Omar Akram - Secret Journey
Excerpts from the novel"The Brothers Karamazov"
Brothers,have no fear of men's sin.Love a man even in his sin,
for that is the semblance of Divine Love and is the highest
love on earth.Love all God's creation,the whole of it and
every grain of sand in it.Love every leaf,every ray of God's light.
Love the animals,love the plants,love everything.
If you love everything,you will perceive the divine
mystery in things.Once you have perceived it,you
will begin to comprehend it better every day,and
you will come at last to love the world with
an all-embracing love.
Love children especially, for like the angels they too are
sinless, and they live to soften and purify our hearts,and,
as it were, to guide us.Woe to him who offends a child.
Everything is like an ocean,I tell you.
Then you would pray to the birds, too, consumed by a universal
love, as though in ecstasy,and ask that they,too,should
forgive your sin.Treasure this ecstasy,however absurd
people may think it.
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Love the animals: God has given them the rudiments of thought
and untroubled joy.So do not trouble it,do not harass them,
do not deprive them of their joy,do not go against God's intent.
Man, do not exhale yourself above the animals: they are without
sin, while you in your majesty defile the earth by your
appearance on it, and you leave the traces of your defilement
behind you — alas, this is true of almost every one of us!
My young brother asked even the birds to forgive him.
It may sound absurd, but it is right none the less, for
everything, like the ocean, flows and enters into contact
with everything else: touch one place, and you set up
a movement at the other end of the world. It may be
senseless to beg forgiveness of the birds, but, then,
it would be easier for the birds, and for the child,
and for every animal if you were yourself more pleasant
than you are now.
I know that heart, it is a wild but noble heart . . .
It will bow down before your deed, it thirsts for a great
act of love, it will catch fire and resurrect forever.
There are souls that in their narrowness blame the whole world.
But overwhelm such a soul with mercy, give it love,and
it will curse what it has done,for there are so many germs
of good in it.
The soul will expand and behold how merciful
God is, and how beautiful and just people are.
He will be horrified, he will be overwhelmed with repentance
and the countless debt he must henceforth repay.
And then he will not say,'I am quits' but will say,
'I am guilty before all people and am the least worthy of all people.
Fyodor Dostoevsky,The Brothers Karamazov
My friends,ask gladness from God.Be glad as children,
as birds in the sky. And let man's sin not disturb you
in your efforts,do not fear that it will dampen your
endeavor and keep it from being fulfilled, do not say,
'Sin is strong, impiety is strong, the bad environment
is strong, and we are lonely and powerless,the bad
environment will dampen us and keep our good endeavor
from being fulfilled.Flee from such despondency.
We don't understand that life is heaven, for we have only to understand that and it will at once be fulfilled in all its beauty, we shall embrace each other and weep.
Fyodor Dostoevsky,The Brothers Karamazov
Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
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