And when some time had passed, when the book had to be returned, I asked: "Why don't you read it?" "You know," he said to me, "and everything in this life suits me. I believe you that if I read this book, I will believe in God. But you understand, everything is fine in my life: family, study, work... Everything in my life is harmonious and good, I don't want to change my life. Why should I read this book and change my life?" How to encourage such people, who are "doing well", to change their lives? And do they need to change their lives? After all, we know that the search for God and turning to God sometimes does not pass very easily... And as if outwardly harmonious, life suddenly comes into disharmony... What to do here?

– You know, when Christ Himself preached, not everyone listened to Him, followed Him, and even more so agreed with Him. So we should not expect that every person will be interested in the main question of our life: "Why do I live?", without which it is impossible to answer the question: "If I feel good now, then why should I look for something else?" So, there are a number of people for whom this question does not exist, and it is very difficult to move them to some kind of search, to some kind of reading, to some kind of interest.

But if a person has something stirring inside, in his soul, then it would probably be worth talking about it. And it would be worth it from such a position: here he says that everything is fine with him now, but he knows that everyone born is sentenced to death. Secondly, he does not know to what death. Thirdly, when he says: "I am satisfied with my family", especially, as many people say: "My meaning of life is in my children", you have to involuntarily ask the question: "What a terrible word you have uttered. What would you call a person who would say, ardently say that he loves his children – let's say so – and send them to certain inevitable death? What would you say about this man?"  He would probably have recoiled in horror. But really?

What is "the meaning of life in my children", for example? Did you not know that when you gave birth to a child, you condemned him to death? And this is what you call love, the meaning of life? This is probably one of the very important provisions that should make a person think: can we say that "my meaning of life is in my children"? For those people who are satisfied with their seeming state – health, material, social status, is it really not enough to understand that in the blink of an eye for no one knows for what reasons all this can change: one vessel burst – and that all your well-being is? Whether you are anyone, any billionaire, whatever family you have, and you are lying in paralysis.

Once I read: one billionaire, he, poor, has throat cancer, he is fed with thin food, a spoon... Oh, what a wonderful meaning of life. And no one is immune from any diseases, misfortunes, or any worries of this life at all. Therefore, when you hear a person say that "everything is fine and I don't need anything else", you already look at him: is he out of his mind or not? What a strange thing – do you know the future? You've just gone to bed healthy, and are you sure you'll wake up like that? You've gone to work – and you're sure you'll come back from it? And so on, and without end.

This view of life is not only primitive, but somehow blind, unreasonable; I risk saying crazy. Therefore, the main question, without the solution of which a person can never say, "Look, I am satisfied, and I don't need anything else in the world" is the question that must be answered: "Why do I live, why do we live, why does all of humanity live, what is the meaning of this life if it ends in death?" What's the point? And there are two fundamental answers here. Fundamentally. There are nuances here, but there are only two answers: either there is an eternity of infinity, there is a soul, there is immortality, there is God – and then I understand what the meaning of my life is. If it is all the more eternity, as the Christian religion says, it is not just an eternal and strange existence, but the existence of goodness, the existence of such bliss, before which everything earthly is nothing. If you want, you can even make such a comparison: ask the lover what his happiness is, what is the meaning of his life, what he needs, whether he needs anything else. "Nothing," he will say, "nothing." Romeo and Juliet, Ruslan and Lyudmila. Yes, Lord, take Alexei Tolstoy's "Prince Silver", and in general, look at these old novels. They perfectly described human love and showed that it is very important when it is in the human heart; That's it, he doesn't need anything else.

So, Christianity says: the meaning of human life is precisely to worthily enter into that eternity when a person will be filled with this love.

And now take the opposite second option. There is no God, no soul, no eternity; I live once, and my wife and children live once, and all mankind lives once, and ultimately, as science firmly says, humanity, as a species, is mortal. So? Tell me then why I live, what is the meaning of this life and, most importantly, what is it?

"None, just life for life's sake, these people say...

– Well, we have already talked about the process of life itself. We don't know what will happen in the next minute. We don't know; If, of course, we were always in that healthy well-being, healthy physically, socially and financially, then we can still say something. But who guarantees us? Don't we see from our friends, acquaintances, from the press, from television, how everything turns upside down in the blink of an eye? Today he is in glory, tomorrow he is buried in the ground; It's crazy. And if, therefore, there is no meaning in this life, and if my well-being is on the edge of some kind that is about to stick, and I have fallen to no one knows where, shouldn't a person really think: why does all this exist, what is the point? And if he thinks about it – you mentioned God-seekers (and there are really a lot of them who really think about this question) – they come to the same conclusion: either there is a God, or there is nonsense.

By the way, many people for whom this question arose point-blank even committed suicide when they could not be convinced that there is a God. Many came to the conviction of the existence of God and then from personal religious experience became convinced that God is a reality, spiritual life is a reality, and a reality full of goodness, and not of anything else. Well, that's how, in general terms, I could answer such a question.

– That is, if we summarize it in one phrase, it will probably sound like "memory of death"?

–Yes. It can, of course, be different. For an unbeliever, the very memory of death is horror and despair: "I lose everything here and forever." After all, what does atheism say? Believe, man, that eternal death awaits you. Amazingly simple. And there is another understanding of the memory of death – when, from the point of view of understanding that I am mortal, I begin to essentially comprehend and understand my entire life, activities, all moral and immoral actions. I am beginning to understand that conscience is not an abstraction, but really the voice of truth – if you like, as people say, the voice of God.

That is how I think you could respond to questions like this.