1 1 ) If you have transferred your “ self “ to your spiritual being, you will feel the same pain in violating love as you will feel physical pain when you violate the good of the body. The indicator is just as direct and true. And I already feel it.
12) Sin is the strengthening of the conscious-ness of life in one’s separate being, or the weak-ening of one’s reasoning consciousness, which shows the inconsistency of animal life. For the first end, the activity of reason is directed to the strengthening of the delusion of a separate life: i, food; 2, lust; 3, vanity, strengthened by reason. For the second end, are used the means of weak-ening reason : tobacco, opium, wine.
13) Temptation is the assertion that it is per-mitted to violate love for the greater good: I, to oneself; it is necessary to feed, cure, educate, calm oneself, in order to be in condition to serve men, and for this it is permitted to violate love; 2, one must secure, preserve, and educate the family, and
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for this it is permitted to violate love; 3, one has to organise, secure, protect the community, the state, and for this it is permitted to violate love; 4, one has to contribute to the salvation of the souls of people by violent suggestion, through edu-cation, and for this it is permitted to violate love.
14) The essay on art has to be begun with a discussion of the fact, that for the picture here, which it has cost the master 1000 working days, he is given 40 thousand working days: for an opera, a novel, still more. And then, some say of these works, that they are beautiful; others, that they are absolutely bad. And there is no incontestable criterion. There is no such argu-ment about water, food, and good works. Why is that so?
15) What is the result of a man recognising as his “ self “ not his own separate being, but God living in him? In the first place, not con-sciously desiring the good for his own separate being, that man will not, or will less eagerly, take the good away from others; in the second place, having recognised as his “ self “ God, who desires the good for all that exists, man also will desire it.
16) Why do people hold on so passionately to the principle of family, the producing and bringing up of children? Because to a man who has not yet transferred his consciousness from his separate being to that of God, it is the only seem-
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ingly satisfactory explanation of the meaning of life.
17) The meaning of life becomes clear to man when he recognises as himself, his divine essence which is enclosed in his bodily envelope. The meaning of this lies in the fact that this being, striving for its emancipation, for the broadening of the realm of love, accomplishes through this broadening the work of God, which consists in the establishment of the Kingdom of God on earth.
18) Violence can neither weaken nor strengthen a spiritual movement. To act on spiritual activity by force is just like catching the rays of the sun no matter how you cover them, they will always be on top.
19) I have noted down: “Do you imagine your life in the wood which is being burned down or in the fire which burns? “
It is this way: you get the wood ready, and then you are sorry to use it; in the same way you get yourself ready and then you are sorry. But the comparison is not good, because fire comes to an end. A better comparison would be with food; do you imagine your life in food or in that which is being fed? Is not that the meaning of the words of St. John about “ my body “, which ought to be food? Man is food for God if he gives himself to God.
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20) The principal aim of art, if there is art, and if it has an aim, is to manifest and to express the truth about man’s soul, to express those mys-teries which it is impossible to express simply by speech. From this springs art. Art is a micro-scope which the artist fixes on the mysteries of his soul and shows to people those mysteries which are common to all.
21 ) Love, enclosed in man and freed by reason, manifests itself in two ways: I, by its expansion, and 2, by the establishment of the Kingdom of God. It is steam which, in spread-ing, works.
22) Lately, I have begun to feel such firm-ness and strength, not my own, but that of that God’s work which I wish to serve, that the irrita-tion, the reproaches, the mocking people hostile to the work of God, is strange to me; they are piti-able, touching.
23) The world, living unconsciously, and man, in the period of his childhood, performed unconsciously the work of God. Having awak-ened to consciousness, he does it consciously. In the collision between the two methods of serving, man ought to know that the unconscious passes and will pass into the conscious and not the oppo-site and that therefore it is necessary to give one-self over to the future and not to the past. (Stupid.)
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24) The delusion of man who has awakened to consciousness and who continues to consider his own separate being as himself, is that he con-siders a tool as himself. If you feel pain at the disturbing of the good of your separate being, it is as if you felt on your hand the blows on the tool with which you work. The tool has to be taken care of, ground, but not to be considered as oneself.
25) God Himself is economical. He has to penetrate all with love. He has fired man alone with love and has placed him in the necessity of firing all the rest.
26) Nothing affects the religious outlook so much as the way we look upon the world; whether with a beginning and an end, as it was looked upon in antiquity, or infinite as it is looked upon now. In a finite world, one can construct a reasonable role for separate mortal man, but in an infinite world the life of such a being has no meaning.
27) (For Kortevsky] It happens to Katiu-sha after her resurrection, that she has certain periods in which she smiles slyly and lazily as if she had forgotten all which she considered true before; she is merely joyous and wants to live.
28) To him who lives a spiritual life entirely, life here becomes so uninteresting and burden-some that he can part with it easily.
The Journal of Leo Tolstoi [1896
29) Natasha Strakhov 82 asks her father, when he speaks of something which happened when she was not yet born : “ Where was I then? “ I would have answered : ‘ You were asleep and had not yet waked up here.” Conception, birth, childhood are only a preparation to an awaken-ing, which we see, but not the sleeping ones.
30) The error in which we find ourselves when we consider our separate beings as ourselves is the same as when a traveller counts only one stage as the whole road, or a man, one day as his whole life.
31) Read about . . . and was horrified at the conscious deception of men . . .
32) “An eraser.” I have forgotten. I shall recall it.
Have written up to dinner. It is now 2 o’clock and I am going to dine.
May 28, Ysn. Pol. 12 o’c. noon.
It is already several days that I am struggling with my work 83 and am making no progress. I sleep. I wanted to scribble it somehow to the very end, but I can’t possibly do it. Am in a wretched mood, aggravated by the emptiness, by the poor, self-satisfied, cold emptiness of my sur-rounding life.
In. the meantime I have been to Pirogovo. 84 I have a most joyous impression; my brother Ser-
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gei 85 has undoubtedly had a spiritual transforma-tion. He himself has formulated the essence of my faith (and he evidently recognises it as true for himself); to raise in oneself the spiritual es-sence and to subject to it the animal element. He has a miraculous ikon and he was tortured by his undefined attitude to it. The little girls 86 are very good and live seriously. Masha has been infected by them. Later there were at our house : Salamon, 87 Tanyee. 88 . . .
A terrible event in Moscow the death of three thousand 89 I somehow can not express myself as I ought to. I am indisposed all the time, getting weaker. In Pirogovo, there was the harnessmaker, an intelligent man. Yesterday a working-man came from Tula, intelligent. I think a revolutionist. To-day a seminary student, a touching case.
I am advancing very, very badly in my work. Rather boring letters because they demand polite answers. I have written to Bondarev, 90 Posha, and to some one else. O yes; Officer N. was here too. I think I was useful to him. Splendid notes by Shkarvan. 91
Yesterday there was a letter from poor N. 92 , whom they have driven off to the Persian frontier, hoping to kill him. God help him. And don’t forget me. Give me life, life, i. e. a conscious, joyful serving of Thee.
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