What is Time
Time is merely a device by means of which we gradually see that which is in reality and which is ever the same. In order that the eye may see the entire globe, the latter must turn before the observing eye. Even the world revolves before the eyes of men in time. Time and space is the disintegration of the infinite for the convenience of finite creatures.
We say that time is passing. This is wrong. We are passing and not time. As we sail on a river it seems to us as though the shores of the river were moving instead of our boat.
Time exists for the physical life alone. But the spiritual being of man is beyond time, because the activity of the spiritual being of man is only in efforts of the mind. It is always in the present, and the present is not in time.
If there were no space or time, there would be no motion, that is striving towards expansion, illumination and perfection, and therefore no life.
“Live for a day, live for an age” is to live as though any moment you await the last hour of your life, to attend only to the most important matters, and to live as though you could continue to do without end that which you are doing.
Communion and Communication
The doing of good cannot be measured either by the need of the recipient or by the sacrifice of the giver, but merely by that communion in God which is established between the recipient and the giver.
The minutest motion of matter affects all nature. The whole ocean is set in motion by a pebble. Even so with spiritual life, the minutest movement creates infinite results. Everything is of consequence.
Quarrel convinces nobody, it merely separates and exasperates. What a nail is to a hammer, even so the quarrel is to human opinions. Opinions that had been a little shaky are driven firmly into a man’s head after a quarrel, as nails are driven in down to their head by a hammer.
References:
- Tolstoy, Leo. The Pathway of Life. Trans. Archibald J. Wolfe. New York: International Book Pub. Co., 1919.
- “The Pathway of Life”. Internet Archive. January 01, 1970. Accessed February 3, 2018. https://archive.org/details/pathwayoflife02tolsiala
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