5) Woman, just like man, is endowed with feel-ing and brain, but the difference is in this, that men mostly consider themselves and their feelings bound by the commands of reason, while women consider their feelings binding for themselves and for their reason. The same thing, but only in different places.
6) You get angry at the philosopher who rea-sons, who considers that the main basis of the life of man is his material nature; but this man does not know the spiritual, but knows only material effect and therefore he cannot think other-wise.
7) You think that you are alone and you suffer from loneliness; yet you are not only in harmony, but you are one with every one; only artificial and removable barriers separate you. Remove them and you are one with every one. The remov-ing of these barriers according to your strength is the business of life.
8) If a man considers his animal being as him-
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self, then he will represent God also as a material being, a ruler who rules materially over material things. But God is not such, God is spirit and does not rule over anything, but lives in everything.
9) … If people could have been so deceived, then there is no deception into which they would not fall.
10) I have noted down that it is depressing be-cause there is no life, but only an egoistic existence. I cannot remember what else I could have meant by this.
1 1 ) God manifests himself in our consciousness. When there is no consciousness there is no God. Only consciousness gives the possibility for the good, for continence, service, self-sacrifice. Every-thing depends to what consciousness is directed. Consciousness directed to the animal “ self “ kills, paralyzes life. Consciousness directed to the spir-itual “ self “ rouses, lifts, frees life. Conscious-ness directed to the animal “ self “ strengthens, ignites passion, creates fear, struggle, the horror of death. Consciousness directed towards the spiritual “ self “ frees love. This is very import-ant and if I live, I will write it out.
12) Death is a change of consciousness, a change of that which I can recognise as myself. And therefore fear of death is a horrible super-stition. Death is a joyous event standing at the
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end of each life. Suffering is sent to people to hold them back from death. Otherwise every one understanding life and death, would struggle to-wards death. But now it is impossible to go to-wards death unless through suffering.
13) The greatest act in life is the consciousness of one’s self, and its consequences are benevolent or most terrible, according to whether you direct your consciousness towards the spirit or towards the body.
14) In order to get rid of moral suffering (and even physical) there are two means : to destroy the cause of suffering or the feeling in one’s self which produces suffering. The first is not in man’s power, the second is. (I am repeating Epictetus) .
15) The moral progress of humanity advances only because there are old people. The old peo-ple become kinder, wiser, and give over that which they have lived through to the following genera-tions. If this were not so, humanity had not ad-vanced; and what a simple method !
1 6) If man looks on life materially, then old people do not become better, but worse, and there is no progress.
17) Technical progress is greeted by every one, is pushed on by every one; the moral, the religious progress, is held back by the priests. From this come the main calamities in life.
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November 15. Y. P. If I live.
It seemed to me that I made no entries for about three days and now it is ten days. To-day, Nov. 25. Y.P.
… I promised to arrive December 6th. 369 . . . I feel also like going to Pirogovo. We are alone : Tania, Masha, Kolia. Only Liza Obolensky. 370 I am still diligently occupying myself with Resur-rection.
Last night I thought out an article on why the people are corrupted. They have no faith of any kind. They christen naive infants and then they consider every reasoning about faith (perversion) and every lapse, as a capital crime. Only the sec-tarians have faith. Perhaps I am going to bring that into the Appeal. What a pity. I thought it out well at night.
Resurrection is growing. It can hardly be com-pressed into 100 chapters. 371
I have noted down the following and I think it is very important (which might be good for the Declaration of Faith) :
i ) We are very much accustomed to the reason-ing as to how the life of other people, people in general, should be arranged. And such kind of reasoning does not seem strange to us. And yet such kind of reasoning could in no ways exist among religious and therefore free people; such reasoning is the consequence of despotism, . . .
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In this way reason . . . They say : “ If I had the power I would do so and so with the others.” That is a dangerous error, not only because it tortures, deforms people who have to undergo violence . . . but it weakens in all people the consciousness of the necessity of improving them-selves, which is the only effective means of influ-encing other people.
2) To-day I thought about this from another angle. I recalled the words of the Gospel : “ And the pupil is not higher than the teacher; if he learns then he will be like the pupil.” We, the rich mas-ter-classes, teach the people. What would happen if we succeeded in teaching them so that they be-come as we are ?
3) They talk, they write, they preach about the knowing of God. What a horrible blasphemy, and horrible admission of the non-understanding of what God is and what we are. We, a particle of the infinite whole, wish to understand not only this whole, but its causes, the origin of the whole. What absurdity and what a recognition of godless-ness, or a recognition of God of that which is not God. We can only know that He is, To oV, He exists, and we can only conclude by ourselves, what He is not.
4) Love is God. Love is only the recognition that God is not flesh, not passion, not egoism, not malice. (Doubtful.)
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5) Violence rules our world, i.e., malice, and therefore there is always found in society a ma-jority of dependent, unstable members: women, children, stupid ones brought up on malice, and who side with malice. But the world ought to be ruled by reason, by goodness; then all this majority would be brought up on goodness and would side with it. In order that this should take place it is necessary that reason and goodness mani-fest themselves, and undismayed, assert their exist-ence; that is very important.
6) The complexity of knowledge is a sign of its falseness. That which is true is simple.
7) How bad it is that people seeking perfec-tion are pained at calumny, at a deserved bad name (or better still, at an undeserved). Calumny, a bad name, gives an opportunity, drives toward an activity, the value of which is only in our con-science. This is so rare, so difficult, and so useful. Involuntary simpleness is the best school for goodness. 372
8)1 have noted down : “ Justice is insufficient. It is . . . 373 necessary to oppose.” I cannot re-member what this means.
9) Physical labour is important, because it pre-vents the mind from working idly and aimlessly.
10) Perhaps it is more important to know what one ought not to think about, than to know what one ought to think about.
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1 1 ) Women are weak and they not only do not want to know their own weakness, but want to boast of their strength. What can be more dis-gusting?
12) A good man if he does not acknowledge his mistakes and tries to justify himself can become a monster.
13)-..
Now Nov. 26. Morning. Y. P.
Did not sleep and thought :
i ) Evil is the material for love. Without evil there is none and can be no manifestation of love. God is love, i.e., God manifests Himself to us in victory over evil, i.e., in love. The question of the origin of evil is just as absurd as the question of the origin of the world. It is not “ whence comes evil? “ that one must know, but “ how to conquer it ? How to apply love ? “
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Jan. 2. Yasnaya Polyana.
The last time I wrote it was November 25, which means a month and a week. I made en-tries in Yasnaya Polyana, then I was in Moscow, where I did not make one entry. At the end of November I went to Pirogovo. I returned on the first and since that time have not been quite well the small of my back ached and still aches, and lately I have had something like bilious fever. It is the second day that I am better.
All this time I have been occupied exclusively with Resurrection. 374 I have had some communi-cations about the Dukhobors, 375 an innumerable pile of letters. Kolechka Gay is with me, with whom it is a rest to be. … I am calm in the fashion of an old man. And that is all.
There is quite a lot to write out. I am going to write it out on the pages I skipped. Lately
