Tolstoy- An insight into the Purpose of Life
Count Leo Tolstoy, the grand seer of prose and
spirituality was more than just a literary giant in the world of classical
literature. His contribution was immense in the literary arena and his insights
into morality, spirituality and
purpose of life is captivating and profound.
To this day, Tolstoy's novels are considered among the finest achievements of literary work. War and Peace is, in fact, frequently cited as the greatest novel ever written. In contemporary academia, Tolstoy is still widely acknowledged as having possessed a gift for describing characters' unconscious motives. He is also championed for his finesse in underscoring the role of people's everyday actions in defining their character and purpose.
He wrote The
Kingdom of God Is Within You (1893),
titled after Luke’s Gospel in the New Testament. When Mahatma Gandhi read it he
was profoundly moved and wrote to Tolstoy regarding the Passive Resistance movement.
They started a correspondence and soon became friends. Tolstoy wrote “A Letter
to a Hindu” in 1908.
Tolstoy was an avid reader and he spared no
spiritual books and had relished the literature on Krishna, Buddha, Jesus,
Moses and other spiritual stalwarts. He was particularly fascinated with the
Eastern philosophy of non violence, non-attachment and vainness of Life. Like
the Buddha who challenged the ritualistic religion, he too challenged the
orthodoxy of the day. A deeply religious man though he was , slowly turned
agnostic and this deeply affected him
and landed him into a deep mental
crisis.
He was a archetypal seeker who was past with
the sin of wine, woman and war, and had his pot of indulgence filled to
the brim in his younger days. His search
for spiritual moorings made him delve into the realm of science, but
it was to his dismay that he found that it created more disillusion and
confusion and led him to a dead end to his seeking unto the path of truth and
quest for discovery of the purpose of life.
In his persistent inquiry into the purpose of
life, with his critical thinking and analysis he tried to evaluate the scriptural
commandments and often found contradictory
commandments across various scriptures
which further cast aspersions on the veracity and efficacy of the scriptures.
Over the last 30 years of his life, Tolstoy established
himself as a moral and religious leader. His ideas about nonviolent resistance
to evil influenced the likes of social leader Mahatma Gandhi. In the due course of
life he turned into a pacifist and a crusader for nonviolence in all forms extending it even to
other forms of life. In the later years, he got disgusted with the ilk of
writers in his class and cast serious aspersions on their intent too. This was
a huge U-turn, for he himself
represented the class against which he finally turned his back to. It is a
seekers dream to amass the knowledge and Tolstoy represented the fountainhead
of knowledge and class and everything the zenith of society stood for. The
nadir of the society was the poor illiterate, superstitious and religious
peasants who toiled for their livelihood and were farthest from any class .
With persevering critical reasoning, he found
out who lived the real life and who lived as parasites and idlers, living off
the poor peasants. He finally turned to reality, bid goodbye to the idlers and
the circuit of intelligentsia; turned spiritual, dressed like a peasant whom he
considered was the paradigm of Purpose of Life and led a group of followers in the
quest for truth until his death enroute to his final journey to a monastery.
Philosophy , Misery and Retribution
Tolstoy was immensely rich with estate while
his philosophy was against amassing such wealth and that life was in simple living.
He tried retribution at his best for distribution of his wealth but was only
partially successful as he met stiff opposition from his wife. Though his wife
was part of his literary accomplishment, she was no game for his real
philosophy especially in the matter of wealth.
Tolstoy’s Philosophy-
In A Confession , Tolstoy defined Life
as:-
There
is an Eastern fable, told long ago, of a traveller overtaken on a plain by an
enraged beast. Escaping from the beast he gets into a dry well, but sees at the
bottom of the well a dragon that has opened its jaws to swallow him. And the
unfortunate man, not daring to climb out lest he should be destroyed by the
enraged beast, and not daring to leap to the bottom of the well lest he should
be eaten by the dragon, seizes s twig growing in a crack in the well and clings
to it.
His
hands are growing weaker and he feels he will soon have to resign himself to
the destruction that awaits him above or below, but still he clings on. Then he
sees that two mice, a black one and a white one, go regularly round and round
the stem of the twig to which he is clinging and gnaw at it. And soon the twig
itself will snap and he will fall into the dragon's jaws.
The
traveller sees this and knows that he will inevitably perish; but while still
hanging he looks around, sees some drops of honey on the leaves of the twig,
reaches them with his tongue and licks them. So I too clung to the twig of
life, knowing that the dragon of death was inevitably awaiting me, ready to
tear me to pieces; and I could not understand why I had fallen into such
torment. I tried to lick the honey which formerly consoled me, but the honey no
longer gave me pleasure, and the white and black mice of day and night gnawed
at the branch by which I hung. I saw the dragon clearly and the honey no longer
tasted sweet. I only saw the inescapable dragon and the mice, and I could not
tear my gaze from them and this is not a fable but the real unanswerable truth
intelligible to all.
The deception of the joys of life which
formerly allayed my terror of the dragon now no longer deceived me. No matter
how often I may be told, "You cannot understand the meaning of life so do
not think about it, but live," I can no longer do it: I have already done
it too long. I cannot now help seeing day and night going round and bringing me
to death. That is all I see, for that alone is true. All else is false.
With
the above fable as reference, Tolstoy has enunciated the categories of mankind
and their philosophies with response to
the Beast and Dragon situation as in the
fable.
And this is
what I found among people who were in the same position as myself as regards
education and manner of life. I found that for people of my circle there were
four ways out of the terrible position in which we are all placed.
I. The first was that of ignorance. It consists in not knowing, not
understanding, that life is an evil and an absurdity.
People of this sort - chiefly women, or
very young or very dull people - have not yet understood that question of life
which presented itself to Schopenhauer, Solomon, and Buddha. They see neither
the dragon that awaits them nor the mice gnawing the shrub by which they are
hanging, and they lick the drops of honey. but they lick those drops of honey
only for a while: something will turn their attention to the dragon and the
mice, and there will be an end to their licking. From them I had nothing to
learn - one cannot cease to know what one does know.
II. The second way out is epicureanism. It consists, while knowing the
hopelessness of life, in making use meanwhile of the advantages one has,
disregarding the dragon and the mice, and licking the honey in the best way,
especially if there is much of it within reach.
Solomon
expresses this way out thus: "Then I commended mirth, because a man hath
no better thing under the sun, than to
eat, and to drink, and to be merry: and that this should accompany him in his
labour the days of his life, which God giveth him under the sun.
"Therefore
eat thy bread with joy and drink thy wine with a merry heart.... Live joyfully
with the wife whom thou lovest all the days of the life of thy vanity... for
this is thy portion in life and in thy labours which thou takest under the
sun.... Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might, for there is
not work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou
goest."
That is the way in which the majority of people of our
circle make life possible for themselves. Their circumstances furnish them with
more of welfare than of hardship, and their moral dullness makes it possible
for them to forget that the advantage of their position is accidental,
III. The third escape is that of strength and energy. It consists in
destroying life, when one has understood that it is an evil and an absurdity.
A few
exceptionally strong and consistent people act so. Having understood the
stupidity of the joke that has been played on them, and having understood that
it is better to be dead than to be alive, and that it is best of all not to
exist, they act accordingly and promptly end this stupid joke, since there are
means: a rope round one's neck, water, a knife to stick into one's heart, or
the trains on the railways; and the number of those of our circle who act in
this way becomes greater and greater, and for the most part they act so at the
best time of their life, when the strength of their mind is in full bloom and
few habits degrading to the mind have as yet been acquired. I saw that this was
the worthiest way of escape and I wished to adopt it.
IV.The fourth way out is that of weakness. It consists in seeing the
truth of the situation and yet clinging to life, knowing in advance that
nothing can come of it.
People of this kind know that death is
better than life, but not having the strength to act rationally - to end the
deception quickly and kill themselves - they seem to wait for something. This
is the escape of weakness, for if I know what is best and it is within my
power, why not yield to what is best? ... I found myself in that category.
The fourth
way was to live like Solomon and Schopenhauer - knowing that life is a stupid
joke played upon us, and still to go on living, washing oneself, dressing,
dining, talking, and even writing books. This was to me repulsive and
tormenting, but I remained in that position.
Tolstoy, in fact remained in this position
for a long time and accomplished his literary works until he turned his back to
the elite of the society to embrace peasantry.
Tolstoy:
On Wealth
Was wealth the aim of his life? He was highly
paid for his books, and he had 20,000 acres of land in the Government of
Samára; but suppose he became twice or ten times as rich, he asked himself,
would it satisfy him? And if it satisfied him — was not death coming: to take
it all away? The more satisfying the wealth, the more terrible must death be,
which would deprive him of it all.
Tolstoy – On British rule over India
Why millions of Indians were enslaved by a handful of
Britishers- Tolstoy
Tolstoy is startled at the question of
colonization of India and laments,” Tell
this to a man free from superstition and he will fail to grasp what these words
mean. What does it mean that thirty thousand people, not athletes, but rather
weak and ordinary people, have enslaved two hundred millions of vigorous,
clever, capable, freedom-loving people? Do not the figures make it clear that
not the English, but the Indians, have enslaved themselves?”
“When the Indians complain that the English
have enslaved them it is as if drunkards complained that the spirit-dealers who
have settled among them have enslaved them. You tell them that they might give
up drinking, but they reply that they are so accustomed to it that they cannot
abstain, and that they must have alcohol to keep up their energy. Is it not the
same thing with the millions of people who submit to thousands' or even to
hundreds, of others— of their own or other nations?”
“If the people of India are enslaved by
violence it is only because they themselves live and have lived by violence,
and do not recognize the eternal law of love inherent in humanity.”
In his A Letter to a Hindu,
he brings forth the unity of thought in the Vedas and the Gospel.
·
All that exists is One. People
only call this One by different names- THE VEDAS.
·
God is love, and he that abideth
in love abideth in God, and God abideth in him. I JOHN iv. 16.
·
God is one whole; we are the
parts. EXPOSITION OF THE TEACHING OF THE VEDAS BY VIVEKANANDA.
Tolstoy on Tiru Kural
Tolstoy thought it profound to
mention a verse from the Tamil Sangam literature, Tiru-Kural.
Of what use is
superior knowledge in the one,
if he does not endeavor
to relieve his neighbour's want as much as his own?
If, in the morning, a man wishes to do evil unto
another,
in the evening the
evil will return to him.
Love, the
umbilical cord of all religions-
He went on to surmise his insights into the common thread across various
religions as :-
“Thus it went on everywhere. The recognition that love represents the
highest morality was nowhere denied or contradicted, but this truth was so
interwoven everywhere with all kinds of falsehoods which distorted it, that
finally nothing of it remained but words. It was taught that this highest
morality was only applicable to private life— for home use, as it were— but
that in public life all forms of violence— such as imprisonment, executions,
and wars— might be used for the protection of the majority against a minority
of evildoers, though such means were diametrically opposed to any vestige of
love.”
“And though common sense indicated that if some men claim to decide who
is to be subjected to violence of all kinds for the benefit of others, these
men to whom violence is applied may, in turn, arrive at a similar conclusion
with regard to those who have employed violence to them, and though the great
religious teachers of Brahmanism, Buddhism, and above all of Christianity,
foreseeing such a perversion of the law of love, have constantly drawn
attention to the one invariable condition of love (namely, the enduring of
injuries, insults, and violence of all kinds without resisting evil by evil)
people continued— regardless of all that leads man forward— to try to unite the
incompatibles: the virtue of love, and what is opposed to love, namely, the
restraining of evil by violence.”
Tolstoy advocated the fundamental cleansing of religious consciousness
from all ancient religious and modern scientific superstitions.
“If only people freed themselves
from their beliefs in all kinds of Ormuzds, Brahmas, Sabbaoths, and their
incarnation as Krishnas and Christs, from beliefs in Paradises and Hells, in
reincarnations and resurrections, from belief in the interference of the Gods
in the external affairs of the universe, and above all, if they freed
themselves from belief in the infallibility of all the various Vedas, Bibles,
Gospels, Tripitakas, Korans, and the like, and also freed themselves from blind
belief in a variety of scientific teachings about infinitely small atoms and
molecules and in all the infinitely great and infinitely remote worlds, their
movements and origin, as well as from faith in the infallibility of the
scientific law to which humanity is at present subjected: the historic law, the
economic laws, the law of struggle and survival, and so on— if people only
freed themselves from this terrible accumulation of futile exercises of our
lower capacities of mind and memory called the 'Sciences', and from the
innumerable divisions of all sorts of histories, anthropologies, homiletics,
bacteriologics, jurisprudences, cosmographies, strategies— their name is
legion— and freed themselves from all this harmful, stupifying ballast— the
simple law of love, natural to man, accessible to all and solving all questions
and perplexities, would of itself become clear and obligatory.”
Tolstoy’s
Musings
1.
"We approach truth only inasmuch as we
depart from life", said Socrates when preparing for death. "For what
do we, who love truth, strive after in life? To free ourselves from the body,
and from all the evil that is caused by the life of the body! If so, then how
can we fail to be glad when death comes to us? "The wise man seeks death
all his life and therefore death is not terrible to him."
2.
“For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that
increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.”
3.
“And Sakya Muni could find no consolation in
life, and decided that life is the greatest of evils; and he devoted all the
strength of his soul to free himself from it, and to free others; and to do
this so that, even after death, life shall not be renewed any more but be
completely destroyed at its very roots. So speaks all the wisdom of India.”
4.
"The
life of the body is an evil and a lie. Therefore the destruction of the life of
the body is a blessing, and we should desire it," says Socrates.
"Life is that which should not be - an evil; and the passage into Nothingness
is the only good in life," says Schopenhauer.
Note- Non existence is extolled as existence is a burden.
5.
"All that is in the world - folly and
wisdom and riches and poverty and mirth and grief - is vanity and emptiness.
Man dies and nothing is left of him. And that is stupid," says Solomon.
6.
"To life in the consciousness of the
inevitability of suffering, of becoming enfeebled, of old age and of death, is
impossible - we must free ourselves from life, from all possible life,"
says Buddha.
Note-
Reminds one of a musician wondering to play music fearing the strain of strings
of his favourite musical instrument .In this dilemma he lives in fear rather
than enjoying the musical moment
7.
“So my
wandering among the sciences, far from freeing me from my despair, only
strengthened it.”
Note- Certain knowledge creates more confusion to simple facts of life.
8.
“It is no good deceiving oneself. It is all -
vanity! Happy is he who has not been born: death is better than life, and one
must free oneself from life.”
Note-
The ultimate freedom or moksha or nirvana from cycle of birth and rebirth
9.
“Ignorance always says just what I am saying.
When it does not know something, it says that what it does not know is stupid.
Indeed, it appears that there is a whole humanity that lived and lives as if it
understood the meaning of its life, for without understanding it could not
live; but I say that all this life is senseless and that I cannot live.”
Note-
In the past, present and in future also majority of humanity will live and
endure life believing they understand the nuances of life. In fact the mystery
of life is that we seldom take it to be a mystery and go about living like
ignorant beings.
10.
“It seemed to me that that narrow circle of
rich, learned, and leisured people to which I belonged formed the whole of
humanity, and that those milliards of others who have lived and are living were
cattle of some sort - not real people.”
Note-
Tolstoy was a true seeker of truth, knocking at the doors of all religions
which offered to answer the question of the purpose of life. His only
precondition was that it should not be against reason.
11.
“But though I made all possible concessions, and
avoided all disputes, I could not accept the faith of these people. I saw that
what they gave out as their faith did not explain the meaning of life but
obscured it, and that they themselves affirm their belief not to answer that
question of life which brought me to faith, but for some other aims alien to
me.”
“The more fully they
explained to me their doctrines, the more clearly did I perceive their error
and realized that my hope of finding in their belief an explanation of the
meaning of life was vain.”
Note-He
saw through the precarious position of religious people in explanation of
purpose of life and saw through the futility of such seeking.
12.
“And I understood that the belief of these
people was not the faith I sought, and that their faith is not a real faith but
an epicurean consolation in life. There was apparently no perceived difference
between these religious people and others rather than their self deception.”
13.
“And I began to draw near to the believers among
the poor, simple, unlettered folk: pilgrims, monks, sectarians, and peasants.
The faith of these common people was the same Christian faith as was professed
by the pseudo-believers of our circle. Among them, too, I found a great deal of
superstition mixed with the Christian truths; but the difference was that the
superstitions of the believers of our circle were quite unnecessary to them and
were not in conformity with their lives, being merely a kind of epicurean
diversion; but the superstitions of the believers among the labouring masses
conformed so with their lives that it was impossible to imagine them to oneself without those superstitions, which
were a necessary condition of their life. the whole life of believers in our
circle was a contradiction of their faith, but the whole life of the
working-folk believers was a confirmation of the meaning of life which their
faith gave them. And I began to look well into the life and faith of these
people, and the more I considered it the more I became convinced that they have
a real faith which is a necessity to them and alone gives their life a meaning
and makes it possible for them to live. In contrast with what I had seen in our
circle - where life without faith is possible and where hardly one in a
thousand acknowledges himself to be a believer - among them there is hardly one
unbeliever in a thousand. In contrast with what I had seen in our circle, where
the whole of life is passed in idleness, amusement, and dissatisfaction, I saw
that the whole life of these people was passed in heavy labour, and that they
were content with life. In contradistinction to the way in which people of our
circle oppose fate and complain of it on account of deprivations and
sufferings, these people accepted illness and sorrow without any perplexity or
opposition, and with a quiet and firm conviction that all is good. In
contradistinction to us, who the wiser we are the less we
understand the meaning of
life, and see some evil irony in the fact that we suffer and die, these folk
live and suffer, and they approach death and suffering with tranquillity and in
most cases gladly. In contrast to the fact that a tranquil death, a death
without horror and despair, is a very rare exception in our circle, a troubled,
rebellious, and unhappy death is the rarest exception among the people. and
such people, lacking all that for us and for Solomon is the only good of life
and yet experiencing the greatest happiness, are a great multitude. I looked
more widely around me.”
“It came about that the life of our circle,
the rich and learned, not merely became distasteful to me, but lost all meaning
in my eyes. All our actions, discussions, science and art, presented itself to
me in a new light.”
“I understood that it is all merely
self-indulgence, and that to find a meaning in it is impossible; while the life
of the whole labouring people, the whole of mankind who produce life, appeared
to me in its true significance. I understood that *that* is life itself, and
that the meaning given to that life is true: and I accepted it.”
Note-
While the circle of the elite
was a catalyst to formation of the question of purpose of life, the
circle of vanity was merely part of the question rather than the answer. The
larger part of answer presented itself out of this circle among the most
unlikely , uneducated and illiterate society of peasants. Atleast they seemed
to live what they believed and accepted the challenges of life more maturely
and naturally than the vanity circle .
14.
“The mass which gives back more to the world, to
sustain life in its entirety represents life more than the idle epicurean elite
class. In fact the upper layers of Society are parasitic and prey on the vitals
of the people who support them.”
Note-
Is it a universal statement that upper layers of society is parasitic.
It is a presumption that the masses support the upper layers with their labour.
Doesn’t management and funding, a precursor to labour, which is a part of
execution, relevant to the manifestation and sustenance of any entity which
creates wealth and job. Isnt the upper and lower layer supporting each other.
The smarter and the fittest move towards the higher echolons . Those who are
left behind the race may be simple but how can those who won the race be
parasitic .It may be true in the feudal dynastic hierarchy, but in the modern
context where the ladder of movement is free across the layers of society, this
statement loses its universality .
15.
I asked myself what my life is, and got
the reply: An evil and an absurdity and really my life - a life of indulgence
of desires - was senseless and evil, and therefore the reply, "Life is
evil and an absurdity", referred only to my life, but not to human life in
general. I understood the truth which I afterwards found in the Gospels, "that
men loved darkness rather than the light, for their works were evil. For
everyone that doeth ill hateth the light, and cometh not to the light, lest his
works should be reproved."
Note-This
reminds of the verses in Bhagvad Gita which says::
yajante sattvika devan
yaksha- raksami rajasah
pretan bhuta- ganams canye
yajante tamasa janah
Men in mode of goodness worship the Devas
Those in
mode of passion worship the demons and spirits.
We can see clearly some of the religious
principles echoing across religions all over the world .
16.
“If one is to think and speak of the life of
mankind, one must think and speak of that life and not of the life of some of
life's parasites. So those who do his will, the simple, unlearned working folk,
whom we regard as cattle, do not reproach the master; but we, the wise, eat the
master's food but do not do what the master wishes, and instead of doing it sit
in a circle and discuss: "Why should that handle be moved? Isn't it
stupid?" So we have decided. We have decided that the master is stupid, or
does not exist, and that we are wise, only we feel that we are quite useless
and that we must somehow do away with ourselves.”
Note-We are all part of grand system
of creation, but the master creator has not presented himself before us nor we
know for sure what kind of master he is, if he do exist. If we too could see
our master , our approach to life could be far different.
17.
“I was able to tear myself from my exclusiveness
and to see the real life of the plain working people, and to understand that it
alone is real life.”
Note-Who is this plain working people.
Every layer of society works in various levels, heirarchy and ways. Poverty
cannot be a tool for discovery of life, although it provides testing mechanism
of : strength of life itself.
18.
“As my body has descended to me from God, so
also has my reason and my understanding of life, and consequently the various
stages of the development of that understanding of life cannot be false.”
Note-The first stages of rejection ,
reasoning, testing faith with tools of critical reasoning and then getting
convinced are a series of steps through the ladder of ascension towards
reinforcement of faith. Reasoning has its barriers and depends on the acumen of
the brain.
Faith, meanwhile draws from
somewhere deeper than reasoning . Faith can be true or untrue. A faith which
nourishes the heart and fills it with love, compassion and acknowledgment of
universality of life and harmony and peace in the world, also dilutes the ever
suspecting reasoning force and reinforce the meaning of life .
19.
“I told myself that divine truth cannot be
accessible to a separate individual; it is revealed only to the whole assembly
of people united by love. To attain truth one must not separate, and in order
not to separate one must love and must endure things one may not agree with.”
Note-Love of God can deliver truth.
Truth does not look for Love connected in groups to deliver truth . When Love
beckons, Truth presents itself. History is testimony to individuals seeking
Truth and getting enlightened. These enlightened beings then proceed to
distribute the blessings of the message of Truth among the masses.
20.
“When rising early for Church services I knew I was
doing well, if only because I was sacrificing my bodily ease to humble my
mental pride, for the sake of union with my ancestors and contemporaries, and
for the sake of finding the meaning of life.”
Note- Rising early and following the
rhythm of Sun is common across several religions . The period just preceding
the ascension of the Sun is considered to be divine and is called Brahma
Muhurtha in Sanskrit. It may have scientific, biological ramifications for well
being of body as well.
21.
In the Mass the most important words for me
were: "Let us love one another in conformity!" The further words,
"In unity we believe in the Father, the Son, and Holy Ghost", I
passed by, because I could not understand them.
Note-The trinity concept is integral
part of Hinduism where the Creator, Preserver and Destroyer forms the trinity.
While the Father and Creator serves similar functions, the Son and Preserver
serves similar functions of transmitting the faith and being gateway to the
Creator- Father. The third of the trinity differs in its aspects and functions
but serves as spirit of the Creator.
22.
“But when I approached the altar gates, and the
priest made me say that I believed that what I was about to swallow was truly
flesh and blood, I felt a pain in my heart: it was not merely a false note, it
was a cruel demand made by someone or other who evidently had never known what
faith is.”
Note-The man in us would revolt this
cruel demand of consuming flesh and blood of someone whom we adore and have
placed at the altar of godhood. No matter the hidden significance, yet the
compassion in the man would abhor this act with the slightest of thought.
23.
“Only to me, unhappy man, was it clear that with
truth falsehood was interwoven by finest threads, and that I could not accept
it in that form.”
Note-Truth and falsehoods are finely
interwoven due to prejudice , ignorance or with a motive for greater objectives
which cannot be conveyed or convinced to the masses.
The depth and extent of
Tolstoy’s musing would have been evident to the reader by now if his musing
and insight is well received, in good stead and contemplated upon. The
transformation from a hedonistic man to a great classical writer , all the
while in an semi-epicurean style and contemplating on the purpose of life; he
first identified life as of no consequence and vain but his critical thinking
made him rethink his earlier epicurean vestige and reprove it and completely
revisit his philosophy and identification with the simplest class of mankind
,closest to the nature and earth: the Peasants. His spiritual journey
began with the ritualistic religion and treaded through the confused terrains
of agnosticism and then finally returned to where he began and belonged to. This new
identity of simplicity and peasantry, in thought and dressing gave him great
satisfaction; ultimately attracting him to a monastery, he could never reach,
as God himself beckoned him unto his monastery: the sky and the beyond.
