Karma and Spiritualism
Karma and Spiritism are like oil and water: they do not mix. Be careful with people who preach the doctrine of karma within the spiritist environment, as the understanding of Spiritist Doctrine goes in the opposite direction: we are not incarnated to pay anything to anyone, because we owe nothing to anyone, much less to God!
We incarnate to experience our choices and learn from them, through trials and difficulties, but also through blessed opportunities, which is to have contact with Spiritism, which leverages our progress in many steps, when well understood and experienced.
Everything is part of our choices, including, most of the time, our way of dying. But in that there is no Karma. “But Paulo, so-and-so said that people burned to death at the Kiss nightclub because they killed others by burning other lives!”
Sorry to say, but so-and-so is almost completely wrong. What God would that be, who punishes ignorance in the same coin, in the fashion of Talion, in a way that teaches nothing to anyone? That said, I want to say: yes, there are Spirits that CHOOSE punishment, whether during life or in the way of dying, for BELIEVING in karma and not knowing how to deal with the guilt over their mistakes. We shall see this in Heaven and Hell, Part Two, Chapter VIII: having killed his walled-in wife in the preceding life, even though he had been forgiven by her, he PLANNED a horrible death in order to try to rid himself of this guilt. Look: planned! And needed? No, because in his current life, he was a good man, that is, he sought to LEARN to be a better person.
He understands? We are not here to pay debts, but to learn to be happier Spirits, through the smothering of our imperfections through learning! And this is often done through harsh penalties, including difficult contact with a person to whom, in the past, we have done some harm, and who, still suffering its effects, we try to help in a new incarnation. But, you see: it is a matter of conscious choice.
It is in this sense that the Earth is no longer a planet of trials and atonements to be a planet of regeneration, since the atonement consists precisely in the type of choice made by Antonio B, or by the murderer Lemaire (chapter VI), while better enlightened Spirits they choose not only to suffer in their skin, but rather better opportunities to learn. And, along with that, we come to the topic of education proposed by Pestalozzi, which is increasingly so necessary and important every day.
So, enough blaming yourself. It is clear: if we have done an evil that still exists at the moment our consciousness awakens about it, let us seek, yes, to repair it, but through work, and not through self-flagellation. And that goes for any moment, whether in the flesh or in erraticity. What really matters is learning, developing better habits, developing humility and charity. This does interrupt the cycle of evil and pain.