In medieval Europe the path to heaven was straight forward. You went to confession and a priest absolved you of your sins. If your crime was particularly horrendous, you paid the church a fee and walked away a blameless pure soul. The Catholic Church was the sole conduit to God. In other areas of the world there were pockets of greater enlightenment, but still the general inclination was for the priestly class to control their domain tightly.

In one of the books psychographed by Francisco (Chico) C. Xavier, Andre Luiz, the spirit who wrote a series of books about life in the spirit world, tells of an encounter with a woman dressed as if she was a wealthy landowner from the 18th century. She meets Andre, after she had been wandering in the Lower Zone for, what seems to her to be countless years, and complains about her experiences. She tells Andre that she had given regularly to the church and in her will she instructed her son to continue the gifts to insure a speedy path to heaven. She couldn’t understand her current predicament; after all she had been kinder than most to her slaves.

The poor soul had been misled. Her pastor had encourage her in believing that all will be made right with a little greasing of the palm of the person supposedly close to God. She had paid her dues, shown up on time every Sunday, sang the right songs, read the appointed words, and hated the people who all of her cohort of other upper class families also despised. What could have possibly gone wrong?

In one word, everything. She had the criteria for evaluation turned around. She concentrated on the outside. Dress, wealth, rituals, class and eating restrictions were the primary considerations. She did not understand that she could have dressed how she wished, loved who she wanted to love, and eaten what she desired, and never show up on Sundays and still ascend to a heavenly city. Outside accouterments are nothing compared to what is in inside.

Form is not good enough. Substance is what counts. The façade that most of us construct is transparent to the spiritual world. Whereas we feel safe if we maintain the appearance of respectability, secure in the knowledge that our thoughts are hidden to the outside world. This isn’t true to our spirit mentors. To them we aren’t automatons of actions, but radio towers of constant transmissions of thoughts.

In the spirit realm, thought is action and that is what we are being prepared for. As a spirit rises they become less dense, less composed of physical matter and more and more pure energy. Hence, the purpose of successive reincarnation is to modify our ratiocination processes. To put it simply, our objective is to learn to think good constructive thoughts in every circumstance and to maintain our spiritual harmony at all times.

On paper it sounds easy, in practice, with a multitude of external factors assaulting you at once, your job, your spouse is not well, the credit card that is overdue the task is daunting. Throw in emotional bursts such as a cheating boyfriend or girlfriend, office gossip and worse, the ability to control your balance is ruthlessly tested. Imagine the scenes of World War II movies of young men in boot camp, crawling under barbwire with the sadistic drill sergeant firing live ammo from his machine gun and you get an idea of the scope of training that we are in, right at this moment.

Nevertheless, you are expected to keep your head down and to keep crawling forward. Leaving prematurely is extremely frowned upon. Therefore, what are you slogging through the mud for? In a word, heaven. No, not the heaven of eternal bliss and never-ending life of luxury where nothing is ever demanded of you, but of a place you have frequently dreamed about.

Have you ever worked in an atmosphere with co-workers who care about the job they are performing and all energy is expended on providing good service? Where managers are caring individuals who are committed to excellence and to your welfare. A place in which your health is never in doubt and growing old is not a concern. And you are working at what you are passionate about is what heaven really is.

There are many levels of heaven in the spirit realm and I am presenting to you just the first, the lowest level of life in a celestial city. Hate, envy and avarice are absent. Colors are brighter and the architecture is blissful. It is a place where the main aim is to help the souls on earth, incarnates and discarnates (spirits who roam around earth in an errant state) to achieve the state of mind where they to may ascend.

Spirits in this stage of heaven continue to work to improve themselves and to prepare to return to earth to carry on the long march to become a pure spirit. Not only do they seek to climb up the ladder in spirituality but to also help move the entire planet to the next level.

Someday, the earth will truly be a paradise. War, hunger and social discord will gradually disappear as more and more good souls populate our blue planet. Reincarnation on earth will be a pleasure, a chance to take on more complicated assignments in a positive atmosphere.

What does this mean to us, attempting to survive in our dog eat dog culture? The spirit world is telling us, that sacrificing the dictates of your conscience, acting dishonorable, taking advantage of others is never, I will repeat, never worth the temporary gain against the failure to ascend.

Living in the penthouse, drinking thousand dollar bottles of wine and cruising the Mediterranean in a private yacht are mere moments compared to the infinite life span of a spirit. Therefore, analyze your behavior and contemplate how you can improve to increase the love in your heart, your willingness to assist others and your capacity for charity and understanding. I promise this will be time well spent.

Find out how to live the life presented to us by the spirit world by reading my book about my own discovery of Spiritism. I learn the basic principles upon which we live our daily routines and how much love and care goes into our eventual success. My book is called 7 Tenets of Spiritism – How They Impact Your Daily Life.