After reading Leo Tolstoy’s masterpiece last year, War and Peace, I was interested to see what other writings from him might interest me to possibly read this year. Researching what other works he has written, I came across his other famous writings such as Anna Karenina, and The Kingdom of God is Within You, as well as others which, though I may read some day, I did not want to commit to at the moment. However, one work that I found that stuck out to me from its intriguing title, and that isn’t even a book but more of a short story, is titled The Three Questions. I found a webpage that had the entire text of it, and after reading the whole thing through in a relatively short sitting, I was reminded of Tolstoy’s unique way of presenting his philosophy. War and Peace is filled with pages and pages of Tolstoy’s deep philosophical understandings, especially in the later parts of the book, but due to the book’s length and complexity can be overwhelming to decipher and apply practically. The Three Questions, however, is much more accessible to the average person, and has a powerful lesson in it to apply to life. While the whole short story is worth the read, and can be found for free online, I’ve summed it up right here with its key points and message:
The Three Questions is about a king, from an unnamed kingdom, who comes to the conclusion that if he can find the answers to three certain questions, then he will never fail again at anything he undertakes. The three questions are: 1. When is the right time for me to begin everything? 2. Who are the right people to listen to, and who are the people I should avoid? 3. What is the most important thing for me to do? To find the answers to these questions, the king proclaimed throughout the land that if anyone could deliver him the answers to these three questions, he would give them a great reward. People from all over the kingdom came to the king and told him that they knew the answers to his questions; telling him how he could know when the right time to begin everything was, who the most important people for the king to be around were, and what the most important occupation for him to attend to was. All the answers he got from these people, however, differed greatly, leaving the king still in question.
The king decided, therefore, to consult a hermit, who was well renowned for his wisdom, to answer these three questions for which he longed to know the answers. After leaving his body guard and his horse, and changing out of his royal attire because the hermit would only receive common folk, the king approached the hermit who was toiling outside of his hut and visibly exhausted. When the king asked the hermit his questions, the hermit immediately looked back down and continued digging with his shovel, neglecting to answer the king. Instead of asking again, the king took the hermit’s shovel and began helping him, telling him to take a break and rest for a while. After asking a few more times for an answer to his questions, and the hermit each time declining to answer, there all of a sudden appeared a man running towards them from out of the woods, holding his hands against his bleeding stomach, and falling at the feet of the king when he reached him. Immediately the king rushed to his help, washing his wounded stomach where he was bleeding, bandaging him up, and making him a bed for the night where he could lie down and heal. In the morning, the wounded man was overwhelmed with gratitude towards the king and asked him for his forgiveness. “I do not know you, and have nothing to forgive you for” the king said, puzzled by what the man could have meant. The man then told him that he had come the day before to kill him as an act of vengeance, because the king had executed his brother and taken his property away from him. When he came upon the king’s bodyguard that was stationed away from the hermits hut, however, the bodyguard had recognized the man and wounded him before the man could escape, running toward the king and the hermit with his wound bleeding. The man told the king that he would have surely bled to death had he not dressed his wounds, and again expressed his gratitude towards the king, who in return forgave the man and returned his property that he had seized from him.
After the wounded man left, the king went once more to the hermit to ask for an answer to his three questions before he left. The hermit, looking up at the king, said “You have already been answered!”, “Do you not see?” The hermit recounted the events that had just occurred over the last day regarding the wounded man, telling the king that had he not stayed yesterday to help him dig, the man would have attacked him as he was walking back to his horse and bodyguard. In essence, the hermit tells him: the most important time was when you were digging with the shovel, I was the most important person, and helping me was your most important occupation. Later on, after the wounded man came running at them, the most important time was when you were helping him, he was the most important person, and what you did for him was the most important occupation.
“Remember then,” the hermit tells the king,: “there is only one time that is important – and that is now! It is the most important time because it is the only time when we have any power. The most necessary man is he with whom you are, for no man knows whether he will ever have dealings with any one else. And the most important thing to do is, to do good, because for that purpose alone was man sent into this life!”