9) I remembered keenly what a matter of enormous importance was
complete truthfulness in every detail, in everything, the avoidance
of all outer false forms. And I decided to keep to this. _It is
never too late to mend._[345]
10) The minister said to the murderer: “Oh brother, don’t worry.
God has pardoned even greater sinners. But who are you? Don’t lose
heart. Pray.” The murderer burst into tears.
11) How great and stable seemed the happiness of the American people,
and how unstable it proved to be, like all happiness not founded
on life, according to the law of Christ. The Spanish-American War,
Jingoism.
12) I have often prayed (almost without believing, to try out) that
God arrange my life as I wish. To-day I simply prayed my customary
morning prayer and rather attentively. And after this prayer, I
recalled my wish and wanted to add a prayer about the fulfilment
of this wish, and tried to address God about it. And immediately I
realised my mistake--that it would be very much better if everything
was not according to my will, but according to His. And without the
least effort and with joy I said: “Yes, let there not be my will,
but Thine.”
13) A spiritual life means that you should see the connection between
cause and effect in the spiritual world and that you be guided in
life by this connection. Materialists do not see this connection
and therefore do not take it as a guide for their acts, but they
take as a guide for their acts the physical, causal connection, the
one which is so complicated that we never fully know it, because
every effect is an effect of an effect; but the fundamental cause
of everything--is always spiritual. (Not clearly expressed, but
important).
14) Epictetus says this very thing when he reproaches people for
being very attentive to the phenomenon of the outer world--to that
which is not in our power and being inattentive to the phenomenon
of the inner, to that which is in our power.
15) To many it seems that if you exclude personality from life and a
love for it, then nothing will remain. It seems to them that without
personality there is no life. But this only appears so to people who
have not experienced self-renunciation. Throw off personality from
life, renounce it, and then there will remain that which makes the
essence of life--love.
16) (For _The Appeal_) ...
_To-morrow, July 1st. If I live._
_July 6. Y. P._
Am entirely well. Yesterday I took leave of Dunaev and Mme. Annenkov,
who were here. I live very badly. I cannot reconcile myself to the
will of God.
To-day I thought:
The life of Christ is very important as an instance of that
impossibility of man to see the fruits of his labours. And the less
so, the more important the work. Moses could enter into the promised
land with his people, but Christ could in no way see the fruit of
his teaching even if he had lived up to now. This is what one has
to learn. But we want to do the work of God and to receive human
reward.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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