Page:Tolstoy - Pamphlets.djvu/174

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THOUGHTS ON GOD
33

not at all or at least will not so strenuously deprive others of it. Secondly, having acknowledged as his Ego, God, who desires universal welfare, man must desire the same.

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Prayer is addressed to a personal God, not because He is a person (I even know with certainty that He is not a person, because personality is limitation, and God is unlimited), but because I am a personal being. I have a piece of green glass before my eyes, and therefore everything appears green to me : it cannot appear otherwise, although I know it is not green.

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Riding home from Toula I was thinking "I am a part of Him, in a certain way, separated from other such parts. He is the All — the Father." And I experienced the feeling of love towards Him. Now, especially just at the present moment, I am unable not only to revive, but even to recall this feeling. And yet it was so joyful that I said to myself, "Well, I thought I should no more experience any new feeling, and now I have learnt a wonderful, blissful new feeling." Yes, feeling, that is the word.

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It is said that God should be conceived as a personality. This is a