Wednesdays in Chicago - Reincarnation and Suffering

Planning for Reincarnation

No reincarnation just happens as a completely random series of events. If allowed, we plan our reincarnation in the spiritual world.  Our entire life in the material world is not planned out, as that would remove our free will. The planning is based on the moral and intellectual progress we made throughout our previous existences (what we need to repair from our past, and the opportunities we need to test our prior learning). This planning may include the family that will receive our spirit, the body into which our spirit will incarnate (including any tendencies toward certain illness, deformities, etc), and other significant events and persons that are needed as part of the spirit's earthly existence. 

As spirits, we are always assisted in this planning by spirit mentors of a higher level. The level of our involvement in this planning depends on our development. There are some spirits who know nothing about their coming incarnation in advance.  This is a result of their stage of evolution, or it may be a form of correction, the moral state of the spirit, or rebelliousness that makes this necessary. 

Spirits who are aware of their coming incarnation often experience a significant degree of anxiety from the uncertainty about the outcome of the trials they will undergo. The population of discarnate spirits is much greater than that of incarnate spirits, so those who are resentful of their mistakes and eager to make amends must often wait in a long line behind others also awaiting their turn. The eventual union of the soul with a material body (of the child to be born), is possible because of the perispirit, which serves as a tie between the spirit and the body matter. 

What Happens During Childhood?

A child's spirit before the age of 7 is influenced by those who are entrusted with his or her care and education. The influence of the spirit’s past has not fully emerged, so the new impressions that the spirit receives have a greater chance of having an effect on the child's personality. During this time, our tendencies toward wrong-doing, (brought with us by our spirit), are redirected, and the spirit's faulty characteristics may be gradually reformed by the impressionable values of the parents.

Question 385 of Kardec’s The Spirits' Book asks, "Why does the character of young people change, especially as they go through adolescence? Is it the spirit that changes?" 

The answer is, "the spirit, as it regains self-awareness, reveals itself as it was before incarnation.... After fifteen or twenty years, children no longer need [the same degree of protection and assistance from their parents], and their real characters begin to emerge." At this point, the young person makes his way toward adulthood where he will truly be able to exercise his free will and chose the direction that his life will take. Hopefully, the individual has received a proper education from his parents, one that will help him make good decisions along the way. 

Kardec writes in The Gospel As Explained by the Spiritist Doctrine (items 59-60), "Our forgetfulness of our past lives, especially the painful ones, offers a striking example of the wisdom and goodness of God. Only on the most advanced worlds, where the memory of our painful lives will be no more than the shadowy memory of a bad dream, will we be able to recover the memory of our past in its entirety. On the contrary, in worlds such as ours, the memory of past miseries would only magnify our present hardships. Such considerations lead us to conclude that whatever has been created by God is for the best."

The Meaning of our Suffering

Suffering is an inevitable part of life in the material world. Spiritism helps us to understand the causes of suffering and how we should respond in order to benefit from it.

There are two kinds of suffering on Earth. The first kind of suffering is that which comes from our present-day life. This suffering accounts for most of our problems, and it comes from our own faults (For example: pride, selfishness, arrogance, or thoughtlessness; our lack of discipline or perseverance; or a lack of tolerance, patience, and charitableness).

Through our own poor choices, negative conduct, and unhealthy attitudes, we become, as Kardec says, "the architects of our own troubles." As a result, individuals suffer, families suffer, and consequently, the society we live in suffers. When we are experiencing moments of disappointment and loss, a careful study of the situation and of our own conscience will often lead us to the conclusion that if a particular choice of action in the past had only been different, the situation of the present moment would also be a different one. 

The other kind of suffering comes from a previous life, usually the consequence of a prior wrong-doing(s) or poor choice(s). Every action has its consequence, and thus, every infraction of natural law will bring a corresponding repercussion - so our present-day suffering may be related to the pain and problems we once brought to others. But the suffering might also be a result of something we did in this lifetime.  The consequences of our actions are felt in the same lifetime to serve as a warning, to hopefully lead us to change a particular attitude or behavior and make amends with someone we have wronged. When do not acknowledge such warnings, or we recognize our errors after it is too late, we complete that existence without feeling the consequences of our actions.  So we must eventually experience them through the opportunity of another reincarnation.  Because we do not remember what we have done in a previous life, Kardec writes, "If we can't find the wrong-doing in this life, it must have taken place in the previous one."

It is important to point out that not every case of suffering indicates a previous wrongdoing. Sometimes, before incarnating, spirits who are at an appropriate level of advancement request certain experiences as a way to help in their purification and to accelerate their progress. Still, as Kardec points out, the need for such trials and purification still indicates our imperfection. These cases can usually be recognized by the calm and resigned mindset with which the spirit undergoes the trial selected, asking only that God may give them the strength and patience to handle the difficulty. The opposite of these spirits are those whose suffer the consequence of a wrongdoing  with moaning and protest, resistance, and sometimes contempt toward God. This sort of despair and complaint causes us to waste valuable opportunities for growth, and we risk having to start over once again. Understanding the existence and implications of our multiple lives is important, as it gives us the motivation to react to our trials with a calm resignation and to view them "as opportunities to correct wrongs of the past and to heal our spirit", which is the only path to spiritual purification.

(To read more, see Chapter 5 of The Gospel As Explained By The Spiritist Doctrine)