'Hermes' sat there in contemplation as his disciple requested that he make him immortal. Smiling and shaking his head he explained that he himself did not possess immortality so how could he bestow it upon his disciple, please reconsider and ask again.

 

'Master' the disciple again requested 'when the soul is reborn it forgets its past life, please master give me the gift of remembering who i am, life after life, please grant me the boon of uninterrupted awareness across all of my incarnations'.

 

The great god of wisdom, worshipped throughout Greece was pleased with his disciples request as for once it was not a request to become an alchemist turning iron into gold and water into wine and so happily he raised his hand and granted him his wish.

 

 

'Mnesarchus' was a gem dealer who in 570 visited the oracle of Delphi seeking advice and upon receiving auspicious news he was also informed that his wife was pregnant and the child would be the best of his generation and his name will be remembered forever.

 

The son was born and immediately one could detect something different, the way he stared at you without any confusion in his eyes, as though he was fully aware of who he was and what was more disturbing is he gave the impression that he also knew who you was.

 

And so it was that upon an auspicious day they named the child 'Pythagoras' in honour of the prophet 'Pythia' who predicted his birth at the Oracle of Delphi and a name whose meaning is one who possesses the assembly ( agora ) of apollo ( pythia ) so named as it was Apollo who slayed the monstrous python named 'pytho'.

 

 

Pythagoras, however, already knew who he was, the benediction given to him by his guru, the great Hermes, had come to pass and as he observed the new world in which he had been born, he could still remember himself as 'Aethelides' from his previous life.

 

As he moved his family to the island of Samos, the father remembered the words of the Oracle and spared no expense in educating his son and so Pythagoras studied with 'Anaximander' the great physicist and 'Thales' the 'father of science' a great teacher who told him 'you must go to Egypt and learn from the teachers who taught me'.

 

Thales taught him the disciplines he would need within Egypt by becoming a vegetarian, renouncing alcohol and reducing his hours of sleep and in this way the great Pythagoras prepared for his journey which would take him to the lands of ancient Egypt.

 

 

Pythagoras went first to Phoenicia and the many caves of Mount Carmel where he would spend many months engaged in solitary meditation and from there he sailed to the mysterious lands of Egypt where he would study for some twenty two years.

 

Pythagoras visited the important temples of Egypt and its learned sages, he stayed at the most learned schools where he passed some twenty two years in the study of astronomy and astrology as well as geometry and the ancient spiritual mysteries of Egypt.

 

His next stop was Babylon where those ancient priests known as the 'Magi' would teach him music and mathematics and although Pythagoras may or may not have reached India it seems that within the lands of Babylon he would study with the Brahmans of India.

 

 

Pythagoras had now reached the age of fifty six and his mind now turned towards home and as he journeyed towards the lands of Greece he was enthusiastic to share the wisdom he had accumulated over twenty years within the lands of his birth.

 

Upon the island of Samos he told a group of fishermen 'if i tell you how many fish you have caught will you do as i suggest' they agreed and upon finding him correct Pythagoras told the fishermen to throw their catch back into the Sea and as he compensated them with money his name quickly spread.

 

Pythagoras would spend most of his time meditating within the caves of Samos emerging to teach the mathematics of astronomy, the calculations of the eclipses and the motions of the planets as he explained the cosmos in terms of mathematics and science.

 

 

'Cosmos' whose original meaning is that which has 'order' that which has 'harmony' is a word which is said to have come from Pythagoras and another word is 'philosophy' whose meaning is a lover ( philo ) of wisdom ( sophia ) is also said to have come from him.

 

Pythagoras decided to move to southern Italy where he built the famous spiritual community of Croton and as more and more people came to benefit from his teachings the crowds became so huge that his community was compared to a small city.

 

Although he had practiced as a celibate student for most of his life Pythagoras had no problems about entering into married life and as a great believer in strong families and protecting the family unit he went on to raise several children of his own.

 

 

Pythagoras is often linked with numerology requesting his disciples to meditate upon numbers, ratios, geometric forms and musical chords as he encouraged his students to appreciate the order and the structure of the natural world whose harmonious patterns came from a source which lay at the root of all phenomena.

 

Although Pythagoras devoted much of his time with numerical and mathematical concepts he was not saying that life and the universe came from numbers he was simply an observer who could understand and explain the role that mathematics played within the order and the harmony of the universe.

 

This Pythagorean vision of the mathematical principles which are part of nature became the foundation of Western science and would be carried further by scientists such as Newton and in so doing create a mechanistic view of the universe although both Pythagoras and Newton understood that the ultimate reality and the ultimate source was spiritual.

 

 

Pythagoras became ever popular with the people as they delighted in his wisdom and his ability to transform souls and soon people were asking him and his disciples to arbitrate their disputes, a move which became the beginning of the end for Pythagoras.

 

Pythagoras and his involvement within local politics was seen as meddling into affairs which some thought he had no business, and soon a group of thugs attacked the ashram, burning everything and killing everyone and as we never hear of him again, it is concluded they also killed Pythagoras.

 

Pythagoras is remembered within the west for a mathematical axiom he did not invent as it has been seen that this was known within India long before the appearance of Pythagoras, yet his greatest achievements as a spiritual teacher and guru are purposely ignored by a civilisation who are enamoured only by the profits off a mechanistic science his teachings brought about. Pythagoras lived the life of a yogi, searching out the soul through meditation, understanding the process of reincarnation and maintaining himself with simple, vegetarian foods.

 

Based upon the best selling book 'The Lost Masters' by Linda Johnsen.