Although it seems immodest, I cannot help but write that I very much beg my friends, who collect my notes, my letters, write down my sayings, not to attribute any importance to things that I have not specifically given for publication. I read Confucius, Lao Zi, Buddha (the same can be said of the Gospel) and see beside deep ideas, condensed into a doctrine, strange statements, which are either random or altered. And precisely these strange, sometimes contradictory ideas and maxims are needed by those who accuse the doctrine. I cannot stress this fact enough. Every man has moments of weakness and says foolish things, and they are noted down, and then the world takes note of them as if they had the highest authority.
I am something that possesses the consciousness of separation from the Whole. The whole and myself together with the whole I cannot understand otherwise than as matter in motion. And meanwhile, if I were only matter in motion, and the whole world were also only matter in motion, then I, being matter in motion along with the other matter in motion of the whole world, would not have the consciousness of my separation. And therefore, having the consciousness of my separation, I must be something immaterial and immovable. If it happens that he, this "I", together with the Whole, seems to me matter in motion, it is only because everything apart from him, this "I", is matter in motion. What we call life is the liberation of the immaterial, immobile "I" from this wandering.
What for Lao Zi is the way, for John is love. Lao Zi confuses the path with the beginning of everything, with the Tao. John does the same thing, calling love God.
I thought of how I used to shoot birds, wild animals, and end their lives by stabbing birds in the head with a knife and rabbits with a knife in the heart, without a trace of mercy. I did things that I can only think about now with horror. Doesn't the same happen with the people who now judge, imprison, give sentences, execute? It is not good to believe that these people know what they are doing is wrong, and yet they persevere. One way or another, they stopped seeing that what they were doing was wrong. That's what happened to me with rabbits.
I feel that most people do not see me as a human being, but as a celebrity, as the representative of a party or a current: either it's total devotion and trust, or, on the contrary, denial, hatred.
We humans, I judge for myself, are the tool of supreme power. What this Supreme Power does with our lives we do not know and have no way of knowing, just as the cell in my body does not know what I do and why. Therefore, any goal that I propose, if it does not coincide with the goal of the Supreme Power, which remains inaccessible to me, disrupts the fulfillment of this goal. To such an extent that the goal can no longer be achieved. This goal will always be reached, in one way or another, but without me reaching the good that gives the feeling, the consciousness of the unity of my life with the Supreme Power. So the goal towards which it is proper for man to strive cannot be a goal accessible to man's understanding, but only merging with God's will. This fusion is achieved through love.
People's false opinion of me forces me to remain in this state. As hard as it is, sometimes I begin to understand how good it is for the soul.
I pray simply: Father, God, help me, help me. And He helps me. He can't help me. He, the one I pray for, is in me, so prayer only means that I want to live through Him.
The work of art is truly the work of art only when, receiving it, man seems, not only seems, but even rejoices, that he, the man, has produced such a wonderful thing. This is especially important in music. Nowhere is the major importance of art, the significance of union, better seen. The "I" of the artist unites with the "I" of all those who receive it, merging into one.
Any worship of God, whatever it may be, exalts man. He exalts himself because he expresses the consciousness of his dependence and relationship (even if the understanding of this relationship is false) with the Supreme Being, who is not dependent on anything, with God.
The surest way to falsehood is care for worldly glory. And that is why freedom from this worry is so important. Liberation is produced only by concentrating all forces on the fulfillment of what God wants from me, what the Whole wants from his infinitely small organ. And freedom from falsehood, living in truth, is freedom and goodness. Help me, Lord.
I pray: Help me, Lord, God who is in me, help me to do only what pleases You, and not to think about what people will think and say about me. Help me not to judge people with words or thoughts. Of course, but it usually happens that you live with the care of people's opinion, the same people you condemn.
About love we must always remember que c'est a prendre ou a laisser (That we must choose if we accept it or not (fr.). (N. t.)). If we accept goodness, the necessity of love, we must accept love in its entirety, without removing from it (from Christian love) its essential sign: love towards those who offend you, facing enemies, non-resistance. For we speak of goodness, the beauties of self-affirming love, of tender love, but we do not respect the first and most important condition of love, the non-perfection of those opposed to love.
There are four categories of God's workers, that is, four ways of doing the deeds of life, like categories of workers who work for the master. The first category are workers who invent ways to please their master outside of working hours and therefore allow themselves not to do their assigned work. They represent the various religious doctrines with dogmas of faith and atonement, mysteries, prayers, etc. The second category are workers who, instead of working, waste all their strength sharpening, cleaning, protecting the tools of work, and work less and less because they are busy taking care of the tools and because they are afraid of damaging them. These are the people who, instead of consuming their bodily forces for God's work, take care of their bodies to preserve them as long as they can. The third category are the workers who do not know the master and do not want to know either him or the thing entrusted to them, but do a job that they have invented and that they consider the most important for them. These are the people who do not recognize that there is an obligatory moral principle, they do not recognize God, and therefore they invent all kinds of concerns alien to God, political, scientific or so-called cultural concerns. The fourth category are those who devote all the powers of soul and body to the fulfillment of God's work: the increase in oneself, and through this also in others, of God's consciousness, of love expressed through deeds, words, thoughts.
I felt acutely that I was God's servant. And I felt such joy, safety, peace, even pride. And I also acutely felt this self-delusion of people who get involved, I once got involved too, they think they are servants of the worldly rulers, and the more they climb the steps of this service, the more they descend into God's service.
Anger comes from helplessness, said Rousseau. How true it is! He gets angry who wants to do something beyond his powers, encounters obstacles and then gets angry. And nothing that is material is in the power of man. The only activity in which man does not encounter obstacles is the spiritual one. What I want, I do. If I don't succeed, I get angry with myself (I have more understanding with myself than with others), and the anger is less painful and especially not useless. There is only one way out, one activity that does not encounter obstacles - spiritual activity, love. Man is like an animal that struggles in a room where there is a door, and hits the door without seeing it, because the door opens inward.
It is not difficult to arouse in yourself pity for the lost, but the difficulty lies in the fact that the lost are self-confident and self-satisfied. This self-satisfaction causes revulsion, and we must get used to bearing it, so that it does not stifle pity, that is, love. But how? Where is a will is a way *. We must use the same good, single and most powerful method, love.
I and we are all workers, some mine iron ore, others transport it, some make nails and screws in a great factory whose organization and especially whose purpose cannot be understood by the workers. The workers do not know and have no way of knowing what is being produced in the factory. And therefore it is clear that the work that the workers perform (fulfilling the requirements of law and conscience) actually has a hypothetical purpose, and the hypothesis is incorrect (for the true purpose escapes our understanding). Work done in this way can only stand in the way of good plant production.
I had a very clear idea about the meaning of dreams. The most important and best thing is that I felt with unprecedented clarity that I am aware that I am outside of space, time, spirit and above all stillness, I felt with all my soul how deceptive and illusory everything is it was considered to be true, real life.
What is happening to you and what you seem to have done in this life was like a dream. Therefore, just as time does not exist for man when he dreams, whether he sleeps for an hour or sleeps for a hundred it is the same for the sleeper, so also for the man who lives in this world time does not exist. Man is always in the present.
Birth is awakening from sleep. The dreams of that sleep are almost all forgotten, and that life remains unitary and has a real character in this life, just as on waking from a dream all that was shown to us in a dream settles into a coherent form. It is supposed to be the same when we die, all the impressions of life make up a string with which you will step into that life. Our daily falling asleep and waking up are examples of the transition from one life to another.
There is a total awakening, death, and there are incomplete awakenings in life itself. This is what I'm going through right now. Awakening takes us out of ourselves, and in taking us out of ourselves brings us into the life of the whole, and the life of the whole can be known through love.
Love is not the principle of life, but only the recognition of the principle of life, God.
No matter how well you express your awareness of the importance and meaning of your life, the expression itself diminishes the importance of what is expressed.
Man complains that he is deprived of the good that he ardently wants and seeks it everywhere, only where it is not. In fact, he doesn't even need to look for it, he doesn't need to do anything and he will get this good. There is a parable about this. I forgot her.
I am thinking of a letter to the Tsar on the subject of land, a letter of the greatest importance, and at the same time I am thinking of how to tell Sofya Andreevna that Ilia Vasilievich * wants to receive a higher salary. One is the good of the Russian people, about which I speak with the Tsar, and another is an increase of the lackey's levy. But the second is more important than the first, because it requires my participation and determination, while the first I only initiate.
In a society of men living a spiritual life, a man of superior moral qualities will naturally come to influence and rule them. In the society of people who live only the corporeal, lay life, inevitably the man with the weakest moral qualities will always reach their head and exercise his power.
The man was born in his father's house, received an education, and could continue to live by working for his father, but this life also seemed to him hard and meaningless. Then he left the house and went in search of another life, another job. He walked from place to place, sometimes he didn't like something, sometimes he wasn't accepted and he was chased away, and then, reaching the end of his patience, he remembered home. And only then did he find the good, when he returned to the one he had run away from, his father. The same happens with the life of people who leave behind the natural life lived according to the will of the Divine Father and in His service. In the same way, they suffer by going out of His will, and in the same way they find peace and joy by returning home, to Him, to the fulfillment of His will.
... Our senses receive by feeling, and for feeling we need matter. But at the same time through matter we are separated from Everything. Matter is necessary for our separation. But why not imagine other beings who can receive impressions and who are not separated by matter but by something else. Just as we, living the illusion of matter, do not know, we have no way of knowing these immaterial beings, because we do not know what separates them from Everything, just as they cannot know us and what separates us, the matter that for them does not exist. All these are trifles, but they captivated me because they showed me, as if more meaningfully, that our world is only one of the infinite number of worlds.
... The human race or human society will never be divided into two camps: one of wild animals and the other of saints. In reality, the human race is always found in different degrees of spiritual perfection, and between the savage and the saint there are many intermediate steps leading to the perfection of love.