피타고라스의 기도 : 테트락티스(Tetractys, 1+2+3+4=10을 의미하는 삼각형 모양의 수)'에 바치는 기도문

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Tetractys: A Timeless Symbol of Knowledge and Harmony - Symbol Sage

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Tetractys: A Timeless Symbol of Knowledge and Harmony - Symbol Sage

피타고라스의 기도(또는 피타고라스 학파의 기도)로 알려진 내용은 주로 '황금 시편(The Golden Verses of Pythagoras)'에 포함된 내용이거나, 피타고라스 학파가 숭상했던 '테트락티스(Tetractys, 1+2+3+4=10을 의미하는 삼각형 모양의 수)'에 바치는 기도문입니다.

가장 대표적인 두 가지 버전을 소개합니다.

1. 테트락티스(4원소)에 바치는 피타고라스의 기도
피타고라스 학파가 우주의 근본 원리(10)를 찬양하며 바친 내용입니다.

"우리를 축복하소서, 신성한 수여. 신들과 인간을 창조한 이여!
오, 거룩하고 거룩한 테트락티스여! 영원히 흐르는 창조의 뿌리와 근원을 담고 있는 이여!
신성한 수는 깊고 순수한 단일성에서 시작하여 거룩한 넷(4)에 이르고,
그 후 만물의 어머니이자, 모든 것을 포함하고, 모든 것을 경계 지으며,
처음 태어난, 절대 흔들리지 않는, 지치지 않는 거룩한 10(ten)을 낳나니,
그것은 만물의 열쇠를 쥔 자로다."

(Tobias Dantzig, "The Language of Science" 중 인용)


2. 황금 시편(Golden Verses) 중 '행동 전 기도'
피타고라스가 제자들에게 일을 시작하기 전 하라고 가르친 내용입니다.

"무슨 일을 시작하든지, 먼저 신들에게 기도를 드려 그 일을 성취하게 하라."


3. 황금 시편(Golden Verses) 중 '저녁 기도 및 성찰'
하루를 마무리하며 자신의 행동을 되돌아보는 기도문입니다.


"잠자리에 들기 전, 하루의 모든 행동을 이성으로 검토하라.

'내가 무엇을 잘못했는가? 내가 무엇을 했는가? 내가 해야 할 일 중 무엇을 빠뜨렸는가?'

이 성찰에서 잘못을 찾으면 자신을 엄히 꾸짖고, 잘한 일이 있다면 기뻐하라."

참고: 이 기도문들은 피타고라스주의자들의 윤리적 삶, 신에 대한 경외, 그리고 명상(성찰)을 중시하는 전통을 담고 있습니다.

The Tetractys: Pythagoras's Mandala of the Universe

by Alexander Sachon


1. The Tetractys: the Grand Mandala of the Pythagoreans



Pythagoras, the great Grecian sage who first brought philosophy to the Mediterranean region around the 6th century BC, was, before his formal teaching career began, a widely travelled initiate of many of Eurasia’s greatest Mystery Schools.

Pythagoras was not only an initiate of the Greek mysteries, but also traveled extensively and gained initiation into the esoteric schools of Egypt, Mesopotamia, Persia, and perhaps even India. Manly Hall notes that “there is an account … that Pythagoras reached India and was initiated into the mysteries of the Brahmins at Elephanta in the harbor of Bombay and in the caves of Ellora in the Hyderabad Deccan.”

As an initiate, Pythagoras would have to have mastered to the mystical disciples of the various esoteric schools he had encountered. These mystical disciplines he brought back to Greece, where, like Gautama Buddha, he entrusted them to a small society of elite students who would secretly preserve and perpetuate these meditational disciplines within the inner body of the Pythagorean order.

Manly Hall elaborates: “Pythagoras … was the first Western sage who introduced special disciplines of meditation, concentration, and retrospection. As taught by Pythagoras, these mystical exercises were essentially the same as those practiced by the Brahmins. Like these Eastern scholars, Pythagoras approached religion scientifically and developed a formula or method for the enlightenment of his students. He clearly differentiated between learning as a means of increasing knowledge and learning as a means of releasing directly the spiritual potentials of the human being.”

As we’ve been exploring throughout our multi-part series on "Mandala Design and the Philosophy of Meditation”, esoteric meditation disciplines have long been associated with the use of special emblems termed “mandalas”, which are visual designs of spiritual archetypes.

The use of mandalas in occult meditation practices is calculated to direct the meditating disciple toward a mystical comprehension of universal realities and principles.

Different traditions have different specialized mandalas that they use to communicate the inner mysteries of their doctrines to their disciples. In the case of Pythagoras, the favored mandala of his philosophical school was a simple ten-dot triangular diagram termed the Tetractys.

Manly Hall explains that the “Pythagoreans bestowed great thought upon the Tetractys, or pyramid of ten dots, which they held to be the key to universal mysteries.”

“The Pythagoreans took their most solemn oath upon the Tetractys, which to them was the most sacred of all symbols and the proper figure by which Deity might be most perfectly apprehended and honored.”

To them, the Tetractys was the supreme symbol of universal forces and processes, with its ten dots numerically representing “the sum of all parts and the completeness of all things”. As such, it was for them the perfect symbol of the inner workings of the Divine Mind in Space.

The numerical principles that the Tetractys constellates together in its design “were primarily intended to stimulate ideas. … The mind, attracted to an object for the consideration of its numerical attributes, was invited by the numbers to investigate and admire those celestial causes which precipitated its corporeal appearance.”

The Pythagorean’s portrayal of these celestial causes as numbers rather than images is intentional, as “numerals convey the sense of quality and quantity without the impediment of form or the limitations of place and time. Thus, through a study of numerical philosophy, one’s eye of internal perception may be opened without the mind being filled by erroneous concepts resulting from grosser forms of symbolism.”

In sum, “through meditating upon the mystery of numbers, knowledge was increased, arrangements and proportions made evident, and most obscure secrets revealed.”

The core design of the Tetractys consists of the numerals 1 through 9, plus an additional principle which can be eval‎uated as either 0 or 10. Whether one eval‎uates this additional principle as 0 or 10 affects how one deciphers the meaning of the Tetractys diagram.

For this reason, the Tetractys has two possible forms of interpretation: when 0 is added to the numerals 1 through 9, the Tetractys essentially takes on the same meaning as the Diamond Mandala discussed in our previous article: it represents the internal dynamics of First Cause, by which the Divine Being behind the Universe (the Monad; Vajrasattva; Mahavairocana) is first brought into existence.

When the 0 is substituted for the numeral 10, the meaning of the mandala changes, as does the positioning of the numbers within the diagram. Here, the number one moves to the apex position and the Tetractys transforms to become an image of the Divine Self or Monad. This represents the Divine Self existing overtop the world of creation as the One over the All.

In other words, in this second, alternative form, the Self is portrayed in its aspect of internal generation. Here, the Self becomes the host and ruler over creation and the divine hierarchy that governs it. In this manner, this second form of the Tetractys mandala functions somewhat like the Womb or Matrix Mandala of the Mahayana Buddhists, which similarly depicts Mahavairocana in his state of active becoming.

In our coverage of the Tetractys in the sections below, we will first analyze its higher spiritual interpretation as a symbol of First Cause, before later transitioning and looking at it from the other perspective, that of the Divine Self in its process of internal meditation (i.e. active generation).

28. The Tetractys as a Mandala of First Cause

As we covered extensively in our earlier chapter on Pythagorean philosophy, the Pythagoreans grounded their teachings about the “spiritual cosmology” of the world using a precise framework of number, mathematics, and geometry.

While it may sound rather droll or uninspiring to look at spiritual concepts in numerical terms, remember that Pythagoras was also a master initiate of the esoteric schools of his time. The numerical principles he taught symbolize divine principles or archetypes that can be tapped into during the mystical experience.

Thus, “the whole field of arithmetical speculation had to do with the internal growth of the person. It made possible the exploration of qualitative factors, not merely the assessment of quantities. Therefore, it was the foundation upon which must be built the most advanced type of” meditational practice.

The numerical principles depicted in the Tetractys represent mental or psychological archetypes. The world itself is conceived to exist as a projection of these archetypes: its various kingdoms being merely these archetypes clothing themselves in various garments of material form.

Archetypes pre-structure the design of all forms that come into existence within Space. Space is really Consciousness, and the world of form is really a “thought form” that exists within the Mind of this Consciousness. Archetypes represents the patterns of Mind by means of which Consciousness projects and builds its cosmic thought form.

In esoteric philosophy, Creation is understood to exist as the end-product of a divine process of meditation in which God “projects the world by visualization, or by the power of will and Yoga.” This projection takes place via the seven “builder gods” or “Elohim”, which in Mahayana Buddhism are termed as the Celestial Buddhas or Dhyani Buddhas (meditating Buddhas).

The Tetractys is intended to depict this archetypal creation process in mandalic form. In its ten dots are captured the threefold nature of the Divine Self and the seven Rays or principles of Mind which are projected out from it at the onset of creation.

The idea is that the seven creator gods within the macrocosm move in the design of one great archetype. This archetype describes “the rhythm of consciousness moving through the world. This rhythm is the motion of Tao, symbolized in China by the undulations of the body of a cosmic dragon.”

By attuning themself to the cosmic rhythm of the Tao, the meditating mystic experiences an alignment in consciousness between their own inner psychology and the divine spiritual archetypes existing in Space. Through this process, the mystic “recapitulates the divine creation process” and "experiences the very mystery of creation.”

The disciple of the Pythagorean school, meditating upon the design of the Tetractys, stimulates its cosmic principles within himself and thus recapitulates within his own microcosmic consciousness the same process of creation as that which originally took place within the macrocosm or universe as a whole.

Through this method, “Pythagoras revealed a kind of yoga, a means of disciplining human consciousness by reference to the orderly procedures of number, which represent the systematic unfoldment of creative processes moving out from their own causes.”

Hall elaborates on the mystical disciplines that the Pythagoreans incorporated within their school: “the Pythagorean philosophy of number was held to be both scientific and intuitive. Once the disciple had been instructed in the principles of the teachings, he advanced by a process of personal discovery. New mathematical patterns and equations continuously presented themselves to his attention. These he interpreted according to his own unfolding insight.”

As we’ve discussed, the performance of mediation works through the stimulation of archetypes. Once awakened, these archetypes “come alive”. The challenge of meditation is simply to awaken them and bring them to life within ourselves.

Manly Hall describes this act of awakening divine powers within as one of “reminiscence”: “To Pythagoras, mathematics was a science built upon reminiscence. By this he meant that mathematical principles were not discovered, created, or invented by the mind, but had an eternal subsistence in the intelligible nature of all things. Reminiscence, therefore, is a recalling of that which is already known, usually by a process of association. One thing reminds us of another, leading to a refreshment of recollection. That which is recollected is drawn into the fore part of attention, where it becomes available again after being seemingly forgotten.”

By catalyzing this process of “reminscence” within its students, the Pythagoreans sought to “draw certain deep and hidden knowledge from within the individual and apply it to the deep and hidden mystery of the world.” Therefore, by practicing the philosophical disciples emphasized by the Esoteric School, by degrees, the wise man could perfect the grand concept of existence and establish his own proper place in the universal program.”

The initiates of the Pythagorean school utilized the mandala of the Tetractys to instruct their disciples on these archetypal processes associated with the onset of First Cause. Later, in the more advanced degrees of the school, these concepts would be meditated upon and mystically experienced.

Hall informs us that, “as stated by Pythagoras, before any man might have any right to attempt to determine the nature of First Cause, he must first be sufficiently disciplined out of the common evils of the undisciplined mind.

In the Pythagorean school, the Tetractys served as the primary teaching device through which the student’s mind was brought into “discipline”. First, this mandala served as an instructional emblem that laid out core elements of the Pythagorean doctrine for the student to study and comprehend. Later, the student would meditate on the mandala in order to experience its truths directly during a mystical experience of illumination.




2. The Tetractys and the Four Worlds


There are numerous levels or layers of interpretation that one may go into while dissecting the symbolism of the Tetractys.

The diagram located at the heading of the previous section features one level of symbolic interpretation for this mandala. (It is taken from Manly Hall’s booklet “Superfaculties and Their Culture”). Here, we find the ten dots of the Tetractys juxtaposed next to ten numerals arranged in a triangular pattern, with the numeric principle of “0” at the apex, the numerals 1 and 2 below it, 3, 4, and 5, below that, and 6, 7, 8, and 9 arranged on the bottom.

Above we find a second diagram of the Tetractys, one that emphasizes a different symbolic pattern embedded within the symbol. In this second approach, the Tetractys's ten dots are divided into four levels or tiers, each named using the original Sanskrit word for the principle that each level represents.

At the apex of these four levels we find the principle of “Atman"; on the second level, we find “Adi"; on the third we find “Buddhi”; and onto fourth “Manas”. Together, these four principles represent the “Four Worlds” of ancient Indian spiritual cosmology.

Within and through these Four Worlds are distributed the nine numerals and the sacred “0”, which together serve as the foundation of our decimal system.

In this section we will be going one by one through the philosophical teachings of the Four Worlds and consider how they unfold and interrelate in order to form the four domains of First Principles out of which the material universe is created.

In the Tao the Ching, there is a famous passage that states

Tao gives birth to One

One gives birth to Two

Two gives birth to Three

Three gives birth to all created things.

In this section, we will be revealing how the ancient philosophical teachings of the Four Worlds offers a perfect explanation of this classic passage.

“Manas”, as the “Third Logos”, becomes the creator “of all things”. This power represents God’s capacity to form-build. The four dots next to this principle represent the four elements of the physical world, which are the four base materials through which this creating power labors.

Whereas “Manas” indicates the power of deity over the “lesser” forms of material creation, “Adi”, associated with the number One, represents the inverse: it indicates the “greater” world of Spirit, which plays host to division but is itself not divided.

In between the Greater and Lesser is the “Golden Mean” or divine intercessor, which is represented in Sanskrit by the word “Buddhi”. This principle represents the power of Divine Mind, which emerges within the Self in order to play host to the lower worlds of material creation.

The power of Manas is one of the three powers of Buddhi: it is responsible for building out and bringing into manifestation the various forms that comprise material creation. Its three attributes are creation, destruction, and preservation.

The three dots next to “Buddhi” indicate the three levels of the World Soul: a) one dot represents the spiritual world of heaven above where the archetypes reside; b) a second dot represents the material world of Earth where mortal lives are played out; and c) a third dot between them represents the intermediary world of Soul, Psyche, or Mind which serves as an intercessing agent between the two.

As we analyze the esoteric significance of these four principles (Atman, Adi, Buddhi, Manas), we will make reference to the initial diagram featured at this chapter’s header, and also to a supplementary diagram featured below (provided by Manly Hall from the same booklet referenced before).