The teachings of the Pythagorean philosophers are virtually identical with those schools of mysticism in the East. Pythagoras taught re-incarnation. (12) He also taught a concept which became known as Universal Friendship (13), which is identical with the Buddhist concept of Compassion for All Sentient Beings. He taught his followers to be vegetarians on the grounds of non-violence to animals and because meat eating inhibits mental silence. (14) The Pythagoreans also practiced a meditation technique call the method of negation, or the apophatic technique,(15) which is identical to the Neti-neti, technique taught in the Upanishads.(16) Pythagorean teaching is so similar to the mysticism of India that the Yogi Harish Johari claims Pythagoras learned his wisdom in India. (17)

Through its earliest definition, the explanations of its early adherents, through its practice and training, and through comparison to eastern schools of mysticism we see that Philosophy was meant to be mysticism. We can only speculate as to why it degenerated into logical reasoning alone. Perhaps when Christian priests replaced Philosophers as the theologians of the West, uninitiated yet educated people, reading the works of men like Plato and Aristotle assumed that logical reasoning was the whole of Philosophy. This is a position that would doubtless be encouraged by a Church that could abide no rivals. Whatever the cause, logical reasoning is certainly a pretty toy for the intellectually active, but it always falls short of the Real. Logical reasoning, however, like the harmonies of music and the principles of geometry, could not be dissonant with the Universal Symphony, so the Philosopher uses it as a tool to assist the student to love and strive toward the Good, but it was never intended to be the whole of Philosophy. The true Philosopher is a lover with a singular focus, who sells all that he has to buy a field in which is a pearl that is the Good. He strives with all his heart, soul, mind and strength for union with Absolute Reality.

1. Commentary of Hierocles on the Golden Verses of Pythagoras, Translated by N. Rowe and Andre Dacier, Kessinger Publishing, May 2005.
2. Plato. Symposium., 360 B.C.E, Translated by Benjamin Jowe, 205d.
http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/symposium.html
3. Plato. . Symposium., 360 B.C.E, Translated by Benjamin Jowe, 205a.
http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/symposium.html
4. Plato. . Symposium., 360 B.C.E, Translated by Benjamin Jowe, 205a. http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/symposium.html
5. Iamblichus. The Exhortation to Philosophy, Translated by Thomas M. Johnson, 1920. pp121.
6. Iamblichus. The Exhortation to Philosophy, Translated by Thomas M. Johnson, 1920. pp121.
7. Heraclitus. Fragments of Heraclitus, Translated by Brooks Haxton and James Hillman, February 2001. 8. The Hymns of Orpheus, Translated by Thomas Taylor, PRS, June 1987.
9. The Pythagorean Sourcebook and library, Translated by Kenneth Sylvan Guthrie. Phanes Press, July 1987. pp 76-82 and 163.
10. Plotinus. Enneads, Translated by. Stephen MacKenna, Penguin, Nov 1991. pp534.
11. Euclid. The Thirteen Books of the Elements, Translated by Thomas Heath, Dover, June 1956. pp 1.
12. Iamblichus, The Life of Pythagoras, Translated by Thomas Taylor, Inner Traditions, December, 1986.
13. Iamblichus, The Life of Pythagoras, Translated by Thomas Taylor, Inner Traditions, December, 1986.
14. Plutarch: Moralia, "On Abstinence from Animals Flesh," Translated by Frank Cole Babbit, Kissinger, 2005.
15. Gnosticism and Neoplatonism Ed. R. T. Wallis and J. Bregman. Studies in Neoplatonism 6. Albany: SUNY Press, 1992. pp 425-459.
16. The Principal Upanishads, "Brihad-aranyaka Upanishad" Ed. Swami Nikhilananda, Dover, June 2003.
17. Johari, Harish, Leela, Destiny Books, September 1993.

Written by James McKinnon