When Healing Becomes Educating, Vol. 2 - Waldorf Research Institute

around the sick person gain from sharing in the experience of such a destiny
element? Finally, what signs are there that the affected individual belongs to
humanity as a whole and is aware of his illness connecting him to humanity
and something it needs for its salvation at the present stage of evolution?
Questions such as these, put openly and honestly, lead to answers that can
help take us further. They may take the form of good ideas; they may come as
something one is suddenly able to observe; or they may make us understand
words we read or hear in a new way. We can see how far the answer is the
right one from the extent to which it helps to heal and to bring inner peace.
I have found again and again that deep down patients know very well that
their illness or handicap has something to do with themselves and their
destiny. This deep-down knowledge can be brought to the patients’s full
awareness by questions such as these and the answers that may come. Both
the patient and those around him may gain great comfort from this.
Ultimately the “Why me?” question can only be answered by the
individual concerned, for the cause and consequence of destiny have their
foundation in the I. Here past, present and future come together. How
do I know if the wholly unexpected and seemingly groundless suffering I
under go is necessary so that in a later life I may be able to cope with a
major challenge presented to me? Illness and handicap serve not only to
balance out things we have failed to do in earlier lives, or the significance
of which we failed to grasp; their meaning also may relate solely to the near
or more dis tant future. One of the most deeply moving discoveries Rudolf
Steiner made during researches in this field was that there is hardly any great
benefactor of the human race who has not had an earlier incarnation as
someone handicapped in body and/or soul. If we learn to think and feel in
terms of the future in this respect, we find ourselves able to meet the minor
weaknesses and impediments of everyday life with humor. This humor is
fed if we know that every weakness we overcome becomes a strength. Every
problem we are unable to solve at the moment will one day, when it has
been solved, enable us to speak words that give help and relief. If we thus
create inner images of how someone else will be at a future time, quite
different powers can be set free if we put our trust in them so that presentday
problems can be overcome. Instead of taking things rather personally
and getting extremely annoyed about them, we’ll be able to look at things
more objectively and find it easier to cope with obstacles and problems that
arise.
The question of the “fault,” thus, goes through a helpful metamorphosis.
For it is no longer a matter of whose fault it may ultimately have been but
solely and entirely of what this “fault” may help us to see and to realize, what
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