In our vocabulary self-denial has some meanings, but among
all, one stands out and was similarly applied by a French philosopher, Jean
Grenier: we must deny the world in order to understand. Born amid the
industrial revolution and having experienced two world wars, Grenier was able
to distance himself mentally and spiritually from his time in order to analyze
and understand it in its tragic issues, cry for justice and the mistakes of its
actions.
In our time there is also the need for emotional detachment
so that reason may occupy the space necessary to the understanding and to the
analysis without thoughtless impulses, and this reasoning shall be directed not
only to the global issues that affect us and interfere directly in the economy
of the country in which we live in, but mainly to personal and individual
issues. To deny implies carrying
over into a mental sphere different from the majority, leaving behind
immediacies grown by the pragmatic view of life and seeking eternal existential
values that lie dormant in our consciousness obscured by the frantic search for
momentary pleasures - to deny a banal existence in order to exist in full life,
although this implies revaluating behaviours, thoughts and choices.
The Gospel of Jesus revisited by Spiritism assures us of this
process - the difference between it and the proposals that life offers us is
that we can walk safely and with elevated feelings, towards a more lasting
feeling of happiness.
Sonia Theodoro da Silva - Bachelor in Philosophy
The Journal of
Psychological Studies - Year VII l Issue N° 36 l September and
October l 2014
Maria Novelli - English Translation Cricieli Zanesco - English Translation
