The Road to Initiation
The article: The Road to Initiation
Chapter 9
It is not the desire for riches and honour that characterises the really great human being
But an entirely different matter is the fact that the really "great human being" has long since passed the stage where the desire for people's admiration and worship is the driving force in his life.
He therefore feels absolutely no desire to be famous or well-known.
In spirit he is absorbed in his ability to create, and he has but one wish, namely, to lay the things he has produced at the feet of humanity, even though the giving of this gift may at times cause him hunger, hardship, criticism and persecution.
Are there not great works of art today that gave their creator only a life of hunger, but are now valued at thousands of
kroner*, works that give smart businessmen, who totally lack the faculty to create anything similar, a source of income or a living that, from an financial point of view, is far above the miserable life led by the original creator of the works of art?
Indeed, really "great human beings" have not been filled with the thought of wealth and profit.
They have therefore naturally, in the hitherto unfinished or imperfect world, not been able to bear comparison with those beings for whom the gold, wealth and glory of a magnate have been the all-absorbing desired goal that had to be attained, regardless of what it would cost their fellow beings in terms of drudgery, blood and tears.
And even today, is it not to a great extent the same?
Are there not many cases of the proceeds from the works or productions of geniuses being very largely cornered by business magnates?
Has not the profit from technical discoveries in many cases ended up in the purse of the magnates instead of in the purse of the inventor?
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* Translator's note: A Danish monetary unit