Talk:Jiří Vacek (version 2)

Note on creation
From: Draft:Jiří Vacek. Biscuittin (talk) 00:03, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

unsourced 1
The following is all unsourced and cannot stand in a BLP article.


 * Biography

Jiří Vacek was born in 1931 in Slaný (a town near Prague) on Whit Monday, a day belonging to Whitsuntide – a significant feast of the liturgical year (the feast of the Holy Spirit). His childhood was affected by the German occupation of the Czechoslovakia during the World War II, when the whole Czech nation suffered greatly under the Nazi rule. The beginnings of his interest in the spiritual life date back to as early as 1945. The very first spiritual book J. Vacek encountered, which influenced him greatly, was the Burning Bush (subtitled the Revealed Mystic Path) by Karel Weinfurter. According to this book, J. Vacek started practising mystic exercises, namely the mantra repetition (IEOUA mantra) and silent concentration on the spiritual heart.

From the very start, he also felt attracted to the personality of Ramana Maharshi, a spiritual teacher and sage from the 19th to 20th century, whose atma-vichara (the path of Self-enquiry) J. Vacek practiced from the end of the 1950s. His other spiritual masters, who he was personally in touch with, were Jaroslav Kočí from Ostrava and later Míla Tomášová.

During the communist regime, Jiří Vacek was interrogated by the State Security (communist secret police) owing to his spiritual interests and even sentenced for "disturbing the socialistic way of life". Consequently, he was also sacked from work for a few times. Despite all that, he kept spreading both his original works and translations in the form of so-called samizdats.

After the fall of the communist regime in former Czechoslovakia in 1989, J. Vacek began to operate in public and published translations of many spiritual books, especially the works with the teachings of Ramana Maharshi and also the books dealing with the non-dualistic realization – Advaita. He even translated several works from Christianity and Zen Buddhism. Altogether, he has so far published over 100 of his own original works and more than 30 translations from the English language.

Being retired, J. Vacek dedicates his free time to public meditations and meditations with his friends/students.

- Jytdog (talk) 15:40, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

WP:SOAPBOX violation
the following is not encyclopedic content, it is preaching. this needs to be written in an encyclopedic way, based on independent sources, ideally in English to facilitate verification. If you want to cite czech sources please provide translations, especially if you are trying to do anything nuanced. thx


 * Essence of Teaching

What is the Path? The path lies in turning away from the changing forms to their unchanging nature, which is their source. It lies in the withdrawal of consciousness´ attention from observed objects and its turning to the observer or witness, the consciousness itself, which leads to the realization of our true Nature, the Self, as pure consciousness and destruction of the illusion that we are a being limited by mind and body – ego. This way, it leads to liberation from worldly suffering and the rebirth cycle, countless lives and deaths in it, and to the restoration of the natural and original unlimited bliss of pure being. It removes the illusion of diversity and leads to the realization of the Unity, which is the highest Truth, the Lord, the eternal life and true happiness.

The spiritual practice as presented by Jiří Vacek is primarily based on the teaching of Ramana Maharshi. Just as him, Jiří Vacek teaches that the basis of the spiritual life lies in finding our true existence in the self-aware consciousness or, in other words, in the realisation of our true Self. The easiest way how to realise our true Self is to follow the "footprint" of the observer, since it is always true that to be able to observe anything, we – consciousness, that observes or is aware of observed objects, must be present here. In the consciousness of the observer, we continuously distinguish ourselves from all the observed/observable objects, which are: our body, the creations of our mind including our feelings, and the surrounding world. Simultaneously and directly, without words or thinking, we try to realise and experience that we are the non-material consciousness, which is aware of these observed objects. This is the most important element of the spiritual practice that we can and should practice permanently, even during all of our common daily activities. By the consciousness of the self-aware observer, we introduce the divine life into our day-to-day life. Then, we do not need to divide our life into the worldly activities and the spiritual ones, although formal meditation is still the basis. We simply try to carry out with all of our activities while being consciously aware of our true Self, our divine nature. This gradually makes all our activities easier since the level of our awareness rises and we can concentrate better and better on condition that we do not forget about our Self – us being different from anything that can be observed. This practice also enables us to work on the second crucial element of the spiritual practice, which is the dissolution of vasanas, tendencies of our mind directed towards our body and our world separated/fallen off from God. This practice, focused mostly on the static aspect of the Reality, was supplemented by Jiří Vacek with another inseparable element, which is so called inner pranayama. This meditation concentrates on the divine creative power and perfectly complements static, silent meditations so that both the aspects of the Reality – static and dynamic can be developed simultaneously.

- Jytdog (talk) 15:43, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

unsourced 2
This is unsourced. moving here, until it can be. Jytdog (talk) 15:45, 1 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Public Activities ==

Jiří Vacek teaches the practice of the inner spiritual life in public meditations that have so far taken place in Prague, Brno, Olomouc and Hradec Králové (and before that even all over Slovakia) as well as in week-long meditation retreats that are held in various places in the Czech Republic. - Jytdog (talk) 15:45, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

sources for unsourced 1
NB: BlueKarel added sources to the "unsourced 1" section above, and didn't sign their work. I restored the plain version above, and copied the sourced version created by BlueKarel down here, and signed it for them. Jytdog (talk) 19:41, 25 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Biography

Jiří Vacek was born in 1931 in Slaný (a town near Prague) on Whit Monday, a day belonging to Whitsuntide – a significant feast of the liturgical year (the feast of the Holy Spirit). His childhood was affected by the German occupation of the Czechoslovakia during the World War II, when the whole Czech nation suffered greatly under the Nazi rule. The beginnings of his interest in the spiritual life date back to as early as 1945. The very first spiritual book J. Vacek encountered, which influenced him greatly, was the Burning Bush (subtitled the Revealed Mystic Path) by Karel Weinfurter. According to this book, J. Vacek started practising mystic exercises, namely the mantra repetition (IEOUA mantra) and silent concentration on the spiritual heart.

From the very start, he also felt attracted to the personality of Ramana Maharshi, a spiritual teacher and sage from the 19th to 20th century,  whose atma-vichara (the path of Self-enquiry) J. Vacek practiced from the end of the 1950s. His other spiritual masters, who he was personally in touch with, were Jaroslav Kočí from Ostrava  and later Míla Tomášová.

During the communist regime, Jiří Vacek was interrogated by the State Security (communist secret police) owing to his spiritual interests and even sentenced for "disturbing the socialistic way of life". Consequently, he was also sacked from work for a few times. Despite all that, he kept spreading both his original works and translations in the form of so-called samizdats.

After the fall of the communist regime in former Czechoslovakia in 1989, J. Vacek began to operate in public and published translations of many spiritual books, especially the works with the teachings of Ramana Maharshi   and also the books dealing with the non-dualistic realization – Advaita. He even translated several works from Christianity and Zen Buddhism. Altogether, he has so far published over 100 of his own original works and more than 30 translations from the English language.

Being retired, J. Vacek dedicates his free time to public meditations and meditations with his friends/students.

-- — Preceding unsigned comment added by BlueKarel (talk • contribs) 19:08, 25 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Thanks for adding in sources BlueKarel but I cannot verify them, as I don't read Czech nor I do have access to that book to even run it through translation software. It is also not good that this extensive a section would be sourced entirely to WP:SPS sourcesJytdog (talk) 19:42, 25 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Hello Jytdog, thanks very much for editing. If needed, it is no problem for me to translate the sources into English. But, if I understand well, You write about Self-published sources that it is not good to use them hier. However, the correct and authentic information about the life of the author we will probably not find anywhere else than in the biography released directly by the autor. Only the author knows his life. Best regards,--BlueKarel (talk) 21:45, 25 March 2016 (UTC)
 * I understand that this part of the article is really important to you, but it is not good to have a big chunk of any content in Wikipedia sourced to a WP:SPS.  Is there really nobody independent of Karel who has described his ideas or written about his life? Jytdog (talk) 05:47, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Hello Jytdog, thanks very much for Your answer. Yes, there is a talk about non-religious spiritual teachers in Czech Republic from Ing.Dr. Otakar Mikeš, DrSc, a leader of the Religious society of Czech Unitarians and a former worker of an academy of scientists. Mr Mikeš mentioned Jiří Vacek shortly. I will send You the link. It is in Czech, so You can put it in a translator or I can translate it for You. May by I could use a part of the present biography and a part of the biography of Mr. Mikeš. I think it is a good idea...
 * I have found something in a Czech Encyclopedia-book too. There is written about the relationship of Jiří Vacek to Ramana Maharshi, the Tamil sage of Arunachala and the books that Jiří Vacek wrote and translated on this topic. This I could use in a section Work. Write me please Your ideas. Thanks and best regards,--BlueKarel (talk) 16:28, 12 April 2016 (UTC)
 * It would be really great if there were something in English; is there not? Jytdog (talk) 17:16, 12 April 2016 (UTC)
 * I have never found something in English. But I will translate it for You. It is only a few sentences...--BlueKarel (talk) 10:54, 13 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Hello Jytdog, I have translated the article from Mr Mikeš for You. It is originally posted hier under the czech title NECÍRKEVNÍ DUCHOVNÍ  UČITELÉ  V  NAŠÍ  VLASTI:

From the essay Spiritual teachers in our country not belonging to any church, from Ing. Dr. Otakar Mikeš, DrSc.

Now let us move to a living disciple of Jaroslav Kočí – to Ing. Jiří Vacek. Jiří Vacek was born in 1931 and since the age of 14 years he has been devoted to spiritual endeavour. He has given many lectures, written plenty of spiritually oriented articles and many original books and translations on various spiritual topics. For many years, he acted as the leader of meditations in the Unitarian Congregation in Prague. He pursues a spiritual path to the realisation of God, of our Self (i.e., mysticism, yoga, especially Jnana yoga and atma-vichara), both in theory and practice. He has been acting as a spiritual teacher and has realizes his activities in various places in the Czech Republic (e.g. in Prague, Pilsen, Hradec Králové) and also abroad (in Slovakia). For many years, he frequently held courses in a hotel adjacent to the Morávka Dam in the northern part of the Beskid mountains in the Czech Republic, which was visited by many disciples and where it was possible to practise meditation under his leadership during one or two week retreats (Translator’s note: held several times a year). He has many followers who respect him as their spiritual master. He has set up a very productive spiritually focused publishing house.

So if I can mix this article with the old one, it would be good. Thanks and best regards,--BlueKarel (talk) 10:12, 20 April 2016 (UTC)


 * Hello Jytdog, I would like to ask You about Your opinion. Pleas write me. I would like to complete the article. Thanks very much! Best regards,--BlueKarel (talk) 14:50, 2 June 2016 (UTC)