Leo Tolstoy's view on India, Subjugation of India, Hindu way of life & His Magic Green Wand

Leo Tolstoy is a social philosopher of last millenium. His arms and mind reaches to the entire world. His thoughts have impeccable relevance, his life is monumentary, his works are inherently metaphysical and a Voice of the God within us.

His letter to Shri Tarak Nath Das on the Indian or Hindu struggle for freedom and independence is a guide to modern india. His letters to Mahatama Gandhi are also a worthy read.

Gandhi refers him as "the sage of Yasnaya Polyana",

"To me, as a humble follower of that great teacher whom I have long looked upon as one of my guides, it is a matter of honour to be connected with the publication of his letter, such especially as the one which is now being given to the world."

"When a man like Tolstoy, one of the clearest thinkers in the western world, one of the greatest writers, one who as a soldier has known what violence is and what it can do.."

"And above all he endeavours to practise what he preaches. "

Some transcripts from the letter are as below:

From your letter and the articles in Free Hindustan as well as from the very interesting writings of the Hindu Swami Vivekananda and others, it appears that, as is the case in our time with the ills of all nations, the reason lies in the lack of a reasonable religious teaching which by explaining the meaning of life would supply a supreme law for the guidance of conduct and would replace the more than dubious precepts of pseudo-religion and pseudo-science with the immoral conclusions deduced from them and commonly called 'civilization'.

This phenomenon seems particularly strange in India, for there more than two hundred million people, highly gifted both physically and mentally, find themselves in the power of a small group of people quite alien to them in thought, and immeasurably inferior to them in religious morality.

Irreligious and profoundly immoral social arrangements under which the English and other pseudo-Christian nations live to-day.

 Do not the figures make it clear that it is not the English who have enslaved the Indians, but the Indians who have enslaved themselves?

If the people of India are enslaved by violence it is only because they themselves live and have lived by violence, and do not recognize the eternal law of love inherent in humanity.

the truth that the law of love is in accord with the nature of man.

But men can only recognize this truth to its full extent when they have completely freed themselves from all religious and scientific superstitions and from all the consequent misrepresentations and sophistical distortions by which its recognition has been hindered for centuries.

Children, look upwards with your beclouded eyes, and a world full of joy and love will disclose itself to you, a rational world made by My wisdom, the only real world. Then you will know what love has done with you, what love has bestowed upon you, what love demands from you. KRISHNA.

YASNAYA POLYANA.

December 14th, 1908.

To his biographer he wrote , "With regard to my biography, I may tell you that I very much desire to help you and to write at least what is most essential. I decided that I might write it, because I can understand that it may be interesting and possibly useful to men were I to show all the abomination of the life I led before my awakening, and--speaking without false modesty--what was good in it (were it only in intentions, which, owing to my weakness, were not always realized) after the awakening. It is in this spirit that I should like to write it for you. "

                                                  Tolstoy's samadhi  with flowers at Yasnaya Polyana

                                                    Tolstoy's samadhi in the forest with natural cover

Two facts:

1) Tolstoy himself chose this site for his grave. It was one of his favorite spots in childhood, a place he called “the place of the green wand,” where his beloved brother Nikolai and he used to come to play.

2) Tolstoy insisted that there be no marker over his grave. He reportedly said (I am paraphrasing, not quoting), “A rich man will spend much money to erect a grand monument to himself, but no one will come see it. A righteous man will do nothing to mark his final resting place, but if he has deserved it, people will come.” His long-suffering wife Sofya was adamant that her great husband should be honored with a fitting gravestone. She even went so far as to have it designed. But her children prevailed and stopped her from having any marker erected. It’s a good thing. Leo Tolstoy’s gravesite provides an astonishing spiritual experience.

Tolstoy was excommunicated from the church for taking issue with their institutional practices. As a result he couldn’t be buried in a cemetery. 

Long before he died Tolstoy announced the place where he wanted to be buried; in a small clearing called "the place of the green wand", next to a long ravine in a part of the old forest called the Forest of the Old Order  because cutting trees there had been forbidden since the time of his grandfather, and many trees there were over a hundred years old. The name 'place of the green wand' had been given by Tolstoy's older brother Nikolai, who said that the person who found the magic wand there would never die or be ill. He and his brother frequently sat in the darkness in the clearing and talked.

Perhaps the most significant childhood memory for Tolstoy was the “legend” of the Green Stick: his older brother Nicolai told him there was a magical green stick buried in the forest where the boys often played that could destroy all evil in the hearts of men.  Tolstoy remembered this story all his life, and at death requested to be buried near the spot.

As a boy, Tolstoy searched in the bushes at Yasnaia Poliana for this stick.

Much later, he wrote:

“I believe that this truth exists, and that it will be disclosed to men and will give them what it promises.”

"If I were told that what I shall write will be read in twenty years by the children of today

and that they will weep and smile over it and will fall in love with life,

I would devote all my life and all my strengths to it." - Leo Tolstoy

In one version of the story, he says when he and his play mates (with other kids/brothers) were playing in the forest of yasnaya polyana, they met a wandering old man who played with them. He showed a green wand/stick of immaculate power and he would bury it for them to search. After a few attempts, he was not seen and so was the wand/stick. As children they used to wander time and gain in that forest in search of the green wand of magic!!

It shows what we loose as children and unless we get it back as adults, we perish!!

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/7176/7176-h/7176-h.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Letter_to_a_Hindu

A LETTER TO A HINDU

By Leo Tolstoy

All that exists is One. People only call this One by different names. THE VEDAS.

God is love, and he that abideth in love abideth in God, and God abideth in him. I JOHN iv. 16.

God is one whole; we are the parts. EXPOSITION OF THE TEACHING OF THE VEDAS BY VIVEKANANDA.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Tolstoy_bibliography

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Tolstoy

https://russianlandmarks.wordpress.com/2017/10/21/leo-tolstoy-grave-yasnaya-polyana/

https://philosophy.redzambala.com/leo-tolstoy/leo-tolstoy-biography.html

https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/living-with-leo-tolstoy-s-impressive-dynasty-2136883.html

https://ramanisblog.in/2015/02/04/narada-mountain-in-russia-urals-narodnaya/

https://ramanisblog.in/2014/08/06/rig-veda-composed-in-russia/

https://www.speakingtree.in/blog/a-russian-scientist-experience-with-hh-kanchi-maha-periva