Vaklush Tolev (Vaklush Tolev Zapryanov, Bulgarian: Ваклуш Толев Запрянов), also known as Vaklush, The Teacher of Wisdom, was a theologian by education, a public figure, a university lecturer, and an author of a multitude of works of religious, philosophical, cultural and historical nature.
Some of his work includes ‘The History and Theory of Religions’ (in three volumes), ‘The Spiritual Gifts of Bulgaria’ (in two volumes), ‘The Seven Rays of the Evolution’, ‘Uncovenanted Testament’, to name but a few, as wells as of the magazine, ‘Nur’, composed entirely of his original materials.
On his path as an enlightener and spiritual teacher, Vaklush Tolev formed his original views and his interpretation of history, social ideas, and analyses into a whole teaching of personal, social, and universal nature, which he called The Way of Wisdom – an expression of the Spiritual Wave of Wisdom already at work within the life of humanity. Inspired by Vaklush Tolev's ideas, an association, ‘The Way of Wisdom Society’, was established. The society works to achieve the unfolding of the spiritual potential of the Bulgarian nation as well as the guiding principles in the spiritual and cultural evolution of humanity.
The followers of the Teaching of Wisdom call themselves and others ‘sabozhnitsi’ (that is ‘co-deities’): ‘The co-deity is God, Whom we seek within ourselves, manifested in the face of the other’. This is how the author formulates the kernel of the concept in an aphorism-like thought.
Vaklush Tolev was born on January 7, 1923, which was the Day of the Nativity by the old Julian calendar, in the village of Popovitsa (known as Papazli until 1934), in Plovdiv county.
His family was wealthy and well respected: his grandfather, Zapryan, was the mayor of Popovitsa, while his father, Tolyo, was well known for his incredible generosity and nobility. His mother, Vasilka, who was also from an affluent family, was a woman with leadership skills, intuition, and imagination, according to Tolev.
Etymologically, the name ‘Vaklush’ is said to point to either the word 'Vlach' (Romanian origin ‘vakul’- ‘black, black-eyed, swarthy’) or to be connected to Bacchus – the Latin name of the ancient Greek (or Thracian) god Dionysius, spelled in Greek as Βάκχος (which in turn is read as Vákhos) – and has its root ‘vak, bak’ in Sanskrit, meaning ‘higher spiritual power’.
Due to his immense desire to learn, Vaklush began attending school even before reaching the minimum age requirement for elementary school. Initially, he was admitted just as an observer, but later, with the official permission of the Ministry of Education, he was admitted as a fully participating student.
Later on, he would admit that the things he was taught at school were not exactly what he longed for. However, the two things that truly provoked admiration and joy to the point of tears in him were ‘that great mystery of learning that a goddess is born from the head, and not from the womb – the goddess of Wisdom,’ or ‘to read that a created person dared to steal an apple of knowledge before the face of their Creator.’
At age 13, Vaklush enrolled in a grammar school in Asenovgrad. While there, he was impressed by the town's legal and court system and frequently went to listen to defense speeches.
At age 14, he took the floor alone at a church festivity and delivered a sermon titled ‘Does God exist?’
Within two or three years he had become president of the school's Christian Philosophical Society, which organized the presentation of papers followed by active discussions and disputes in a ‘consensual form of conflict without hatred’ with representatives of the materialist viewpoint, the Remsists (of the RMC/The Worker's Youth League).
During his secondary school years, he took part in the political life of the younger generation at that time. He subscribed to magazines like ‘Nation, Politics’, ‘Labour and Faith’, and others.
In 1939, he attended a conference to reach an agreement between the different political wings. In the same period, he began to write secret poetry.
One verse written by Vaklush, which has remained from 1945, goes as follows:
In 1942, he relocated from Asenovgrad to Panagiurishte due to a political conflict involving the distribution of leaflets. He graduated from secondary school there, and the following year (1943), he commenced the standard military service of 18 months in the School for Reserve Officers.
Vaklush Tolev sums up military education by saying, ‘It awakes a sense of service beyond one’s own personal world.’ As well as part of a physical and spiritual growing into manhood’, it gives a broadening of one’s horizon and a sense of responsibility.
He was drafted into the Second World War in 1944 as a platoon commander in the 21st regiment, Smolyan, of the 1st Army. He did not bear or use arms. 50 soldiers were entrusted to him, and he returned them all alive – only one was wounded, and that was for looting. (He had taken the boots of a slain German soldier.)