Remember how often Christ has said, " The Father has sent me. I am sent. I do the will of Him who has sent me."These words have always been obscure to me.God could not have sent God, and I did not understand any other meaning, or understood it obscurely.
Only now has the simple, clear, and joyous meaning of these words been revealed to me. I arrived at the comprehension of them through doubt and suffering. Without this teaching there is no solution to those doubts which torment every disciple of Christ.
Their meaning is this, that Christ has taught all men the life which he considered the true one for himself. But he considers his life an embassy, a fulfilment of the will of Him who sent him.But the will of Him who sent is the rational (good)life of the whole world. Consequently, it is the business of life to carry the truth into the world.
Life has, according to Christ's teaching, been given to man with his reason for no other purpose than that he should carry this reason into the world, and so man's whole life is nothing but this rational activity turned upon other beings in general, and not merely upon men.Thus Christ understood his life, and thus he taught us to understand ours.
Each of us is a power which is conscious of itself, —a flying stone which knows whither it flies and why, and is glad because it flies and knows that it is nothing,—a stone, — and that all its meaning is in this flight, this force which has thrown him, — that his whole life is this force.
Indeed, outside this view, that is, that every man is a messenger of the Father, called into life only for the purpose of doing His will, — outside this view life has not only no meaning, but is also detestable and terrible. And, on the contrary, it is enough to become well familiarized and one with this view of life, and life not only acquires a meaning, but also becomes joyous and significant. Only with this view are all doubts, struggles, and terrors destroyed.
If I am God's messenger, my chief business does not only consist in fulfilling the five commandments,—they are only conditions under which I must fulfil the ambassadorship,—but in living in such a way as to carry into the world with all means given me that truth which I know, that truth which is entrusted to me.
It may happen that I shall myself often be bad, that I shall be false to my mission ; all this cannot for a moment destroy the meaning of my life : " To shine with that light which is in me, so long as I am able, so long as there is light in me."Only with this teaching are destroyed the idle regrets as to there not being or having been what I wished, and the idle desire for something definite in the future ; there is destroyed the terror of death, and the whole of life is transferred into the one present. Death is destroyed by this, that, if my life has blended with the activity of introducing reason and the good into the world, the time will come when the physical annihilation of my personality will cooperate with what has become my life,—the introduction of the good and of reason into the world.
The conviction of the ambassadorship has the following practical effect upon me (I speak for myself and, I know,for others also):
Outside the physical necessities, in which I try to confine myself to the least, as soon as I am drawn to some activity,— speaking, writing, working,—I ask myself (I do not even ask, I feel it) whether with this work I serve Him who sent me. I joyously surrender myself to the work and forget all doubts and—fly, like a stone, and am glad that I am flying.
But if the work is not for Him who has sent me, it does not even attract me, I simply feel ennui, and I only try to get rid of it, I try to observe all the rules given for messengers. But this does not even happen.It seems to me that a man can live in such a way as to sleep, or in such a way as with his whole soul, with delight, to serve Him who has sent him.
LEO TOLSTOY
Only now has the simple, clear, and joyous meaning of these words been revealed to me. I arrived at the comprehension of them through doubt and suffering. Without this teaching there is no solution to those doubts which torment every disciple of Christ.
Their meaning is this, that Christ has taught all men the life which he considered the true one for himself. But he considers his life an embassy, a fulfilment of the will of Him who sent him.But the will of Him who sent is the rational (good)life of the whole world. Consequently, it is the business of life to carry the truth into the world.
Life has, according to Christ's teaching, been given to man with his reason for no other purpose than that he should carry this reason into the world, and so man's whole life is nothing but this rational activity turned upon other beings in general, and not merely upon men.Thus Christ understood his life, and thus he taught us to understand ours.
Each of us is a power which is conscious of itself, —a flying stone which knows whither it flies and why, and is glad because it flies and knows that it is nothing,—a stone, — and that all its meaning is in this flight, this force which has thrown him, — that his whole life is this force.
Indeed, outside this view, that is, that every man is a messenger of the Father, called into life only for the purpose of doing His will, — outside this view life has not only no meaning, but is also detestable and terrible. And, on the contrary, it is enough to become well familiarized and one with this view of life, and life not only acquires a meaning, but also becomes joyous and significant. Only with this view are all doubts, struggles, and terrors destroyed.
If I am God's messenger, my chief business does not only consist in fulfilling the five commandments,—they are only conditions under which I must fulfil the ambassadorship,—but in living in such a way as to carry into the world with all means given me that truth which I know, that truth which is entrusted to me.
It may happen that I shall myself often be bad, that I shall be false to my mission ; all this cannot for a moment destroy the meaning of my life : " To shine with that light which is in me, so long as I am able, so long as there is light in me."Only with this teaching are destroyed the idle regrets as to there not being or having been what I wished, and the idle desire for something definite in the future ; there is destroyed the terror of death, and the whole of life is transferred into the one present. Death is destroyed by this, that, if my life has blended with the activity of introducing reason and the good into the world, the time will come when the physical annihilation of my personality will cooperate with what has become my life,—the introduction of the good and of reason into the world.
The conviction of the ambassadorship has the following practical effect upon me (I speak for myself and, I know,for others also):
Outside the physical necessities, in which I try to confine myself to the least, as soon as I am drawn to some activity,— speaking, writing, working,—I ask myself (I do not even ask, I feel it) whether with this work I serve Him who sent me. I joyously surrender myself to the work and forget all doubts and—fly, like a stone, and am glad that I am flying.
But if the work is not for Him who has sent me, it does not even attract me, I simply feel ennui, and I only try to get rid of it, I try to observe all the rules given for messengers. But this does not even happen.It seems to me that a man can live in such a way as to sleep, or in such a way as with his whole soul, with delight, to serve Him who has sent him.
LEO TOLSTOY
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