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10 - A Confession - Leo Tolstory · Philosophy and Faith

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  Speaker 1: Chapter ten of a confession by Leo Tolstoy. I understood this,
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  Speaker 1: but it made matters no better for me. I was
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  Speaker 1: now ready to accept any faith, if only it did
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  Speaker 1: not demand me a direct denial of reason, which would
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  Speaker 1: have been a falsehood. And I studied Buddhism and Mohammedianism
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  Speaker 1: from books, and most of all, I studied Christianity, both
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  Speaker 1: from books and from the people around me. Naturally, I
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  Speaker 1: first of all turned to the orthodox of my circle,
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  Speaker 1: to the people who were learned, to church theologians monks,
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  Speaker 1: to theologians of the newest shade, and even to evangelicals
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  Speaker 1: who professed salvation by belief in their redemption. And I
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  Speaker 1: seized on these believers and questioned them as to their
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  Speaker 1: beliefs in their understanding of the meaning of life. But
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  Speaker 1: though I made all possible concessions and avoided all disputes,
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  Speaker 1: I could not accept the faith of these people. I
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  Speaker 1: saw that what they gave out as their faith did
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  Speaker 1: not explain the meaning of life, but obscured it, and
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  Speaker 1: that they themselves affirmed their belief not to answer the
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  Speaker 1: question of life, which brought me to faith, but for
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  Speaker 1: some other aims alien to me. I remember the painful
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  Speaker 1: feeling of fear of being thrown back into my former
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  Speaker 1: state of despair after the hope I had often and
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  Speaker 1: often experienced in my intercourse with these people. The more
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  Speaker 1: fully they explained to me their doctrines, the more clearly
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  Speaker 1: that I perceived their error and realized that my hope
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  Speaker 1: of finding in their belief and explanation of the meaning
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  Speaker 1: of life was vain. It was not that in their
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  Speaker 1: doctrines they mixed many unnecessary and unreasonable things with Christian
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  Speaker 1: truths that had always been near to me. That was
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  Speaker 1: not what repelled me. I was repelled by the fact
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  Speaker 1: that these people's lives were like my own, with only
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  Speaker 1: this difference that such a life did not correspond to
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  Speaker 1: the principles they expounded in their teachings. I clearly felt
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  Speaker 1: that they deceived themselves, and that they, like myself, found
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  Speaker 1: no other meaning in life than to live while life lasts,
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  Speaker 1: taking all one's hands conceize. I saw this because if
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  Speaker 1: they had had a meaning which destroyed the fear of loss, suffering,
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  Speaker 1: and death, it would not have feared these things. But they,
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  Speaker 1: these believers of our circle, just like myself, lived in
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  Speaker 1: sufficiency and superfluity, trying to increase to preserve them, feared privations, suffering,
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  Speaker 1: and death, just like myself and all of us. Non
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  Speaker 1: believers lived to satisfy their desires and lived just as badly,
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  Speaker 1: if not worse than the unbelievers. No arguments could convince
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  Speaker 1: me of the truth of their faith. Only deeds which
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  Speaker 1: showed that they saw a meaning in life, making what
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  Speaker 1: was so dreadful to me poverty, sickness, and death not
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  Speaker 1: dreadful to them, could convince me. And such deeds I
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  Speaker 1: did not see among various believers of our circle. On
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  Speaker 1: the contrary, I saw such deeds done by the people
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  Speaker 1: of our circle who were the most unbelieving, but never
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  Speaker 1: by those so called believers. And I understood that the
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  Speaker 1: belief of these people was not the faith I sought,
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  Speaker 1: and that their faith is not a real faith, but
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  Speaker 1: an epicurean consolation in life. I understood that that faith
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  Speaker 1: may serve, if not for a consolation, then at least
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  Speaker 1: is some distraction for a repentant Solomon upon his deathbed,
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  Speaker 1: But it cannot serve for the great majority of mankind,
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  Speaker 1: who are called out not to amuse themselves while consuming
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  Speaker 1: the labor of others, but to create life for all
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  Speaker 1: humanity to be able to live and continue to live,
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  Speaker 1: attributing a meaning to life, they those millards must have
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  Speaker 1: a different real knowledge of faith. Indeed, it was not
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  Speaker 1: the fact that we, with Solomon and Schopenhauer did not
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  Speaker 1: kill ourselves at convinced me the existence of faith, but
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  Speaker 1: the fact that those millards of people have lived in
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  Speaker 1: our living and had bored Solomon and us on the
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  Speaker 1: current of their lives. And I began to draw nearer
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  Speaker 1: to those believers among the poor, simple, unlettered folk, pilgrims, monks, sectarians,
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  Speaker 1: and peasants. The faith of these common people was the
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  Speaker 1: same Christian faith as was professed by the pseudo believers
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  Speaker 1: of our circle. Among them, too, I found a great
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  Speaker 1: deal of superstition mixed with the Christian truths. But the
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  Speaker 1: difference was that the superstitions of the believers of our
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  Speaker 1: circle were quite unnecessary to them, and were not in
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  Speaker 1: conformity with their lives, being merely a kind of Epicurean diversion.
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  Speaker 1: But the superstitions of the believers among the laboring masses
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  Speaker 1: conformed so with their lives that it was impossible to
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  Speaker 1: imagine them to oneself. Without these superstitions which were a
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  Speaker 1: necessary condition of their life. The whole life of the
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  Speaker 1: believers in our circle was a contradiction of their faith,
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  Speaker 1: But the whole life of the working folk believers was
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  Speaker 1: a confirmation of the meaning of life which their faith
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  Speaker 1: gave them. And I began to look into the meaning
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  Speaker 1: of life and faith to these people, And the more
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  Speaker 1: I considered it, the more I became convinced that they
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  Speaker 1: have a real faith, which is necessary to them and
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  Speaker 1: alone gives their life a meaning and makes it possible
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  Speaker 1: for them to live. In contrast with what I had
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  Speaker 1: seen in our circle, where the whole of life is
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  Speaker 1: passed in idleness, amusements, and dissatisfaction, I saw that the
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  Speaker 1: whole of the life of these people was passed in
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  Speaker 1: heavy labor, and that they were content with life. In
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  Speaker 1: contradistinction to the way in which people of our circle
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  Speaker 1: oppose faith and complain of it on account of deprivations
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  Speaker 1: and sufferings, these people accepted illness and sorrow without any
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  Speaker 1: perplexity or opposition, and with a quiet, firm conviction that
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  Speaker 1: all is good. In counterdistinction to us, who the wiser
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  Speaker 1: we are, the less we understand the meaning of life.
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  Speaker 1: And sees some evil irony in the fact that we
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  Speaker 1: suffer and die. These folks live and suffer, and they
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  Speaker 1: approach death and suffering with tranquility and in the most
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  Speaker 1: cases gladly. In contrast to the fact that a tranquil death,
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  Speaker 1: a death without horror and despair, is a very rare
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  Speaker 1: exception in our circle, A troubled, rebellious, and unhappy death
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  Speaker 1: is the rarest exception among the people. And such people,
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  Speaker 1: lacking all that for us and for scand is the
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  Speaker 1: only good of life, and yet experiencing the greatest happiness,
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  Speaker 1: are in a great multitude. I looked more widely around me.
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  Speaker 1: I considered the life of the enormous, massive people in
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  Speaker 1: the past and the present, and of such people understanding
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  Speaker 1: the meaning of life and able to live and to die.
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  Speaker 1: I saw it not two or three or tens, but hundreds, thousands,
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  Speaker 1: and millions, And they all endlessly different in their manners, minds, education,
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  Speaker 1: and position, as they were all alike in complete contrast
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  Speaker 1: to my ignorance, knew the meaning of life and death,
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  Speaker 1: labored quietly, endured deprivations and sufferings, lived and died, seeing
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  Speaker 1: therein not vanity but good. And I learned to love
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  Speaker 1: these people. The more I came to know their life,
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  Speaker 1: the life of those who are living and of those
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  Speaker 1: who are dead by whom I have read had heard,
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  Speaker 1: the more I loved them, and the easier it became
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  Speaker 1: for me to live. So I went on for about
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  Speaker 1: two years, and a change took place in me which
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  Speaker 1: had long been preparing, and the promise of which had
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  Speaker 1: always been in me. It came about that the life
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  Speaker 1: of our circle, the rich and learned, not merely became
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  Speaker 1: distasteful to me, but lost all meaning in my eyes.
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  Speaker 1: All our actions discussed science and art presented itself to
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  Speaker 1: me in a new light. I understood that it is
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  Speaker 1: all merely self indulgence, and that to find a meaning
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  Speaker 1: in it is impossible. While the life of the whole,
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  Speaker 1: wavering people, the whole mankind who produced life, appeared to
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  Speaker 1: me in its true significance. I understood that that is
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  Speaker 1: life itself, and that the meaning given to that life
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  Speaker 1: is true, and I accepted it. End of Chapter ten