Be Reasonable
Open your heart to the influence of the light which, from time to time, breaks in upon you: when scruples importune you, which you in your lucid moments know to be vain, do not stand…
Category: Wisdom Traditions
The Communist and the Buddhist
[Nikolay] Valentinov … recorded his shock at Lenin’s certainty not only that Marx and Engels were absolutely correct, but that no fundamental principle they enunciated, about anything, could ever be changed. “Nothing in Marxism is…
How Things Looked in 1990
All over the world, we are saturated by a contemporary culture of materialism, instant communications, and electronic luxury. Advertising bombards us with pulsating music, sexual imagery, and the urgent appeal to involve ourselves more and…
Advice from the Sages
I am sorry that I cannot say anything more comforting, for active love is a harsh and fearful thing compared with love in dreams. Love in dreams thirsts for immediate action, quickly performed, and with…
“Neither Do I Condemn You”: An On-going Collage
“God will punish all atheists. They will burn in everlasting fire.” [A hermit] Obviously upset, the Staretz said: “Tell me, supposing you went to paradise and looked down and saw somebody burning in hell-fire—would you…
So Thinks Simone Weil
Something mysterious in this universe is an accomplice of those who love only the good.
Who Remained Decent?
So let us ask: who behaved better under pressure, imprisoned Bolsheviks or religious believers? Materialists or those who acknowledged absolute standards of good and evil? Who acted nobly and who behaved like a scoundrel? To…
Advice for Those Who Say They Want to Save the World
Above all, avoid lies, all lies, especially the lie to yourself. Keep watch on your own lie and examine it every hour, every minute. And avoid contempt, both of others and of yourself: what seems…
The Path of the Prosaic
for Natalie Long Faith comes not from theory but from experience, from the bottom up, by living the right sort of life from moment to moment. For Zossima, that means attending to the prosaic. One…
Reading the Russians
In this book I portray the Russian tradition as a dialogue of the dead (and a few still living) extending over centuries. Novelists and their characters, critics and ideologists, argue about ultimate questions that obsessed…