A spiritual perspective on the destructive scourge

In the short period in which this magazine exists – from 2007 to now – there were reviewed here several natural scourges, since Áquila incident until the later struck in New Zealand, and still the theme continues in the face of the earthquake followed by tsunami that struck Japan last week.

We said timely that the tragedies in our world continue impressive regularly, only it had modified the affected sites, such it has been reminding us that we must take care with greater intensity of the goals that bring us to the world, getting bogged down in too much of a material concerns, by nature transitory and fleeting.

The tsunami scenes observed in Japan dragging boats, cars and houses with a rapacity unusual, was impressive and showed us once again how we are fragile in face of these events and how value low has the goods whose acquisition consumes time and money.

At the time of the codification of spiritism, natural scourges were also quite regular, although the length of the media did not allow the world knowing about them instantly, as it is the case nowadays.

The theme was obviously handled by Kardec in his dialogues with the immortals. The subject can be seemed at questions from 737 to 741 The Spirit’s Book, where we can extract important information which we synthesized:

1. The destructive scourges have an immensely purpose from physical point of view. They sometimes change the state of a country, but the good that results from them is often one that will be felt by future generations.

2. These events are opportunities of men exercising their intelligence, proving their patience and their resignation to the will of God and of displaying their feelings of abnegation, disinterestedness and Love for their neighbour, if they are not under the dominion of selfishness.   

3. The destructive scourges make mankind advance more quickly. So, the destruction is a necessity in order to regenerates spirits moral.

4. It must see its aims in face of these processes to be possible to evaluate its results. We regard those inflictions as calamities, only because we judge them from our personal point of view and due to the damages caused.

5. But such upsettings are needed in order to reach more quickly a better order of things and to effect in a few years what it would be taken centuries to accomplish.

6. Getting improvement of mankind, God does other things and not only destructive scourges, because He has given to everyone the means of progressing through knowledge of good and evil. The man profits so little by those means that it becomes necessary to chastise his pride and to make him feel his weakness.

7. Many men succumb during these occasions, both the good man and the wicked. However, body life is a very small matter, it is but the length of a flash in eternity.

8. Bodies are only the disguises tinder which we make our appearances in the corporeal world. In the great calamities that decimate the human race, the sufferers are like an army that in the course of a campaign sees its clothing tattered, worn out or lost. But the general is more anxious about his soldiers, than about their coats.

9. If we considered an earthly life as it is in itself, and how small a thing it is in comparison with the life of infinity, we would attach to it much less importance.

10. Whether the death be the result of a public calamity or of an ordinary cause, none the less compelled to go when the departure hour struck. The only difference is that, in former case, a greater number go away at the same time.

11. In another existence, those victims will find an ample compensation for their sufferings, IF they have borne them without murmuring.

12. If we could raise our thoughts sufficiently to contemplate the human race as a whole and to take in the whole of its destiny at a glance, the scourges that now seem so terrible would appear to us only as passing storms in the destiny of the globe.

13. One day will be man’s power to avert the scourges that afflict him but not as is generally supposed. Many of those scourges are the consequence of his want of foresight. In proportion as he acquires knowledge and experience, he will become able to avert them if he hás ascertained their cause.

14. Among the ills that afflict humanity, there are some of general nature which, are imposed by the decrees of Providence, and the effect of which is felt, more or less sensibly, by each individual. To these, man can oppose nothing but his resignation to the divine will.  

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In face of such clear and objective considerations, we can only send to people in Japan and the countries devastated by more this episode our vibrations and our prayers, so that everyone – us and them – can draw from these moments of pain new forces to continue the task that competes in the world where we are for now.