Vaklush Tolev

He was born on January 7, 1923 — on the day of Christ’s Nativity according to the calendar of the time — in the village of Popovitsa, near Plovdiv. As a child, he showed an unusual spiritual awareness: he asked to begin school early and, at the age of 14, gave his first public speech in the local church on the topic: “Does God Exist?”

In his youth, he was an active anti-communist and patriot. In high school, he led a Christian-philosophical society where lectures and debates were held on religious and philosophical topics. He also became a member of the Legionary movement, which arose as a reaction to the injustices of the Treaty of Neuilly and sought to ideologically oppose the advancing communist doctrine.

He enrolled in Law at Sofia University, but after September 9, 1944, was expelled for ideological reasons. He was brought before the “People’s Court” for his beliefs and for holding the rank of officer in the royal Bulgarian army. There, he declared: “As long as I live, I will fight with all my strength for the complete destruction of communist ideology.” For this defiance, he was sentenced to life imprisonment — totalitarian regimes preferred to break such people as a warning, rather than simply eliminate them. He was sent to the Belene labor camp and subsequently passed through nearly all the prisons in the country, where he earned the nickname “the irredeemable one.”

At age 28, in the Kardzhali prison, he experienced a spiritual awakening, later describing it as: “It is no exaggeration to say you feel like you could hold the Earth in your hand.” He found ways to study various languages and began writing poetry, dramas, and philosophical essays. He was released after the 1956 amnesty for political prisoners. In his words, he emerged from the “small prison” into the “large one.” He did not leave with bitterness or a thirst for revenge, but with ideas such as “There is no suffering — there is development” and “There is no evil — there is unevolved good.”

While still imprisoned in Varna, Vaklush Tolev revised the Christian prayer “Our Father,” proposing the line: “Deliver us from the evil one, so that we do not fall into temptation” — instead of “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.” In this way, he removed the suggestion that God tempts man. He later found theological support for this correction in the Epistle of James 1:13: “Let no one say when he is tempted, ‘I am tempted by God’; for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone.” He sent a letter on this matter to the head of the Holy Synod, Patriarch Kiril, but received no response.

After his release, he frequently clashed with the repressive apparatus of the State Security. He was monitored, detained repeatedly, and had difficulty keeping a job for more than a few months. Nevertheless, he managed to enroll in the Theological Academy in Sofia and graduated in just 18 months. He later worked as a librarian at the Plovdiv Metropolis, where he organized a remarkable exhibition of valuable icons from across the diocese — unprecedented for its time.

After the democratic changes of November 10, 1989, Vaklush Tolev was invited by democratic forces to run for parliament, but he declined, saying he had a conscious spiritual mission. “The problem is not in democracy but in freedom. And freedom is not a matter of measurement, but of endurance!” he later said.

He began delivering public lectures across the country and taught a course on the History of Religions at the universities in Plovdiv and Sofia for several years. He founded his own spiritual School called “The Way of Wisdom.” His lectures were published in the periodical Nur — meaning Imperishable Light. He also published several books:
• History and Theory of the Religions (3 volumes, reprinted three times)
• The Spiritual Gifts of Bulgaria (2 volumes, on the history of Bulgarian spirituality)
• The Seven Rays of Evolution — a new vision of esoteric knowledge
• The Testament Without Covenant
• the poetry collection Scattered Pearls, and others.

In his lectures, Vaklush Tolev interpreted the achievements of world culture through his own lens. His original reading of the history and theory of religions rests on several fundamental ideas that he developed into an independent Teaching called The Way of Wisdom.

At the heart of his teaching lies the insight that within the human being is embedded a vast potential — one that must be awakened and applied. This potential — known in different cultures as Breath, Kundalini, Orenda, Spirit, and so on — has gradually unfolded throughout human evolution, largely thanks to spiritual teachings and religions. He placed these in a hierarchical order he called the Doctrine of the Spiritual Waves: Creation, Mythology, Righteousness, Love, Wisdom, Truth, and Freedom. Following the Righteousness of Moses and Buddha, and the Love of Christ, Vaklush Tolev proclaimed the Fifth Spiritual Wave — the Wave of Wisdom.

He defined his teaching as neither a science nor a new religion. Wisdom — which he described as the intuition and reflex for truth — combines the achievements of both intellect and heart. He believed that God and evolution are not in contradiction. While the concept of God is culturally shaped and changes over time, God does exist — within the human being. This is the cornerstone of his teaching: that man is a god in evolution. Thus, not bloodline nor even spiritual kinship is essential — as he put it, humans are condeitors, because each carries the Breath of God.

On August 28, 1993, in Varna, on the 50th anniversary of the death of Tsar Boris III the Unifier, Vaklush Tolev announced the idea of building a House-Sanctuary and establishing August 28 as a Day of the Immortal Bulgarians. “The Bulgarian soul contains an inherent but under-applied optimism — which is why we celebrate more often those who died for liberation than we do the idea of history itself.” Each of the 13 historical figures included is, he said, a model of spiritual ideals for building the future — including Khan Asparuh, Tsar Boris I, Vasil Levski, Paisiy Hilendarski, Baba Tonka, and others. A location for the future Sanctuary was chosen in the lands of the city of Veliki Preslav.

On December 9, 1998, on the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Vaklush Tolev initiated an official proposal to the UN Human Rights Commission — to include protection of the human soul in the Charter of Human Rights. He proposed the removal of the punishment of anathema (curse) from religious constitutions, and of the word ‘enemy’ as a category in social relations. The motivation stated:
“Anathema is a religious punishment — the gravest personal blow, which destroys human spirituality. The term ‘enemy’ is saturated with the same destructive energy. ‘Enemy’ is a stigma on the individual soul — a social curse! Moreover, both ‘anathema’ and ‘enemy’ have become ideologies fueling social, religious, and military conflicts that disturb the lives and historical paths of nations.”

Vaklush Tolev completed his earthly path on November 27, 2013, at the age of 90. During his life, he often emphasized that biography was not important to him — only the inner essence. “Facts are the undertakers of truth,” he would say. How would he have wanted to be remembered? Perhaps through this epitaph-like verse from his poetry collection “Scattered Pearls”:

Then let my gravestone,
where the traveller may pause to read,
be left unmarked — for flame and spirit
were my path, and all I came to be.