I was no more than 26 years old at the time, but I knew very well that life had no purpose or meaning, that everything was a deception and illusion. The essence and outcome of a hard-labor life on Sakhalin Island is no different from a life in Nice. And the difference between Kant’s brain and a fly’s brain is insignificant. No one in this world is right or wrong, and everything is rubbish and nonsense, and so to hell with it! (Anton Chekhov, Lights)
Question: The 26-year-old Chekhov reached this conclusion after contemplating life. All his stories and writings would be written later. What do you think can make a young man conclude life is pointless and has no meaning?
Answer: This is what he saw around him, in himself, and in books probably. This was his resume at that moment.
Question: When pressed on all sides, a young person may come to have such an idea. Please tell me what the right way to respond to such a thought is.
Answer: The right way is to close your eyes and keep going with what is required of you.
Question: That is, not to send it to hell, but to keep going?
Answer: Well, this concerns everything in life.
Question: How do you determine what is required? How does he determine what is required of him? What does it mean?
Answer: There is an upper master who requires you to do a particular job. And since He belongs to a higher nature, He is undoubtedly smarter than you.
Question: So you should follow Him?
Answer: You have no choice but to submit.
Question: Chekhov compares life in Sakhalin with life in Nice. This is a new take. How can a person compare hard labor and stale bread in Sakhalin with life in Nice with calm, aromatic coffee in the morning, a croissant, and so on? How does one conclude that Sakhalin is the same as Nice?
Answer: Because, in general, there is no significant difference except for bodily comfort. And, in general, it is the same thing.
Comment: But we still live in this material world.
My Response: We take into account all our corporeal benefits. But if you do not account for it, but judge expressly by life itself, what difference does it make?
Question: Do you also think a hard, backbreaking life somewhere in Sakhalin is the same as in Nice?
Answer: Backbreaking, I do not think so.
Comment: Well, not necessarily backbreaking, but just living somewhere out there in the village versus in Nice is the same thing?
My Response: Yes.
Question: What parameters do you take into account when you say this?
Answer: I think that as long as I am alive, it makes no difference where I live. What do I really need in order to live? I can settle on any island.
Comment: A computer and a room.
Answer: Yes.
Question: Is this what it means that a person does not need much?
Answer: Actually yes.
Question: How can we say there is no significant difference between the brain of Kant and the brain of a fly?
Answer: Both are objects; they act purely on their egoistic motivation. Although Kant seems to be checking himself, studying himself, overall both he and the fly act the same way in choosing the greatest pleasure.
Question: How are we different then?
Answer: We are not.
Question: So why are we given reason?
Answer: To understand how to live, with or without reason.
Question: What does it mean to live with reason?
Answer: Living with reason is very difficult. I must study my actions, the forces that cause them, and think about them from the side: what I am right and wrong about.
Question: Is this the constant life of a person with reason? Is it so? Is this why it is difficult?
Answer: Yes.
Question: Where are we being led like this? What you just said was that we are being led, given pleasure.
Answer: We are being led to realize the meaning of life, which is in reaching the level of the Creator.
Question: Is this our whole journey?
Answer: Yes.
Question: In this case, the fly is not being led like that, right?
Answer: There is nowhere to lead the fly. It has no freewill, none of that.
Question: What does a fly live for?
Answer: The fly exists, like everything around us, except us humans, so that we can see how the world works and could be different from all creatures.
Question: What do you think about Chekhov’s conclusion that “no one in this world is right or at fault?”
Answer: He proceeds from the fact that everyone is born and exists within the laws of nature, in the nature that they have, that is given to them from above. Therefore a person is not responsible for himself and cannot strive for anything on his own.
Question: Meaning all his actions are involuntary?
Answer: Involuntary, yes.
Question: Is he neither right nor wrong?
Answer: Yes.
Question: Can one have such an attitude to life? Is this not a passive option?
Answer: It is passive.
Question: What is the correct attitude?
Answer: The correct attitude is to see that life is fiercely purposeful. It has meaning, and we must reveal this meaning and reveal it in such a way that it absolutely aligns with the law of nature. And the law of nature is “love your neighbor as yourself.” The law of human community.
Question: Is this what we always have to strive for?
Answer: Yes.
[334373]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 8/12/24
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