When you want to do good, action is undoubtedly essential, without forgetting that what really counts is the intention. Not because God is writing down intentions, but because it is what counts for the individual's learning or attachment. But we cannot forget that the ideal is to know what to do, so as not to do it wrong. Let's talk about Charity and Spiritism.

Speaking of the Spiritist Movement, we unfortunately have the practice of some who place themselves in judgment. On the one hand, some who limit themselves to accumulating knowledge for themselves criticize those who focus on practice. On the other hand, some, who limit themselves to action, unwilling to seek knowledge, they judge those who seek knowledge, as if knowledge were not useful. I'm here to show you that both extremes are wrong.

Hell is full of good intentions

There is a popular saying that says: “hell is paved with good intentions”. This means: wanting to do good, but not knowing what to do, one can produce evil. It is clear, of course, that there is no condemnation except by one's own conscience and that the individual who makes a mistake in wanting to do good will feel much less moral suffering than one who makes a mistake in wanting to do evil. But the fact that I highlight is that, to do good, the ideal is to know what you are doing, and that is why understanding Spiritism is so important for the real understanding of what charity is.

Some time ago, a group of young people got together to fulfill a friend's dream: jumping from bungee jump, which consists of attaching yourself to ropes and jumping from a high place. They got the ropes, tied their friend, who then jumped off a cliff, only to fall to the ground and die. The problem? They didn't know the science of what they were doing and didn't calculate the size of the rope well. I think about the guilt that each of them must carry even today.

Accumulating knowledge without doing anything

There are also individuals who focus on accumulating knowledge. But they apply this knowledge neither to themselves nor to the good of others: they only keep it for themselves, so that, whenever possible, they can prove that they know more than others. It is the height of pride and selfishness, but, one day, this knowledge will be useful for you to act when you regret your mistakes.

Report: elderly, poor and with eight children to look after

As a personal story, I can tell you about a spiritist center that I attended for many years. For as long as I can remember, the practice there has been focused on good, but according to the ideas that shape the current spiritist movement, as if it were a religion: attend the weekly “spiritist house” meeting, listen to the lecture, take a pass and leave . Once a month there is a mediumistic meeting to assist suffering Spirits. Outside of there, we don't talk about Spiritism, much less practice it. The Center is empty, because there is no greater interest. With much effort and overcoming enormous difficulties, the participants of the house promote a monthly event to deliver basic food baskets to families in need. And that's it. These families do not participate in household activities and do not know the real beauty of Spiritism. Leaving there, they go to other institutions and churches to look for more necessary items.

Once, when I happened to be present on that food basket delivery day, we noticed a lady who had been there for over two years. She was extremely sad. His situation: at almost 70 years old, he lost two of his children in different accidents. These children left her with a total of eight children, who she tried to support by collecting rubbish and counting on some help she got from here and there.

Disgusted with God

That day, this lady was desperate and angry with God. I couldn't accept this situation. He asked himself: “What God is this that allows such things?” Noticing this, my mother and I started talking to her especially. We managed to make her understand that these things happen, as part of the tests. What maybe whether it was something previously chosen or not, but, in any case, she was playing such an important role in the lives of these children, teaching them the example of love, dedication and, above all, giving them such important moral values. I told him: “these Spirits will be very grateful for your efforts”, which brought a new sparkle to his eyes.

Furthermore, we organized ourselves in different ways and obtained various donations, including mattresses, as the children slept on the floor.

From that day on, we saw a new energy dominate your Spirit. A new determination to face these difficulties dominated his being. She put aside her revolt, because something clear and simple met her reasoning.

The real face of Spiritism

This “something”, clear and simple, is Spiritism in its essence. Not this “spiritualism” with a small “e”, removed from Kardec's scientific studies and trapped by the most diverse errors born from the blind acceptance of the Spirits' opinions, almost always in mediumistic romances. No: the spiritism, philosophical doctrine, developed by the scientific method. “Spiritism is not a work that marches in the shadows. He is known; its principles are formulated clearly, precisely and without ambiguity” (Revista Espírita, March 1863).

Others could wrongly say that this lady would be “paying off” debts from past lives, which is fake ((Although she may have had past connections with these Spirits and, feeling indebted for something, chose to help them in this life, it is not about “paying off” something, but rather learning by helping.)) or Furthermore, these children were born in that environment to pay off their debts. They forget or are unaware that the Spirit also choose such situations for learning, and not just for expiations (the choices of Spirits who seek to detach themselves from an acquired imperfection). Furthermore, they do not reflect on what such words can do to an already disturbed mind.

The point here is not to say that one does more than the other or that one is better than the other. The point is: the Spiritist Movement, without the knowledge of Spiritism, became lame, incomplete, incapable of giving the true face of the Promised Comforter. Without knowledge, charity becomes mere welfare. Who knows, if in that opportunity given by God, we hadn't paid attention to that lady or hadn't been in a position to say something better, she might have continued to be angry or become even more bitter, perhaps taking regrettable actions, shaken by our words?

Without charity there is no salvation

When Kardec stipulated this standard of Spiritism, “outside of charity there is no salvation”, she was creating a counterbalance to the phrase of the Catholic Church, which said that “outside the Church there is no salvation”. But not only that: he exactly defined the principle of charity through Spiritism, as a means of salvation, being one's own effort to do good or return to it.

What is charity for Spiritism? And the moral duty. It is action for good, which does not expect rewards. And doing good is wanting to be useful to others, helping and being helped, learning and teaching. Now, how can you be really useful without knowing what you are doing? We could, wishing to be useful, tie ropes to someone else's legs, to push them off a cliff, without measuring the size of that rope.

I have always highlighted, because I went through this myself, as that lady also went through and as many others also went through: in the most difficult moments of our lives, in the most overwhelming ones, our conscience seeks rational answers to what we go through. And faith, as Kardec said, when it cannot face reason, weakens. Many move away from religion and any spirituality when it happens.

I repeat what Kardec said about Spiritism: “its principles are formulated clearly, precisely and without ambiguity“. It was the knowledge of these principles, acquired only after thirty three years living in the Spiritist Movement, which allowed me to give clear, simple and rational words to that lady. It was this knowledge that allowed me to get out of depression, through long and uninterrupted work of study.

Conclusion

What I intend to demonstrate, finally, is that Spiritism is a scientific doctrine that gives us the knowledge to make much less mistakes, doing good with more assertiveness and transmitting fewer wrong ideas. Today, I look back and see countless examples of people who moved away from the Spiritist Movement due to the false ideas that dominate this environment, which became a religion like all others.

Warm up a being that is cold; give him food so he doesn't succumb to hunger; water to quench your thirst: all are necessary and urgent acts of charity. But what about helping you change your inner dispositions through understanding, something that Spiritism achieves with unparalleled clarity? What about welcoming him, listening to his complaints, his pain, and then giving him an idea of a philosophy that allows him to see life in another way, clear and rational, as well as simple? After all, many who are in these conditions lack the will, often precisely because they believe they are like this because of punishment.

The original idea of Spiritism is much clearer, rational and forgiving. It reflects the goodness of divine justice. Charity, according to Spiritism, is something simple and profound: it consists of doing good without expecting a return. Moving away from this knowledge has made us unhelpful or even harmful in our speech and actions, even when we aspire to do good.

Charity: term so used everywhere, but still so misunderstood. What would be true Charity, according to Spiritism?

For us, spiritualists, it appears everywhere, in all literature. Kardec made it the necessary basis for any and all happiness, saying: “outside of charity there is no salvation”. The statement, of course, was born from a certain opposition to religious dogmatism, which tried to proclaim that salvation was in each sect, in an exclusivist and even selfish way, but it is still true, because, without charity, there is no love for others. .

However, the term charity has now taken on the connotation of welfarism, almost exclusively, becoming synonymous with material donation. But, so that we can really understand it within the spiritist context, we need to go back to the context of Allan Kardec, in France in the mid-1850s:

It is important to highlight that the term charity used by Kardec, for Rational Spiritualism, at that time (diverging from the current definition of the term, which is close to assistanceism), represented act from duty, that is, freely, consciously, intentionally, independently of punishments and rewards, with a full understanding of the moral law. Charity is a principle that guides the integral action of the being, and not a complementary activity, as if it were an accessory behavior. […].

Paulo Henrique de Figueiredo – The Legacy of Allan Kardec

We thus see that charity, properly understood, must constitute the to be, the way of proceeding, and not just consisting of isolated actions that, often, speak more to the need to be seen as a “charitable person”, a situation in which there is no real charity, but only ego and vanity. More than that, charity is not limited to material donations. In fact, I would say, it is, most of the time, opposite to material donation, since whoever donates materially, be it money, food, things, often does so as a form of relief of conscience.

The dear reader, forgive me, because the intention really is not judge anyone on their actions. Christ himself exemplified, in the “parable of the widow's mite”, that the real intention, or, if you like, faith, is the one who speaks the loudest. Many people donate money or other resources wanting to really doing good and, of course, that counts a lot. But how many times do we limit ourselves to making a material donation, without even reflecting on what we are doing and on the real situation of that person who asks us, in a [misleading] act, almost always, of releasing us from going beyond, or just to feel good?

Let's think: how many people use donations to, by reselling resources, obtain money to obtain drugs? How many people, having easy resources at their disposal, throw themselves into the worst vices and profligacy, digging deeper and deeper into the very hole in which they are sinking? Is giving to these people on a regular basis really helping their situations? Could it really be that if the rich simply gave away their fortunes, human misery would end?

By no means do I say that we should not donate material resources; but let us think further, analyzing each situation and seeking to be fraternal with the brother who seeks us, really caring about that person's situation. Often, a simple question like “why are you on the street, brother? What is going on?” can pave the way for a much more fruitful relationship that, let’s not forget, benefits both sides.

The individual who really wants to do good does not do charity once a month or a week: he It's kind, all the time. AND be charitable it consists in putting the other ahead of our own wants and needs. How many times, people going through the most difficult moments of their lives, find the strength to do charity by giving a smile to those who cry even more? My grandmother, for example, going through a serious and painful illness, found the strength to be sweet and affable, smiling at all who came to visit her in her last days of her last incarnation. Is this not a kind of charity – perhaps one of the greatest there is?

When we think, therefore, about charity, we must necessarily think about one thing: going further. If we donate something material, let this be just the door to creating a bond and an opening to deepen the relationship with the brother who may be in great suffering. But, above all, let us not forget that the greatest charity we can do to others is to bring them love, faith and consolation, especially through the example of someone who lives what they say and not just as someone who throws words to the wind.

It is, therefore, a kind of charity towards humanity that we strive for our own moral advancement, seeking to change ourselves in the light of what consoles us and, in our case, dedicatedly studying Spiritism, a doctrine that, many times in life, saved us from bad choices or led us to better paths. Let us learn to spread it without shocking, that is, without starting conversations talking about reincarnation and obsession, but, rather, presenting the very comforting philosophy found in this Doctrine.

We will then go out the gate and find people everywhere needing, desperately, for something that comforts them, that helps them get the thought of giving up from their heads, that helps them go through life's trials with unshakable faith and with firm resolve. They are almost always difficult people, due to the moment of crisis who live, and wouldn't it be greater charity to make an effort to help her, in a persistent and fraternal way, even knowing that, many times, we will experience difficulties in this initially difficult contact?

Believe me, brothers: we do charity much bigger leaving behind our imperfections and spreading consolations and knowledge that can change, forever, the direction of a Spirit, than just donating a “thing”, which he will use and discard, while we turn our backs and go on with our lives, without the desire to go beyond. After all, what's the point of donating a bag of rice to someone who asks at the gate when we're not charitable, even with our own family members or our subordinates at work?

I close by leaving the message of “A Protecting Spirit”, presented in chapter XIII of The Gospel According to Spiritism:

My friends, I have heard many among you say: How can I give charity, when I often do not even have the necessary?

Friends, in a thousand ways charity is done. You can do it by thoughts, by words and by actions. By thoughts, praying for the abandoned poor, who died without even being able to see the light. A prayer made from the heart relieves them. In words, giving your everyday companions some good advice, saying to those who despair, privations soured their spirits and led them to blaspheme the name of the Most High: “I was as you are; I suffered, I felt miserable, but I believed in Spiritism and, you see, now I am happy.” To the old people who tell you: “It's useless; I am at the end of my journey; I will die as I have lived”, say: “God deals equally with us all; remember the workers of the last hour.” To children already addicted to the company they have surrounded themselves with and who are going around the world, ready to succumb to evil temptations, say: “God sees you, my dear little ones”, and do not get tired of repeating these gentle words to them. They will eventually germinate in their childish intelligences and, instead of being vagabonds, you will make them men. This too is charity.

Others among you say, “Why! we are so numerous on earth that God cannot see us all.” Listen well, my friends: when you are on the top of the mountain, do you not look at the billions of grains of sand that cover it? Well then, in the same way God sees you. He lets you use your free will, as you let those grains of sand move with the wind that disperses them. Only God, in his infinite mercy, has placed in the depths of your hearts a watchful sentinel, which is called conscience. Listen to her, she will give you only good advice. Sometimes you manage to numb it by opposing the spirit of evil. She then shuts up. But rest assured that the poor banished woman will make herself heard as soon as you let her perceive the shadow of remorse. Listen to her, question her and you will often find yourself comforted by the advice you have received from her.

My friends, to each new regiment the general gives a standard. I give you this maxim of Christ as a motto: “Love one another.” Observe this precept, gather around this banner and you will have happiness and consolation. – A protective spirit. (Lyon, 1860.)