GOD RUSHES IN
“Portrait of the author Leo N. Tolstoy,” by Ilya Yefimovich Repin (1912) — given that Tolstoy died in 1910, this painting appears to be an in memoriam, one that paints him in Heaven (which the artist depicts as a Garden of Eden), gazing in awe (his eyes sparkling with tears) at the luscious, wondrous natural beauty of God’s Kingdom.
(This description could be completely wrong, not at all what the artist intended; but that’s how I interpret it anyway, or would like to interpret it, given that he and Tolstoy were longtime friends, and this was painted posthumously.)
The following is a conversation I thought I would share, in response to a different conversation between the writers Paul Kingsnorth and Martin Shaw on “Finding God in Wild Places”.
The question put to me wouldn’t be so uniquely tailored to the above but rather a general, sweeping one about the religious feeling developing in me as I progress in years.
Having pondered the question for a day or two, unable to evade the drive to answer it, and frustrated for I found it difficult to answer at first, I would conceive the following response.
I don’t know if age has anything to do with it per say (I’m only 28, and with infinitely more to learn), but I do suspect that experience of an overwhelmingly physical or material life, one of fleeting joys and impulsive pleasures as both its means and, seemingly, its only end, does propel one increasingly so toward a life of its opposites; by which I mean away from a principally scientific or worldly way of living — which by all accounts is without soul or purpose (except for that of further technological and scientific advance in the name of further hedonism; at least that is so at the present time) — and toward a principally moral or other worldly or godly way of living — as a means of something to continually strive for that is and will always be far beyond oneself (the divine, perfect goodness; which Christians see in their model of Christ, who they attempt to imitate more and more completely in everyday life), and so infinitely bettering to the man who does strive after it (such is this that simple science and material wealth does not and cannot ever offer, for they lack the spiritual substance and thus model or motivation that make such an offering possible to man); and this exclusively materialist way of living being at its upper most limits today more than in any other age of man, in contrast to the ancient, spiritual way of living that long predates it, I would supply in large part as the reason for the resurgence of these tried and tested conceptions of life — a minority among modern men having realised that perhaps there was a reason for the persistence of these ideas across such vast expanses of time, to the extent that they have enabled precisely the material conditions modern men now enjoy, and so without which they could no longer go on living fruitfully as they do now, except to their moral, spiritual, culminating eventually in their physical, detriment.
Religion isn’t something that has come (and I say has for it is present and ongoing) naturally to me. I didn’t grow up around it whatsoever. I was firmly an atheist my entire life until only this past year or so. The only thing that changed that was my reading and writing about war during that time, in response to its outbreak all around the world, in third world war like proportions.
Exploring this topic, that of not only war but its base components, those of violence and the drivers toward the initiation and exchange of violence, and all the evil that arises therefrom, confirmed me as a pacifist; and pacifism led me, I believe inevitably, after all my study and contemplation, to conclude that in light of such incomprehensible evil, there must surely be an equally incomprehensible good, and I would want so dearly for this to be so, and thus to endeavour to comprehend it; therefore I must be a Christian, or want to earn the title of Christian, if I accept non-violence as not only a pragmatic but a moral principle, as Christ is the concept’s ultimate origin (there is no basis for the sanctity of human life or why anyone should share that evaluation of human life in the absence of God, I have concluded — however much I might believe it personally, I cannot convince another person, let alone the whole of mankind, that they should believe it also without the divine conception of human life, such that encompasses all others, and supersedes human subjectivity and determination, both individual and collective, that is, that every man is born equal, holding the same rights, including those to life, expressly because he is made in the image of God, and is therefore sacred, inviolable, as is the conception itself); and the rest follows from there.
(I’m quite sure there are many other lesser nudges toward God that allude me — for who knows when exactly a belief becomes a belief, which of the many nudges specifically pushes one over the threshold from non-belief and into belief, or which pushes one furthest toward the threshold before finally crossing over it, and so on — one that hasn’t being the organised, unambiguous and unapologetic, persecution of Christians in the modern world, and, perceiving them as a generally decent, noble, peaceable, what’s more, admirable people — even if I did not share in their faith, I could sincerely appreciate, envy, and draw healthy inspiration from their character, most especially that which arose from within them at times of trial such as these: unquestionably brought about as a product of their faith — wanting to join them in suffering — for it appeared to me to be an injustice not to, even if it is only in spirit if not in body: and this spirit, this conviction, and this dissidence, this ingrained rebelliousness born from the sight of wrongdoing by those around them, the seemingly reflexive defiance of the wrongdoers, where there can be no question of their faith, and, most especially, which or rather who they follow, I interpreted, intuitively, as deeply and uniquely Christian — to take to suffering as a matter of course, to desire to be not apart but among the persecuted people, not to desire suffering as such, neither for oneself or least of all for others, but not to shy away from it either: this was, to me, one of the first, most moving, most revelatory lessons, and learnt by example, on what it means to wear Christ’s name — to be born an outcast and die an outlaw, as Martin Shaw put it of Christ’s life; the highest ideal one can hope to obtain, a life of the peak of virtue, the foremost imitation of Christ Himself.
“Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” — Matthew 5:11-12
Naturally pleasing to my other inclinations — anarchism, pacifism — of those that I am conscious of, this would be one of the most forceable, noticeable nudges toward wanting to wear that name myself beside war.)
My road to religion might be a little unorthodox (I believe people typically either grow up religious or come to it much later in life, with few exceptions in between; I don’t believe it, like anything else, can be argued into someone, but rather it comes on its own accord, if it hasn’t been conditioned from birth), and so I might not be the best person to ask, but that is my story toward finding God, or wanting to find God, nonetheless.
Your question would remind me of what Huxley wrote in Brave New World: “They say that it is the fear of death and of what comes after death that makes men turn to religion as they advance in years. But my own experience has given me the conviction that, quite apart from any such terrors or imaginings, the religious sentiment tends to develop as we grow older; to develop because, as the passions grow calm, as the fancy and sensibilities are less excited and less excitable, our reason becomes less troubled in its working, less obscured by the images, desires and distractions, in which it used to be absorbed; whereupon God emerges as from behind a cloud; our soul feels, sees, turns towards the source of all light; turns naturally and inevitably; for now that all that gave to the world of sensations its life and charms has begun to leak away from us, now that phenomenal existence is no more bolstered up by impressions from within or from without, we feel the need to lean on something that abides, something that will never play us false — a reality, an absolute and everlasting truth. Yes, we inevitably turn to God; for this religious sentiment is of its nature so pure, so delightful to the soul that experiences it, that it makes up to us for all our other losses.”
And I would agree that generally this is true of most men (in fact, I would argue, at least at present, one has to necessarily go through a period of more or less materialism in order to figure out how unfulfilling and vapid it really is — people often have to learn the hard way); but it is not so in my case, for I can and could still pursue these material pleasures (although, as Huxley suggested, they have waned, even in my earlier twenties), but I ended up down a different path all the same (and had I not ended up down that path, I could not tell you for certain we would still be having this conversation; I’d like to think so, but I can never know for sure).
It all feels like chance really, not something I ever expected to happen, or even something that was inevitably going to happen, but the only logical conclusion to that path I went down (all starting in 2020 — the beginning of the COVID years — after first reading V for Vendetta, and noticing the parallels).
But perhaps that is ignorance on my part, a remnant of my formerly being closed off to spirituality, the possibility of anything that might exist outside of the material realm; for ever since opening myself up to it, that is, to Him, to God, patterns emerge more and more often that I cannot help but acknowledge (or perhaps these patterns were always there, and I had only to open up to Him in order to notice them), and I do find it more and more fulfilling to dedicate my time to exploring the immense peace and love that this striving after God gives me than I ever did anything else I’ve ever done my entire life, God being not merely an isolated intellectual pursuit but one that informs all of life and all pursuits — happiness, love, goodness, caring, joy, meaning and all — thereafter.
As it was said in John 4:7-8, “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love;” and what is the purpose of life, that ultimate pursuit that delivers the most meaning, to he who pursues it as well as to everyone around him, other than love?
Perhaps this conversation was destined to happen; as was my being confirmed an anarchist, pacifist, and now finally in the culmination of the two: in Christ.
The gentleman who asked the original question regarding whether or not age has influenced my religious feeling would mull over this response; and in his reply in kind, he would reveal what appeared to be a yearning for God, although hidden under words of appreciation for His good works over the course of human civilisation, as well as a more troubling appreciation for Christ’s doctrine, not for it’s own sake, for it is true and right and good for every man that adopts it, but above all as a defensive instrument, a weapon, against competitors to Christ, whom he prefers of the lot, namely the doctrine of Islam, with whom he lumps the modern world, among other perceived ailments and evils that threaten the ongoing life, liberty, and dignity of mankind (a “distaste” for these things would be his words, describing them as a “menace”).
While I would generally agree with his assessment of these competitors, recognising the Luciferian elements in his speech — such that propel one to become the very same as that which they desire to do away with, and thus not to become Christ-like but a Luciferian themselves in time — unbeknownst to the gentleman (as is evil’s chief tactic: “The devil’s finest trick is to persuade you that he does not exist”), I would carefully, and with an outpour of the utmost love and sincerity, overwhelming desire for good will and prosperity toward the gentleman (“For we wrestle not against flesh and blood…” — Ephesians 6:12), construct my reply, one which intended to subvert these deeply subconscious and unseen elements (of which we all possess).
I am currently making my way through Tolstoy’s The Kingdom of God is Within You, and in here he explains: “Eighteen hundred years ago, in the pagan world of Rome, there appeared a strange and novel doctrine, unlike any of its predecessors, which was ascribed to the man Christ. It was a doctrine wholly new in form as well as in substance, both for the Hebrew world, from whose midst it had sprung, as well as for the Roman world, in whose midst it was preached and promulgated. Among the accurately defined religious precepts of the Jews, where, according to Isaiah, there was precept upon precept, and among the highly perfected Roman legislative assemblies, there appeared a doctrine that not only repudiated all deities, all fear of them, all augury and all faith in it, but also denied the necessity for any human institutions whatsoever. Instead of the precepts and creeds of former times, this doctrine presented only an image of interior perfection, truth, and love in the person of Christ, and the attainment of this interior perfection possible for men, and, as a consequence, of the outward perfection foretold by the prophets: the coming of the Kingdom of God, when all enmity shall cease, when every man will hear the word of the Lord and be united with another in brotherly love, and when the lion and the lamb shall lie down together. Instead of threats of punishment for the non-observance of the commandments of the old laws, religious no less than secular, instead of tempting men by promise of rewards to observe these laws, this doctrine attracted mankind only by proclaiming itself to be the truth.”
And Tolstoy would add that, “No evidence was brought to prove the doctrine, except the truth and its harmony therewith. The whole substance consisted in learning the truth and in following its guidance, drawing nearer and nearer to it in the affairs of everyday life;” with this “drawing nearer and nearer” being evidenced by “an ever increasing love” becoming apparent within oneself, he would explain, constituting “progress toward the attainment of a higher truth,” “the growing realization of that truth within one’s self.”
(I would highly recommend reading his book; I would frame it as: what Spooner’s Constitution of No Authority is to law, Tolstoy’s Kingdom of God is to Christianity: a complete deconstruction of what are and are not imitations of Christ, faithful representations of His life and teachings; which completely dispenses with the churches and any present popular denominations of Christianity, namely Catholicism, Protestantism, and the Russian Orthodox churches; all of which he regards as “false Christianity,” designed and supported for the benefit of the various priest classes and their state adjacents; not to spread a love of God and Christ’s teachings, in service to establishing the Kingdom of God on Earth, as all true Christians should endeavour to do, but rather to further their own influence over man for material gain, at the expense of establishing said Kingdom — even if it means war, violence, immorality, and the dissolution of all mankind, and Christianity with it.)
What I would say to you is that it is not the sort of thing I could reason you into, nor is it something you can study and contemplate yourself into, no matter how useful I agree that is in this endeavour; rather it is something you have to open yourself up to: and if you do that for long enough, and honestly enough, God will surely rush in.
And when I say opening yourself up to it, I don’t mean through prayer, church, or other external rituals, none of which I practice or encourage (although perhaps I should begin to pray: but only as a means of inducing further action; but I believe I do in my own way, through study and contemplation, which leads to this action outside of it), but rather through being conscious of it in all things you do, bringing God to the forefront of all your thoughts, and finally applying the actions implied by those thoughts — which are surely good: for “God is love” — however imperfectly to begin with, aspiring to smooth out the imperfections — as in a sculpture, or other work of art — make your outward applications of these principles as good and as perfect as you hold them to be inwardly.
(I’m not opposed to community, gatherings with like-minded people in support of one another physically, spiritually, or otherwise — I’m no recluse — but to surrendering one’s mind and, invariably with it, conscience to others: most especially organisations that set forth the demand that every member does so as a core principle for induction and ongoing inclusion — be it a church, neighbourhood, town, city, or country, historically, when masses of people begin to volunteer everything that makes them a thinking person among other thinking people, in exchange for being simply another piece of matter, indistinguishable from any other, on the surface of the mass, in order that they might be included, subversion of the original intentions for this assimilation, amalgamation, or collectivisation of minds, always follows — for what is actually being made a mass is personal responsibility: and if everyone is responsible, no one is, and all moral degradations follow — and with it the most incomprehensible evil, in every instance.
What’s more, collective or organised rather than individual or personal religion is easier to corrupt, as is any sort of organisation, or system whatever, that has a single point of failure, meanwhile it is increasingly difficult to corrupt that which doesn’t.
If one imagines it this way: with every man holding his relationship with God to be personal, a single, new, and sovereign channel to God is opened; this, for one, as one can also imagine, appears a far more fruitful and conducive strategy for bringing that relationship to others, therefore opening up further channels to God, than in any alternatively centralised manner, whereby the portal to God through the one is many and spontaneous, and the portal to God through the other is few and bureaucratic; and, for two, in light of the former being many and spontaneous, and the latter being few and bureaucratic, only that single channel in the case of the latter need fall into dysfunction and everyone searching for God through it be cut off, or, as has been the case — for that is the more fruitful strategy in his case: “The devil’s finest trick is to persuade you that he does not exist” — subverted to a creed of a different kind all together, one that negates the principles of the former, and by design, through such infiltration and espionage, and to a different master all together, and hence to a different end all together: and hasn’t the proof of this been the fragmenting of Christianity into different conflicting centralised sects, none of which are Christian — by which I mean in character, which is all that really matters — merely in form, not in function?)
This is the philosophy that Tolstoy imparts, or, as he would argue, Jesus imparts; hence the title of his book in this vein: The Kingdom of God is Within You — “And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:20-21).
Finally, I would say that you will not find God if you enter that pursuit out of fear, anxiety, or hate, however justified; for what is taught in order to find God is instead their opposites: love, compassion, self-sacrifice, even for the sake of your enemies (“for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust,” as it was said; and this is from the same chapter where Christ calls us to “love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you” — Matthew 5, or the famed Sermon on the Mount); else, should you try to find God out of these negative feelings, you will not find Him, rather you will find His opposite, the ultimate purveyor of those feelings, and with him the same devilish evil that you perceive in your enemies: and like them, you will be consumed and destroyed by it.
In short, you will not find God out of hate for Islam, the modern world, or anything else for that matter: only out of a love of God, or a yearning to love God — for, as I shared, “God is love,” and “[he] who does not love does not know God;” meanwhile the opposite is also true: “whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.”
(I’ve left a link to a recent note I made that captures precisely these thoughts on opting for love over hate, and consequently God over all else.)
I wish you the best of luck on your journey, and I hope you get there; and for you — because it feels right — I will say my first prayer, in hope that God finds you, and you Him; and within that discovery, peace, love, meaning, and true happiness — eternal.
God bless.
Now, I share this conversation, just as I do any other diary entry, in order to track my own development, at that particular point in time, to that end: that I might look backward and measure my pace toward attaining that “higher truth,” the “harmony therewith;” but also in hopes, as is admittedly my primary goal in anything I do, that it will serve that same end — personal development — in others (hence it being free and public, as is everything else I write), through whatever insight, if any, it might hold for readers (most of all myself).
But most especially in cases like these, where I am given the opportunity to communicate not generally but directly with readers, or potential readers, is the significance of keeping such a diary, or any historiography whatsoever, brought unavoidably to my attention: cases where a well-intentioned soul is drifting without spiritual aim between the possibilities of goodness as much as evil, at first in the abstract, but eventually finding its embodiment in the physical, whether that be for good or evil — where whether it be for good or evil is or can be determined by such seemingly trivial, benign exchanges: hence one must tread appropriately.
(I will express, as I feel obliged to do so, and with the utmost respect owed to the gentleman who is the subject, and inspiration, of this entry: he is by no means, from my limited relationship with him, a self-proclaimed Luciferian, nor am I claiming he is one without his knowledge, out of any sort of dullness to his sense of perception and self-awareness — in fact, I quite like the chap; that is not the point I am trying to convey; rather it is that anyone, including I, can be captured by ill feeling, and through the contagion of that ill feeling, which is evil incarnate, transmit this feeling to others, whom can do so in turn to still more others, until eventually they back to them, and so on, and so forth, spreading an ill feeling that turns eventually into instances of ill in the physical world, all the while believing themselves to actually be spreading goodness rather than evil, or wellness rather than illness.
But even if this ill feeling lays dormant, never realising itself in the physical world through action, its circulation far and wide enough is surely enough to completely debilitate mankind: for it is like acid to the soul of man, leaving him embittered and demoralised, with nothing left at his core that is yet — but will soon enough surely be — uneaten by that spiritual acid but hatred — absolute, pure and unadulterated hatred — for the world that has set itself on eating away at him; until at which point there is nothing left at all, not even the hate that might inspire him to overcome his lethal inertia, but acceptance, acceptance and therefore defeat, for there is left only an empty place where his soul had been, into which the world can begin to fill with itself — all this, such a state of spiritual degradation, and all that he might with more ease be enslaved, either, if he remains in defeat, leaves something like Brave New World to emerge, as my exchange with the gentleman alluded: in which case evil wins — men having submitted, blindly or otherwise, to becoming accomplices to evil, in doing the daily work, monotonous, benign, inoffensive in and of itself, that nevertheless helps construct and maintain its empire; or, if there is yet some fight left in him, or before it has been totally exorcised from him, inspires men to return evil for the evil they have endured, and historically always in dramatic disproportion to that which they have suffered, in order that they might rise to the occasion, outdo evil with even greater evil — such is commonly their tactic — amounting to an influx of even more and in fact greater evils existing in the world than did before: in which case evil wins again — men accepting to do that which they perceive as absolute evil when done at the hands of their enemies in order that they might rid themselves of evil by its own means: equalising on evil, amounting to, at best, double the evil in the world.
In either case — except declining to return evil for evil, remaining conscious of their capacity for conceiving an even more incomprehensible evil — evil wins: for, as a contagion, it doesn’t care how it’s spread, just that it is.
“Q. What is the chief significance of the doctrine of non-resistance? A. To show that it is possible to extirpate evil from one’s own heart, as well as from that of one’s neighbor. This doctrine forbids men to do that which perpetuates and multiplies evil in this world. He who attacks another, and does him an injury, excites a feeling of hatred, the worst of all evil. To offend our neighbor because he has offended us, with ostensible motive of self-defense, means but to repeat the evil act against him as well as against ourselves — it means to beget, or at least to let loose, or to encourage the Evil Spirit whom we wish to expel. Satan cannot be driven out by Satan, falsehood cannot be purged by falsehood, nor can evil be conquered by evil. True non-resistance is the only real method of resisting evil. It crushes the serpent’s head. It destroys and exterminates all evil feeling.” — The Kingdom of God is Within You
“For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” — Ephesians 6:12
“I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.” — Romans 12:1-2
“Repay no one evil for evil. Have regard for good things in the sight of all men. If it is possible, as much as depends on you, live peaceably with all men. Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but rather give place to wrath; for it is written, ‘Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,’ says the Lord. Therefore ‘If your enemy is hungry, feed him; If he is thirsty, give him a drink; For in so doing you will heap coals of fire on his head.’ Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” — Romans 12:17-21
“Blessed are the meek, For they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, For they shall be filled. Blessed are the merciful, For they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, For they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, For they shall be called sons of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” — Matthew 5:5-10
“You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.” — Matthew 5:14-16
As Camus put it — very much in keeping with the spirit in which I have written here — “Freedom, ‘that terrible word inscribed on the chariot of the storm,’ is the motivating principle of all revolutions. Without it, justice seems inconceivable to the rebel’s mind. There comes a time, however, when justice demands the suspension of freedom. Then terror, on a grand or small scale, makes its appearance to consummate the revolution. Every act of rebellion expresses a nostalgia for innocence and an appeal to the essence of being. But one day nostalgia takes up arms and assumes the responsibility of total guilt; in other words, adopts murder and violence. The servile rebellions, the regicide revolutions, and those of the twentieth century have thus, consciously, accepted a burden of guilt which increased in proportion to the degree of liberation they proposed to introduce.”
Or as Tolstoy put it elsewhere, “All attempts to get rid of Governments by violence have hitherto, always and everywhere, resulted only in this: that in place of the deposed Governments new ones established themselves, often more cruel than those they replaced;” and perhaps more succinctly: “All the attempts to abolish slavery by violence are like extinguishing fire with fire, stopping water with water, or filling up one hole by digging another” — and: “Therefore, the means of escape from slavery, if such means exist, must be found, not in setting up fresh violence, but in abolishing whatever renders governmental violence possible…”
“… Between the existing order, based on brute force, and the ideal of a society based on reasonable agreement confirmed by custom, there are an infinite number of steps, which mankind are ascending, and the approach to the ideal is only accomplished to the extent to which people free themselves from participation in violence, from taking advantage of it, and from being accustomed to it… If we have understood that we are ill from drunkenness, we must continue to drink, hoping to mend matters by drinking moderately, or continue drinking and take medicines that shortsighted doctors give us. And it is the same with our social sickness. If we have understood that we are ill because some people use violence to others, it is impossible to improve the position of society either by continuing to support the governmental violence that exists, or by introducing a fresh kind of revolutionary or socialist violence. That might have been done as long as the fundamental cause of people’s misery was not clearly seen. But as soon as it has become indubitably clear that people suffer from the violence done by some to others, it is already impossible to improve the position by continuing the old violence or by introducing a new kind. As the sick man suffering from alcoholism has but one way to be cured — by refraining from intoxicants which are the cause of his illness; so there is only one way to free men from the evil arrangement of society, and that is, to refrain from violence, the cause of the suffering, from personal violence, from preaching violence, and from in any way justifying violence.” — The Slavery of Our Times
“Thus it came about that the principle of non-resistance to evil by violence [i.e. Christianity] was attacked from two opposite camps; the Conservatives, because this principle interfered with them in their efforts to suppress sedition, and as opposed to all persecution, as well as to the punishment of death; the Revolutionists, because this principle forbade them to resist the oppression of the Conservatives, or to attempt their overthrow. The Conservatives were indignant that the doctrine of non-resistance to evil by violence should thwart an energetic suppression of revolutionary elements, which might imperil the welfare of a nation; the Revolutionists in the like manner were indignant because this same doctrine averted the downfall of the Conservatives, who, in their opinion, imperil the welfare of the people. It is a circumstance worthy of notice that the Revolutionists should attack the principle of non-resistance to evil by violence; for of all the doctrines dreaded by despotism, and dangerous to its existence, this is the chief one. Since the creation of the world the opposite principle of resistance by violence has been the corner-stone of every despotic institution, from the Inquisition to the fortress of Schlüsselburg.” — The Kingdom of God is Within You
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love [only] those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet your brethren only, what do you do more than others? Do not even the tax collectors do so? Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.” — Matthew 5:43-48
“And this is the will of God, the teaching of Christ. There can be only one permanent revolution — a moral one: the regeneration of the inner man. How is this revolution to take place? Nobody knows how it will take place in humanity, but every man feels it clearly in himself. And yet in our world everybody thinks of changing humanity, and nobody thinks of changing himself.” — On Anarchy)
Of course, I do not write these entries for purely selfless reasons; if I am to put my name to something, I would want it to be something I’m proud of, and for others to share in this feeling likewise; I am not claiming to be above that, for that would be dishonest; and I don’t particularly think there is anything wrong with this, in and of itself; but if I continue to emphasise in these entries, and elsewhere, that I am channeling something other than myself alone, and this drives people to discover further, or move past me and discover for the first time, even better (“The advance toward perfection of Zacchaeus the publican, of the adulteress, of the thief on the cross, is, according to this doctrine, better than the stagnation of the righteous Pharisee. The shepherd rejoices more over the one sheep which was lost and is found than over the ninety and nine which are in the fold. The prodigal returned, the piece of money which was lost and is found, is more precious unto God than that which was never lost” — The Kingdom of God is Within You), that ultimate source of which I am channeling — God — all the more reason to keep them.
(And I believe one will find that if they think and act thus, they will see reward anyway for their perseverance, which is not to say materially, although that can come with, but spiritually: in one’s soul as it is continuously refreshed and renewed, replenished and regenerated before the next movement in the series of endless movements toward that sense of “higher truth” — continuously sustaining one in acting thus: achieving what I can only describe as a sense of spiritual self-sufficience; and in this exists an immense consolation, and with it, motivation: that no matter who, if anyone, is listening, He is always listening, and so to strive to act accordingly, that is, to attain perfection as closely as possible, and in everything one does — and to never cease in striving thus.
“Fear not, for I am with you; Be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, Yes, I will help you, I will uphold you with My righteous right hand [i.e. Jesus].” — Isaiah 41:10
And on a personal note, I do find that this maintains; that with each output, during and after its creation, I feel more satisfied, more fulfilled, more understood in myself, exponentially more so, and without variance, than during and after that which came before it, and so will surely feel again with each that comes after: and I do; and that spirit that emboldens one, propels one to go further, finds itself emboldened once more, propelled to go further still: a feeling that only relaxes, before regrouping, upon the next iteration, at which point the cycle, like myself, finds itself reset — and yet recharged, more equipped than ever before, and inspired, no, determined, to go round again: as I will surely feel after this piece.
This is precisely His idea for man, that if “The degree of human happiness, whether it be more or less, depends, according to this doctrine,” Tolstoy illuminates, “not on the degree of perfection at which it arrives, but on the comparative rate of progress toward that perfection;” meanwhile “The progress of this movement toward perfection is its merit; [and] the least cessation of this movement means the cessation of good works;” then men need “only the image of truth, in the person of Christ, to win [their] hearts,” and “In order to fulfil the doctrine [men] nee[d] but to take Christ for [their] model, and to advance in the direction of interior perfection by the road which has been pointed out to [them], as well as in that of exterior perfection, which is the establishment of the Kingdom of God;” God understanding well, of course, that “the perfection indicated by Christianity is infinite and can never be attained,” but equally so that “It is this ideal of utter and infinite perfection that excites men and urges them to action,” thus “A possible degree of perfection would have no appeal to the souls of men” — “In order to land at any given point one must steer beyond it. To lower the standard of an ideal means not only to lessen the chances of attaining perfection, but to destroy the ideal itself” — and so architecting His doctrine for imperfect man accordingly, with his likewise infinite capacity for shortcoming, misstep, and folly in mind: “knowing that although absolute perfection will never be attained, yet the aspiration toward it will ever contribute to the welfare of mankind, [and] that this welfare may by this means be everlastingly increased.”)
As Tolstoy put it to a young woman asking for his counsel, “To speak of ‘Tolstoyism,’ to seek guidance, to inquire about my solution of questions, is a great and gross error. There has not been, nor is there any ‘teaching’ of mine. There exists only the one eternal universal teaching of the Truth, which for me, for us, is especially clearly expressed in the Gospels… I advised this young lady to live not by my conscience, as she wished, but by her own.”
As he did for this young woman, I’m sure, Tolstoy acted as a gateway to God, as he did for me: and as I can only hope — no: pray — to aspire to act for others. With regards to my channelling, or attempting to channel, God, this is the absolute ceiling of any ambitions I might have, I now realise: to open up a channel to God, as Tolstoy did, and with it redirect people to Him, to establish their own channels — to be, as Tolstoy was, to the best of my abilities, a shepherd, rounding up strays that they might be saved, in every possible sense of the word.
Therefore, I share this conversation, what’s more, not for my own glory, but for His; for all I am doing here is relaying what I believe to be the truth, or “the Spirit of Truth,” which is to say not mine but His; as was Tolstoy, as was everyone who brought pen to paper, now finger to key, to relay all that represents, which is love, and everything that follows: for, as we have established, “God is love;” and if everyone would but recognise that, all the false imitations, the “corrupted form[s],” would be recognised likewise as such;
“If people would but understand that they are not the sons of some fatherland or other, nor of governments, but are sons of God, and can therefore neither be slaves nor enemies one to another, those insane, unnecessary, worn-out, pernicious organisations called governments, and all the sufferings, violations, humiliations, and crimes which they occasion, would cease.” — Patriotism & Government
“And why do not Christian people, who profess the one great law of love and self-sacrifice, when they behold what they have wrought, fall in repentance upon their knees before Him who, when he gave them life, implanted in the soul of each of them, together with a fear of death, a love of the good and the beautiful, and, with tears of joy and happiness, embrace each other like brothers?” — Sevastopol
“We are Christians, who not only profess to love one another, but are actually leading one common life; our pulses beat in harmony; we meet each other in love and sympathy, deriving support and counsel from our mutual intercourse. Were it not for this sympathy life would have no meaning. But at any moment some demented ruler may utter a few rash words, to which another gives reply, and lo! I am ordered to march at the risk of my life, to slay those who have never injured me, whom I really love… [And yet persists, between the unlikely union of God and governments,] the inconsistency of the acknowledgment of the Christian law of brotherly love and military conscription, which obliges men to hold themselves in readiness to take each other’s lives — in short, every man to be at once a Christian and a gladiator.” — The Kingdom of God is Within You
“‘Peace I leave with you; my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid,’ said Christ. And this peace is indeed among us, and depends on us for its attainment. If only the hearts of individuals would not be troubled by the seductions with which they are hourly seduced, nor afraid of those imaginary terrors by which they are intimidated; if people only knew wherein their chiefest, conquering power consists — a peace which men have always desired, not the peace attainable by diplomatic negotiations, imperial or kingly progresses, dinners, speeches, fortresses, cannon, dynamite, and mélinite, by the exhaustion of the people under taxes, and the abduction from labor of the flower of the population; but the peace attainable by a voluntary profession of the truth by every man, would long ago have been established.” — Patriotism & Christianity
meanwhile those presently led astray from belief — both “so-called believers” and non-believers alike — as a consequence of these prevailing contradictions would have this truth revealed to them, as it actually was, and is, for the very first time;
“Nothing is so conducive to the defamation of Christ’s truth in the eyes of the heathen, or so successful in arresting the spread of Christianity throughout the world, as the refusal to obey this commandment [i.e. non-resistance to evil by violence], made by men who call themselves Christians, and by the sanction thus given to war and violence. The doctrine of Christ, which has entered into the consciousness of men, not by force or by the sword, as they say, but by non-resistance to evil, by humility, meekness, and the love of peace, can only be propagated among men by the example of peace, love, and concord given by its followers. A Christian, according to the teaching of the Lord, should be guided in his relations toward men only by the love of peace, and therefore there should be no authority having power to compel a Christian to act in a manner contrary to God’s law, and contrary to his chief duty toward his fellow-men. The requirements of the civil law, they say, may oblige men, who, to win some worldly advantages, seek to conciliate that which is irreconcilable, to violate the law of God; but for a Christian, who firmly believes that his salvation depends upon following the teaching of Christ, this law can have no meaning.” — The Kingdom of God is Within You
“For the believers the real significance of the doctrine is concealed by the Church; for the unbelievers it is hidden by science.” — The Kingdom of God is Within You
“In the Sermon on the Mount Christ expressed the eternal ideal to which mankind instinctively aspires, showing at the same time the point of perfection to which human nature in its present stage may attain. The ideal is to bear no malice, excite no ill-will, and to love all men. The commandment which forbids us to offend our neighbor is one which a man who is striving to attain this ideal must not do less than obey. And this is the first commandment. The ideal is perfect chastity in thought, no less than in deed; and the commandment which enjoins purity in married life, forbidding adultery, is one which every man who is striving to attain this ideal must not do less than obey. And this is the second commandment. The ideal is to take no thought for the morrow, to live in the present, and the commandment, the fulfilment of which is the point beneath which we must not fall, is against taking oath or making promises for the future. Such is the third commandment. The ideal — to use no violence whatsoever — shows us that we must return good for evil, endure injuries with patience, and give up the cloak to him who has taken the coat. Such is the fourth commandment. The ideal is to love your enemies, to do good to them that despitefully use you. In order to keep the spirit of this commandment one must at least refrain from injuring one’s enemies, one must speak kindly of them, and treat all one’s fellow-creatures with equal consideration. Such is the fifth commandment. All these commandments are reminders of that which we, in our striving for perfection, must and can avoid; reminders, too, that we must labor now to acquire by degrees habits of self-restraint, until such habits become second nature. But these commandments, far from exhausting the doctrine, do not by any means cover it. They are but stepping-stones on the way to perfection, and must necessarily be followed by higher and still higher ones, as men pursue the course toward perfection.” — The Kingdom of God is Within You
“And to those men of our own times who hold the social life-conception [i.e. atheism, humanism, secularism, rationalism, scientism, materialism, statism, etc.], the Christian doctrine seems to be a supernatural religion, whereas in reality there is nothing mystical or supernatural about it; it is only a doctrine concerning human life, corresponding with the degree of development which man has attained, and one which he cannot refuse to accept.” — The Kingdom of God is Within You
“God’s perfection is the asymptote of human life, toward which it is forever aspiring and drawing nearer, although it can only reach its goal in the infinite. It is only when men mistake the suggestion of an ideal for a rule of conduct that the Christian doctrine seems at odds with life. Indeed, the reverse is true, for it is by the doctrine of Christ, and that alone, that a true life is rendered possible.” — The Kingdom of God is Within You
“It is inevitable; the men who can believe that a cruel and unreasonable God had condemned humanity to eternal death and sacrificed his own Son, and who had destined a certain portion of mankind to everlasting torture, cannot believe in a God of love. A man who believes in God, in the Christ who is coming in his glory to judge and punish the dead and the living, cannot believe in a Christ who commands us to turn the other cheek to the offender, who forbids us to sit in judgment, and who bids us to forgive our enemies and to love them. A man who believes in the inspiration of the Old Testament and in the holiness of David, who on his deathbed ordered the murder of an old man who had offended him, and whom he could not kill himself because he was bound by an oath (1 Kings ii. 8,9), and many other horrors of a similar character, in which the Old Testament abounds, cannot believe in the moral law of Christ; a man who believes in the doctrine and sermons of the Church, wherein the practice of war and the penalty of death are reconciled with Christianity, cannot believe in the brotherhood of humanity. But, above all, a man who believes in salvation through faith, in redemption, and in the sacraments, cannot strive with all his might to live up to the moral precepts of Christ.” — The Kingdom of God is Within You
“Nowadays a man has but to buy the Bible for threepence, and to read the simple, indisputable words of Christ to the Samaritan woman, that the Father seeketh worshipers neither in Jerusalem nor in this or that mountain, but worshipers in spirit and truth; or the words, that a Christian should pray not like the heathen in the temples, nor at the corners of streets, but in the secrecy of his closet; or, that a disciple of Christ may call no one father or mother — one has but to read these words to be indubitably convinced that priests who call themselves teachers in opposition to the teaching of Christ, and dispute among themselves, cannot be authorities, and that that which they teach is not Christian.” — The Kingdom of God is Within You
“These men, intoxicated for the most part by their authority, have forgotten that there is a Christianity in whose name they hold their places. They condemn as sectarian all that which is truly Christ-like in Christianity, while on the other hand, every text in both Old and New Testaments which can be wrested from its meaning so as to justify an anti-Christian or pagan sentiment — upon these they establish the foundation of Christianity. In order to confirm their statement that Christianity is not opposed to violence, these men generally quote, with the greatest assurance, equivocal passages from the Old and New Testaments, interpreting them in the most anti-Christian spirit — the death of Ananias and Sapphira, the execution of Simon the Sorcerer, etc. All of Christ’s words that can possibly be misinterpreted are quoted in vindication of cruelty — the expulsion from the Temple, the words ‘... it shall be more tolerable in that day for Sodom than for that city’ (Luke x. 12), and other passages. According to these men, a Christian is not at all obliged to be guided by the spirit of humility, forgiveness, and love of his enemies. It is useless to try to refute such a doctrine, because men who affirm it refute themselves, or rather they turn away from Christ Himself, to invent an ideal and a form of religion all their own, forgetful of Him in whose name both the Church and the offices they hold exist. If men but knew that the Church preaches an unforgiving, murder-loving, and belligerent Christ, they would not believe in that Church, and its doctrines would be defended by none.” — The Kingdom of God is Within You
“One is pride, violence, self-assertion, inertia, and death. The other is meekness, repentance, submission, activity, and life. No man can serve these two masters at the same time; he must choose either the one or the other.” — The Kingdom of God is Within You
and all would surely conclude to be Christians, of that sort that Tolstoy dedicated his life in order to communicate tirelessly to his fellows, of “true Christianity,” their religious feeling, or “religious consciousness,” not bound by any earthly place, or bound to any earthly persons, any human institution or collective of men proclaiming themselves to be the one and only holders of truth, “the only mediator[s] between God and man,” whatsoever, but rather an “immediate disciple of Christ” (as one of Tolstoy’s critics put it to him), and thus not afflicted by or afflicting any and all of the horrors that contradicting Christ’s teachings entails (“it is not without reason that the history of the Church is the history of cruelties and horrors… So far from fostering the spirit of unity, the churches have ever been the fruitful source of human enmity, of hatred, wars, conflicts, inquisitions, Eves of St. Bartholomew, and so on…”), as following these subversions of the words of Christ — the words that would surely subvert all of their schemes in kind, be the end of them (“… neither do the churches act as the mediators between God and man — an office, moreover, quite unnecessary, and directly forbidden by Christ himself, who has revealed his doctrine unto each individual; it is but the dead formula, and not the living God, which the churches offer to man, and which serves rather to increase than diminish the distance between man and his Creator… [and] they know, however they may try to conceal it, that every advance along the road indicated by Christ is undermining their own existence”) — entails likewise; and with this the revelation would be upon all men that, as the title of Tolstoy’s book implies, the Kingdom of God is already within you (as the New Living translation puts it: “the Kingdom of God is already among you”): you need only to open up to it; all else follows.