The spatial, material "I" of my body, as well as the temporal "I" are connected with the All, with the whole boundless spatial world. It was clear when I wrote about it, and now I can't remember. The temporal connection is the fact that "I" am the creation of my countless and infinite ancestors and in turn I am the founder of a race. But spatially I can't remember at any moment how all this is connected.
Every man has something higher to reach, his conception of the world, in the name of which he lives. He alone forms his conception of the world. And every man is able to receive only what corresponds to his conception. Everything that does not correspond, no matter how clearly he understands something spoken or written, passes through him without leaving a trace. wide such a conception: the mundane life of high society people, adorned with idylls, art and luxury is good. Another would be: it is good to participate in the comfortable arrangement of life, as it happens in Europe. One more thing: it's good to be pleasant, cheerful. And one more thing: it's good to amaze everyone. None of them are right. Any conception of the world must be clearly and thoroughly expressed.
The poor feel greater happiness than the rich, because the satisfaction of needs, clothing, when you lacked, food, when you were hungry, a house, when you had no roof, bring incomparably more joy than satisfying the appetites of the rich.
The memory of the recent past disappears with the passage of years: man becomes more and more aware of his immobile "I". The thought of the future also disappears. Man becomes unfit for the world.
Just as, growing older, man becomes more and more aware of his spiritual unity, so too does the world grow older, reaching unity and reconciliation.
... Life is the good of freeing the spirit. Which means that for people the good consists in the fulfillment of desires. There is only one thing that cannot be prevented from being accomplished: to become better.
When you do something, you don't have to do it for yourself, if only because you never know if you'll be the one to enjoy the fruits of your labor. For the same reason it is foolish to do something only for one man or for a small number of people. It is much wiser that what you do is for everyone.
It became clear to me that we should not have disputes, demonstrate the advantages of some ways of life over others, in general we should not talk about what will come out. Nobody knows that. We need to talk about what everyone needs to do for his soul.
Man frees himself from spatial separation through love, and from temporal separation through the consciousness of his unchanging spiritual origin.
The most rudimentary conception of God differs very little from the most sublime, in relation to the approach to the true understanding of God.
He who prays to the idol is ignorant and uneducated, but he who does not pray at all is uneducated and stupid.
How terrible is the situation of people who do not have the consciousness of their spiritual life in old age. I am in the opposite situation.
Mistaking bad people for good is a hundred times better than being wrong the other way around. Help me, Lord.
I read about the Duma and felt sorry that all these people are smart and educated. The sin would have been less if they had been stupid and clumsy. (April 30)
I thought about free will. The freedom we have to change the course of our lives cannot change the general course of life. As when we scatter a swarm of bees, each bee may change its place, but the general effects of the scattering will be the same. Likewise with people who do not obey the general law. Freedom consists in the fact that man can have the joy of consciously obeying the supreme law of his life.
I imagine the future life in the kingdom of God with rich and poor. The poor will be reconciled to their poverty, and the rich will not have to defend their possessions. The uneducated people will be rich, they will fight among themselves, the educated people will be poor and they will not fight with anyone.
It is not the sun that moves, but the earth turns towards it; in the same way, time does not pass, but the world, hidden by time, reveals itself.
How mysterious everything is to old people and how clear everything is to children!
Personal selfishness is a small river, family selfishness is bigger, party selfishness is even bigger, state selfishness is the worst.
The horse does not listen, but leaves itself to the will of the one who urges it. He doesn't care if he goes right or left, and at the slightest push to the left of the lump he turns right. So is the man without faith.
I'm not saying that state organization is good or bad and that you should or shouldn't do politics, I'm just saying that, before dealing with politics, everyone should deal with his life, with his soul, and that the wisest political measures in a state of 100 million inhabitants have less effect than the moral and religious direction of the life of one man out of these 100 million.
It would be a ridiculous prejudice to imagine that I can found a home, a family by myself. Still more ridiculous would it be to imagine that I could establish a people, and still more ridiculous that I could establish the kingdom of God for all mankind. All this, especially the foundation of the life of all mankind, is carried out according to laws that are inaccessible to me and do not depend on me. To think this way and act on it would be like a cell in my body breaking the laws of its life to make my body do what it wants. All we can do, like every cell in our body, is fulfill the law of our life in the most perfect way. But the general course of life is carried out according to laws and for purposes inaccessible to us.
The Christian concept of equality, understood not with humility but with arrogance, does not bring unity but division of people.
Three hypotheses: 1) spirit = consciousness = reason are produced by and dependent on matter. 2) Matter is produced by consciousness and is dependent on it. 3) Spirit and matter are inseparably united and neither influences the other. In the first case, I have to answer the question of where the matter that makes up my body came from: from the matter that existed before. And her? From the previous one. And her? I have to accept that this matter that appears alone is incomprehensible to me. In the second case, when asked where the soul came from, I answer that I do not accept the question. Soul, consciousness, reason did not appear out of nowhere, they are, they are the only thing that existed, and they are such that in their absence nothing exists. And that is why, in the first case the source is outside me in the immensity and is absolutely incomprehensible, and in the second it is inside me and is absolutely clear. The third hypothesis falls by itself, because two principles of life—one absolutely incomprehensible, the other absolutely clear—cannot be equal.
Sleep is perfectly like death because consciousness is interrupted, but life is not interrupted. The similarity may also consist in the fact that in sleep a new consciousness begins, still based on the previous one (awake), but not connected to it. Perhaps the similarity also lies in the fact that our whole life is related to real life as dreams are to present life. Just as in this life, after each falling asleep and awakening, life is revealed more, so true life is revealed more and more with each birth after death.
The works of faith strengthen faith. Faith produces works. Circulus viciousus.
To use the freedom of revolution to free yourself from the prejudice of the need for power. "But people are not ready." We have a vicious circle. People will not be ready as long as there is a power that corrupts them.
Just as the tutor always considered the pupil unprepared, the same happens with the candidate for the position of tutor. Anarchists see the evil of power, but they believe in it, in its means.
Any man can be loved. Only, in order to love a man like that, you don't have to love him for something, but for nothing. If you're going to start loving him like that, you're going to find reasons.
The fact that scholars, historians penetrate more and more deeply into the study of Antiquity shows that the past is revealed to us just like the future, but it is revealed through a different, still incomplete process.