Leo tolstoy. believe yourself. 1906

          (Appeal to youth.)
Believe yourself, young men and women emerging from childhood, when for the first time questions arise in your soul: who am I, why do I live why do all the people around me live?
And the main, most exiting question, is this how I and all the people around me live? Believe in yourself even when the answers that will be presented to you to these questions will disagree with those that were installed in you in your childhood, they will also disagree with the life in which you find yourself living together with all the people around you.
Do not be afraid of this disagreement, on the contrary, know that this disagreement between you and everything around you, the best that is in you is expressed – that divine principle, the manifestation of which in life is not only the main, but the only meaning of our existence.
Then believe not in yourself, a famous person – Vanya, Petya, Lisa, Masha, son, daughter of a tsar, minister or worker, merchant or peasant, but yourself, that eternal, reasonable and good beginig that lives in each of us and which in awakened in you for the first time and asked you the most important questions in the world and seeks and demands their resolution.
Then do not believe people who, with the condescending smile, will tell you that they once looked for answers to these questions, but did not find them, because you cannot find others than those, that are accepted by everyone.
Do not believe this, but believe only yourself, and do not be afraid of disagreeing with the views and thoughts of the people around you, unless your answers to the questions presented to you that do not agree with them are based not to your personal desires, but to desire to fulfil the purpose of your life, to fulfill the will the power that sent you into life.
Believe in yourself, especially when the answers presented to you are confirmed by those eternal principles of human wisdom, express in all religious teachings and in the teaching of Chtist closest to you in its highest spiritual meanings.
I remember how, when I was 15 years old, I experienced this time, when suddenly I woke up from the childish obedience to others people views, in which I had lived until then, and for the first time I realized I had to live in my own, choose the path myself, answers myself for my life before the beginning that gave it to me.
I remember that then, although vaguely, I deeply felt that the main goal of my life was to be good, in the sense of gospel, in the sense of self-denial and love.
I remember that at the same time I tried to live like this, but it did not last long/ I did not believe myself, but believe all that impressive, self-confident, triumphant human wisdom, which was inspired in me consciously and unconsciously by everyone around me. And my first impulse was replaced (в значении «заменилось») by very definite, albeit (в значении «хотя») varied, desires to succeed in front of people, to be noble, learned, famous, rich, strong, that is, someone who, not myself, but people considered good.


I did not believe myself then, and only after many decades spent on achieving worldly goals, which I either did not achieve or which I achieved and saw their futility (бесполезность), vanity (тщета), and often their harm, I realized that the very thing that I knew 60 years ago and did not believe then, and can and should be the only reasonable goal of the efforts of any person.
And what other way, more joyful for myself and more useful for people, could my life be if, when the voice of truth, God, spoke for the first time in my soul not yet subjected to temptations, I would believe this voice and surrender to it?
Yes, dear young men, sincerely, independently, not under the influence of external suggestion, but independently and sincerely awakened to the consciousness of the whole importance of your life, yes, do not believe people who will tell you that your aspirations (в значении «стремления») are only unfulfilled dreams of yours, that they dreamed and aspired, but that life soon showed them that it has its own requirements and that we should not fantasize about what our life could be like, but try to coordinate our actions in the best way with the life of existing society and try only to be a useful member of this society.
Do not believe in that dangerous temptation (в значении «соблазн»), which become especially strong in our time, which consist in the fact that the highest purpose of the person is to the reorganization of society that exist in the certain place, at certain time, using all possible means for this, even directly opposite to moral perfection (в значении утверждения «противоположные нравственному совершенствованию»).
Do not believe it, this goal is insignificant before the goal of manifesting in yourself that divine principle that is embedded in your soul. And this goal is false if it allows deviations from the beginning of the good that is in your soul.
Do not believe it. Do not believe that the realization of good and truth is impossible in your soul. Such a realization of good and truth is not only not impossible in your soul, but all life, both yours and all people, only in this one, and only this realization in each person leads not only to a better reorganization to society, but also to all that good humanity, which is intended for him and which is carried out  (в значении «выполненный»)  only by personal efforts of each individual person.
Yes, believe yourself, when it is not the desire to surpass other people, to be different from others , to be powerful, famous, glorified, to be the savior of people, delivering them from the harmful device of life (such desires often replace the desire for good), but believe yourself when the main device of your soul is to be better yourself , I will not say: improve, because in self-improvement there is something personal that satisfied self-love, but I will say: to become what the god who gavw us life wants, to discover in ourselves that invested in us, like him, began to live like God, as the peasants say.
Believe in yourself and live like this, straining all your strength for one thing: the manifestation of God in yourself, and you will do everything that you can do both for your own good and for the good of the whole world.
Seek the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and the rest will be added to you. Yes, believe in yourself at that moment of great importance when for the first time the light of the consciousness of your divine origin will lit up in your soul. Do not put out this light , is the only great and joyful meaning of the life of every man.
2022