Of the bestowing virtue, part 3

IT IS ALMOST impossible to find in the long history of mankind another man with so many dimensions, so many insights, so wise and yet so human, as Zarathustra. His ordinariness is absolutely extraordinary. His humanness is so pure that one can say it is even superior to any divineness.

He is certainly capable of declaring, "All gods are dead"; in fact, they have never been living. He declares a god has to be created. Just look at the totally new insight of this man. God has always been the creator - and he is declaring that we have to create god, and the name of the god is going to be superman. It is going to be our creation.

Each statement today is so pregnant with meaning that one cannot believe that a man can condense so much meaning in such small and simple statements. I would like you to meditate over each statement, because each statement carries a complete philosophy of life. Its implications are tremendous and far-reaching. Even after twenty-five centuries, Zarathustra still remains ahead of us. He is not part of past history, he is someone who is going to be born in the future, because we are not yet his contemporaries.

We have not been able to transcend the meanness, the animality, of our so-called humanity. And we have not been able to take even a single step towards the superman, which for him is the very meaning of the earth, the very salt of the earth - which is going to be our greatest creation, which is our new god. Not the old god who created the world, but a new god, which we are going to create with our own consciousness.

WHEN ZARATHUSTRA HAD SAID THESE WORDS HE PAUSED LIKE ONE WHO HAS NOT SAID HIS LAST WORD. Perhaps the last word can never be said. Even if somebody succeeds in saying the first word, it is more than enough. And Zarathustra has succeeded in saying the first words of a new life, of a new man, of a new earth. But there is always a deep desire, a great longing not only to say the first words but to say the last, too.

Hence, after saying these words... HE PAUSED LIKE ONE WHO HAS NOT SAID HIS LAST WORD - but he will pause again and again to the very end. The last word cannot be said. It is simply impossible to bring the last word so low, in the dark valleys where human beings live, in the language which is created for mundane affairs, in the words which are good in a marketplace but become absolutely meaningless in the deep silences of the heart.

But this is a longing that has been carried down for centuries by all the mystics, by all the poets, by all the musicians, by all the creative souls. They have all died in a deep discontent, because they have not been able to say the last word.

When India's great poet, Rabindranath Tagore was dying.... He was as successful as one can be, as famous as one can be, as great a poet as the world has ever known. Shelley is considered to be one of the greatest poets of the world, for a single reason he has written two thousand songs, which can be transformed into music. Rabindranath has written six thousand songs which can be transformed into a far deeper, far more profound music. Not only can they be transformed into music, he has created new dimensions in music itself which had never existed before.

Naturally, one of his old friends sitting by his bedside told him, "Don't look so sad, there is no need for tears in your eyes. You have completed your life, you have lived so fully and so fruitfully. Say goodbye to life with joy and gratitude."

Rabindranath said, "Gratitude? Who has told you that I have completed my job, that I have lived my life? I have certainly come to sing a song, and in the effort of singing that song I have composed six thousand songs - they are my failures, because I could not sing that song. Again I tried and again I tried. Each time there was a song, and people loved them so I never told anybody that these are my failures, these are not my milestones of success.

And when you praise them, it hurts me.

"And just before you came I was praying to God 'What kind of joke is this? You gave me the capacity, you gave me the potential, you gave me the longing - and my whole life I have been preparing - and when it seems everything is ready and I can sing my song, you have sent death to knock on my doors. Is it your compassion?' "

Rabindranath died with the statement, "I have not been able to sing the song that I had come to sing. I tried my best, but each time something was missing."

Perhaps perfection is not possible in existence. That's why the last word cannot be spoken. Or perhaps the pause itself is the last word; the silence, the depth of the silence. If one can understand it, one has heard the last word - but nobody has been able to utter it. It does not come to the lips. It is too divine, too sacred, and lips are so mundane.

LONG HE BALANCED THE STAFF DOUBTFULLY IN HIS HAND. Just visualize Zarathustra, with his staff in his hand, in a deep pause - he has said many beautiful things, immensely valuable - and his balancing his staff in his hand indicates his inner state. He is trying to say, or not to say, "Is it possible to say? Or am I longing for the impossible?"

AT LAST HE SPOKE THUS, AND HIS VOICE WAS DIFFERENT. This is the second time that it is reported that his voice was different. The first time his voice was different was when he talked about love as the ultimate value and looked in silence at his disciples with great tenderness and lovingness.

His voice had changed. It had become more of the heart, and less of the mind. It forgot logic, it remembered only love. He did not give any argument any more, rather his presence itself became the only argument.

He was love, his value was intrinsic. He was as useless as the beauty of the starry night, or the beauty of a lotus flower, or the music that you hear when the wind passes through the pine trees.

And he was self-luminous: his light was not coming from anywhere else. His light was coming from his deepest being, like a fountain, radiating and showering on others. That was the first time his voice changed.

This is the second time, and his voice was again different because, if one can move from the head to the heart, one can still move deeper: from the heart to the being. The head is very rational, convincing - but refutable. The heart is irrational, illogical - but irrefutable. The being is beyond both. It is neither rational nor irrational; it is supra-rational. There is no question of refutation or no refutation - it is self-evident. So the statements that are coming are self-evident statements from the deepest part of Zarathustra's being.

I NOW GO AWAY ALONE, MY DISCIPLES! YOU TOO NOW GO AWAY AND BE ALONE! SO I WILL HAVE IT. For the first time he has changed his mode of address. He used to address the same people as "my brothers"; now he says "my disciples." It is a great change, calling other people brothers. Because we are born of the same earth, sustained by the same sky, nourished by the same stars, we are brothers. But that does not make a deep bridge, it is simply stating a fact.

But things have changed in the meantime. While he was talking about the highest value and its qualities the brothers went through a metamorphosis. Now they are listening to him as a master, they have recognized him. He is no longer a stranger, no longer just one of the crowd. It has dawned in their consciousness that by accident they are blessed to have found a master; and he has read in their eyes the change.

When you look at someone as a master, your eyes radiate so much love that the love people are accustomed to knowing is left far behind. The ordinary, biological love becomes almost a contempt.

The moment you have known, and your eyes are filled with the love for a master.... Falling in love with a beautiful body is one thing; it is very superficial. Falling in love with a beautiful being has an additional depth, immeasurable.

Hence the change: I NOW GO AWAY ALONE... and hence these words and this decision that I NOW GO AWAY ALONE, MY DISCIPLES! YOU TOO NOW GO AWAY AND BE ALONE! I am not just saying "go away," because you can go away and not be alone. You can go away from me and be amongst the crowd. I have taken you away from the crowd, now I want you even to leave me. I want you to be acquainted with your aloneness, its beauty, its exquisite blissfulness, its ecstasy. I will be going away; you too now go away and be alone.

And now he speaks the way a master speaks: SO I WILL HAVE IT. Just little changes in words, and worlds change. Zarathustra in the beginning used to say, "I beg you to understand it." Now he is ordering, "This has to be this way. I am going alone, you have to be alone."

TRULY, I ADVISE YOU... and this statement is superb. No other statement in the whole history of mysticism, in all the philosophies and all the religions can be compared with it.

TRULY, I ADVISE YOU: GO AWAY FROM ME AND GUARD YOURSELVES AGAINST ZARATHUSTRA! - because I can become an imprisonment to you. I can become your spiritual slavery. You can start depending on me.

And he is very severe. GUARD YOURSELVES AGAINST ZARATHUSTRA, AND BETTER STILL BE ASHAMED OF HIM! PERHAPS HE HAS DECEIVED YOU. He is breaking all the bridges. He is making the way clear for you to be absolutely alone, because other than experiencing your aloneness, there is no religion, there is no meditation, there is nothing which is of any value.

The authentic master always remembers not to come in the way. He is the last barrier. It is easy to renounce your riches, it is easy to drop out from your family, your husband, your wife, your mother, your children. The most difficult thing is to go away from the master. That is the last barrier.

But every master who is worth the name creates devices. The disciple cannot manage it by himself, he is too new on the path. The master has to give him courage, courage enough so that he can even leave the master, and move into total aloneness.

THE MAN OF KNOWLEDGE MUST BE ABLE NOT ONLY TO LOVE HIS ENEMIES.... That's what Jesus says, "Love your enemies." It has been thought to be a very pregnant, meaningful statement, but it is ordinary, mundane. Any ordinary moral teacher can say, "Love your enemies".

Zarathustra is made of a different mettle, he says, THE MAN OF KNOWLEDGE MUST BE ABLE NOT ONLY TO LOVE HIS ENEMIES, BUT ALSO TO HATE HIS FRIENDS. That's why he is saying, Guard yourself against your greatest friend, Zarathustra. AND BETTER STILL: BE ASHAMED OF HIM! PERHAPS HE HAS DECEIVED YOU.

ONE REPAYS A TEACHER BADLY IF ONE REMAINS ONLY A PUPIL. The master wants you to be a master, not to remain a disciple. Any master who wants you to remain a disciple forever is not a master, is fake, and is exploiting in the name of spirituality and creating a kind of bondage and slavery in people's beings. A true disciple, one day, repays the master by becoming a master.

That does not mean any disrespect. It is the greatest respect possible. The disciple has fulfilled the longing of the master.

AND WHY, THEN, SHOULD YOU NOT PLUCK AT MY LAURELS?

YOU RESPECT ME; BUT HOW IF ONE DAY YOUR RESPECT SHOULD TUMBLE? TAKE CARE THAT A FALLING STATUE DOES NOT STRIKE YOU DEAD!

YOU SAY YOU BELIEVE IN ZARATHUSTRA? BUT OF WHAT IMPORTANCE IS ZARATHUSTRA?

YOU ARE MY BELIEVERS: BUT OF WHAT IMPORTANCE ARE ALL BELIEVERS?

A man of the quality of Zarathustra does not want believers. The world is full of believers.

Zarathustra wants people who are ready to change totally. Belief changes no one. It simply becomes a part of your memory, it does not touch your being. It does not in any way change your actions. It does not give a new quality to your life, it does not bring the superman into being.

He is right: "Do not believe in me. Understand me! And through that understanding let the revolution happen in you." Just a belief is too cheap, it is a deception. The whole world is living in deceptions.

Just the other day I was informed that in Greece thousands of acres of land belong to the Greek Orthodox Church, and the prime minister of Greece wants to divide that land among the poor people.

The church, and particularly the same Archbishop who wanted to burn me alive, is protesting very strongly.

The government has taken a survey, and the survey is so revealing - and perhaps it may be the same situation, more or less, in every country: ninety-four percent of people are baptized in the Greek Orthodox Church, and only four percent of people ever go into the church. Ninety percent of the people are simply deceiving themselves. They are believers, but their belief is not even enough to take them every Sunday to the church; what to say of the long pilgrimage from man to superman?

OF WHAT IMPORTANCE IS ZARATHUSTRA? Only a man of great importance can say that. YOU ARE MY BELIEVERS: BUT OF WHAT IMPORTANCE ARE ALL BELIEVERS?

The world has remained the same for thousands of years. Man has not moved a single inch as far as consciousness is concerned. What use is believing? It is time we should start some other way of relating to men like Zarathustra, not through belief. You have believed in Buddha, you have believed in Mahavira, you have believed in Krishna, you have believed in Jesus, you have believed in a thousand others. But your belief has not made any change in you.

Zarathustra wants not belief, but an authentic revolution in your being. If you have understood him, you will not believe. You will go on the search for the truth. You will go in search, within yourself, for the source of life and love. If you have loved Zarathustra, his love can only be shown - not by believing in him - but by bringing his dream into reality, by bringing the superman on the earth, by disappearing as man and creating a superman in your place.

All the beliefs have done only one thing: they have given false identities to people. Without being crucified you can become a Christian; without going through the long process of meditations you can become a Buddhist. Without doing anything you can start believing, and deceive yourself that you have done everything that was needed for your spiritual growth.

And belief has done a second thing: it has created as much bloodshed on the earth as possible.

Rather than bringing more love into the world, it has brought more hate. Rather than creating superman, it has created sub-human beings; beings who have even fallen below man.

Just a few days ago in Palestine... because there is so much starvation, soon it is going to become another Ethiopia. And the politicians are not concerned about the starvation, their whole concern is how to destroy Israel, because Israel used to be part of Palestine, and they want to claim it back - it cannot be given to the Jews - it is a Mohammedan country. So their politicians are fighting, creating all kinds of terrorist acts and nobody is worried about their own country, that people are dying.

And people have asked that they should be given permission to eat human flesh because food is so scarce, and corpses are so easily available because terrorists are killing people. And you will be surprised, the religious authorities of Palestine have agreed that if you get a corpse, you can eat it.

Today it is a corpse, tomorrow it will be a living man. What difference is there?

Once you allow human flesh to be eaten... today there are so many corpses because terrorists are killing people. But tomorrow there will be shops, and they will have professional killers, because human flesh will have to be sold as food. And who is going to prevent them if people start killing other people, just for the sake of eating?

This is not only Palestine. This is going to happen even in a country like India - it has happened.

In the great famine of Bengal, even mothers have eaten their own children, and other mothers, who were not able to gather courage to eat their children, sold them, knowing perfectly well that they will be eaten by somebody else; and they can purchase somebody else's children with the money. It is difficult to kill your own child, somebody else can do it. You can kill somebody else's child; a simple arrangement.

But can you say these people are growing into a better humanity? Is there any effort being made anywhere in the world? By the end of this century, cannibalism will be a widespread phenomenon.

It is a well-known fact, cannibals say that no flesh is more delicious than human flesh. Once you have eaten human flesh, then no flesh can be compared to it. It is a delicacy.

What have our beliefs done? They have made us Hindus, Mohammedans, Christians. They have divided us into races. They have destroyed a simple idea of one earth, one humanity, one family.

Zarathustra is right. WHAT IMPORTANCE ARE ALL BELIEVERS?

YOU HAD NOT YET SOUGHT YOURSELVES WHEN YOU FOUND ME. Zarathustra can be meaningful to you if by meeting him you start a search for yourself. In no other way has he any importance for you. YOU HAD NOT YET SOUGHT YOURSELVES WHEN YOU FOUND ME. You were not searching for yourself; you had not found yourself when you found me. Now, if you relax with the belief, in the words of Zarathustra, "When are you going to find yourself?"

Now Zarathustra and his words will become the barrier. And Zarathustra wants to become a search for you, a challenge for you, an adventure for you.

THUS DO ALL BELIEVERS; THEREFORE ALL BELIEF IS OF SO LITTLE ACCOUNT.

NOW I BID YOU LOSE ME AND FIND YOURSELVES; AND ONLY WHEN YOU HAVE ALL DENIED ME WILL I RETURN TO YOU. He gives them a great promise; Only when you have all denied me and found yourself will I return to you.

TRULY, WITH OTHER EYES, MY BROTHERS, I SHALL THEN SEEK MY LOST ONES; WITH ANOTHER LOVE I SHALL THEN LOVE YOU. Do you notice the change? Again, he calls them brothers.

TRULY, WITH OTHER EYES, MY BROTHERS, I SHALL THEN SEEK MY LOST ONES; WITH ANOTHER LOVE I SHALL THEN LOVE YOU. Now with a new meaning he will call them brothers, because they will be masters in their own right, just as he is a master. The word will be the same, but the meaning will be totally different. First it was only a formality, a factuality. Now it will be a reality of a high order. When the master calls his disciple "my brother," he recognizes that you have found yourself. That's why he is saying, "with other eyes I will see you."

AND ONCE MORE YOU SHALL HAVE BECOME MY FRIENDS AND CHILDREN OF ONE HOPE:

AND THEN I WILL BE WITH YOU A THIRD TIME, THAT I MAY CELEBRATE THE GREAT NOONTIDE WITH YOU.

This is Zarathustra's great hope for humanity. He calls it the great noontide.

AND THIS IS THE GREAT NOONTIDE: IT IS WHEN MAN STANDS AT THE MIDDLE OF HIS COURSE BETWEEN ANIMAL AND SUPERMAN AND CELEBRATES HIS JOURNEY TO THE EVENING AS HIS HIGHEST HOPE:

FOR IT IS THE JOURNEY TO A NEW MORNING... to a new day, to a new birth, the birth of the superman.

THEN MAN, GOING UNDER, WILL BLESS HIMSELF; FOR HE WILL BE GOING OVER TO SUPERMAN; AND THE SUN OF HIS KNOWLEDGE WILL STAND AT NOONTIDE.

'All gods are dead: now we want the Superman to live' - LET THIS BE OUR LAST WILL ONE DAY AT THE GREAT NOONTIDE!

This is not only his hope. It is the hope of all great dreamers, of all great visionaries, of all great souls who can see the ugly reality of man and who can also see the immensely beautiful potential hidden in this ugly reality; who can see the animal, and who can see also, hidden inside you, a god.

But people start believing. Belief has been no help. Now action is needed, and a single action - a readiness to die in all your ugly qualities, and to give birth to yourself in the values of truth, of love, of compassion, of creativity. The past was ruled over by a god who created the world. Let our future be that of creating a god from our own consciousness.

This will be the noontide, the great noontide of Zarathustra's dreaming. When it will come is difficult to predict. But one thing is certain, that it will have to come, because man cannot remain forever ugly; only a cousin to the animals. He has to reach to the stars. He has to go beyond himself. And only in this going beyond lies the true religion.

... THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.