Thursday, April 30, 2015

April 30

It seems that it is impossible to live without discovering the purpose of your life. And the first thing which a person should do is to understand the meaning of life. But the majority of people who consider themselves to be educated are proud that they have reached such a great height that they cease to care about the meaning of existence.

The real purpose of our existence is to understand this limitless life existing in this world.

A person may not know the purpose of his life, but he should know how to live. A worker at a big plant may not necessarily know the purpose of his labor, but if he is a good worker, he should know how to do well what he should do.


Every living being has sensory organs which reveal to it its place in the world. For a human, the primary sense is the intellect. If you do not know your place in the world, the meaning of your life, you should know that there is something to blame; and it is not the social system, or your intellect, but the way in which you directed your intellect. 

Wednesday, April 29, 2015

April 29

A person can fulfill his purpose in life equally as well in illness as in health.

If we meditate upon the existence of life after death, then all illnesses would seem to be taking us closer to the movement from one life to another, a transfer more desirable than undesirable. During these pains we can understand and explain for ourselves what will happen to us, and prepare for the new state of our next existence.

Usually people think that it is possible to serve God and humanity only when you are healthy. This is not true. Very often it is to the contrary. Christ served God and all mankind when he suffered on the cross, and even then he forgave those who killed him. Every person can do likewise. You cannot say which state is better, a healthy or ill state, in the service of God and humankind.

For yourself, and for yourself only, it is necessary to have health and power. But to serve God it is not necessary, and sometimes even the opposite is true.  

Very often, when I have dealt with terminally ill people, I have learned that the most important thing is not hiding the approaching death from the patient, but on the contrary, explaining to him his own divine, spiritual nature, which grows in him and which cannot be destroyed by death.

Illnesses almost always destroy one's physical power, and they release the power of one's soul. For a person who concentrates his consciousness in the spiritual domain, illnesses do not diminish his goodness, but on the contrary, they increase it.

Tuesday, April 28, 2015

April 28

Work is the necessary condition of happiness. First, favorite and free work; secondly, the physical work which arouses your appetite and afterward gives you tranquil and sound sleep.

Manual labor does not exclude intellectual activity, but improves its quality and even helps it.

Constant idleness should be included in the tortures of hell, but it is, on the contrary, considered to be one of the joys of paradise.
— Charles De Montesquieu

When a person sets to work, even if it is the most unqualified, primitive, simple work, the human soul calms down. As soon as a person starts to work, all the demons leave him and cannot approach him. A man becomes a man.
— Thomas Carlyle


Work is necessary. If you want a good disposition of your spirit, work until you become tired. But not too much. Not until you become exhausted. A good spiritual disposition can be destroyed by excessive work as well as by idleness.

Monday, April 27, 2015

April 27

A bad mood is often the reason for blaming others; but very often blaming others causes bad feelings in us: the more we blame others, the worse we feel.

One of our most common and widespread prejudices is that every person has a fixed, special characteristic, that there are kind people and evil, clever people and stupid people, and cold or hot people. But people are not like this; we can say about a person only that he is more often kind than evil, more often clever than stupid, more often cold than hot. We always divide people like this, but it is no less wrong.

If there is animosity between two people, both are to blame. Any number you multiply by zero, however big, will equal zero. If there is animosity, then, it is the animosity of two people toward each other, and it exists in both of them.

Try to understand and remember that a person always tries to do what is best after such mistakes. If you remember this, then you will never be useless by anybody, you will never reproach anybody, and you will never be an enemy to anybody.
— After Epictetus


If you are living with another person, make an agreement that as soon as either of you starts to blame the other, you will end the argument.

Sunday, April 26, 2015

April 26

The understanding of the existence of God is accessible to everybody; the complete understanding of the essence of God is not accessible to any person.

All the nations of the world name and respect God. Different people give him different names, and put different clothes on him; but there is only one God under all these different manifestations.  
— Jean Jacques Rousseau

Faith in God is as natural to men as their ability to walk on two feet. This faith can be modified, and it can even disappear in some individuals; but as a rule, it is necessary for intellectual life in society.
— After George Lichtenberg

There are some statements which cannot he fathomed: God exists or he does not exist; the soul exists in the body, or we do not have a soul; the world was created or the world was not created.
Blaise Pascal


Live in God, live together with God, by understanding Him in you, and do not try to define Him with words.

Saturday, April 25, 2015

April 25

A person can understand himself as a material or a spiritual being. When you understand yourself as a spiritual being, then you are free.

What is "love of God," if it is not the effort to add part of yourself to the higher creative flow of energy in this world? Divine force exists in everything, but the greatest manifestation of it in this world is in humanity, and in order to put it to work, one must understand it and accept it.

If a person does not believe himself capable of doing the best things in the world, then he starts to create the worst things.

I know that the sky knows everything, and that its laws are constant. I know that it sees everything, it gets into everything, and it is present in everything. The heavens can get into the depths of all human hearts in the same way that the daylight can lighten a dark room. We should try to reflect this heavenly light.

— Chinese Wisdom 

Friday, April 24, 2015

April 24

In any struggle true bravery lies within those who know that God is their ally.

Whatever happens, do not lose faith. Nothing bad can happen to you as a human being.

These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.
— John 16:33

Everything is indefinite, misty, and transient; only virtue is clear, and it cannot be destroyed by any force.
— Marcus Tullius Cicero

Only a person who renounces his personality becomes truly powerful. As soon as one denies his personality, it is not he but God who acts through him.


Once upon a time, a Roman Empress lost her precious jewelry. It was announced across the empire, that whoever found her lost stones before thirty days would receive a big reward, but any who returned the jewelry after thirty days would he executed. Samuel, a Jewish rabbi, found the precious stones, but he returned them after thirty days had passed "Have you been abroad'?" the Roman empress asked him. "No, I was at home." "Maybe you did not know what was proclaimed?" "No, I knew," said Samuel. "Then why did you not return these things before the expiry of the thirty days? Now you have to be executed." "I wanted to show you that I returned your lost jewelry, not because of fear of your punishment, but because of fear of God." 

Thursday, April 23, 2015

April 23

Real goodness is always simple. Simplicity is so attractive and so profitable that it is strange that so few people lead truly simple lives.

Do not seek happiness elsewhere. Give thanks to God, who made necessary things simple, and complicated things unnecessary.
— Gregory Skovoroda

Most of our spending is done to forward our efforts to look like others.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Every great thing is done in a quiet, humble, simple way; to plow the land, to build houses, to breed cattle, even to think — you cannot do such things when there are thunder and lightning around you. Great and true things are always simple and humble.


No one looks less simple than those people who artificially strive to seem so. Artificial simplicity is the most unpleasant of all artificial things. 

Wednesday, April 22, 2015

April 22

The greatest knowledge is self-knowledge. He who understands himself will understand God.

Jesus cried and said, He that believeth on me, believeth not on me, but on him that sent me. And he that seeth me seeth him that sent me. I am come a light into the world, that whosoever believeth on me should not abide in darkness. And if any man hear my words, and believe not I judge him not: for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world. He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day. For I have not spoken of myself; but the Father which sent me, he gave me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak. And I know that this commandment is life everlasting: whatsoever I speak therefore, even as the Father said unto me, so I speak.
— John 12:44-50

Without purity of soul, how can you say, I will glorify God? That light, like a morning star, which lives in the heart of every person, this light is our salvation.
— Wabana Purana Indian Wisdom


A person can transform his personality, his inner self, from the domain of suffering, and subduing into the domain which is always steady and joyful, that is, the domain of understanding his spiritual and divine essence. 

Tuesday, April 21, 2015

April 21

In the future, the order of the social life of the Christian world will be changed by the replacement of violence and its fears with love and blessing.

Thus I command you, to love one another.
— John 15:17-19

It is a mistake to think that there are times when you can safely address a person without love. You can work with objects without love — cutting wood, baking bricks, making iron — but you cannot work with people without love. In the same way as you cannot work with bees without being cautious, you cannot work with people without being mindful of their humanity. It is the quality of people as it is of bees: if you are not very cautious with them, then you harm both yourself and them. It cannot be otherwise, because mutual love is the major law of our existence.

Until I can see that the major commandment of Christ — love your enemies is being fulfilled, I will continue to believe that many people are not real Christians, but only pretend to be Christians.
— Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

The worst mistake which was ever made in this world was the separation of political science from ethics.
— Percy Bysshe Shelley


You should live so that it is possible to create the kingdom of love on earth. You should live a life based not on violence but on love.

Monday, April 20, 2015

April 20

For a person who leads a spiritual life, self-sacrifice brings a bliss that far transcends the pleasure a person who lives by the self-indulgent satisfaction of his animal passions.

He who is kind does good for other people. And if a person suffers while he does kind deeds, he becomes an even better person.
— Jean De La Bruyere

He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.
— Matthew 10:37

There is no higher blessing for a person than to do charitable work for the benefit and well-being of others.
— Lucy Malory

Just as fire blows out candles, good deeds for the benefit of others destroy a selfish life.


The dark spot in the sunlight that falls on us is the shadow created by our own personalities. We live for ourselves only when we live for others. It may seem strange, but try it, and you will see it from your own experience. 

Sunday, April 19, 2015

April 19

A man who does not understand the benefit of suffering does not live a clever and true life.

Mankind has never achieved greatness but through suffering.
— Robert De Lamennais

Without suffering, spiritual growth cannot happen. Suffering often accompanies death, but suffering is also a useful, beneficial condition of life. It is said that God loves those who experience suffering.

Religion gives a person the understanding of the meaning of his existence and his destination.
— Anatole France


A person who lives a spiritual life cannot help but see that suffering brings him closer to God. Seen in this light, suffering loses its bitter side and becomes bliss. 

Saturday, April 18, 2015

April 18

What is important is not the quantity of your knowledge, but its quality. You can know many things without knowing that which is most important.

Ignorance in itself is neither shameful nor harmful. Nobody can know everything. But pretending that you know what you actually do not know is both shameful and harmful.

There are two types of ignorance, the pure, natural ignorance into which all people are born, and the ignorance of the so-called wise. You will see that many among those who call themselves scholars do not know real life, and they despise simple people and simple things.
Blaise Pascal

The truth should often overcome thousands of obstacles, until it is accepted.
George Lightenberg

The scholar who thinks but does not create is like the cloud which does not give rain.
Eastern Wisdom


Vague and complex terminology was created by false scholars. Real, truthful knowledge does not need vague terms.