“There is a tiny and brilliant light burning in the heart of man
that will not go out no matter how dark the world becomes”
War and Peace (1869)
Universally acclaimed as one of the world’s great literary masterpieces, War and Peace is a story set against the backdrop of the Napoleonic Wars (1803-1815). It is a Russian drama, played out equally within the drawing rooms of St Petersburg and on the battlefields of war. The author, Count Leo Tolstoy explores raw human emotion. He tests his characters again and again. As their lives become touched by the war with France, they must face the human cost of conflict and mankind’s shadow side. Tolstoy is an expert at psychology. He instinctively understands the workings of the mind in a way that is quite remarkable for his time.
But Tolstoy doesn’t stop there. His ability to observe, rather than judge, enables him to question human behaviour and all its flaws. He examines human drama in a way which is both enlightening and thought provoking, testing his own theories on the meaning of life, death and the afterlife. It is my belief that Tolstoy was deeply intuitive, and very likely psychic. His later writings on spirituality are a testament to his enlightened state.
Atheism versus spirituality
Tolstoy uses his two main characters, Prince Andrei Bolkonsky and Count Pierre Bezukhov as vehicles to explore his contrasting ideas on human mortality and the eternal soul. Each argument is carefully considered. Prince Andrei expounds earthbound atheistic viewpoints, while Pierre enthuses for a greater good, a higher spiritual truth. In reality this is Tolstoy thinking out loud. He is simultaneously Bolkonsky and Bezukhov. In effect, these two men represent his own inner dialogue, as he tries to make sense of life in its wider context.
The two men have many vigorous debates throughout the novel. Just like two great philosophers, they consider the meaning of life, man’s destiny and the existence of God. Andrei’s need is for evidence, while Pierre is content to trust.
Prince Andrei’s materialistic view of the world requires evidence of a higher order.
Andrei: ‘You say: join our brotherhood [Freemasons] and we will show you the purpose of life, the destiny of man, and the laws which govern the universe. But who are “we”? Men. How is it you know everything? Why am I the only one not to see what you see? You behold a reign of goodness and truth on earth, but I don’t…..”
Pierre’s greater wisdom enables him to view man’s misdeeds from a higher perspective, placing them within the context of eternity
[Pierre] “You say you can’t see any reign of goodness and truth on Earth. Nor could I, and it’s impossible to, if we accept our life here as the end of all things. On Earth…there is no truth, it is all lies and wickedness. But in the universe, in the whole universe, there is a kingdom of truth, and we who are now the children of earth are—in the eternal sense—children of the whole universe. Don’t I feel in my soul that I am a part of that vast harmonious whole? Don’t I feel that I constitute one link, that I mark a degree in the ascending scale from the lower orders of creation to the higher ones, in this immense innumerable multitude of beings in which the Godhead – the Supreme Force, if you prefer the term—is manifest? If I see, see clearly the ladder rising from plant to man, why should I suppose that ladder breaks off with me and does not lead further and further? I feel not only that I cannot vanish, since nothing in this world ever vanishes, but that I always shall exist and always have existed. I feel that besides myself, above me, there are spirits, and that in their world there is truth.”
Death is not the end
[Andrei] “All I say is that it is not argument that convinces me of the necessity of a future life, but this: when you go hand in hand with someone and all at once that person vanishes there, into nowhere, and you yourself are left facing that abyss, and look in. And I have looked in....” [Pierre] “Well, that’s it then! You know that there is a there and there is a Someone? There is the future life. The Someone is—God…..
Soul lives forever
[Pierre] “If there is a God and future life, there is truth and good, and man’s highest happiness consists in striving to attain them. We must live, we must love, and we must believe that we live not only today on this scrap of earth, but have lived and shall live forever, there, in the Whole,” said Pierre, and he pointed to the sky.
Prince Andrei stood leaning on the railing of the raft listening to Pierre, and he gazed with his eyes fixed on the red reflection of the sun gleaming on the blue waters. There was perfect stillness. Pierre became silent. The raft had long since stopped and only the waves of the current beat softly against it below. Prince Andrei felt as if the sound of the waves kept up a refrain to Pierre’s words, whispering: “It is true, believe it.” He sighed, and glanced with a radiant, childlike, tender look at Pierre’s face, flushed and rapturous, but yet shy before his superior friend.
A spark of light
[Andrei] “Yes, if it only were so!” said Prince Andrei. “However, it is time to get on,” he added, and, stepping off the raft, he looked up at the sky to which Pierre had pointed, and for the first time since Austerlitz saw that high, everlasting sky he had seen while lying on that battlefield; and something that had long been slumbering, something that was best within him, suddenly awoke, joyful and youthful, in his soul. It vanished as soon as he returned to the customary conditions of his life, but he knew that this feeling which he did not know how to develop existed within him. His meeting with Pierre formed an epoch in Prince Andrei’s life. Though outwardly he continued to live in the same old way, inwardly he began a new life.
Extracts taken from Leo Tolstoy’s “War and Peace”, translated by Rosemary Edmonds, (Penguin Books 1972) pp454-456