Pilgrimage of the soulA little drop, the minimal part,
As blood circulates from the heart,
Our life stems out of Divinity,
Flowing in space for eternity.
Earth is a place of test and suffering;
It shelters our pains, our crying;
It is our hell, our place of freedom,
Where our past returns in right proportion.
Thus, each of us leaving behind this globe
Elevates more or less to reach another orb.
Depending on the impurity that contains
The creature evolves or here in chains remains.
Fact is that nobody is chosen
Before atoning the bad deeds,
If bitter remorse, prayer, and pain
Have not exalted goodness above the weeds.
Like a wandering spirit, still stained and filthy,*
A new body incorporates to feel the pain,
Reborn to virtue in a human family,
To improve, refine and die once again.
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* This fifth stanza is missing in the original for the month of September, later corrected by Allan Kardec in November of the same year.
It is out of devotion that chosen souls
Incarnate among us, by the Almighty’s will,
Servants of a good Father, preaching us
The law of love, and our bodies heal.
Once the sacred mission is over
God soon assigns them with a task of
Heavenly grade from where the higher
Souls sing in the infinite choir of love.
Thus, when our trials one day end
And through love we reach sacred regions,
Triumphantly our hearts will lend
More righteousness to the noble legions.
There, oh happiness, the grace
Of God reunites us with our loved ones;
In a holy encounter we embrace
One another, blessed sons.
Through sublime and beauty our transformation;
We are then transferred to the sacred city
Where there is true appreciation
For the conquered treasure: we are happy!
From the graded worlds, following the immense scale,
Through many lives we grow; no more devils,
We arrive where our beginning is pale,
Pure love, brilliant angels.
We will then pioneer a new race
As the guardian souls of the future;
God’s will shall be our base,
Faithful keepers of a forming nature.
God’s power is so present and real
In the lengthy path of humanity.
Let us then worship and kneel
Singing hosanna throughout eternity.
B. Joly, herbalist from Lyon
OBSERVATION: The strict critics may have severe restrictions to these verses. We leave that task to them and only consider the idea whose accuracy from the Spiritist point of view is undeniable. It is really about the soul and its peregrinations through the purifying work to finally achieve endless happiness. There is, however, a very orthodox point that we could not accept. It is expressed in the sentence: Flowing in space for eternity. If by that the author understands that the soul rises indefinitely it results that perfect happiness is never achieved. Reason tells us that if the soul is a finite being its ascension towards the absolute good must have a term; that arriving at a certain level the soul will not remain in eternal contemplation, as a matter of fact very little attractive, completely useless; on the contrary, that the soul will have endless and blessed activities as an auxiliary power to Divinity.
