Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

Leo Tolstoy (September 9, 1828 – November 20, 1910) was a Russian writer and one of the greatest authors of all time. His best-known novels are War and Peace and Anna Karenina. In this post, we will discuss Anna Karenina – a beautiful novel that we will label as “Sahitya” in Hindi, implying it is literature written for the benevolence of the society.

Tolstoy talks about every topic in this world through his characters in the story. Topics include status of women in society, education of women, children, marriage, education policies, politics, politicians, religion, church – and much more. However, the biggest topic in this novel are: love and the purpose of life. Tolstoy introduces three kinds of love:

1. Love where we compromise for the sake of family. Love where the Shakti sacrifices, tolerates and is forgiving for the sake of family but she is not subservient. She is unhappy but she finds her sanity and purpose in motherhood.  

2. Love where we believe that love is the supreme and if we can find love, we do not need anything and we sacrifice everything like marriage and children for the sake of love. When we achieve this goal, then we realize that it was an illusion, and we are lost again. Such love is just like money, power and popularity – we run after them in the assumption that once we get them, we will be happy, and our lives’ purpose will be fulfilled. But nobody has managed to find purpose of life fulfilled when we run after money, love, power or popularity. In this kind of love, we end up making everyone around us miserable and hence we “fall” in love.

3. Third kind of love is where respect and concern for each other is the focus. We trust each other and allow everyone to grow and become a better person. We know that there is higher purpose. The entire attention is not just each other but on higher purpose.

And this third kind of love is where Tolstoy introduces the most beautiful ending of any novel I have ever read. The wife has complete faith, and she is the Shakti in every sense of the word. She is a devout Christian, and husband appears to be atheist, but he is a true seeker. She believes that her husband will find his faith one day when God wills. Husband is a seeker, and his seeking is causing depression and suicidal temptations. Then, all of a sudden, he gets his realization, and he feels presence of God. He is surprised because he always thought that when he finds truth it will be a very powerful and sort of over-the-top experience. But he realizes that the experience is more subtle and calm with undeniable contentment and joy in heart. He realizes that rationality is a roadblock to such an experience. He is so joyful and so excited that he feels that he is now going to be a changed person. However, he finds out that just because of realization he didn’t transform into a perfect person he desires to be. His transformation will be a work in progress. However, the joy in his heart of knowing the truth is never going to leave him now. He realizes that the purpose of life is to live for God and one’s soul. Many practitioners of Sahaja Yoga will find this narrative much closer to their own experiences.

Few quotes of Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi on Leo Tolstoy:

Tolstoy was very introspective. His characters portrayed conscience. Anna Karenina had a conscience; she realized her folly and gave up her life. [1990]

If you read any book of Russian writers like Tolstoy or anyone, anything they do, say even when they fall in love or anything, immediately they start introspecting, ‘Why, why am I falling in love? Why this [is] happening to me? Why I’m thinking like that? Why I’m doing like that?’ You see, they introspect, and that introspection if we do not have within ourselves, then what happens that we can go either to the right or to the left. [1991-0328]

As you must have heard, about Tolstoy who was another great realized Soul. He’s written ‘Anna Karenina’, and ultimately, he saw that Anna Karenina commits suicide, because what she was doing [was] a wrong thing, you see. So, he brought the whole thing so beautifully out, and such an introspection all the time, you see, going on and also the futility of this kind of a romance that was there. So, all this shows to us that there are people, at the same time, who are in the center I would say. [1992-0223]

Even if you read Tolstoy, or any of those writers, they are very introspective. When their heroes are introspective, they do not take things for granted, they don’t think end of themselves, nothing. They are never in a fool’s paradise, I have seen. They try to see what’s wrong with me, why am I doing this? It’s very interesting. [1992-0226]

Tolstoy was a born realized Soul. So, he saw life very differently. If you have read Anna Karenina there they have shown this lady, Anna Karenina, carrying on with another man, when she was a married lady and her husband very tolerant, working very hard and all that and could not give her sufficient time so she thought she has a right to be romantic. And then at the end he proves that she was never happy. But her husband was very peaceful, very forgiving, but she was never happy and ultimately, she had to commit suicide. I mean these are old writers, used to write like this – specially, those who were realized Souls. But if you give the same thing to somebody who is a modern writer, he would show that the husband committed suicide, not the wife. And that’s what now we are in the modern times and that’s how we are, that we feel guilty for none of our faults. Here is a wife carrying on with another man and the man feels that I am guilty because I am not so attractive that’s why she’s carrying on with another man and he commits suicide. It’s not so. It is the wife who is wrong – not the man. So also, there is a shift of guilt or wrong from one to another by our perverted thinking. [1992-0704]

Tolstoy’s novels always had the sense of introspection and also idea of resurrection that human beings can change and transform. [1993-0801]