38. The cleanliness and the delight of the senses positions you just a little above the beasts, for it is not the pleasant sound that uplifts you, neither an endearing touch nor a pleasant taste, a pleasant fragrance or the joy in the eyes. For where there is warmth, there is also cold, where there is sweetness, there is bitterness too, where the pleasant lays, the unpleasant follows, near the lovely scent the stench resides, and where there is laughter, cry lurks around the corner.
39. Behold the starting path: temperance in all that you do, listening to the elders and the wise, diligence, gratefulness for what you have, staying away from untruth and empty words, as well as quarrel and anger, having a good behavior towards your fellow men. Wake up in the morning with this, keep them in your mind throughout the day, and have them with you in your sleep at night, for this way sorrow, lack, bitterness, helplessness, sickness, and the wickedness of others will not touch you.
40. Beyond these virtues dwells love, willpower, courage, patience, modesty and they truly uplift the man. They get you closer to the Eternal Living Fire and through them, your path follows the path of the gods, while burying them will throw you beneath the beasts. Only through them will you receive the true knowledge and wisdom, the true power, the true happiness, wealth, the fruit-bearing, and the long-lasting work.
41. Yet, where there is love, hate can show itself, where there’s a will, half-heartedness may appear, where there is courage, fear can come up, where there is patience, haste can appear and where there is modesty, pride can show. For changes are those that are seen and unseen in the being of man. But all these belong to that who feels, and above him is that who thinks, the one that sees motion in stillness, the one that beyond all these virtues, is basking in the knowledge and peacefulness that surpass any joy known to man, and attention, equilibrium, and clarity are his tools.
42. The one distressed sees the good as good, and the bad as bad, he is drawn to one and runs from the other, but the wise sees both the beautiful and the ugly, feels both the cold and the warmth, the delicacy and the asperity, he hears the pleasant and the unpleasant too, tastes both the sweet and the bitter, feels the scent and the stench altogether and judges them not. He sees clearly that the nature of things dwells in them all, for the beauty comes from the ugly and the ugly out of the beauty, the sweet was bitter in the beginning and will turn bitter again, the pleasant is born out of the unpleasant and the unpleasant from the pleasant. And all of this enlightens the soul of the wise, for the good and pleasant nurture and delight the body and its senses — and those which are unpleasant for the unwise, feed his mind and his wisdom, for he sees the renewal of things and the seeds of forthcoming delights.
43. ‘Tis not easy the path of the gods, but forget not that man can take up in his love more than he can contain in his hatred, warmth raises up more than cold can possibly descend, the one who is above sees more than the one beneath, the easy stretches beyond the uneasy, light reach more than darkness can reach, the power that unites is greater than the power which divides.
44. The long and the short share the same middle. The small circle and the big, the small globe and the big globe lean on the same point. The seen and the unseen occupy the same space. All that which is great hides in the small and this is the great mystery of nature. Great between the wise, is the one who understands this.
Ancient Wisdom Getae-Dacian God Zalmoxis
The Spiritual Beliefs of The Getae-Dacian
There are only a few ancient texts mentioning the religion of the Getae-Dacians, but what we surely know is that they were a monotheist culture, they only praised one God, the divine priest Zalmoxis.
We also know from Herodotus (c. 484 BC – c. 425 BC ) that they were the bravest of the Thracian warriors because they believed they were immortals: