Hellenic Wisdom Tradition

[solarisregvm]

The Golden Verses of Pythagoras 52 - 60

52. You shall likewise know that according to Law, the nature of this universe is in all things alike,
53. So that you shall not hope what you ought not to hope; and nothing in this world shall be hidden from you.
54. You will likewise know, that men draw upon themselves their own misfortunes voluntarily, and of their own free choice.
55. Unhappy they are! They neither see nor understand that their good is near them.
56. Few know how to deliver themselves out of their misfortunes.
57. Such is the fate that blinds humankind, and takes away his senses.
58. Like huge cylinders they roll back and forth, and always oppressed with innumerable ills.
59. For fatal strife, natural, pursues them everywhere, tossing them up and down; nor do they perceive it.
60. Instead of provoking and stirring it up, they ought to avoid it by yielding.

[solarisregvm]

The Golden Verses of Pythagoras 61 - 71

61. Oh! Jupiter, our Father! If you would deliver men from all the evils that oppress them,
62. Show them of what daemon they make use.
63. But take courage; the race of humans is divine.
64. Sacred nature reveals to them the most hidden mysteries.
65. If she impart to you her secrets, you will easily perform all the things which I have ordained thee.
66. And by the healing of your soul, you will deliver it from all evils, from all afflictions.
67. But you should abstain from the meats, which we have forbidden in the purifications and in the deliverance of the soul;
68. Make a just distinction of them, and examine all things well.
69. Leave yourself always to be guided and directed by the understanding that comes from above, and that ought to hold the reins.
70. And when, after having deprived yourself of your mortal body, you arrive at the most pure Aither,
71. You shall be a God - immortal, incorruptible - and Death shall have no more dominion over you.

[solarisregvm]

Here are some takeaways from the Golden Verses, all of which are posted above. Remember, the Golden Verses were very influential in antiquity, and though they were Pythagorean, they were used by the Platonists.

- We are to honor all levels of divinity (from gods to lesser divinities), as well as our parents and family.
- We are to avoid petty resentments, control our appetites and emotions, and seek moral perfection.
- Act according to reason and understanding, and allow yourself to be guided by divine wisdom.
- Take care of your health. Exercise. And live a simple life free of frivolous luxuries.
- Morally examine yourself every night before bed.
- Pray to the gods before any undertaking.
- Most of your troubles are caused by you or by your understanding of things.

[Incal]

«It occurred to me one day that Sparta, though among the most thinly populated of states, was evidently the most powerful and most celebrated city in Greece; and I fell to wondering how this could have happened. But when I considered the institutions of the Spartans, I wondered no longer.» (Xenophon)

[Hexachordia]

55. Unhappy they are! They neither see nor understand that their good is near them.

Like cats, when a rein is tied to its neck, itself will never be able to go free again and eventually get entangled somewhere and go around the entanglement in a way to tighten the rope around its neck. I doubt humanity can be able to disengage themselves from the destiny of misery, those anthropocentrists(false humanists, they do not deserve to be called as humanist) are like the rope tied to our neck they just tighten itself with every hopeless move of humanity. Only freedom left is thinking, and now the lefts still want to oppress it and turn humanity into humanoid insects. Heu mihi...When a false idea is put into the society, a hell will break out and burn for aeternity.

[solarisregvm]

Like cats, when a rein is tied to its neck, itself will never be able to go free again and eventually get entangled somewhere and go around the entanglement in a way to tighten the rope around its neck. I doubt humanity can be able to disengage themselves from the destiny of misery, those anthropocentrists(false humanists, they do not deserve to be called as humanist) are like the rope tied to our neck they just tighten itself with every hopeless move of humanity. Only freedom left is thinking, and now the lefts still want to oppress it and turn humanity into humanoid insects. Heu mihi...When a false idea is put into the society, a hell will break out and burn for aeternity.

In fact, you see, none of the gods loves wisdom or wants to become wise - for they are wise - and no one else who is wise already loves wisdom; on the other hand, no one who is ignorant will love wisdom either or want to become wise. For what’s especially difficult about being ignorant is that you are content with yourself, even though you’re neither beautiful and good nor intelligent. If you don’t think you need anything, of course you won’t want what you don’t think you need.

[Jacques de Imbelloni]

[Hexachordia]

In fact, you see, none of the gods loves wisdom or wants to become wise - for they are wise - and no one else who is wise already loves wisdom; on the other hand, no one who is ignorant will love wisdom either or want to become wise. For what’s especially difficult about being ignorant is that you are content with yourself, even though you’re neither beautiful and good nor intelligent. If you don’t think you need anything, of course you won’t want what you don’t think you need.

The rein of mankind is in the brain. The cats do not have the logical capability to disengage from the entanglements by just going exactly backwards around the winding direction unless humans help them, but humans can back-track through physical logical operations, then a society makes people a cat, at least animals do not kill themselves with their own stupidity, but humanity can, or human wisdom does not seem to help much in any way. The true desire to be wise can only be seen in the religion, like mayans, half-naked yet striving to develop the best calendars in the world and leaving behind a rich civilizational legacy. They leaped from tribalism across feudalism and capitalo-communism to the futurism of astronomical precision and theocratic urbanization. Their desire had been coming closer to their gods, to be sacrified, to be a part of something greater. Not to question the good or evil of their gods, humanity still enjoy their agricultural(chocolate, corns, potatos, tomatos，coffee) and astronomical legacies, this is a fact. Martin Luther said humanity alone is hopeless, this is so true, but no people really understand this: chicken once domesticated, they will always come back to the farm by themselves, a cat with a rein always winds up around somewhere, pigs will never venture further than slaughterhouse, they do not know this and think they are in perfect condition. Humanity is no better, even if the gods be our feeder and predator, so be it, at least we know who we are. Cattles do not worship their feeders, we do, I think this is where humanity is truly different and good.

[Hexachordia]

The philosophy of acceptance has been on my mind for a long time, in Buddhism we have tolerance philosophy, how different the two can be ? From western tradition we have Epictetus as the presentative of acceptance thought, which also later integrated into Stoicism of roman times.

"Every difficulty in life presents us with an opportunity to turn inward and to invoke our own submerged inner resources. The trials we endure can and should introduce us to our strengths. Prudent people look beyond the incident itself and seek to form the habit of putting it to good use." -Epictetus

This statement is very inspiring, by accepting the reality which is always not quite satisfying or just downright adversity can motivate people into inward self-discovery, but probably not always the case for most people, by accepting may also turn into assimilating into the worse part of the reality, if not better part. "By associating with good and evil persons, the man acquires virtues and vices which they possess..."--The Panchatantra. Of course, acceptance does not necessarily mean associating closely, but the evil and good influences might not always just interpersonal but also verbal, educational, cultural, as today the ways can be unexpected as it can be. So the dilemma is huge inside this acceptance as regarding to the practicality. The question will become how good a man can really be when he tries to accept the adversities; how to defend oneself from the evil while keep oneself pragmatically adhere to the doctrines of acceptance? Inward discovery is a sign of strength and wisdom, due to lacking both we have a reality dominated by evils. This acceptance is easy to speak out and teach, brilliant in terms of motivation toward inward thinking, but, in practice it poses an astronomical difficulty as well as an actual and imposing unrecognized realm of paradox. So here I might invite Buddhist tolerance philosophy. Tolerance in Buddhism might be almost synonymous with acceptance, I still use tolerance for Buddhism not acceptance because in chinese buddhist teachings, our terminology is more similar to "tolerance" than "acceptance", because of the sentiment of enduring the possible pains resulting from injustice without using violent retaliation.

From a Buddhist perspective, tolerance is extremely important and it has been a hallmark of Buddhism down the twenty five centuries of its history. Tolerance is the acceptance that other people hold different views from ourselves. Tolerance is the willingness to allow others to be different in their views and actions. Above all tolerance is the absolute avoidance of using power, violence or coercion to force oth Õer people to think and believe as we do. Tolerance is an attitude of loving kindness (metta) towards those who hold views which are different from ours and even towards those who hold views which are repugnant to us.

--Transcribed talks by Ratnaghosa
The Art of Disagreement
Talk four of six on patience or kshanti

Buddhist teachings of tolerance highlight the practical doctrine of non-violent response, because all violence can be seen as a part of evil in Buddhism. Maybe it is in terms of violence, western philosophy and Buddhism diverge on the practicality of accepting reality. How can one hold onto non-violent temperament in face of provocations and disgusts that occure to be somehow accepted? Still we must also see the importance of either "acceptance" or "tolerance" of the reality in the most essential philosophical and religious schools of humanity. All I can say is, this is very difficult to practice in both Epictetean and Buddhist terms, it needs enormous wisdom, courage, sensitivity to exercise, if one does succeed, no doubt, there will a good portion of devinity dwelling inside your soul.

Also do not gobbling up nice sounding all aphorisms at one glance, there will always be a huge gap between mental inspiration and real practicality, and this gap would make the wise sayings almost meaningless to most people. Therefore to see wisdom in the light of ones own practical life would be the most wise for me.

[Hexachordia]

56. Few know how to deliver themselves out of their misfortunes.
57. Such is the fate that blinds humankind, and takes away his senses.

This was in order to answer to these questions I posted the previous interpretation of "acceptance" and "tolerance" ideals from Epictetus and Buddhism and my allusion to the cat and cattle destiny after domestication. As living creatures, we are not omnipotent, our weakness will work against us as individual or collective society. Anything could be destroyed by cruel fate:faith, culture, integrity will also disintegrate. The immense reality of misfortune is also endless, it can even be presumptuous to claim to understand others peoples misery! Even devil worshippers are more wise than most silent and mediocre people. at least they know how helpless they are, so how can one really preach atheism? it is just a sheer stupidity on the display. Atheists are not megalomaniacs, just sheer stupid which do not even understand their own miseries. Even mayan Kukalkan is a soul-eater serpent, so this explains, even our predators can be a savior from our own miseries.