TOLSTOY

WORK, DEATH AND SICKNESS – TOLSTOY

Then God said to Himself: ‘ If even this means will not bring men to understand where in their happiness lies, let them be taught by suffering ‘. And God left men to themselves.

And, left to themselves, men lived long before they understood that they all ought to, and might, be happy. Only in the very latest times have a few of them begun to understand that work ought not to be a bug bear to some and like galley slavery for others,but should be a common and happy occupation uniting all men. They have begun to understand that with death constantly threatening each of us, the only reasonable business of every man is to spend the years, months, hours, and minutes, allotted him – in unity and love. They have begun to understand that sickness, far from dividing men, should, on the contrary, give opportunity for loving union with one another.


ESARHADDON, KING OF ASSYRIA – TOLSTOY

Life is one in them all, and yours is but a portion of this common life. And only in that one part of life that is yours, can you make life better or worse – increasing or decreasing it. You can only improve life in yourself by destroying the barriers that divide your life from that of others, and by considering others as yourself and loving them. By doing so you increase your share of life. You injure your life when you think of it as the only life, and try to add to its welfare at the expense of other lives. By doing so you only lessen it. To destroy the life that dwells in others in beyond your power. The life of those you have slain has vanished from your eyes, but is not destroyed. You thought to lengthen your own life and to shorten theirs, but you can not do this. Life knows neither time nor space. The life of a moment and the life of a thousand years, your life and the life of all the visible and the invisible beings in the world, are equal. To destroy life, or to alter it, is impossible, for life is the one thing that exists. All else, but seems to us to be.



THE COFFEE – HOUSE OF SURAT – TOLSTOY

‘So on matter of faith’, continued the Chinaman, the student of Confucius, ‘it is pride that causes error and discord among men. As with the sun so it is with God. Each man wants to have special God of his own, or at least a special God for his native land. Each nation wished to confine in its own temples Him whom the world cannot contain.

‘Can any temple compare with that which God Himself has built to unite all men in one faith and one religion?

‘All human temples are built on the model of this temple, which
is God’s own world. Every temple has its fonts, its vaulted roof, its lamps, its pictures or sculptures, its priests. But in what temple is there such a font as the ocean; such as the sun, moon and stars; or any figures to be compared with living, loving, mutually – helpful men? Where are there any records of God’s goodness so easy to understand as the blessings which He has strewn abroad for man’s happiness? Where is there any book of the law so clear to each man as that written in his heart? What sacrifices equal the self-denials which loving men and women make for one another? And what altar can be compared with the heart of a good man on which God Himself accepts the sacrifice?

‘The higher a man’s conception of God the better will he know Him. And the better he knows God the nearer will be draw to Him, imitating His goodness, His mercy, and his love of man.

‘There fore, let him who sees the sun’s whole light filling the world, refrain from blaming or despising the superstitious man who in his own idol sees one ray of that same light. Let him not despise even the unbeliever who is blind and cannot see the sun at all’.

So spoke the Chinaman, the student of Confucius; and all who were present in the coffee house were silent, and they disputed no more as to whose faith was the best.