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.