The Road of Life
The article: Mental Prisons
Chapter 10
Why the terrestrial human being is unhappy
In the middle of this chaos the following has for hundreds of years sounded from thousands of pulpits: "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself", "Turn the right cheek when thou art smitten on the left", "Revenge not, I will repay, said the Lord Zabaoth", "What a person sows, so shall he reap" just as "He who takes by the sword shall perish by the sword". As one can see, these are doctrines for the development of the purely "human" way of living. They cannot in any way whatsoever be cited in support of the "animal" way of living, indeed, not even "holy wrath" or "righteous indignation". And since the exercise of the "animal" way of living or a way of living that does not respect the above-mentioned precepts has again and again led only to war, mutilation, torture, ruin, debasement, oppression, godlessness and depression, it becomes more and more a fact that happiness for the terrestrial human being is no longer to be found in the animal way of living. But when it is not to be found in the animal way of living it can be found only in its antithesis: the human way of living. And what is more natural than that the terrestrial human, who is a being having acquired a human body or organism, has to have a human mentality too? This is thus the intention of Nature and thereby the will of God for the terrestrial human being. That the advanced, developed human being in his innermost self begins to understand this becomes thus a fact through the circumstance that he suffers pangs of conscience every time he acts in accordance with the traditions of the animal kingdom and breaks the laws of neighbourly love. The "good" he wants to do, he does not do, but the "evil" he does not want to do, he does. Is it not precisely this circumstance that is the root of all the unhappiness of terrestrial Man? And do not these words truly express every pang of conscience of the intellectual or advanced, developed terrestrial human being?