A Calendar of Wisdom

People are so involved in their material interests that when they look at the manifestations of the human soul, and at pure relationships between people, they look at them from the point of view of how to improve their material well-being. Respectability is often measured by one's wealth, and not by his real inner spiritual value.

The possession of great wealth is a school of pride, cruelty, self-admiration, and dissipation.

The lack of sensitivity among rich people is not as cruel as their compassion.

You should not respect poor people too much, but you should take pity on them. A rich person should not be proud of his wealth; he should be ashamed of it.

Life is the understanding of a holy spirit in yourself; a holy spirit which is put into some limits. The only clear and final truth is the truth of conscience.

Under my feet, there is cold frozen earth; around me huge trees are standing; above my head is the foggy cold sky. I feel my body, I feel my mind occupied with various thoughts. And at the same time I know that all these things, all this frosted cold earth, and the trees, and the sky, and my body, and my thoughts, this is all created by chance, this is a temporary world, the creation of my five senses. The world created by me exists only because I am part of it, and therefore, I separate myself from the world. I know that I could die, but the world will not disappear. Death will make some changes in me, and while I will not be completely destroyed, I will become another being, separate from this world. Now, at present, I understand myself; then, something different altogether will happen to my inner self. And there can be a limitless number of such beings, which exist separately from this world.

Our life is our limited understanding of this eternal and limitless spirit which knows no constraints in time and space and which is not bound by any spatial or timely events.

The human conscience is a divine conscience.

Our land, like our character, cannot be the object of buying and selling. Behind the buying and selling of earth is the hidden process of buying and selling a personality.

Earth is the great gift which nature gave to people, and the birth of every person in this world should give him the right to possess this earth. And this right should be as natural as the right of a person to have the breast of his mother.

A person in our society cannot sleep without paying for the place where he sleeps; he has the right to have free air or water or sunlight only when he is on the road. The only right he has is to walk along this road; until he becomes tired, or he cannot walk, he has to continue walking. The bodies of men and women, and even more importantly, their children, should not be bought and sold. So too the water, the land and air, because these things are necessary conditions of this existence.

People strive in this world, not for those things which are truly good, hut for the possession of many things which they can call their property.

A person who is not used to luxury, but who acquired luxury quite by chance, often pretends, in order to become more important in his own eyes and in the eyes of other people, that luxury is natural for him, that he is not surprised by it, that he neglects it. In the same way a stupid person pretends that he is bored with life,and that he can find something more interesting.

The joy of your spirit is the indication of your strength.

You must believe in the possibility of happiness in order to be happy.

Take from a person who follows the divine law everything which other people think of as comfort and wealth, and nevertheless such a person will remain happy.

A person who has spoiled his stomach will criticize his meals saying that the food is bad; the same thing happens with people who are not satisfied with their lives in this world.

We do not have the right to be unhappy with our life. If it seems to us that we are not satisfied with life, we should see this as a reason to be unsatisfied with ourselves.

Better to do nothing than to do harm.

We often refuse to participate in the innocent joys of life because we are too busy with something we feel we have to do. We should accept these moments, because the sweet and joyful game is sometimes more important and necessary than most other things. Very often the business which busy people claim to be doing is not important at all. and sometimes it would be better left undone.

Cruel people are busy all the time, as if to find justification for the cruelty of their dealings.

It is a common misconception to think that pleasures and joys are unimportant and sometimes evil; as for example, Islam, or ancient old Orthodox Christianity, or Puritanism would have it. Pleasure is as important as work, and is the reward of work. Work cannot last endlessly, and the necessary rest should usually conclude with some period of pleasure. Pleasures are only bad in these three cases: when we have to make other people work for us because it is impossible for us to satisfy our desire for pleasures, when we plan competitive games to determine who will have the best or the most pleasures, and when pleasures are allowed only for selected people. But if these evils are avoided, then pleasure, especially for young people, is not an evil, but a good.

Work and pleasure should be alternated, one after the other; they fill our lives with joy, though not every work and every pleasure can do this.

A person who stands on his tiptoes cannot stand long, and a person who is too proud of himself cannot set a good example.

He who is looking for wisdom is already wise; and he who thinks that he has found wisdom is a stupid man.

No external force can make you humble. There is only one way to be humble: do not think about yourself, but about how you can serve God and others.

Whether they know it or not, all creatures are inseparably connected.

I will never seek or accept merely my own personal salvation, I do not want to receive satisfaction by myself; always and everywhere I live and work, I will hope and strive for the universal salvation of all people and all creatures in the world. Until all have been saved and freed, I will not abandon this world of sin, sadness, and strife.

Understand that you are part of a great spiritual brotherhood; there is something cheering and soothing in the thought which will make you calm and satisfied.

Humanity has begun to understand that we will all rise or fall together - that we are bound together, as we live together. People are listening more and more to the voice which speaks this inside of us.