A Lecture by Leo
Tolstoy, Translated by
Helena Blavatsky
and With Commentaries by Her
Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910)
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A 2012 Editorial Note:
The following text
is reproduced from
“Lucifer” magazine, London
1887 edition,
pp. 203-211. It should be noted
that “Lucifer” is an ancient and pagan term
which means “the
light-bearer”. It is an attribute
of the planet Venus
and one of its names. The
meaning of the word
was distorted by medieval
theologians during
the creation of their monotheistic fraud.
We have added a
numbered subtitle between brackets to
each of the three
parts of the following text. We also
adapted
the spelling of
Tolstoy’s name to the way it is most used nowadays.
(Carlos Cardoso
Aveline)
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[1. An Introductory Note by H. P. Blavatsky]
What is life? Hundreds of the most philosophical minds,
scores of learned well-skilled physicians, have asked themselves the question,
but to little purpose. The veil thrown over primordial Kosmos and the mysterious
beginnings of life upon it, has never been withdrawn to the satisfaction of
earnest, honest science. The more the men of official learning try to penetrate
through its dark folds, the more intense becomes that darkness, and the less
they see, for they are like the treasure-hunter, who went across the wide seas
to look for that which lay buried in his own garden.
What is then this science? Is it biology, or
the study of life in its general aspect? No. Is it physiology, or the science
of organic function? Neither; for the former leaves the problem as much the
riddle of the Sphinx as ever; and the latter is the science of death far more
than that of life. Physiology is based upon the study of the different organic
functions and the organs necessary to the manifestation of life, but that which
science calls living matter, is, in sober truth, dead matter. Every
molecule of the living organs contains the germ of death in itself, and begins
dying as soon as born, in order that its successor-molecule should live only to
die in its turn. An organ, a natural part of every living being, is but the
medium for some special function in life, and is a combination of such
molecules. The vital organ, the whole, puts the mask of life on, and thus
conceals the constant decay and death of its parts. Thus, neither biology nor
physiology are the science, nor even branches of the Science of Life,
but only that of the appearances of life. While true philosophy stands
Oedipus-like before the Sphinx of life, hardly daring to utter the paradox
contained in the answer to the riddle propounded, materialistic science, as
arrogant as ever, never doubting its own wisdom for one moment, biologises
itself and many others into the belief that it has solved the awful problem of
existence. In truth, however, has it even so much as approached its threshold?
It is not, surely, by attempting to deceive itself and the unwary in saying
that life is but the result of molecular complexity that it can ever hope to
promote the truth. Is vital force, indeed, only a “phantom”, as Du-Bois Reymond
calls it? For his taunt that “life”, as something independent, is but the asylum
ignorantiae of those who seek refuge in abstractions, when direct
explanation is impossible, applies with far more force and justice to those
materialists who would blind people to the reality of facts, by substituting
bombast and jaw-breaking words in their place. Have any of the five divisions
of the functions of life, so pretentiously named – Archebiosis, Biocrosis,
Biodiaeresis, Biocaenosis and Bioparodosis [1], ever helped a Huxley or
a Haeckel to probe more fully the mystery of the generations of the humblest
ant - let alone of man? Most certainly not. For life, and everything pertaining
to it, belongs to the lawful domain of the metaphysician and
psychologist, and physical science has no claim upon it. “That which hath been,
is that which shall be; and that which hath been is named already - and it is
known that it is MAN” - is the answer to the riddle of the Sphinx. But “man”
here, does not refer to physical man - not in its esoteric meaning, at
any rate. Scalpels and microscopes may solve the mystery of the material parts of
the shell of man: they can never cut a window into his soul to open the
smallest vista on any of the wider horizons of being.
It is those thinkers alone, who, following the
Delphic injunction, have cognized life in their inner selves, those who
have studied it thoroughly in themselves, before attempting to trace and
analyze its reflection in their outer shells, who are the only ones rewarded
with some measure of success. Like the fire-philosophers of the Middle Ages,
they have skipped over the appearances of light and fire in the world of
effects, and centred their whole attention upon the producing arcane agencies.
Thence, tracing these to the one abstract cause, they have attempted to fathom
the MYSTERY, each as far as his intellectual capacities permitted him. Thus
they have ascertained that (1) the seemingly living mechanism called
physical man is but the fuel, the material, upon which life feeds, in order to
manifest itself; and (2) that thereby the inner man receives as his wage and
reward the possibility of accumulating additional experiences of the
terrestrial illusions called lives.
One of such philosophers is now undeniably the
great Russian novelist and reformer, Count Leo N. Tolstoy. How near his views
are to the esoteric and philosophical teachings of higher Theosophy, will be
found on the perusal of a few fragments from a lecture delivered by him at Moscow
Discussing the problem of life, the Count asks
his audience to admit, for the sake of argument, an impossibility. Says
the lecturer: -
[2. The Science of Life, by Leo Tolstoy ]
Let us grant for a moment that all that which
modern science longs to learn of life, it has learnt, and now knows; that the
problem has become as clear as day; that it is clear how organic matter has, by
simple adaptation, come to be originated from inorganic material; that it is as
clear how natural forces may be transformed into feelings, will, thought, and
that finally, all this is known, not only to the city student, but to every
village schoolboy, as well.
I am aware, then, that such and such thoughts
and feelings originate from such and such motions. Well, and what then? Can I,
or cannot I, produce and guide such motions, in order to excite within my brain
corresponding thoughts? The question - what are the thoughts and feelings I
ought to generate in myself and others, remains still, not only unsolved, but
even untouched.
Yet, it is precisely this question which is the
one fundamental question of the central idea of life.
Science has chosen as its object a few
manifestations that accompany life; and mistaking [2] the part
for the whole, called these manifestations the integral total of life . . . . .
. .
The question inseparable of the idea of life is
not whence life, but how one should live that life: and it is
only by first starting with this question that one can hope to approach some
solution in the problem of existence.
The answer to the query “How are we to
live?” appears so simple to man that he esteems it hardly worth his while
to touch upon it.
. . . . . . One must live the best way one can
- that’s all. This seems at first sight very simple and well known to all, but
it is by far neither as simple nor as well known as one may imagine. . . . . .
.
The idea of life appears to man in the
beginning as a most simple and self-evident business. First of all, it seems to
him, that life is in himself, in his own body. No sooner, however, does one
commence his search after that life, in any one given spot of the said body,
than one meets with difficulties. Life is not in the hair, nor in the nails;
neither is it in the foot nor the arm, which may both be amputated; it is not
in the blood, it is not in the heart, and it is not in the brain. It is
everywhere and it is nowhere. It comes to this: life cannot be found in any of
its dwelling-places. Then man begins to look for life in Time; and that, too,
appears at first a very easy matter. . . . . . Yet again, no sooner has he
started on his chase than he perceives that here also the business is more
complicated than he had thought. Now, I have lived fifty-eight years [3] , so says my baptismal church
record. But I know that out of these fifty-eight years I slept over twenty. How
then? Have I lived all these years, or have I not? Deduct the months of my
gestation, and those I passed in the arms of my nurse, and shall we call this
life, also? Again, out of the remaining thirty-eight years, I know that a good
half of that time I slept while moving about; and thus, I could no more say in
this case, whether I lived during that time or not. I may have lived a little,
and vegetate a little. Here again, one finds that in time, as in the body, life
is everywhere, yet nowhere. And now the question naturally arises, whence,
then, that life which I can trace to nowhere? Now - will I learn . . . . . . But
it so happens that in this direction also, what seemed to me so easy at first,
now seems impossible. I must have been searching for something else, not for my
life, assuredly. Therefore, once we have to go in search of the whereabouts of
life - if search we have to - then it should be neither in space nor in time,
neither as cause nor effect, but as a something which I cognize within myself
as quite independent from Space, time and causality.
That which remains to do now is to study self.
But how do I cognize life in myself?
This is how I cognize it. I know, to begin
with, that I live; and that I live wishing for myself everything that is good,
wishing this since I can remember myself, to this day, and from morn till
night. All that lives outside of myself is important in my eyes, but only in so
far as it co-operates with the creation of that which is productive of my welfare.
The Universe is important in my sight only because it can give me,
pleasure.
Meanwhile, something else is bound up with this
knowledge in me of my existence. Inseparable from the life I feel, is another
cognition allied to it; namely, that besides myself, I am surrounded with a
whole world of living creatures, possessed, as I am myself, of the same
instinctive realization of their exclusive lives; that all these creatures live
for their own objects, which objects are foreign to me; that those creatures do
not know, nor do they care to know, anything of my pretensions to an exclusive
life, and that all these creatures, in order to achieve success in their
objects, are ready to annihilate me at any moment. But it is not all. While
watching the destruction of creatures similar in all to myself, I also know
that for me too, for that precious ME in whom alone life is represented, a very
speedy and inevitable destruction is lying in wait.
It is as if there were two “I”s in man; it is as if they could never live in
peace together; it is as if they were eternally struggling, and ever trying to
expel each other.
One “I” says, “I alone am living as one
should live, all the rest only seems to live. Therefore, the whole raison
d’être for the universe is in that I may be made comfortable.”
The other “I” replies, “The universe is
not for thee at all, but for its own aims and purposes, and it cares little to
know whether thou art happy or unhappy.”
Life becomes a dreadful thing after this!
One “I” says, “I only want the
gratification of all my wants and desires, and that is why I need the
universe.”
The other “I” replies, “All animal life
lives only for the gratification of its wants and desires. It is the wants and
desires of animals alone that are gratified at the expense and detriment of
other animals; hence the ceaseless struggle between the animal species. Thou
art an animal, and therefore thou hast to struggle. Yet, however successful in
thy struggle, the rest of the struggling creatures must sooner or later crush
thee.”
Still worse! Life becomes still more dreadful.
. . . . .
But the most terrible of all, that which
includes in itself the whole of the foregoing, is that: -
One “I” says, “I want to live, to live for
ever.”
And that the other “I” replies, “Thou
shalt surely, perhaps in a few minutes, die; as also shall die all those thou
lovest, for thou and they are destroying with every motion your lives, and thus
approaching ever nearer suffering, death, all that which thou so hatest, and
which thou fearest above anything else.”
This is the worst of all. . . . . .
To change this condition is impossible. . . . .
. One can avoid moving, sleeping,
eating, even breathing, but one cannot escape from thinking. One thinks, and
that thought, my thought, is poisoning every step in my life, as a
personality.
No sooner has man commenced a conscious life
than that consciousness repeats to him incessantly without respite, over and
over the same thing again. “To live such life as you feel and see in your past,
the life lived by animals and many men too, lived in that way, which
made you become what you are now - is no longer possible. Were you to attempt doing
so, you could never escape thereby the struggle with all the world of creatures
which live as you do - for their personal objects; and then those creatures
will inevitably destroy you.” . . . . . .
To change this situation is impossible. There
remains but one thing to do, and that is always done by him who, beginning to
live, transfers his objects in life outside of himself, and aims to reach them.
. . . . . . But, however far he places
them outside his personality, as his mind gets clearer, none of these objects
will satisfy him.
Bismarck, having united Germany, and now ruling
Europe - if his reason has only thrown any light upon the results of his
activity - must perceive, as much as his own cook does who prepares a dinner
that will be devoured in an hour’s time, the same unsolved contradiction
between the vanity and foolishness of all he has done, and the eternity and
reasonableness of that which exists for ever. If they only think of it, each
will see as clearly as the other; firstly, that the preservation of the
integrity of Prince Bismarck’s dinner, as well as that of powerful Germany, is
solely due: the preservation of the former - to the police, and the
preservation of the latter - to the army; and that, so long only as both keep a
good watch. Because there are famished people who would willingly eat the
dinner, and nations which would fain be as powerful as Germany Germany
As the intellectual condition of man increases,
he comes to the idea that no happiness connected with his personality is an
achievement, but only a necessity. Personality is only that incipient state
from which begins life, and the ultimate limit of life. . . . . . .
Where, then, does life begin, and where does it
end, it may be asked? Where ends the night, and where does day commence? Where,
on the shore, ends the domain of the sea, and where does the domain of land
begin?
There is day and there is night; there is land
and there is sea; there is life and there is no life.
Our life, ever since we become conscious of it,
is a pendulum, like motion between two limits.
One limit is, an absolute unconcern for the
life of the infinite Universe, an energy directed only toward the gratification
of one’s own personality.
The other limit is a complete renunciation of
that personality, the greatest concern with the life of the infinite Universe,
in full accord with it, the transfer of all our desires and good will from
one’s self, to that infinite Universe and all the creatures outside of us. [4]
The nearer to the first limit, the less life
and bliss, the closer to the second, the more life and bliss. Therefore, man is
ever moving from one end to the other; i.e. he lives. THIS MOTION IS
LIFE ITSELF.
And when I speak of life, know that the idea of
it is indissolubly connected in my conceptions with that of conscious
life. No other life is known to me except conscious life, nor can it be known
to anyone else.
We call life, the life of animals, organic
life. But this is no life at all, only a certain state or condition of life
manifesting to us.
But what is this consciousness or mind, the
exigencies of which exclude personality and transfer the energy of man outside
of him and into that state which is conceived by us as the blissful state of
love?
What is conscious mind? Whatsoever we may be
defining, we have to define it with our conscious mind. Therefore, with what
shall we define mind? . . . . . . .
If we have to define all with our mind, it
follows that conscious mind cannot be defined. Yet all of us, we not only know
it, but it is the only thing which is
given to us to know undeniably. . . . . . .
It is the same law as the law of life, of
everything organic, animal or vegetable, with that one difference that we see
the consummation of an intelligent law in the life of a plant. But the law of
conscious mind, to which we are subjected as the tree, is subjected to its law,
we see it not. But fulfill it. . . . . . .
We have settled that life is that which is not
our life. It is herein that lies hidden the root of error. Instead of studying
that life of which we are conscious within ourselves, absolutely and
exclusively - since we can know of nothing else - in order to study it, we
observe that which is devoid of the most important factor and faculty of our
life, namely, intelligent consciousness. By so doing, we act as a man who
attempts to study an object by its shadow or reflection does.
If we know that substantial particles are
subjected during their transformations to the activity of the organism; we know
it not because we have observed or studied it, but simply because we possess a
certain familiar organism united to us, namely the organism of our animal,
which is but too well known to us as the material of our life, i.e. that
upon which we are called to work and to rule by subjecting it to the law of
reason. . . . . . No sooner has man lost faith in life, no sooner
has he transferred that life into that which is no life, than he becomes
wretched, and sees death. . . . . . A man who conceives life such as he
finds it in his consciousness, knows neither misery, nor death: for all the
good in life for him is in the subjection of his animal to the law of reason,
to do which is not only his power, but takes place unavoidably in him. The
death of particles in the animal being, we know. The death of animals and of
man, as an animal, we know; but we know nought about the death of
conscious mind, nor can we know anything of it, just because that conscious mind is the
very life itself. And Life can never be Death. . . . . . .
The animal lives an existence of bliss, neither
seeing nor knowing death, and dies without cognizing it. Why then should man
have received the gift of seeing and knowing it, and why should death be so
terrible to him that it actually tortures his soul, often forcing him to kill
himself out of sheer fear of death? Why should it be so? Because the man who
sees death is a sick man, one who has broken the law of his life, and lives no
longer a conscious existence. He has become an animal himself, an animal which
also has broken the law of life.
The life of man is an aspiration to bliss, and
that which he aspires to is given to him. The light lit in the soul of man is
bliss and life, and that light can never be darkness, as there exists - verily
there exists for man - only this solitary light which burns within his soul.
[3. Concluding
Commentary, by H.P.B.]
We have translated this rather lengthy fragment
from the Report of Count Tolstoy’s superb lecture, because it reads like the
echo of the finest teachings of the universal ethics of true theosophy. His
definition of life in its abstract sense, and of the life every earnest
theosophist ought to follow, each according to, and in the measure of his
natural capacities - is the summary and the Alpha and the Omega of
practical psychic, if not spiritual life. There are sentences in the lecture
which, to the average theosophist will seem too hazy, and perhaps incomplete.
Not one will he find, however, which could be objected to by the most exacting,
practical occultist. It may be called a treatise on the Alchemy of Soul. For
that “solitary” light in man, which burns forever, and can never be darkness in
its intrinsic nature, though the “animal” outside us may remain blind to it -
is that “Light” upon which the Neo Platonists of the Alexandrian school, and
after them the Rosecroix and especially the Alchemists, have written volumes,
though to the present day their true meaning is a dark mystery to most
men.
True, Count Tolstoy is neither an Alexandrian nor
a modern theosophist; still less is he a Rosecroix or an Alchemist. But that
which the latter have concealed under the peculiar phraseology of the
Fire-philosophers, purposely confusing cosmic transmutations with Spiritual
Alchemy, all that is transferred by the great Russian thinker from the realm of
the metaphysical unto the field of practical life. That which Schelling would
define as a realization of the identity of subject and object in the man’s
inner Ego, that which unites and blends the latter with the universal Soul -
which is but the identity of subject and object on a higher plane, or the
unknown Deity - all that Count Tolstoy has blended together without quitting
the terrestrial plane. He is one of those few elect who begin with
intuition and end with quasi-omniscience. It is the transmutations of
the baser metals - the animal mass - into gold and silver, or the
philosopher’s stone, the development and manifestation of man’s higher SELF
which the Count has achieved The alcahest of the inferior Alchemist is
the All-geist, the all-pervading Divine Spirit of the higher Initiate;
for Alchemy, was, and is, as very few know to this day, as much a spiritual
philosophy as it is a physical science. He who knows nought of one, will never
know much of the other. Aristotle told it in so many words to his pupil,
Alexander: “It is not a stone”, he said, of the philosopher’s stone. “It is
in every man and in every place, and at all seasons, and is called the end
of all philosophers,” as the Vedanta is the end of all
philosophies.
To wind up this essay on the Science of Life,
a few words may be said of the eternal riddle propounded to mortals by the
Sphinx. To fail to solve the problem contained in it, was to be doomed to sure
death, as the Sphinx of life devoured the unintuitional, who would live only in
their “animal”. He who lives for Self, and only for Self, will surely
die, as the higher “I” tells the lower “animal” in the Lecture. The riddle has
seven keys to it, and the Count opens the mystery with one of the highest. For,
as the author of “Hermetic Philosophy” beautifully expressed it:
“The real mystery most familiar and, at the
same time, most unfamiliar to every man, into which he must be initiated or
perish as an atheist, is himself. For him is the elixir of life, to quaff
which, before the discovery of the philosopher’s stone, is to drink the
beverage of death, while it confers on the adept and the epopt, the true
immortality. He may know truth as it really is - Aletheia, the breath of
God, or Life, the conscious mind in man.”
This is “the Alcahest which dissolves all
things,” and Count Tolstoy has well understood the riddle.
H.P.B.
NOTES:
[1] Or
Life-origination, Life-fusion, Life-division, Life-renewal and Life-transmission. (Note
by H. P. B.)
[2] “Mistaking” is an
erroneous term to use. The men of science know but too well that what they
teach concerning life is a materialistic fiction contradicted at every step by
logic and fact. In this particular question science is abused, and made to
serve personal hobbies and a determined policy of crushing in humanity every
spiritual aspiration and thought. “Pretending to mistake” would be more
correct. (Note by H. P. B.)
[3] “I have lived fifty-eight
years”. Leo Tolstoy was born on
September 9 (new style), 1828. Therefore he delivered this lecture in the
second semester of 1886 or early 1887. (C. C.A.
[4] This is what the
Theosophists call “living the life” - in a nutshell. (Note by H.P.B.)
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