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In the Introduction to the newly published English version of The last days of
Leo Tolstoy by Vladimir Chertkov, his closest friend, the publisher writes:
”Nearly a century after his death, Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy remains a giant in
the world of literature. While the impact of his ‘spiritual’ mission cannot be
fully gauged”. A Confession by Leo Tolstoy written in the
last decades of the last century could not have been appreciated among the
majority in a world that materialism was propagated as the only credible way of
approaching knowledge. Talking about any spiritual dimension was miscomprehended
as an attempt that could not lead but to irrationality and non scientific
thinking. In the New Age where people have started to feel their existence as
spirits and not only matter, Tolstoy’s experience is expected to receive so much
appreciation.
A Confession by Leo Tolstoy is a very
inspiring work for those who are interested in the question: what is the
meaning of life? For Tolstoy it was not an exercise of the intellect; it was
an arduous search from the side of someone who “had reached the impossibility of
living, a cessation of life and the necessity of suicide”. How come that “so
imperceptibly and gradually did the force of life” return to him? Was it a new
discovery? Tolstoy says that it was “quite old-the same that had borne me along
in my earliest days.” Why and how then did it leave him? Here is the whole story
as much as possible in the words he expressed it.
At the age of 18 he started to be skeptical about all what he
learnt at school as a Christian Orthodox. The signs of the cross and
genuflection he made in prayers were, for him, meaningless actions and he could
no longer continue doing them. He shared with others the impression that always
religious persons were noticed to be “dull-witted, cruel, and immoral people who
tend to consider themselves very important “, while “intelligence, honesty,
straightforwardness, good naturedness and morality are qualities usually found
among people who claim to be non believers.”
Nevertheless, he says, “ I did believe in something, without
being able to say what it was. I believed in God, or rather I did not deny God,
but what kind of God I could not have said; neither did I reject Christ or his
teachings, but what I understood by the teachings again I could not have said.”
At that point the young Tolstoy had no conflict because the natural faith in him
was manifested in a sincere desire for “moral perfection” coupled with
perfection of every other aspect in life.
Yet, however things were not that easy. “Everytime I tried to
display my innermost desires-a wish to be morally good-I was met with contempt
and scorn, and as soon as I gave in to base desires I was praised and
encouraged.” Here was a turning point in Tolstoy’s life, moral perfection was
replaced by a determination “to be more famous, more important, wealthier” and
all passions of “animal instincts motivating my life.” In a world where
“ambition, lust for power, self-interest, lechery, pride, anger, revenge, were
all respected qualities,” Tolstoy says that he practiced “lying, thieving,
promiscuity of all kinds, drunkness, violence, murder….” But was still
considered by others as “a relatively moral man.”
At the age of 26 he started to mix with poets and writers and
share with them a role that was bestowed upon them at the time of faith in
“evolution”; the role of teaching people. “This faith in the meaning of poetry
and in the evolution of life was a religion and I was one of its priests…..for a
considerable length of time I lived in this faith without doubting its
validity.”
He began to doubt the sincerity of his circle when he noticed
that each group term themselves as “the finest and most useful teachers” and
“others teach falsely”. Something very deep in him was telling him that if ever
someone was carrying such a great mission of “teaching people” he should not
seek personal esteem as first priority. But still he shared with them their
“genuine, sincere concern” of “how to gain as much money and fame as possible”
by writing books and journals. When he remembers this stage in his life Tolstoy
says, ”we all spoke at the same time, never listening to one another. At times
we indulged and praised each other in order to be indulged and praised in
return, at other times we grew angry and shrieked at each other, just as if we
were in a madhouse.”
Two events had an effect on him deeply: in a visit to Paris
where he saw young men executed; “the sight of an execution revealed to me the
precariousness of my superstition in progress……I realized that even if every
single person since the day of creation had, according to whatever theory, found
this (execution) necessary I knew that it was unnecessary and wrong, and
therefore judgements on what is good and necessary must not be based on what
other people say and do, or on progress, but on the instincts of my own soul”.
The second event was his brother’s death “without having understood why he had
lived, and still less why he was dying.” Tolstoy was so touched deep inside, but
his supposition was that, “everything is evolving, and the reason why I am
evolving together with all the rest will one day be known to me.”
Being involved in more work of writing, arbitration, teaching
he began to feel spiritually ill without knowing a concrete reason for that
illness. He got more involved in work as a means “of stifling any questions in
my soul regarding the meaning of my own life in general.” Another means was
getting married and putting for himself a new goal, “the straightforward desire
for achieving the best for my family and myself.” Thus another fifteen years
passed.
Attacks of despair then started to recur more and more
frequently with questions, “Why, what comes next?” ”Well fine, you will have
6000 desyatins in the Samara province and 300 horses, and then what?” “Well
fine, so you will be more famous than Gogol, Pushkin, Shakespeare, Moliere, more
famous than all the writers in the world, and so what?”
With no answers to relieve him life turned to a complete
meaninglessness. “But it was impossible to stop, and impossible to turn back or
close my eyes in order not to see that there was nothing ahead other than
deception of life and of happiness, and the reality of suffering and death: of
complete annihilation.” Tolstoy, at this stage was not yet fifty, very healthy,
famous, rich, respected, leading a wonderful marital life with a beloved wife
and wonderful children. He was only possessed by the questions: ”What will come
of what I do today or tomorrow? What will come of my entire life? Is there any
meaning in my life that will not be annihilated by the inevitability of death
which awaits me?
“I searched for an answer to my questions in all branches of
knowledge acquired by man. I sought long and laboriously. I did not search
half-heartedly, or out of idle curiosity, but tormentedly, persistently, day and
night, like a dying man seeking salvation, and I found nothing.” Tolstoy sums up
the knowledge that science and philosophy, each out of its own perspective,
gives but which he regards as giving not answer to his questions. Science says,
”you are that which you call your life; you are a temporary, incidental
accumulation of particles. The mutual interaction and alteration of these
particles produces in you something you refer to as your life. This accumulation
can only survive for a limited length of time; when the interaction of these
particles ceases, that which you call life will cease bringing an end to all
your questions.” The speculative realm tells him, ”the universe is something
infinite and incomprehensible. Man’s life is an inscrutable part of this
inscrutable ‘whole’”.
Finding no answer to his questions in books he turned to
people around him. He found them having four forms of “escape”; either they are
ignorant of the whole thing, involved in physical pleasure (epicurianism),
strong enough to get rid of their lives, or weak enough to cling to life even if
they knew well that it was evil and useless. The inner torture he faced was
leading him to commit suicide; he did not even know why he did not kill himself.
A new stage in his life started when he was sure that the
answer to his questions was not to be found in ”rational knowledge” because that
knowledge was dealing with the “finite” and his questions were about the
“infinite”. It was such a BIG DISCOVERY for him that his questions were to be
answered by “faith” because it is only faith that answers the question: what
meaning is not destroyed by death? by: unity with the infinite, God, heaven. “I
was inevitably led to acknowledge there does exist another kind of knowledge
possessed by humanity as a whole: faith.” “Faith is a knowledge of the meaning
of human life, the consequence of which is that man does not kill himself but
lives. Faith is the force of life. If a man lives, then he must believe in
something. If he did not believe that there was something that he must live for
he would not live. If he does not see and comprehend the illusion of the finite,
he will believe in the finite. If he does understand the illusion of the finite,
he is bound to believe in the infinite.”
Now that he found the clue, a kind of relative stability
emerged; it is not through rationality that man finds answers to a question
about the meaning of life, because rational knowledge deals with what is
temporal. The truth about what is eternal is to be found in faith, that was his
conclusion. “I was now prepared to accept any faith so long as it did not demand
a direct denial of reason, which would have been a deceit”, said Tolstoy to
himself and started a new direction of search. He turned to “learned people,
Orthodox theologians, elder monks, theologians of the newest types of Orthodoxy,
and even to the so-called New Christians who thought salvation through faith in
redemption ….questioned them on how they believed and what they understand to be
the meaning of life…….I could not accept the faith of those people”. “…..they
did not live according to the principles expounded in their teachings. I felt
strongly that they were deceiving themselves…….they lived only to satisfy their
desires and they lived just as badly as, if not worse than, nonbelievers.”
Tolstoy then was afraid a “tormenting feeling of fear should return to my former
despair, after the hope I had experienced.”
Tolstoy by now had knocked all the doors of outside sources,
and every time he thought he was about to find answer to his questions about the
meaning of life and what remains of it after death, he was faced by a layer of
falsity that, instead of leading him to the truth, was apparently taking him far
away again. This might be true on the surface, but actually every step was
leading him to the real source of knowledge within. Failure to get out with
anything from theologians led him to total despair and panic; and for the first
time he found himself directing his face not to something human; “I started to
pray to the one whom I sought, in order that he might help me. And the more I
prayed the more apparent it became that He did not hear me and that there was
really no one to whom I could return. And with my heart full of grief that there
was no one, no God, I cried: Lord have mercy on me. Save me! O Lord show me the
way! But no one had mercy on me and I felt that my life had come to an end.”
It was not coming to an end, it was the severe pain that
precedes birth. With deep suffering and strong feeling- a feeling that cannot be
questioned, justified, or proved- that God exists, Tolstoy came up with a
conclusion. “A concept of God is not God,” “I am seeking that, without which
there cannot be life.” “There He is! He, without whom it is impossible to live.
To know God and to live are one and the same thing. God is life.” “And more
powerfully than ever before everything within and around me came to light, and
the light has not deserted me ever since.”
It was not the end of the journey to experience the flow of
life that strongly; actually it was the beginning of a new phase. Tolstoy wanted
to do something to express that life through. He was aware, by inner intuition
that he wanted to keep in touch with the Source of life, God. With the same
purity and sincerity he went to attend the church services with that purpose.
“With all the powers of my being I wished to be in a position whereby I could
merge with the people in fulfilling the ritual aspects of their faith; but I
could not do it. I felt that I would be lying to myself, and mocking what I
considered sacred, if I were to do so.” This was a new experience of separating
“true” from “false”. “I have no doubt that there is truth in the teachings, but
I also have no doubt that there is falsehood in them too, and that I must
discover what is true and what is false and separate one from the other.”
With that purpose in mind and heart, he turned to study
theology and the Holy Scripture. Tolstoy has wonderful writings about religion
in which he separates what is true from what is false. They deserve an article
of their own. Since we are interested here in his inner journey which is very
relevant for any seeker of truth, the most important thing to mention here is
that knowledge he came up with when he read the Bible was not something
separated from the inner experience. In other words he read the Bible not as
mere literal words, he read it with light in his heart. So the knowledge of the
heart, the force of life within made him capable of communicating with the inner
language of the Holy Scripture.
Tolstoy came up with two main conclusions: first, the church
was deceiving people gravely and people themselves should exert effort to know
the true faith. Second, one of the most obtuse superstitions was the
superstition of the scientists who said that man can exist without faith.
Tolstoy gives his definition of what religion is. “Religion is not a belief
established once and for all in certain supernatural events that are supposed to
have taken place at a particular time, nor is a belief in the necessity of
certain prayers and rituals, nor, as the scientist think, is it a survival of
the superstitions of ancient ignorance which have no meaning or relevance of
life today. Religion is a relationship established between man, everlasting
life, and God in conformity with reason and contemporary knowledge, and which
alone pushes humanity forwards to its destined aim.”
With peace inside Tolstoy made of his whole life an
expression of what he believed; "he frequently reminded people, his mission was
service to God among real, living people rather than monastic seclusion;
moreover, he rightly did not feel free to abandon his wife and numerous
children”. (Vladimir Chertkov: The last days of Leo Tolstoy)
His religious understanding is based on commitment to life
rather than withdrawal from it, on participation rather than passivity, on
establishing the kingdom of God on earth rather than anticipating it in an
after-life
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