Moral embellishment 

Part 1

Our soul is our capital and fruitful work, which surpasses in greatness all partial manifestations of art, science and genius

"Focus yourself and do as the sculptor makes the work that

he wants to embellish: chip away the superfluous, lighten up the obscure,

diffuse light throughout everything and do not let go of the chisel."

- Michelangelo.

Leon Denis says [1]: "One must suffer to acquire and conquer. The acts of sacrifice increase the psychic radiations. There is something like a luminous wake that follows in space, the Spirits of heroes and martyrs.

Those who have not suffered can barely understand these things because in them only the surface of the being has been ploughed, valued... There is a lack of breadth in their hearts, outpouring of their feelings; their thought only covers narrow horizons. One needs misfortunes and anxieties to give the Soul his velvety, his moral beauty to awaken his sleeping senses. The painful life is like the still where beings are distilled for better worlds. The shape, as the heart, everything is embellished by having suffered. There is already in this life a certain je ne sais quoi of seriousness and depth in the faces that tears have ploughed many times. They take a look of austere beauty, a kind of majesty that impresses and seduces.

(...) Our soul is our work, in fact, capital and productive work, which surpasses in greatness all partial manifestations of art, science and genius. However, the difficulties of execution are correlative to the splendour of the goal and, face-to-face with the arduous task of inner reform, the ceaseless battle fought with the passions, with matter, how many times is not the artist discouraged? How many times does he not abandon the chisel? It is then that God sends aid: pain! It boldly digs into the depths of consciousness to which the hesitant and awkward worker could not or did not know how to reach; it clears up the recesses, shapes its contours; eliminates or destroys what was worthless or bad and from the cold marble, shapeless, with no beauty, from the ugly and coarse statue that our hands had barely drafted, it gives rise over time to a living statue, an unparalleled masterpiece, harmonious shapes and soft Divine Psyche.

Pain does not only hurt the guilty. In our world, the honourable man suffers as much as the bad, which is explainable. Firstly, the virtuous soul is more sensitive for being in a more advanced degree of evolution; then he esteems many the times and often seeks pain, for he knows all its value.

There are those souls who come to this world only to give the example of greatness in suffering; they are, in turn, missionaries and their mission is no less beautiful and less moving than the great revealers' souls. They are at all times and occupy all areas of life; they are standing at the glittering peaks of History and to find them, we need to seek them in the middle of the crowd where they are, hidden and humble.

Many souls, out of modesty, hide painful wounds

We admire Christ, Socrates, Antigonus, Joan of Arc; but how many unknown victims of duty or love fall every day and are buried in the silence of oblivion!  However, their examples are not lost. They illuminate the entire life of the few men who witnessed them.

For a life to be thorough and fruitful, it is not necessary that great acts of sacrifice over-abound it, nor that a death re-kills it to sacre it in the eyes of all. Such an existence, apparently blurred and sad, shadowy and unnoticed, is actually an ongoing effort, a struggle at every moment against misery and suffering.   We are not judges of everything that happens in the secret parts of the souls; many, out of modesty, hide painful wounds, cruel evils, which would make them so interesting to our eyes as the most celebrated martyrs.

Make them also grand and heroic these souls, the uninterrupted combat that they fight against fate! Their triumphs remain ignored, but all the treasures of energy of generous passion, patience and love that they accumulate in each day's effort will provide them with a wealth of strength, moral beauty which may, in addition, make them equal to the noblest figures in History.

In the solemn workshop, where souls are forged, suffice not genius and glory to make them truly famous. To give them the last sublime trace, pain has always been necessary. If certain existences have become, for obscure they were, so holy and sacred like celebrated dedications, it is because in them there was continuous suffering. It was not only one time in such a circumstance, or at death, that the pain raised them above themselves and presented them to the admiration of centuries; it was throughout all their lifetime which was a constant sacrifice. And this work of long perfecting, this slow parading of painful hours, this mysterious tuning of beings that prepare themselves this way for the ultimate rises, force the admiration of the Spirits themselves. It is this enchanting show that inspires them to want to be reborn amongst us in order to suffer and die again for everything that is great, for all that they love and, with this new sacrifice,  make brighter their own radiance " .

Perfection is, therefore, our goal

Allan Kardec teaches [2]: "The true Spiritist can be recognized by their moral transformation and by the efforts they employ to dominate their evil instincts."

One reads in Luke [3]: "There will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance." This is because the evolution of the Spirit, his improvement, his moral embellishment, is ultimately a sign of progress. The Spirit, signalling his willingness to get it right, causes - immediately - unspeakable joys to those who have already triumphed over the lower stages of the evolutionary process. Perfection is therefore our goal, as Jesus pointed out in calling [4]: "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

Joanna de Angelis warns and at the same time encourages us on the mishaps that we may have ahead, urging us, however, towards perseverance [5]: "(...) the evolutionary road is sprouted in stabbing and venomous thorns, overrun with steely prods. (...) But whatever the depressing or aggrieving factors that arise inviting you to cultivate pessimism or irritability, should not find shelter in your mental panels.   

Pain and yearning gauge the strength of the moral value of each one of us. Disembodiment and illness are natural phenomena in the biological process in which you are located. Problems and difficulties represent the test with which we will grow throughout life. Thus accomplish the mental asepsis for the preservation of optimism and boundless confidence in God. "

Study the Spiritist Doctrine and also study yourself

"(...) Exercise the evangelical experience and guide the ideas and aspirations onto the Christian guideline. Trust in time and do not grieve for the rushed effects. Tune yourself with Good so that the noble Spirits cherish your effort. Stimulate your inner life cultivating reflection and prayer so that you may abstract yourself, when necessary, from the turmoil and trouble without fanfare, maintaining psychic balance.

You will face countless hindrances. But if you win those problems that lie in yourself, you will overcome the others which will appear minor and less significant.

(...) Do not disregard the priceless values of Christian service in your process of spiritual renewal. Do not ignore the contribution of suffering while programming your intimate growth. Do not underestimate the testimonies of resignation and humility in an effort towards personal liberation. Do not scorn the moral pitfalls in the refuge of the flesh during the spiritist learning. Do not neglect the contribution of study and meditation in the face of the commitments of your own evolution. Do not excuse yourself from work no matter how insignificant or more expressive it is, for it is a challenge to your convenience, during the climbing to your progress. Do not weaken as an apprentice, placed as you are in the process of spiritual education.

Committed to life, coach yourself in the terrestrial school, under disciplines needed for growth and the achievement of peace. Hindered to the rear by unfortunate ties, you experience the constrictions on which you depend, although longing for freedom.

Act while it is still today. Help beyond your limit. Grow for the detachment of yourself and help those who retain you in the labyrinth of troubles. You do not march alone, without the companions with whom you tune in because of the past, as well as the goals that fascinate your mind and feeling.

Raise the standards of your aspirations and work the soil of your desires spreading the light of love, so that love responds to you with peace before each move of sacrifice and struggle; observe the springs of feeling and do not tire of learning, teaching and living the lesson of optimism that transpires from the word of the Lord.

One day, you will bless all this effort and, by practicing it from now, you will realise that true happiness comes as a soft star light that reaches fullness and absorbs all the shadow and sadness; a festival of blessings for the Spirit.”                                             

The enlightened Spiritist does not begin by believing; he believes because he understands

According to the Master from Lyon [6], "Humanity is still in the infancy of its work of moral progress. There will be the cause of its greatest commotions. Until humanity be sufficiently advanced toward perfection by intelligence and the practice of the Divine Laws, greater perturbation will be caused by man rather than by nature; that is to say, there will occur social and moral, rather than physical changes."

Kardec proceeds [7] : "In order for men may be induced diligently to effect their own purification, to repress their evil tendencies, and to vanquish their worldly passions, they must see the advantages that such a line of action will secure to them in the future life; so that they may be able to identify themselves with that future life, to concentrate their aspiration upon it, and to prefer it to the life of the Earth, they must not only believe in its existence, but must also understand it. They must be able to contemplate it under an aspect that must be in harmony with their reason and their common sense, and with their highest idea of the greatest, goodness and justice of God. Of all the philosophical doctrines hitherto presented to the human mind, Spiritism is the one that exercises, in this respect, the most powerful influence, through the immovable faith that it gives to those who really comprehend its scopes and teachings

The enlightened Spiritist does not begin by believing; he believes because he understands, and he understands because the principles of Spiritism approves themselves to his judgement; the future life is a reality that is displayed incessantly before his eyes and which he sees and touches, so to say, every moment; consequently, no doubt in regard to it can enter his soul. The short span of his present life seems as nothing to him in comparison with the spirit-life of eternity, which he sees to be his veritable life. He therefore attaches but little importance to the incidents of the road and he meets with resignation the vicissitudes of which he comprehends both the cause and the utility. His soul is raised above the trials and troubles of his earthly existence by the direct relationships that he cultivates with the invisible world around us, the fluidic links that connect him with matter are thus gradually weakened, and a partial loosening of those links, effected during the course of his present existence, facilitates his passage from the life of the Earth to the life of the spirit-world. The mental clouding inseparable from the transition, is of brief duration in his case, because as soon as he crossed the threshold of the spirit-world, he knows where he is; nothing in that world seems foreign to him; he perfectly understand the situation in which he finds himself.

Spiritism, assuredly, is not indispensable to the obtaining of this result, and it has no pretension to be the sole agent for securing the well-being of the soul in the other life. It must be confessed, however, it facilitates the attainment of that well-being through the knowledge it gives us, through the sentiments it inspires, and through the determination that it awakens in the minds of all who have sincerely accepted its principles, to labour unremittingly for the mental and moral advancement."

(This article will be concluded in the next issue of this magazine)

[1] - DENIS, Leon. O Problema do Ser, do Destino e da Dor. (The Problem of Being, of Fate and Pain). Rio [de Janeiro]: FEB, 2008, 3rd. part, chap.26.

[2] - Kardec, A. in "The Gospel According to Spiritism - Ch XVII, item 4

[3] - Lk., 15:7.

[4] - Mt, 5:48.

[5] - FRANCO, Divaldo. Alerta (Warning).Salvador: LEAL, 1982, ch. 10, 42 and 45.

[6] - KARDEC, Allan.The Genesis. 1st.edn. New York: The Spiritist Alliance for Books/Spiritist Group of New York, 2003, ch. IX, item 14. http://www.sgny.org

[7] - KARDEC, Allan. Heaven and Hell. 1st.edn. New York: SAB/SGNY, 2003, I, items 14 and 15 of the 2nd part. http://www.sgny.org