“Everyone thinks of changing the world but no one thinks of changing himself.” This insightful saying by Leo Tolstoy is a valuable reminder for all of us to reflect inward. The renowned 19th-century Russian author suggested that we ask ourselves what God really wants us to do. As Leo Tolstoy said, “In the name of God, stop a moment, cease your work, look around you.”
Supreme Master Ching Hai once spoke of Tolstoy in a group meditation with our Association members in July, 1997 in Los Angeles, USA. “Because Tolstoy was a practitioner. That’s why when you read his stories, most stories are about spiritual things, about God, and very happy and very positive. It’s very good to read him, to read his books. You try. If you haven’t, you try. You can read more. Such things are very good for you.”
We would like to share an insightful excerpt from Volume 1 of “The Pathway of Life,” a collection of Tolstoy’s philosophies on religion, life, death and more. “Besides all that is corporeal within us, and in the entire universe, we know something incorporeal which gives life to our body and is connected with it. This incorporeal something, connected with our body, we call our soul. The same incorporeal something, but not connected with anything, and giving life to everything that lives, we call God.”
“To know God is possible only within oneself. Until you find God within yourself, you will nowhere find him. There is no God for him who cannot find Him within himself.” “It is not you who live; what you call yourself, is dead. That which animates you is God. Do not think that you can earn merit with God by works; all works are as nothing before God. It is needful not to earn merit before God, but to be God.”
“It is well to fear God, but it is better to love Him. But best of all it is to resurrect Him within. Man must love, but one can truly love only that in which there is no evil. And there is only one Being in whom there is no evil: namely God. If God did not love Himself in you, you could never love yourself, God or your neighbor.”
