Selfishness

Selfishness –  that  plague on  humankind  –  must disappear from the earth, whose moral progress it hinders. To Spiritism the task is reserved of enabling earth to ascend in the hierarchy of worlds. Thus, selfishness is the target at which all true believers must aim their weapons, their strength and their courage. I say “their courage” because more courage is needed to overcome oneself than to overcome other people. Let all of you, therefore, make every effort to fight selfishness within you, for that monster that devours all minds, that child of pride, is the source of all the miseries of this world. It is the negation of charity, and consequently, the greatest obstacle to human happiness.

Jesus has given you the example of charity; Pontius Pilate, that of selfishness, for while the Righteous One was about to walk the holy stations of his martyrdom, Pilate washed his hands, saying, “What is this to me? This is a righteous man; why do you want to crucify him?” Nonetheless, he let him be led to his execution.

It is to this antagonism between charity and selfishness; it is to the invasion of the human heart by this leprosy that Christianity owes the fact that it has not completed its entire mission. It is upon you, new apostles of the faith and whom the high order spirits enlighten, that the job and duty of uprooting that evil has fallen so as to give Christianity  all its power and to clear the way of the obstacles that hinder its forward progress. Uproot selfishness from the earth so that earth can ascend the scale of worlds, for the time has come for humankind to don the toga of manhood28, and to do so, you must first uproot selfishness from your hearts.

Emmanuel (Paris, 1861)