149- What does the soul become at death?
“It becomes a spirit again; i.e. it returns to the world of spirits that it had left for a time.”
150- Does the soul preserve its individuality after death?
“Yes, it never loses it. What would the soul be if it did not preserve its individuality?”
– How does the soul preserve its individuality if it no longer has a material body?
“It still has a fluid proper to it, which it draws from its planet, and which retains the appearance of its last incarnation: the perispirit.“
– Doesn’t the soul take anything else from this world?
“Nothing more than its memories and the desire to go to a better world. These memories are full of sweetness or bitterness, depending on how the soul has lived its earthly life. The purer it is, the more it will comprehend the futility of what it has left behind on earth.”
151- What about the opinion that the soul returns to the universal whole after death?
“Don’t all the spirits taken together make up a whole?
When you are in a group, you are an integral part of it, and yet you still retain your own individuality.”
152- What evidence is there for the soul’s individuality after death?
“Don’t you have such evidence through the communications you receive? If you were not blind, you would see; if you were not deaf, you would hear, because frequently a voice speaks to you and reveals to you the existence of a being outside yourselves.”
Those who think the soul returns to the universal whole at death are wrong if they mean that it loses its individuality like a drop of water falling into the ocean. Nevertheless, they are right if by universal whole they mean the entire assemblage of incorporeal beings, of which each soul or spirit is a member.
If souls were melded together into the universal whole, they would possess only the qualities of the whole and nothing would distinguish them from one another; they would have no intelligence or qualities of their own. However, in all their communications with us, they have revealed a consciousness of the self and a distinct will. The infinite diversity they display under all aspects is evidence of their individualization. If there were nothing after death except what is called the Great Whole, absorbing all individualities, that whole would have to be homogenous, and the communications received from the invisible world would therefore all have to be identical. It is obvious that we are dealing with distinct beings, for we meet good and evil, knowledgeable and ignorant, happy and downcast beings of all natures: joyful and sad, frivolous and serious, etc. Individuality becomes even more obvious when these beings prove their identity through unmistakable signs and verifiable personal details related to their earthly lives. Furthermore, there can be no doubt about such individuality when they manifest as apparitions. The individuality of the soul has been taught theoretically as an article of faith, but Spiritism makes it obvious, and to a certain extent, material.
153- In what sense should we understand the eternal life?
“Only the life of the spirit is eternal; the life of the body is transitory and temporary. When the body dies, the soul returns to the eternal life.”
– Wouldn’t it be more correct to understand the eternal life as that of the pure spirits, who no longer undergo trials because they have finally attained perfection?
“That indeed represents eternal happiness, but it is all a matter of words. You may call things whatever you want as long as you understand the words you use.”
Site Espírita 