The ultimate religious state is spiritual selfishness. Everything for oneself, the true self, the God within you.
The thief? Theft is possible only in the non-Christian life. You can only steal from thieves. But what kind of thief would it be if you also give the summons when your shirt is asked for?
The entire material progress of our Christian world is conditioned by the absence of religious and moral demands on the majority of people. The result of this absence is the enslavement of the majority by a minority and intense work to increase the comfort of life.
The history of religions is the most necessary science. Comparing religions would show what is the religious truth common to all and what is just an accidental outgrowth.
Yes, I have to work on myself, now at the age of eighty, to do the same thing that at the age of fourteen or fifteen I did with all my energy: to perfect myself. Except that back then the ideals of perfection were different, and so were the muscles and, in general, everything you needed to be successful among people. Ah, if I could learn to devote all, all energy to serving God, to being close to Him. And getting close to Him is impossible without serving people. Even if I had lived in the desert and died unknown, I still know that my perfection, the closeness to Him, is necessary. Help me, help me to live through You. I am writing and shedding tears. It's good.
The effort directed towards the domination of the corporeal and semi-corporeal "I" by the spiritual one, towards perfection, towards getting closer to God, towards self-purification, is beneficent in many ways and above all because it frees me from the preoccupation (which still dominates me) for worldly glory. The effort of the whole life must have as its main goal the nearness to God, and that's it.
I lost my memory. And, amazingly, I haven't regretted it once. I can regret losing my hair, and I really do, but I can't regret the memory. Her loss was the result of what was acquired, incompatible with memory. Just as the whey is discarded after the butter is churned, so is memory. It is only the material from which the understanding of the meaning of life must be made...
I need God as much as He needs me. Not because He needs me, L.N., but because I am His manifestation, one of (to me) the infinitesimal organs of His infinite organism (to me, who cannot understand anything outside of time, the timeless seems infinite). Just as the smallest cell of the organism is indispensable to me as long as it is part of my body, but not this particular cell. So am I to Him.
At the thought of the deeds you are going to do and, if you can, during their execution, ask yourself: why do you do what you do, for yourself, for God, for your conscience or for people, for their approval. Ask yourself: would you do the same thing if you knew not only that no one would find out about it, but also that this deed, which seems good to you, would remain a reason for people to judge you. We must learn to do this. It's the only important thing in life for a boy of fourteen and me, an old man of eighty.
Sometimes I can't help noticing the effects of my good deeds, and I can't help but feel sorry for myself, I can't help but rejoice. But remember, the main consequences are not given to you to see, but they are there.
There is nothing great in the world, there is only what is right and what is wrong. And all are equally infinitely great or infinitely small.
I see clearly, I feel the happy possibility of transferring all the interest and the meaning of life, all the desires to everything that lies in my power and gives me good, to, I will not call it spiritual perfection, but ever greater proximity and fulfillment of the will universal, not of my will. Only now, in my ninth decade, am I beginning to learn, and I am learning. May God help me to remember in every moment, in every deed, in every thought: What am I doing for the fulfillment of His will or my will? Not for people, but for oneself, for the spiritual self? And I remember. And I hope to get there when I don't need to remember anymore. God help me.
How happy I am. Even if some hate me, without knowing me, many, how many love me more than I deserve. People who, according to their quasi-religious opinions which I destroy, should hate me, love me for trifles like War and Peace and others, which seem very important to them.
Children come directly from God…
Nothing good comes for nothing: death is attained through suffering. And its coming is made easy by men, for those who do not see its benefit.
The science of the law of love (non-resistance) proceeds in the same way as religion: it does not directly deny the law of love, but superimposes laws that annihilate it. In religion it was obedience to the power that comes from God; in science it is obedience to historical, economic, biological laws.
John's epistles deny any other representation of God apart from love, apart from the principle of love of which every man has the consciousness within himself. We have no one and nothing to ask. We can only live or not in love. When there is no other God apart from love, then you want, you don't want, you serve love, if you felt the insufficiency of life for itself and the need to communicate with what is superior, with the whole world. This faith is necessary. It is necessary because it is the only possible one. And this faith is durable because everything that is extra has been removed and it is based on what every man knows with his mind and heart. Prayer in this faith is not addressed to someone to ask for something: help me, have mercy on me, but just say: I know that You are love. I want to live in You.
Love is the consciousness of true life, one in All. Children, coming from THERE, still clearly feel this life and its only manifestation accessible to us in love. Consciousness of personal life is self-delusion. Old age gradually frees us from it. Death sets us free completely.
Personality is only the memory of the past and the desire for the future. As soon as we have neither, time no longer exists, life is lived in the timeless moment of the present, there is no personality, only the basis of life, love, God. This is what it would be like if man could completely rid himself of memories and desires. In life, only closeness is possible, the fewer memories and desires there are, that is, the more destroyed, the weaker the personality, the more God - love is manifested in life, the more you live outside of time and have consciousness the fact that it is not you who moves, but the world, so that you can know it.
When the Roman civilization became perverted, it was renewed by the uncorrupted barbarians. Now there are no more barbarians, and therefore, we will, we will not, we ourselves must become barbarians in what the barbarians had best in them.
It is a great mistake to think that all the inventions which have increased the power of men over nature in agriculture, in the obtaining and chemical combination of substances, as well as the possibility of men having a greater influence over one another, for example by the means of communication : the printing press, the telegraph, the telephone, the gramophone, are good. And the power over nature and increasing the possibility of people to influence each other will be good only when people's activity is guided by love, by the desire to do good to others, and they will be bad when they are guided by selfishness, by the desire to good only for himself.
Yesterday I felt a great benefit from the depressing state of mind where religious matters do not move you, you do not feel like loving but judging and hating. It is good that when you are in such states you make an effort to recognize them, to fight with them. They are especially good because, knowing yourself this way, you understand other people when they lose their temper and you no longer get angry with them, but pity them.
Prayer. I want to live now in You, through You, Your will be done, not my will, not what I want, but what You want, and not as I want, but as You want.
Communication with any human being is prayer. Remember that in front of you is not a murderer, a fornicator, a gendarme, a policeman, a king, a spy, but the manifestation of God. Remember who you are in front of and treat him as you would treat the holiest thing in the world.
The ultimate spiritual good (or the ultimate spiritual delight), I would even say refined, is love towards the one who hates, towards the one who wants to harm me. Amazingly, the greater the river is for bodily life, the greater the good for spiritual life, in love. How not to live life in love, not to educate yourself to live this life? It is possible, I see it in myself with amazing clarity.
The good of human life is directly proportional to the love between people. What state must they be in now, how far from good must the people be in our Russia, when the top rulers, conservatives, revolutionaries, boyars, peasants hate each other!?
In old age it is possible and even necessary - but it is also possible in youth - to put yourself not only in the situation of the person condemned to death, but, moreover, in the situation of the one who is already walking towards the scaffold. How good: "I am, death is not. Death will come, and I will no longer be here." More than that, you must be prepared and not be surprised to find out what death is, not to make assumptions. The most positive aspect is that the whole life thus becomes solemn, serious. Yes, life is serious business.
It is easy to say that we live before God, only before God. (My attitude towards the diary is altered by the fact that it is read by others. Please do not read it.) How hard and how good it is. I am beginning to understand a little that it is possible that I may even live this way sometimes. What happiness! It's amazing how many completely new joys you can discover in old age. In order to live before God, it is necessary, absolutely necessary, to address Him, to communicate with Him as a person, even though you know that He is not a person. The condemned man, I, we all need to turn to Him. To live before God implies that the purpose of every deed you do is the fulfillment of His will, and this fulfillment is love, in which I see God.
Recognizing God as love is good and beneficent because, recognizing Him as love, communication with Him, which you cannot but desire, will only be love of people. The advantage of this communication with God over any other kind of communication is that through this communication you feel that he exists and responds to you and your soul, responds by the fact that, as you give yourself to the love of people, He fills your heart with peace and joy.
Ah, if I could only answer when asked and shut up, shut up. If it were not a contradiction to write about the necessity of silence, I would write now: I can be silent. I can't keep silent. If only I would live before God only in love.