The best minds of mankind saw the spiritual side of the world and believed in God and in the immortality of the human soul. All the great philosophers of antiquity, including Plato and Socrates, believed in immortality. Plato taught: "The soul of man is immortal. All her hopes and aspirations have been transferred to another world. A true sage desires death as the beginning of a new life."

Believers were Newton, Galileo; closer to us: Pascal, Pasteur, Einstein, the founder of the science of the brain and psyche Ivan Petrovich Pavlov, our Russian writers and thinkers, such as Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, V. Solovyov, and now Solzhenitsyn. Leo Tolstoy said: "Only those who have never seriously thought about death do not believe in the immortality of the soul."

People who live a simple working life, especially people who are close to nature, instinctively feel the presence of God. Great minds confirm this feeling with their knowledge. And those who do not feel and do not believe are usually those who are in the middle – they left one and did not come to the other. There is a wonderful English saying: "Superficial knowledge is very dangerous." This is very true, those who do not think seriously do not believe. A. I. Solzhenitsyn gave a good answer to the question put to him by a journalist: "I think that the feeling of God's presence is available to every person, if he does not allow himself to be dragged away by the vanity of everyday life." This is the answer to why many people "don't believe." They don't think, there is no time to think.

In general, many people tend to notice only what catches the eye, only what is really tangible. Invisible, though unconditionally existing. is ignored or simply not noticed. The person will see that the deceased has stopped moving, has stopped breathing, and the eyes have stopped. That's all. And he passed by without stopping, without thinking and without drawing any conclusions for himself. And when you stand next to a dying person, you clearly feel that something invisible is happening, something deep and big is happening, inexplicable to us.

V. A. Zhukovsky wrote the poem "On the Death of Pushkin". It was written in 1837, and for some reason it was published only many years later, after Zhukovsky's death. Here is this poem:

He lay motionless, as if on hard work

Lowering his hands. Quietly bowing his head.

For a long time I stood over him, alone, looking attentively

The dead man was right in the eyes; Eyes were opened.

His face was so familiar to me, and it was noticeable.

What was expressed on it – in the life of such a

We didn't see it on that face. Inspiration did not burn

The flame is on it; a sharp mind did not shine;