The discipline of silence according to Pythagoras

The discipline of silence according to Pythagoras aimed to shape a more reflective mind through self-control of speech. Through this type of ascetic practices, the sage of the Crotona school taught hundreds of men and women that only when we abstract ourselves from the sensible world, can we make contact with our own self and thus achieve authentic wisdom.

More than 2,500 years ago Pythagoras of Samos introduced this principle to the Western world. The famous Greek mathematician and philosopher had spent two decades of his life in Egypt learning under the tutelage of various hierophants in Thebes and Memphis. Later, He went to Babylon to study astrology and the principles of karma and meditation.

All this acquired knowledge helped him create his famous school in Crotona, which had only one rule when it came to allowing access to any student: that this previously spent five years in rigorous silence. For those who already had a serene and focused personality, “only” two years was enough.

Writings by other philosophers from that period tell us that more than 200 students attended this center, men and women who longed to know all the mysteries and fabulous wisdom that could be acquired in the School of Pythagoras. Now, if there is something that we all know, it is that, nowadays, silence is not exactly common in educational centers.

We have somehow lost a valuable lesson that Pythagoras himself bequeathed to us in his day: Through silence we learn to discipline ourselves.

The discipline of silence according to Pythagoras, what does it consist of?

The basic principle that governs the discipline of silence according to Pythagoras is based on an essential fact. For the wise man of the school, what is most difficult for us to control people is their language. This part of our organism was, in his opinion, the main cause of personal problems and tragedies as well as that channel through which we bring suffering into our own lives.

In books such as those written by Thomas Stanley, the first historian of philosophy, he tells us that Empedocles, a politician from the 5th century BC. C, pointed out that If humanity were able to follow the lessons of Pythagoras, we would be a nobler society. What’s more, he even went so far as to define Pythagoras himself as a figure who seemed to have accumulated twenty lives in his being.

To him we owe pure mathematics, the term “philosophy” and the creation of that Crotona school, which would later serve as a model for the creation of modern universities. In that institution, students were introduced to scientific and philosophical instruction, as well as music and astronomy. However, in order to access this knowledge they first had to be “purified.” Such a rite of passage is carried out as follows.

The harsh discipline of silence

The discipline of silence according to Pythagoras required that every student spend 5 years of rigorous silence (two if he was a person of temperate and serene character). In this way and, according to his own words, the human soul could return to its own home to detach itself from all artifice or external objects.

Disciplining the tongue was the only way to quiet the mindthe needs of the body and the sufferings that made up the soul. Likewise, unlike other later Greek mathematicians, we do not have any written book about Pythagoras. He did not write anything because he did not want to be tied to the written word. He wanted his knowledge to reside only in the minds of his students, those who had already been purified through the test of silence. Thus, when a student took the step to perform said rite of passage, he was considered a Acoustici. When he passed that test, he was already a Mathematici.Silence among the Pythagoreans was essential. When a student reached that level he achieved a “transmigration” of his thinking. That way, he could better understand the hidden cosmogony of naturenumbers, art or any type of wisdom.

How to apply the discipline of silence according to Pythagoras today

We are aware that few of us can comply with the discipline of silence according to Pythagoras as he formulated it in his day. Taking a rigorous vow of silence for five years is not something that everyone can or wants to carry out.. However, studies such as those carried out in the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School (United States) tell us something important.

If we were able to maintain rigorous silence for half an hour or an hour a day, we would enjoy a healthier brainless stressed, a more focused mind and a better mood.

Therefore, it never hurts to adapt this suggestion with other recommendations that Pythagoras of Samos himself gave us at the time regarding health and well-being:

Be in contact with sunlight, follow the cycles of nature.Allow yourself at least one hour of silence each day. Take care of your diet (at the Crotona school, meat consumption was avoided). Regular exercise.Maintain enriching conversations.Carry out creative practices.

To conclude, as we can see, the discipline of silence according to Pythagoras is like its own figure, a legacy from which to learn, reflect and be inspired. It is therefore worth remembering lessons such as those contained in those phrases that he addressed to his students: Silence is the first stone of the temple of wisdom.

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