Which is, actually, the basic fact, the basic phenomenon on which all misery, all social grief may generally depend in the world? — Spiritual science can show us this basic fact, putting us before a fact that most people do not understand and acknowledge today. This fact is connected with a basic phenomenon of any development. I would like to say, speaking dryly, it shows us by deeper views on life that poverty, grief and misery not only — and least of all if one finds the underlying cause of the things — depend on external conditions, but on a certain soul constitution and in the connection with it on its external effects.
The practitioner who regards himself as much cleverer thinks that this is ridiculous. However, one can only stress that it is the most practical in life. It is the sentence of which you persuade yourselves more and more that need, misery and grief are nothing else than the results of egoism.
To be continued
Source: Rudolf Steiner – GA 54 – The Riddles of the World and Anthroposophy: The Social Question and Theosophy – Hamburg, March 2, 1908
Previously posted on 14 July 2021
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