I will not try to convince you, my friend! We learned, with Kardec, that the river is not rushed, nor are consciences violated to assert a truth or what we understand to be the truth, after all, we live in the field of relativity, that is, everything we understand about the truth or freedom and even the continuity of life is observed from the relative condition in which we find ourselves in the face of the whole.

Dimitri looked somewhat suspiciously at Ivan, but remembered that he had been looking for Ivan, not by chance. - All right, Ivan. You're right. Sorry if I was prejudiced. I think it was a natural reflex, because every time I tried to talk about this subject with someone, the ideas were always choppy, dogmatic, loaded with mysticism and I started to avoid. I don't think the Spiritist is like that!

- Let's take it easy, Dimitri, warned smiling Ivan! Why do you believe that the Spiritist is not like that? Of course there can be Spiritists like that too! Every religious, to a greater or lesser degree, likes to talk about what is good for him and the Spiritist is not different. Many try to convince people of the continuity of life, of the mysteries that are clarified by Spiritism and, when they do so, they do it out of pure impulse like other religious people. Therefore, all prudence is welcome when the subject involves religion. I don't know if you, young people, have this saying, but in my time it was said, “Slow down with the litter, because the Saint is made of clay”! The Spiritist is no better than any other religious. He is, like other religious people, an individual who holds in his hands the key to being a better person, but who, like others, struggles to tame his evil inclinations and therefore has the religion he embraces as the tool capable of satisfying his needs and clarify them in the face of life's challenges.

- That is interesting, Ivan! If I understand correctly, we embrace religions that can help us to be better human beings, isn't that right?! By the way, maybe that's also why many people are not religious, in the common sense of the word, but their attitudes reveal a superior, noble and more befitting behavior than many religious... isn't that so?! Well done, my young Dimitri! Brilliant reflection!!! If we all understood that way, life would be more fraternal for everyone! There would not be so much prejudice about the religion of others and religion would not feed the division as it happens today!

But let's go back to what you said at the beginning about the dream, Dimitri. I think that talking about the dream itself, maybe it's not that simple, so I'll go straight to the point where you talk about the “nothingness”.

This idea of the "nothingness" after disincarnating – i.e.: the expression used by Spiritists for "death" is "disincarnate" (the physical body dies, the Spirit disincarnates, leaves the flesh and returns to the spiritual world) is fed by most religions that have become materialistic, that is, more concerned with life on Earth than with the connection or "reconnection" of man to God. Even the idea of ​​ “reconnection” is a little outmoded, after all, if we are children of God, we never cease to bond with Him. The idea of​​"reconnection" is fueled by the "fall of the Spirit", when it is believed that human beings have fallen into "disgrace" for so many mistakes and "sins" that, to return to God, to "reconnect" to God, they need to adopt behavior in accordance with this or that religious principle. There are some inconsistencies in religious thought, which we call “dogmatic thinking”, because they are principles and “truths” that are not questioned, because they were not built based on reason but on the ideas of each religion.

This "nothingness", then, ends up being another one of these "dogmas" (philosophy also has these "dogmas" and "nihilism" is one of them!), like the dogma of waiting for the day of "doomsday", on the right of the throne or “burning in the marble of hell”. - Hmmm... you mean then that the “doomsday” doesn't exist, Ivan?! - If there is, Dimitri, in the Spiritist view, it is not interpreted that way.

I'm not going to do like many Spiritists, Dimitri, who find answers to everything or who "know everything", but only in theory, since, in practice, they continue with their struggles in the face of moral problems. What I remember about the “doomsday”, in reality, is an intimate understanding, a kind of “awakening of conscience” when we arrive in the spiritual world, we realize the way we lived and what we did while incarnated. This “doomsday” is expressed for each one differently and this means that it can be both a good thing, as well as another learning opportunity, to better understand what we would need to do and correct in each existence.

That's why I remembered Kardec, Dimitri: life doesn't end with death. Death is a process that belongs to the cycle of life. We are born, we develop, we reach maturity and then we enter into a process of preparation to return to the spiritual world.

This preparation process varies from individual to individual. The natural, the process that should happen naturally to everyone is the depletion of vital forces until the end. What we call an outcome is the “undoing” of the bond between spirit and matter. This bond is fluid, energetic. What happens in "sleep" is similar to the outcome! – You mean then, Ivan, that I “undo” (sic) every day, Dimitri wondered?! - Yes – said Ivan laughing heartily - that's right, my friend! - Boy... in such a short time, how many reflections, Ivan! You Spiritists are very smart!!!

Smiling, Ivan warned again: - Be careful, friend Dimitri! “Slow down with the bed...” We, Spiritists, are not very intelligent! We will be considered intelligent when we truly manage to put into practice the teachings of the Spiritist Doctrine! Up to now, the vast majority of us have understood the teachings. The challenge has been to experience what we know in theory!

- Dimitri, can you imagine, everything we learned here on Earth, all the loves, friends, experiences, readings, music, travels, all of this disappearing forever?! That trip that you've been looking forward to all your life, that you saved money, carefully planned, enjoyed, recorded, photographed, published on social media, and suddenly it all gets lost, ends and nothing makes sense anymore?! Would it be fair? That God would be the one who would allow us to go through so many years studying, embracing a profession, dedicating ourselves, striving to avoid suffering, overcoming anger, sadness and melancholy, for what? For nothing?

Dimitri thought with his eyes lost in the horizon as Ivan continued. - Which God would be this one who would create an experience on Earth, only on Earth, so that in sixty, seventy or eighty years, we could build bonds, miss our departed loved ones and never meet again?

- My friend Dimitri, let's think together: this God, who allows children with physical disabilities to be born, some in opulence, many in poverty, suffering prejudice, lack of supplies, poor health, for what? For the simple pleasure of making your children “suffer”? Why do some suffer more than others?

- My dear Dimitri, forgive me the excitement, but I refuse with all my strength to believe that God is unfair. God is not human. God is the first cause of all things. Everything came from Him. Nothing He has built is imperfect, so because of everything we see of the Divine creation and everything we feel, even without seeing, I would say to the friend that it would not be credible, rationally, humanly credible that life would cease with death. There is, after life in the earthly world, a universe to explore, which unfolds with new colors with each rebirth here on Earth.

- So, my noble friend, paraphrasing the poet, “I have so much to tell you, but with words I can't say…” – what I do know is that the Future is being built now and as for the nothingness … well. The nothingness will be left for our next dialogue, because Kardec says that the nothingness does not produce anything..., so how can you think that you died, feel that you died, go to the "nothingness", being that nothingness doesn't exist and come back with impressions that “you didn't see anything”? That the “nothingness” you “saw” would be something, isn’t it?!

- Ivan, I thought you would help me with answers, but instead you're filling me with questions! I don't know these answers!

- Calm down, Dimitri, my friend, maybe we can find them together?