Question: How is it that one should find faith?
(in the passage it is faith in god though faith in humanity can be entered as well)
"By the experience of active love. Strive to love your neighbour
actively and indefatigably. In as far as you advance in love you
will grow surer of the reality of God and of the immortality of your
soul. If you attain to perfect self-forgetfulness in the love of
your neighbour, then you will believe without doubt, and no doubt
can possibly enter your soul. This has been tried. This is certain."
"In active love? There's another question and such a question! You
see, I so love humanity that- would you believe it?- I often dream
of forsaking all that I have, leaving Lise, and becoming a sister of
mercy. I close my eyes and think and dream, and at that moment I
feel full of strength to overcome all obstacles. No wounds, no
festering sores could at that moment frighten me. I would bind them up
and wash them with my own hands. I would nurse the afflicted. I
would be ready to kiss such wounds."
"It is much, and well that your mind is full of such dreams and
not others. Some time, unawares, you may do a good deed in reality."
"Yes. But could I endure such a life for long?" the lady went on
fervently, almost frantically. "That's the chief question- that's my
most agonising question. I shut my eyes and ask myself, 'Would you
persevere long on that path? And if the patient whose wounds you are
washing did not meet you with gratitude, but worried you with his
whims, without valuing or remarking your charitable services, began
abusing you and rudely commanding you, and complaining to the superior
authorities of you (which often happens when people are in great
suffering)- what then? Would you persevere in your love, or not?'
And do you know, I came with horror to the conclusion that, if
anything could dissipate my love to humanity, it would be ingratitude.
In short, I am a hired servant, I expect my payment at once- that
is, praise, and the repayment of love with love. Otherwise I am
incapable of loving anyone.'"
She was in a very paroxysm of self-castigation, and, concluding,
she looked with defiant resolution at the elder.
"It's just the same story as a doctor once told me," observed
the elder. "He was a man getting on in years, and undoubtedly
clever. He spoke as frankly as you, though in jest, in bitter jest. 'I
love humanity,' he said, 'but I wonder at myself. The more I love
humanity in general, the less I love man in particular. In my dreams,'
he said, 'I have often come to making enthusiastic schemes for the
service of humanity, and perhaps I might actually have faced
crucifixion if it had been suddenly necessary; and yet I am
incapable of living in the same room with anyone for two days
together, as I know by experience. As soon as anyone is near me, his
personality disturbs my self-complacency and restricts my freedom.
In twenty-four hours I begin to hate the best of men: one because he's
too long over his dinner; another because he has a cold and keeps on
blowing his nose. I become hostile to people the moment they come
close to me. But it has always happened that the more I detest men
individually the more ardent becomes my love for humanity.'
"But what's to be done? What can one do in such a case? Must one
despair?"
"No. It is enough that you are distressed at it. Do what you
can, and it will be reckoned unto you. Much is done already in you
since you can so deeply and sincerely know yourself. If you have
been talking to me so sincerely, simply to gain approbation for your
frankness, as you did from me just now, then, of course, you will
not attain to anything in the achievement of real love; it will all
get no further than dreams, and your whole life will slip away like
a phantom. In that case you will naturally cease to think of the
future life too, and will of yourself grow calmer after a fashion in
the end."
"You have crushed me! Only now, as you speak, I understand that
I was really only seeking your approbation for my sincerity when I
told you I could not endure ingratitude. You have revealed me to
myself. You have seen through me and explained me to myself
"Are you speaking the truth? Well, now, after such a confession, I
believe that you are sincere and good at heart. If you do not attain
happiness, always remember that you are on the right road, and try not
to leave it. Above all, avoid falsehood, every kind of falsehood,
especially falseness to yourself. Watch over your own deceitfulness
and look into it every hour, every minute. Avoid being scornful,
both to others and to yourself. What seems to you bad within you
will grow purer from the very fact of your observing it in yourself.
Avoid fear, too, though fear is only the consequence of every sort
of falsehood. Never be frightened at your own faint-heartedness in
attaining love. Don't be frightened overmuch even at your evil
actions. I am sorry I can say nothing more consoling to you, for
love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared with love in
dreams.
Love in dreams is greedy for immediate action, rapidly
performed and in the sight of all. Men will even give their lives if
only the ordeal does not last long but is soon over, with all
looking on and applauding as though on the stage. But active love is
labour and fortitude, and for some people too, perhaps, a complete
science. But I predict that just when you see with horror that in
spite of all your efforts you are getting farther from your goal
instead of nearer to it- at that very moment I predict that you will
reach it and behold clearly the miraculous power of the Lord who has
been all the time loving and mysteriously guiding you. Forgive me
for not being able to stay longer with you.
--From The Brothers Karamazov
--Fyodor Doestoyevski.
