Introduction

Who­ever believes he has man­aged to say some­thing new
has not yet read enough.

To the Reader

In life one must be not only clev­er but wise as well… Won­der – this is the art of wis­dom. Grow­ing towards per­fec­tion is no escape, not the easi­er path, for spir­itu­al work is labor­i­ous. But inquiry prac­tised with earn­est per­sever­ance helps us become wiser. This book helps us truly see the essence.

A wis­dom for every day – this is a well-known genre. It is not easy to read a page of wis­dom every day, still less to med­it­ate on it intro­spect­ively, to say noth­ing of mak­ing it one's own. Thoughts and opin­ions, data and facts, insights and teach­ing dia­logues are ranged along these pages, await­ing the read­er. This guide not only explains but helps us exper­i­ence. It accom­pan­ies us through the space of a year, but it is bet­ter still if we accom­pany it, with per­sever­ing atten­tion, the whole year through.

In truth we are not turn­ing the pages of a book at all, but walk­ing a far-branch­ing spir­itu­al labyrinth. Right and left, for­wards and back, up and down winds the pas­sage of the labyrinth through space. At every turn ever new exper­i­ences, insights pleas­ant or even severe, await us labyrinth-walk­ers. We may meet fear­some shad­ows as read­ily as serene encour­age­ment. In over­com­ing ourselves, our weak­er self will at times die a little, but it is pre­cisely this that helps us towards spir­itu­al rebirth.

What we labyrinth-walk­ers can count on in any case is recog­nising the par­al­lels between world-views, and what is more, find­ing the uni­ver­sal truth and wis­dom that lies behind the mul­ti­tude of opin­ions. The high­er syn­thes­is lies in see­ing the essence. Through tak­ing our bear­ings and under­stand­ing, through know­ledge of the facts and med­it­a­tion, the spir­itu­al treas­ure believed lost can be found. Inform­a­tion and trans­form­a­tion, per­son­al involve­ment, and con­tem­pla­tion and exper­i­en­cing bring us imper­cept­ibly closer to full­ness. For who­ever digs deep finds water.

For real spir­itu­al pro­gress one must also pass through sim­il­ar tasks, struggles and pit­falls in one's own life. In this labyrinth, how­ever, thanks to the sup­port­ive spir­itu­al atmo­sphere, it is not the ter­ror of ali­en­ated exist­ence that grows but our wise dis­cern­ment, and in place of fears it is insights that mul­tiply. As the illu­sion dis­perses, the goal grows ever clear­er. Per­haps the entrance to this labyrinth lies on this side, but the exit lies bey­ond. Along the way we travel from ourselves – to our true selves.

One year – like a whole life… Spring­time is youth, with its fresh­ness and inno­cence. Ardent sum­mer is the noon of life, with its ripen­ing and radi­ance. Autumn is fruit­ful abund­ance, with its full­ness and its mak­ing ready, and winter, with its with­draw­al and its still­ness, is snow-white, cla­ri­fied pur­ity. It is not time that passes – it is we who ripen.

Days and nights, sum­mers and win­ters fol­low one anoth­er, sea­sons come and go and the ages of life pass, but there is some­thing that never changes… The exper­i­en­cer does not change, and exper­i­en­cing does not change. And these two are bound togeth­er by the object of exper­i­ence. The exper­i­en­cer is man, spir­itu­al man; exper­i­en­cing is the work­ing of reas­on and of the intu­it­ive fac­ulty. The object of exper­i­ence is the mys­tery of life itself, and life is too great a mir­acle for us to reduce it to a few flat the­or­ies…

Who­ever seeks him­self and his spir­itu­al peace is in the right place. Who­ever seeks prac­tic­al wis­dom for liv­ing and far-reach­ing hori­zons is in the right place. Who­ever seeks with­in him­self the way that leads to oth­ers is in the right place, and who­ever seeks the last­ing rather than the passing is in the right place too. To them this guide will be of use. A pen­ni­less fool sets out, and a rich sage will reach the goal, recog­nising along the way what great treas­ures he pos­sesses.

Advice on Use

In the pro­cess of com­ing to know, two fun­da­ment­al meth­ods can be dis­tin­guished. One is the obser­va­tion­al, empir­ic­al, one might say object­ive meth­od, in which the observ­er stands out­side the phe­nomen­on observed and makes find­ings that can be meas­ured and sub­stan­ti­ated. The other is the phe­nomen­o­lo­gic­al meth­od, in which the observ­er places him­self inside the situ­ation and, through inner first-hand exper­i­ence, tries to arrive at palp­able, intu­it­ive insights. If the former meth­od is object­ive, then the lat­ter we may call sub­ject­ive in nature.

One apt meta­phor for human life is the labyrinth. It has a begin­ning and an end, it winds on at length, it is rich in turns, it often holds out the prom­ise of a res­ult that later proves to have been only an illu­sion, but in the end there is a way out of it. In a labyrinth it is impossible to get lost. It is only a mat­ter of going on, and soon­er or later one comes out of it.

Object­ively, a great deal can be said about a labyrinth: we can speak of its struc­ture, its length, its his­tor­ic­al tra­di­tions and ante­cedents, its sym­bol­ic sig­ni­fic­ance. But from the­ory alone we shall never under­stand, still less come to exper­i­ence, how lost one feels at this turn or that, what insights he reaches at the centre of the labyrinth, and how decept­ive is the hope that only a few steps sep­ar­ate him from the exit, when a path of sev­er­al hun­dred steps still awaits him. For this we must step into the actu­al labyrinth, we must come to exper­i­ence the mys­tery of the long, wind­ing pas­sage: the way the coiled path bends space, stretches time and trans­fig­ures man.

This book is a multi-dimen­sion­al spir­itu­al labyrinth. On the sur­face it is a suc­ces­sion of read­able med­it­a­tions, but it is far more than that. On the sur­face it is an alman­ac-like col­lec­tion of wis­dom, but it is much more than that. On the sur­face it is a series of dates, titles and thoughts, but it is more even than that. Walk­ing this labyrinth to its end is a true phe­nomen­o­lo­gic­al exper­i­ment, in which we ourselves are the object of obser­va­tion, and at the same time its sub­ject as well. The texts are only tools for insight, the dates only footholds for pro­gress.

Count­less works exist that set out the wis­dom of great thinkers or of cen­tur­ies-old spir­itu­al tra­di­tions one after anoth­er, dis­trib­uted over every day of the year. No doubt it is instruct­ive to med­it­ate on these thoughts, but in the present case there is more at stake. The texts make up a sys­tem­at­ic order, fol­low one anoth­er in sev­er­al lay­ers, and besides the hori­zont­al con­nec­tions they also form a ver­tic­al net­work. The tem­por­al struc­ture revealed in the dates and the spa­tial struc­ture of the texts' suc­ces­sion are com­ple­men­ted by an added spir­itu­al dimen­sion, in which the intens­ity of the themes and the inform­at­ive or else intro­spect­ive strand of the texts form hid­den con­nect­ing chan­nels.

In this labyrinth there are twice twelve seg­ments. The first sys­tem is the sequence of the zodi­ac signs, which divides the full circle of the year into twelve zodi­ac­al months. This is one ele­ment of the tem­por­al struc­ture. The earth, water, fire and air signs nat­ur­ally carry their ele­ment­al qual­it­ies, and these are com­ple­men­ted by the qual­it­ies of the car­din­al, fixed and mut­able signs. Thus the twelve zodi­ac­al months divide into four times three. The sea­sons like­wise span three months each, and the divi­sion of the circle of the year into two parts is also worth not­ing: between the spring and autumn equi­noxes lies the sum­mer peri­od, and between the autumn and spring equi­noxes the winter peri­od. In addi­tion, in order, the Leo – Capri­corn signs are day or Sun signs, and then the Aquar­i­us – Can­cer signs are night, or Moon, signs.

Does the sum­mer half mir­ror the phe­nom­ena of the winter half? Sur­pris­ingly, the two halves of the year are not of equal length. Count­ing from the first day of Aries (21 March) to the last day of the sign of Virgo (22 Septem­ber), one hun­dred and eighty-six days pass – this is the sum­mer half-year, when the appar­ent path of the Sun runs above the Equat­or. By con­trast, from the first day of the sign of Libra (23 Septem­ber) to the last day of Pisces (20 March) there are one hun­dred and sev­enty-nine days, and even count­ing the leap day that comes every four years, only one hun­dred and eighty.

The equi­noxes rep­res­ent the present time, equi­lib­ri­um.

We have set the spring equi­nox as the start­ing point of the circle of the year, for it is the begin­ning of the first sign of the zodi­ac, the first day of astro­nom­ic­al spring, and the fixed day needed for cal­cu­lat­ing East­er. (Owing to the pre­ces­sion­al motion of the Earth the spring equi­nox wanders, and curi­ously, in the 21st cen­tury it falls astro­nom­ic­ally on 20 March, and from 2048 even on 19 March, but in com­pil­ing this book we have dis­reg­arded this.)

The spring equi­nox may also be seen as the begin­ning of the sym­bol­ic path of life, when man takes on a body out of the unmani­fest and comes into the world. Espe­cially remark­able is the rela­tion between the nine months of the human gest­a­tion peri­od and the twelve months of the full circle of the year.

If we take the first sign, Aries, as the myth­ic­al begin­ning of the human path of life, then the nine months of foet­al exist­ence run between two fire signs, Aries and Sagit­tari­us, for three times three months. What is inter­est­ing about these three peri­ods is that the first stage – the three months of Aries, Taur­us and Gem­ini – lacks the water ele­ment, the series of the second three months – Can­cer, Leo, Virgo – is without the air ele­ment, while the row of the third three months – Libra, Scor­pio, Sagit­tari­us – does without the earth ele­ment. It is the fire ele­ment alone that accom­pan­ies the foetus through the whole of preg­nancy.

By con­trast, the three months that remain of the full circle of the year, Capri­corn-Aquar­i­us-Pisces, embody pre­cisely the ele­ments miss­ing until then – the earth, air and water ele­ments – impart­ing them, as it were, to the child after its birth. These three months, then, are the stage of acquir­ing the earth, air and water ele­ments from without, when man becomes whole, almost a super­hu­man man, hav­ing now com­pleted all twelve months of the full yearly cycle. On a prac­tic­al level the Capri­corn-Aquar­i­us-Pisces stage marks the three golden months after com­ing into the world.

Besides the equi­noxes, the sol­stices too play a dis­tin­guished role.

The days before and after the day of the winter sol­stice – these three days togeth­er – are the darkest time of the year, bring­ing the shortest days and the longest nights, one might say the max­im­um absence of light. At this time the Sun runs low­est, and it is then that it touches the Trop­ic of Capri­corn. The winter sol­stice embod­ies the past, and is also a time ded­ic­ated to the memory of the ancest­ors. Yet it is just then that the Sun's path turns towards the North, and so with the winter sol­stice begins the path of the gods, that is, the Sun's north­ern course, head­ing north, which is held to be a favour­able time.

The sum­mer sol­stice, by con­trast, is the time of the longest day and the shortest night. Yet it is then that the Sun draws back from its highest north­ern reach, the Trop­ic of Can­cer. This is the begin­ning of the path of the ancest­ors, the Sun's south­ward course.

Besides the zodi­ac, the second twelve­fold sys­tem is the divi­sion by theme circles, ran­ging from uni­ver­sal philo­sophy to the dia­logues with the teach­er.

1. uni­ver­sal wis­dom, philo­sophy
2. yoga, Indi­an tra­di­tion
3. tra­di­tions, reli­gions, spir­itu­al paths
4. mys­ti­cism, intu­ition, inspir­a­tion
5. out­look, trans­form­a­tion, spir­itu­al­ity
6. free­dom, bond­age, enlight­en­ment
7. beauty, love, art, bal­ance
8. num­bers, ele­ments, pos­it­ive sci­ences
9. examples from nature
10. self-know­ledge, self-aware­ness, indi­vidu­al devel­op­ment
11. human rela­tions, human traits
12. dia­logues with the teach­er, mas­ter and dis­ciple

Beside this detailed divi­sion, three broad­er cat­egor­ies come dimly into view: being, con­scious­ness and bliss.

Being

Truth exists: this is declared by philo­sophy, by wis­dom teach­ing. This is the exist­en­tial found­a­tion. Doc­trin­al teach­ing, know­ledge, fac­tu­al­ity, the facts of spir­itu­al­ity all belong here. Philo­sophy reveals real­ity, and at the same time its lim­its as well. The first or less­er mys­tery belongs here, when, instead of the facts of the outer world, the real­ity of spir­itu­al val­ues comes to mat­ter more. Of the spir­itu­al prac­tices, med­it­a­tion belongs here.

Consciousness

Con­scious­ness serves to recog­nise the truth, and is the means of real­ising the facts declared by philo­sophy. Bey­ond under­stand­ing it brings the chance of first-hand exper­i­ence, and leads to far deep­er insights than merely intel­lec­tu­al under­stand­ing. Aware­ness reveals the moral respons­ib­il­ity of exist­ence, and can be iden­ti­fied with the great­er mys­tery, the pro­gress towards the centre. Of the spir­itu­al phe­nom­ena, rev­el­a­tion belongs here, when, thanks to our spir­itu­al prac­tices, we arrive at insights.

Bliss

Hap­pi­ness is the level of beauty, and so it is prop­er to art, to aes­thet­ics, to the har­mony that springs from full­ness. It does not mean sen­su­al pleas­ures but the spir­itu­al con­tent­ment of the self, a kind of blessed state. This is the third or final mys­tery, when, after the change of dir­ec­tion and the pro­gress towards the centre, one at last reaches the goal and rises to a high­er level. Of the spir­itu­al prac­tices, ador­a­tion belongs here, when the insights gained spur one to action and to prac­tising the good.

These three great spir­itu­al strands can be traced in the texts. We may say that every text speaks of philo­sophy and urges us to prac­tise, but we may also say that every text teaches self-know­ledge. Self-reflec­tion, the need for indi­vidu­al devel­op­ment, the prac­tice of self-know­ledge run through the whole book like a com­mon thread. The ground­work of know­ledge accom­pan­ies man to the deep­est point, and stays with him even in the deep­est circles of dark­ness. And insight often springs from the depths and lifts us to the highest levels – that is why it is human, deeply human.

We may also say that being, con­scious­ness and bliss, or the­ory, prac­tice and insight, or again under­stand­ing, real­isa­tion and first-hand exper­i­ence chase one anoth­er through the texts like the motifs of a baroque fugue.

The selec­tion and arrange­ment of the texts fol­low curi­ous pat­terns. On the sur­face the cal­en­dar days line up one after anoth­er, yet we may also dis­cov­er hid­den prin­ciples of order. Let us not for­get that we are walk­ing in a three-dimen­sion­al spir­itu­al labyrinth, where con­nec­tions and ref­er­ences in any dir­ec­tion may exist between the indi­vidu­al texts! For example, the super­im­posed dia­gram of the tri­angles formed by the fire and water signs of the zodi­ac lines up the texts on the ele­ments at its points of inter­sec­tion and its ver­tices, while selec­ted ten­ets of Greek wis­dom are found along the trace of a nine-poin­ted star. The great Her­met­ic seal houses the series of num­bers, and so on.

Beside these fac­tu­al and inten­ded net­works of con­nec­tion, intu­it­ive links between the texts are also pos­sible, based on asso­ci­ation and per­son­al insight. Let this be the dis­cov­ery of the inquirer, the prac­ti­tion­er, the labyrinth-walk­er. Cer­tain themes and theme circles come back to greet us again and again, for it is not even the aim to exhaust any one sub­ject fully at one go. In this way the ver­tic­al struc­tur­ing of the sub­jects comes about, for if the next time we sub­ject the same theme to a more intense, more pen­et­rat­ing ana­lys­is, or we ourselves become more dis­cern­ing, more thor­ough inquirers, then new per­spect­ives may open up, and indeed the very same sen­tences already mean more.

The myth­ic­al cal­en­dar counts twelve months and three hun­dred and sixty days, while our actu­al cal­en­dar has three hun­dred and sixty-five days, and from time to time needs cor­rect­ing by the inser­tion of leap days. The dif­fer­ence between the num­ber of days in the myth­ic­al and in the actu­al cal­en­dar is three hun­dred and sixty-six minus three hun­dred and sixty, that is, six, because we also take the leap day into account, and so six texts hold a spe­cial place.

The spring, sum­mer, autumn and winter months of the myth­ic­al cal­en­dar rep­res­ent the tra­di­tion­al sequence of time with respect to past, present and future, while the remain­ing days sig­ni­fy a fourth phase of time: etern­al time. The sea­sons are divided accord­ing to the signs of the zodi­ac, but the remain­ing six days are uni­ver­sal, a sum­ma­tion of the ele­ment­al qual­it­ies of the signs, and they stand for what lies out­side time.

How Shall We Walk This Spiritual Labyrinth?

The simplest meth­od, yet the one that demands the greatest per­sever­ance, is to fol­low the order of the days – a wis­dom for every day. This does not seem com­plic­ated, yet car­ry­ing it out con­sist­ently demands extraordin­ary stead­fast­ness. To leave out or skip a text is not worth­while, to make it up after­wards almost impossible. Med­it­a­tion has to be built into our daily routine, and for a year, every day, we must give the time and atten­tion due to this med­it­a­tion. What may we expect in return for this per­sever­ing prac­tice?

It may be that we shall notice no loud out­ward changes in ourselves, but it is cer­tain that a dif­fer­ent per­son will step out of the spir­itu­al labyrinth from the one who entered it a year before.

Along the way we can also think about the way we think, which oth­er­wise we do only very rarely. Through con­tem­pla­tion our eye for the essence grows stronger, and per­haps that subtle inner change will also begin, thanks to which we shall see a subtler world around us and be able to give more nuanced answers to the impulses that reach us. We may recog­nise small mir­acles with great­er sens­it­iv­ity, and soberly avoid all that holds back our devel­op­ment, while prac­tising instead what fur­thers it.

Suc­cess in life needs sin­cer­ity, earn­est­ness and cour­age, and by walk­ing this labyrinth to its end we may grow in these vir­tues.

If we can­not give atten­tion to our med­it­a­tions every single day, we may also read the texts now and then. The med­it­a­tion for the cur­rent cal­en­dar day may also be taken as a mes­sage, a motto, for the day. We may even break away from the dates entirely and, simply open­ing the book or leaf­ing through it freely, let­ting non-exist­ent chance have its way, seek out good advice for the day. It can be espe­cially inter­est­ing to look up and pon­der the text that falls on our own date of birth. In com­pany, com­ing to know one anoth­er thus can be a shared exper­i­ence.

One good piece of advice, how­ever, is for every­one: less – is more.

It is not advis­able to read sev­er­al med­it­a­tions at once, for each theme deserves an attent­ive, meas­ured approach. It is worth giv­ing more time and atten­tion to each text, heed­ing our reflec­tions, even mak­ing notes. Let us pay due respect to each theme, and to ourselves as well, for if we rush through the long days, the short years will run away from us.

Swami Tirtha

Ludastó School, 2022