I address God as a person not only because that is how I was brought up, but I was brought up that way because this way of addressing God is proper to man. I know, or may know, that the sun is a huge mass of hot gases, but I say, I cannot help saying and thinking, that the sun is a bright, warm, yellowish-red circle that appears and disappears behind the horizon line. In the same way, about God I know and can know that He is everything, that He has no edges and limits, but I believe and say, I cannot help saying and not believing, that God is the Father in whose power I am, who is good, he knows me and can help me. And I say: forgive me, God, help me, thank you.
Lao Tzu's idea of humility as I understand it is wonderful. He says: "The man who seeks worldly glory glorifies himself more and more, and as he glorifies himself in the eyes of men, he becomes weaker and weaker in himself, and comes to be unable to do anything on his own. But the man who seeks God's approval humbles himself more and more before men, but becomes more and more powerful and finally comes to be able to do anything".
In old age, interest in the future and the past disappears, memory and imagination are destroyed, but life in the present remains and grows, the consciousness of this true life.
There is always among us, but especially now, an epidemic madness that grips children, the madness of ordering the lives of others, not your own.
I read what Kropotkin writes about communism. It's well-written and the intentions are good, but it's amazing in its inner contradiction: using violence to stop some people's violence against others. The problem is how to make people not be selfish and violent. According to their program, to achieve this goal you must commit other violence. I felt keenly the difference between living for the sake of the world, of men, of their approval, and living for God, with all its force. How much freedom, joy and power this life has!
I believe that for Christians there can be neither communism nor property rights. Christianity, with its essential basis, complete freedom which excludes the possibility of violence of man against man, also annuls communism and the right to property. If I made a pair of boots and I want to give them to my son, the communist asks me for these boots for the common good. If I don't want to give them, he will use violence against me. The statesman will do the same against the man who wants to take my boots, he will use violence. The Christian, however, although he knows and respects the tendency of people to want everyone to dispose of his work, he does not consider himself entitled to fulfill this desire by force, and he does not consider anyone entitled to take by force, in the name of communism, the fruit of man's work. Christianity, like Communism, excludes property but does not condone violence. Property, like communism, is the result of violence, it is about violence that does not exist for the Christian.
When you are troubled by something, try to clarify what is troubling you, whether it is a divine or a human thing.
Nothing hurts more than people's bad opinion of you, and at the same time nothing is more helpful, nothing frees more untrue life.
I meditated on power, on the Slavophile idea that the worst people should be in power (if power is still needed) while they are evil. She is absolutely correct.
A wonderful idea, God is sunlight, and man is an object that absorbs the rays of God-light. The human body is made up of those rays of God that were not absorbed by man. Life is man's increasing absorption of Divinity.
I passionately desire only one thing: to beg people, from Nicholas II to the last robber, to spare themselves, to forget everything, all thoughts about God, about the future life, I am no longer talking about the state , family, their own body, and to direct all their attention, all their powers on one thing, the only thing that is without doubt, their life, and not to give it neither for country, nor for glory, nor for wealth, nor for God , but to live for themselves, for their good, to use the good of life that is in our power. This good that cannot be taken from us, that hangs heavier than anything else, that destroys everything that can be difficult in our life. This good is love, love towards everything that is animate, and even inanimate, and even love towards oneself, towards our soul. It's that state of mind where everything is fine. He torments me, he torments me, he tortures me, he beats me, and I pity those who do this, I love them, and I feel all the better the worse they are with me. Plant this feeling in your soul, because it's just a little bit, and everything will be fine, everything that is considered misfortune, including death, everything will turn into good.
Yes, yes, love towards enemies, towards those who hate, is not an exaggeration, as it seems at first glance, but it is the basic idea of love. Like non-resistance, giving the other cheek is not an exaggeration and a parable, but a law, the law of non-resistance, without which Christianity cannot exist. Christianity cannot exist without love for haters, especially haters.
Nothing delays the realization of God's kingdom more than the fact that we want to establish it through its opposite, through violence.
"Sammle nur die grösste Kraft auf den kleinsten Punkt" *. Gather all the forces in the smallest point and you will accomplish great things. Gather all the forces of the spirit into the most insignificant being, your body, and you will do, without thinking, what in this world is considered great.
- What is God? - It is what is inside you, but it is not your body. - That much? - No, there is also what was in other people, but it is not their body; there is also that which is in everything we know, but it is not a body.
If you understood that you are God in a separate manifestation, in the flesh, what kind of death of God can we talk about? But if you have understood this, you cannot but seek freedom from wandering and union with the All. Your freedom from wandering can only come through loving All and All. Love brings the greatest joy to life. "We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brothers" (Epistle of John). I feel a great joy, I expressed myself very well.
The man who lives for the carnal life and is driven by temporal interests is like the bird that runs with its feeble legs on the ground, struggling, not knowing why it has wings.
The world is not God, but the world is the manifestation of God. In myself I have the consciousness of God, I can recognize him in people and even in animals; I have half the consciousness, the understanding of God in plants. But in the sand, in the microscopic particles of matter and in the stars, I do not have His consciousness and I do not understand God, but I cannot but assume that He shows Himself there to beings more sensitive and wiser than myself.
This is what I would like to say to people: My dear brothers, why do you torment yourselves and why do you torment others, why do you strive to restore, to straighten people's lives, to remodel them, to make them right people? Neither you nor anyone else can do that. By trying to reshape and straighten people's lives, you only torment yourself and torment others, you destroy your life and the lives of others. No man in the world is called to correct others, no one can do that. Every man has only one calling, to correct himself, to correct himself, and everyone can and must do this. Moreover, everyone can and must do it, the true good of each person lies only in this, in correcting oneself, in exalting oneself, as it is written in the Gospel, as a son of God. Only if man felt this, if he gathered all his strength not to live for his body but for God, if he gathered all his strength to increase love, then he would feel how full of joy and how his life would become easy. "Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me that I am gentle and lowly in heart and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is good and My burden is light". *
I understood today more clearly than before that everything created, leaves and passes. It's a wonder that people can't understand this, they transfer all their wishes to the future, without realizing that the future does not stand still, that it will pass like the past.
Lately I feel like every day is a holiday and I am grateful for the good that is given to me.
We live in terrible times. The thefts, assassinations, executions are not complete. What are thefts? They are transfers of property from some people to others. That was and will be, and there is nothing serious about it. What are executions, assassinations? They are people's transitions from life to death. These were, are and will be, and there is nothing serious about that either. Fulfilled are not the thefts and murders, but the feelings of those people who steal and kill.
If man knows or thinks he knows what to do so that he and everyone else can live well, then what he knows or thinks he knows is faith.
There is a grain of truth in the fact that my life, my spiritual life remains in the people who need it. Perhaps I am what is left in other beings of the spiritual life of a being. And that creature was also made up of the spiritual principles of other beings, and those in turn likewise.
Man is the manifestation of divinity, but at first it seems to him that he is a special being, "I". It seems to him that he is "I", separate, that he is human; but he is God, his manifestation. I don't know what animals are like, but man not only can, but must know this. And knowing, man cannot but assume his life in relation to everything, that is, in love. For man, the consequence of this fact is good.
It seems impossible to love a bad man. It's really impossible. But we must love and we can love not the man, but the suppressed God, crushed in man, and to love this God, to try to help him to free himself. And this is possible and will bring us joy.
True, serious life is only that which follows the recognized supreme law; but the life guided by desires, passions, reasonings is only the antechamber of life, its preparation, it is sleep.
Just as in man, as he grows older, the good understanding with the eternal power of God is manifested more and more, so this good understanding is manifested throughout the world as time goes on.
Nothing calls you to change and improve the existing ordinances, but all the life force that is in you calls you to change and improve your inner, spiritual life, so that God may show himself more and more in you.
Man got so messed up that whatever he does is bad, like the crossroads in the story of the strongman. There seems to be no way out, and wherever it goes it will be bad. Only if he receives inner illumination will he understand that he does not have to choose anything, but only to recognize God in himself and to give himself to Him, that is, to give himself to love. And then you don't have to choose anything. Go which way you want, they are all good.