A Calendar of Wisdom

[donq]

Dear friends,

I’ve got an idea that I should post this everyday. There’s a basic rule of copyright: any work (book etc.) will become a public domain after its writer has died for 50-70 years (depends on which country.) And this is just my sharing, not selling. Besides, it’s spiritual book that should share as much as possible, should it not?

A Calendar of Wisdom:
Daily thoughts to nourish the soul
Written and selected from the world’s sacred texts by Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy (Leo Tolstoy)

August 17

Kindness is a necessary addition to everything.

All the best qualities of mankind are meaningless and worthless without kindness, and even the worst vices can be easily forgiven with kindness.

There is a natural kindness which comes from our external attributes, from our inheritance, audience, good or bad indigestion, success, etc. This kind of kindness is very pleasant, both for the person who experiences it and for the people around him. And there is another type of kindness which comes from inner spiritual work. This kindness is less attractive, but although the first kindness can easily change or be transformed into hatred, the second kind of kindness will never disappear and will constantly grow.

The goodness which you do gives you pleasure, but not satisfaction. No matter how much goodness you do, you should wish to do more and more.
—Confucius

Kindness is the major quality of the soul. If a person is not kind, it is because he was subjected to some lie, passion, or temptation which violated his natural state.

P.S. This will be the third time I post this, sorry, just in case you haven’t read another two previous posts of mine.

This was Leo Tolstoy’s last major work. With it, he fulfilled a dream he had nourished for almost fifteen years, that of “collecting the wisdom of the centuries in one book” meant for a general audience. Tolstoy put a huge amount of effort into its creation, preparing three revised editions between 1904 and 1910. It was his own favorite everyday reading, a book he would turn to regularly for the rest of his life.

He wrote in his diary on March 15, 1884: “I have to create a circle of reading for myself: Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Lao-Tzu, Buddha, Pascal, The New Testament. This is also necessary for all people.”

“I know that it gives one great inner force, calmness, and happiness to communicate with such great thinkers as Socrates, Epictetus, Arnold, Parker…They tell us about what is most important for humanity, about the meaning of life and about virtue…I would like to create a book…in which I could tell a person about his life, and about the Good Way of Life.”

The process of collecting these thoughts took over fifteen years!

Tolstoy wrote in his diary: “I felt that I have been elevated to great spiritual and moral heights by communication with the best and wisest people whose books I read and whose thoughts I selected for my Circle of Reading.”

From its first publication, the book was always present on Tolstoy’s desk; it became his favorite book during the last five years of his life.
On May 16, 1908, he wrote to a man named Gusev: “I cannot understand how some people can live without communicating with the wisest people who ever lived on Earth?...I feel very happy every day, because I read this book.”

[donq]

August 18

Christianity is true because it can answer the most distant, abstract questions, and at the same time, it can solve all practical issues of life as well. It established the kingdom of God in the spiritual life of every individual, and in the spiritual life of humanity in general.
Christ was sent to this world to bring good news. This was his major work. But do they teach this thing in his name? He wanted to change slavery into freedom. Is this taught in his name? Were they fulfilled, the things which he wanted to fulfill? Did poor people hear the good news? Have the broken hearts been cured? Can the blind people see? Have all the shackles been taken from the prisoners? Are the inmates set free? No. Christ is still on his cross, waiting for his apostles. They should come as soon as possible, because the suffering is terrible, and his eyes are tired of looking to the east and waiting for the sunrise of the time of the lord.
—F. Robert de Lamennais

Religion is true not because it was taught by the saints, but the saints taught it because it is true.
—Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

Only religion destroys egoism and selfishness, so that one starts to live life not only for himself. Only religion destroys the fear of death, only religion gives us the meaning of life, only religion creates equality among people, only religion sets a person free from outer pressures. We must believe those spiritual doctrines which provide a very simple and practical guide for every one of us.

P.S. In case you can not come to read it here everyday (or vice versa  ) here's its ebook (about 21 MB, both pdf and epub):

free.mailbigfile.com/df476c56dacbf800e3ddafc0874a2cf1/listFiles.php

[donq]

August 19


Life is constant movement, and therefore goodness in life is not a certain state, but the direction of movement. This direction is not in serving yourself, but God.

Some people seek goodness in power, others in science, others in dissipation. Those people who are really close to goodness understand that real goodness for one is when all people have this goodness and share it among themselves.
—Blaise Pascal

Happiness is a thing which a person wishes only for himself;
goodness is a thing which a person wishes for himself and for others.
Happiness can he achieved by struggle;
goodness, on the contrary, by being humble.

Real goodness is to serve God.

You should do goodness without choosing to whom. Good things, once done, will never disappear, even if you forget about them. There is only one way to be happy, and
this is a sure way: to do goodness and to share this goodness with others.

[donq]

August 20

Anyone who is engaged in really important things is very simple because he does not have time to create unnecessary things.

Every desire abates, and every vice grows after it is satisfied.
-Henri Amiel

Every new desire is the beginning of a new wish, the beginning of a new madness.
-Voltaire

Pleasure, luxury-these things you call happiness, but I think that to wish nothing is the happiness of God, and when you wish to have only small things, then you make yourself closer to this divine and high happiness.
-Socrates

Nature requires small things; the existing law requires many excessive things.
-Lucius Annaeus Seneca

People can live without need and without jealousy only when they lead a life of moderation.

[donq]

August 21

A fruitful prayer is the establishment in your conscious mind of the understanding of life's meaning, and you can experience this state during the best minutes of your life.

Prayer is understood as an inner formal religious service, a service to ask and achieve some compassion for yourself from the higher force; this is a misconception. On the other hand, the desire of our heart to please God with all our actions-this is the spirit of real prayer which should always exist in us.
-Immanuel Kant

But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. Be not ye therefore like unto them: for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him. After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hollowed by thy name...
-Matthew 6:7-9

Our hour of honest, serious thinking is more precious than weeks spent in empty talks.

You should pray every hour. The most necessary and the most difficult form of prayer is to remember-in spite of the numerous distractions of life-your obligations to God, to his law. You become scared, you become upset, you become embarrassed, you become too involved or distracted by something. But you should always remember who you are and what you should do. This is what a real prayer should be about. This is difficult in the beginning, but with time you can work and create this habit.

[donq]

August 22

It is dangerous to disseminate the idea that our life is purely the product of material forces and that it depends entirely on these forces.

There are no people who can more confuse the notions of good and evil than the scholars of our time. Their science makes good progress in the study of the material world, but in the inner, spiritual life of humanity, it becomes an unnecessary and sometimes harmful thing.

False science and false religion express their dogmas in highly elevated language to make simple people think that they are mysterious, important, and attractive. But this mysterious language is not a sign of wisdom. The wiser a person is, the simpler the language he uses to express his thoughts.
—Lucy Malory

The teaching about your inner life is the most useful one. In our time science has started to give diplomas for idleness.

The real purpose of science is the understanding of the truth of this life. Its false purpose is the justification of evil in this world. These are the judicial sciences, political sciences, and especially theology, the science of religion.

[donq]

August 23

If people were completely virtuous,
they would never step aside from the truth.

And this is the condemnation,
that light is come into the world,
and men loved darkness rather than light,
because their deeds were evil.
For every one that doeth evil hateth the light,
neither cometh to the light,
lest his deeds should be reproved.
But he that doeth truth cometh to the light,
that his deeds may be made manifest,
that they are wrought in God.
—JOHN 3:19-21

Don’t be afraid of a person in any position, in low or high standing, whether he is a scholar or an ignorant person.
If you respect all people, you should love all people, and fear no one.
—William Ellery Channing

The consequences of any good thing which you have done in your life will die as soon as you step aside from the truth.
The high spirit which lives in you and which is united with you is looking all the time for good and evil.
—Manu

Truth can be understood only by waiting and watching,
and when you get one truth, two more will appear before you.
—John Ruskin

The truth is harmful only to evildoers.
Those who do good love the truth.

[donq]

August 24

People move, inconspicuously but ceaselessly, toward the kingdom of God, which will be achieved by unification in love.

Every single individual person, as well as all mankind together, will change, and will go on to higher stages without-stopping in their development, the limit of which is God himself. And this time is coming.
-F. Robert de Lamennais

No, the word of all-powerful God has not been told completely. And his thought has not been understood completely in all its depth. He created and he creates, and he will create, for many eternal centuries after us; this the human mind cannot embrace.
-Giuseppe Mazzini

I am come to send fire on the earth; and what will I, if it be already kindled? Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division.
-Luke 12:49,51

The constant struggle between flesh and spirit will never be finished. This struggle is eternal and the essence of life. The purpose of life is loving, the penetration of everything with love. It is the slow and gradual change from evil to good, it is the creation of the real life, the life filed with love.

The human world is always on the way to perfection, and the understanding of this process of perfection is one of mankind’s biggest joys, and this joy is accessible to every person.

[donq]

August 25

Work is the condition of existence in the material, physical world. If Robinson had not worked, he would have frozen to death and died from hunger, and everybody can see this. So labor is the necessary condition for the spiritual life as well, but not all people can see this clearly, though it is as obvious as the necessity of physical labor for the body.

If any would not work, neither should he eat.
—II Thessalonians 3:10

If you are doing nothing, it means you are doing bad things.

Those who do nothing, do bad things. Those who do nothing, have many associates and supporters. The brain of a lazy and idle person is the favorite stopping place of the devil.

Nature does not stop in its development, and it executes all kinds of idleness.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

You should never be ashamed of any work, even the lowest and dirtiest, but you should be ashamed only of the dirtiest moral state, that is the idleness of your body, which is the necessary result of the consumption of the labor of others.

[donq]

August 26

Justice is achieved not in striving for justice, but with love.

In order to hit the mark, you should aim farther than it stands, so you will achieve it; in order to be just, you should make a self-sacrifice, be unjust to yourself.

Not a single person can be completely just in all his deeds, but a just person can be completely different from an unjust one with his efforts, in the same way as a truthful
man is different from a liar, with his efforts to speak only truth.

There is only one law of life which is really precious: though you meet all the time with injustice, remain humble.
—Marcus Aurelius

You cannot be completely just. One time you do too little, the other time you do too much. There is only one way not to sin against justice; always to change things, to improve things, to make them better.

[donq]

Hi everyone,

I’ve got an urgent task to finish and might not be able to come here so often. If you are interested in this book, you can still download its ebook from the link on my second post of this thread. (It will be available there for another 2-3 days, I think.) But if the link is broken, please let me know so that I’ll upload it for you again.

[sparklekaz]

Dear Monty,

I do appreciate the effort you put into this daily calendar of wisdom, and enjoy reading the words. I just wanted you to know that. Your own work must take priority and I send good wishes to a successful and fruitful completion.

Love and light
Kaz

[donq]

Dear Karen,

Thanks for your kind words and always supporting.