Tolstoy is an author who has fascinated me for sometime and perhaps influenced me quite a bit with respect to not only my writing but also thinking. A few short stories of his are my morale boosters that I read from time to time when the going gets tough. I also reminisce some of the principles he has laid down around morality, simplicity and faith.
The first Tolstoy story I got exposed to was in my third grade. This was told to me by my mother, either before or after it came as a hindi adaptation on Doordarshan, our only TV channel that existed back then. It tells the story of a cobbler, a contended and barely eeking through life man, who is devotional and reads the scripture daily. He sees the lord in his dreams who tells him that he will visit him the next day. The cobbler remembers the dream next day and then awaits the lord, but instead, has to go through the day helping several people and in the end realizes that it was the God he served through all these people. This story symbolizes seeing divinity in humanity. I aspire to be the cobbler, who is living life in a contended fashion and is devoted to the lord and is unencumbered by his external surroundings. In this story, the cobbler lives in the exact same place and in the exact same situation for over thirty years. His livelihood has been unchanged and his lifestyle is very simple. He spends his time in a state of constant gratitude and no complaints. Whenever I’m down, I think of this story to remind myself that gratitude and making peace with your condition are essential to sustain and move on in life. A part of also imagines the life of a simple, devout man who lives life without any indulgences or distractions.
The second story I read from Tolystoy was either in my fifth or sixth grade. It tells the story of a peasant who was tricked by the devil to a life of excess and ultimately his downfall. The story is of a devout and simple minded peasant, a good christian as Tolstoy would characterize, who lived happily when he was poor. The devil wanted to sway him from his path and hence sends an Imp, who helps the peasant to make more and more grain and eventually teaches him how to make alchohol out of it. The peasant turns into a mean spirited and a pompous person, who eventually lands in depravity. This story reminds of being ever watchful and not to indulge in unwanted excesses, for what may seem to be a simple way of indulgence will be a slippery slope towards depravity and downfall.
The third story I read and I remember well is the story of a rich farmer and his wife, who lose all their wealth and are employed as servants in their own village. A traveller takes pity upon them and then they laugh it out and tell him that they have never been happier! They mention that when they had a lot of money, servants and land, their mind was always filled with anxiety and worry as they had to always be involved in the maintenance and upkeep. But, as servants, they were no longer worried about things beyond their day to day existence. This story reminds me of the futility of thinking of happiness through the prism of material success. Another story along similar lines written by Tolstoy is about the man who dies in his pursuit of grabbing as much land as he can. Again, material success is critical for survival, but if stretched beyond reason, it can lead to downfall.
The last and my favorite story is titled: Fool. It tells the story of how the devil tries to trick three brothers to despair and the intelligent ones succumb to the temptations of devil through money and army, whereas the dumber one (aptly called the fool) couldn’t be tempted because of their reliance on physical labor and simple minded thinking. I wish I was like the lead character, though in many ways I’m like that, but this story reminds me to stay true to that and not worry to learn the ways of the world. In a recent conversation, my mentor chided me for placing too much trust in my superior and I felt like a fool at that moment. But, then I realized that the trust I placed in that person and the subsequent harm they caused me were actually for my benefit. In some ways, I should thank that superior for making me go through that experience and that couldn’t have happened unless I was well, a fool! The story gives me a chuckle, every single time I read and checks me to stop “strategizing” and trying to be “smart”.
Tolstoy in many ways taught us how to live life. His words may not be fashionable in this complex, highly materialistic world, but in the end, the answer to a happy life is only through simplicity and through spirituality. For many of us that means, we are following the path of religion by going through the prescribed practices diligently and then expanding our scope of consciousness to eventually merge with the creator. Well, thats a lot of words coming from a “fool” :-)
