---
section: Library
booktitle: "Zarathustra: A God That Can Dance"
booktype: "Discourses"
bookcode: "ZARA1"
dategiven: "26 March 1987 pm"
place: " in Chuang Tzu Auditorium"
chapternum: "Chapter #1"
chaptertitle: "Prologue part 1"
acode: "8703265"
shorttitle: "ZARA101"
audio: "Yes"
video: "Yes"
esttime: "118mins"
displaytitle: "Zarathustra: A God That Can Dance: Chapter #1"
---

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<p class="sutra">BELOVED OSHO,
PROLOGUE PART 1
WHEN ZARATHUSTRA WAS THIRTY YEARS OLD, HE LEFT HIS HOME AND THE LAKE OF HIS HOME AND WENT INTO THE MOUNTAINS. HERE HE HAD THE ENJOYMENT OF HIS SPIRIT AND HIS SOLITUDE AND HE DID NOT WEARY OF IT FOR TEN YEARS. BUT AT LAST HIS HEART TURNED -- AND ONE MORNING HE ROSE WITH THE DAWN, STEPPED BEFORE THE SUN AND SPOKE TO IT THUS:
GREAT STAR! WHAT WOULD YOUR HAPPINESS BE, IF YOU HAD NOT THOSE FOR WHOM YOU SHINE!
YOU HAVE COME UP HERE TO MY CAVE FOR TEN YEARS: YOU WOULD HAVE GROWN WEARY OF YOUR LIGHT AND OF THIS JOURNEY, WITHOUT ME, MY EAGLE AND MY SERPENT.
BUT WE WAITED FOR YOU EVERY MORNING, TOOK FROM YOU YOUR SUPERFLUITY AND BLESSED YOU FOR IT.
BEHOLD! I AM WEARY OF MY WISDOM, LIKE A BEE THAT HAS GATHERED TOO MUCH HONEY; I NEED HANDS OUTSTRETCHED TO TAKE IT.
I SHOULD LIKE TO GIVE IT AWAY AND DISTRIBUTE IT, UNTIL THE WISE AMONG MEN HAVE AGAIN BECOME HAPPY IN THEIR FOLLY AND THE POOR HAPPY IN THEIR WEALTH.
TO THAT END, I MUST DESCEND INTO THE DEPTHS: AS YOU DO AT THE EVENING, WHEN YOU GO BEHIND THE SEA AND BRING LIGHT TO THE UNDERWORLD TOO, SUPERABUNDANT STAR!
LIKE YOU, I MUST GO DOWN --  AS MEN, TO WHOM I WANT TO DESCEND, CALL IT.
SO BLESS ME THEN, TRANQUIL EYE, THAT CAN BEHOLD WITHOUT ENVY EVEN AN EXCESSIVE HAPPINESS!
BLESS THE CUP THAT WANTS TO OVERFLOW, THAT THE WATERS MAY FLOW GOLDEN FROM HIM AND BEAR THE REFLECTION OF YOUR JOY OVER ALL THE WORLD!
BEHOLD! THIS CUP WANTS TO BE EMPTY AGAIN, AND ZARATHUSTRA WANTS TO BE MAN AGAIN.
THUS BEGAN ZARATHUSTRA'S DOWN-GOING.</p>


FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE is perhaps the greatest philosopher the world has known. He is also great in another dimension which many philosophers are simply unaware of: he is a born mystic.


His philosophy is not only of the mind but is rooted deep in the heart, and some roots even reach to his very being. The only thing unfortunate about him is, that he was born in the West; hence, he could never come across any mystery school. He contemplated deeply, but he was absolutely unaware about meditation. His thoughts sometimes have the depth of a meditator, sometimes the flight of a Gautam Buddha; but these things seem to have happened spontaneously to him.


He knew nothing about the ways of enlightenment, about the path that reaches to one's own being. This created a tremendous turmoil in his being. His dreams go as high as the stars but his life remained very ordinary -- it does not have the aura that meditation creates. His thoughts are not his blood, his bones, his marrow. They are beautiful, immensely beautiful, but something is missing; and what is missing is life itself. They are dead words; they don't breathe -- there is no heartbeat.


But I have chosen to speak on him for a special reason: he is the only philosopher, from East or West, who has at least thought of the heights of human consciousness. He may not have experienced them; he certainly has not experienced them. He also thought of becoming a man again. That idea, of descending from your heights into the marketplace, descending from the stars to the earth, has never happened to anybody else.


He has something of Gautam Buddha, perhaps unconsciously carried over from his past lives, and he has something of the Zorba. Both are incomplete. But he is the only proof that Buddha and Zorba can meet; that those who have reached to the highest peaks need not remain there.


In fact, they should not remain there. They owe something to humanity; they owe something to the earth. They have been born amongst human beings; they have lived in the same darkness and in the same misery. And now that they have seen the light, it becomes obligatory that they should come back to wake up those who are fast asleep; to bring the good news -- that darkness is not all, that unconsciousness is our choice.


If we choose to be conscious, all unconsciousness and all darkness can disappear. It is our choice that we are living in the dark valleys. If we decide to live on the sunlit peaks, nobody can prevent us because that is also our potential.


But the people who have reached to the sunlit peaks completely forget about the world they are coming from. Gautam Buddha never descended. Mahavira never descended. Even if they have made efforts for humanity to wake up, they have shouted from their sunlit peaks.


Man is so deaf, so blind that it is almost impossible for him to understand people who are talking from higher stages of consciousness. He hears the noise but it does not bring any meaning to him.


Nietzsche is unique in this sense. He could have remained an extraordinary, very superhuman philosopher, but he never forgets for a single moment the ordinary human being. It is his greatness. Although he has not touched the highest peaks, and he has not known the greatest mysteries, whatsoever he has known, he is longing to share with his fellow human beings. His desire to share is tremendous.


I have chosen to speak on a few fragments which may be helpful to you, for your spiritual growth. Nietzsche himself had chosen Zarathustra to be his spokesman. Something about Zarathustra has also to be understood. Amongst thousands of great mystics, philosophers, enlightened people, Nietzsche has chosen as his spokesman, a very unknown person, almost forgotten to the world -- Zarathustra.


The followers of Zarathustra are limited only to a small place -- Bombay. They had come to Bombay from Iran when Mohammedans forced Persians either to be converted into Mohammedanism, or to be ready to be killed. Thousands were killed; millions, out of fear, became Mohammedans; but a few daring souls escaped from Iran and landed in India.


They are the Parsees of Bombay -- perhaps the smallest religion in the world. And it is amazing that Nietzsche was so interested in Zarathustra that he wrote the book, THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA. These fragments are from that book.


He chose Zarathustra for the same reason that I chose him: Zarathustra, amongst all the religious founders, is the only one who is life-affirmative, who is not against life, whose religion is a religion of celebration, of gratefulness to existence. He is not against the pleasures of life, and he is not in favor of renouncing the world. On the contrary, he is in absolute support of rejoicing in the world, because except for this life and this world, all are hypothetical ideologies. God, heaven and hell, they are all projections of the human mind, not authentic experiences; they are not realities.


Zarathustra was born at a time, twenty five centuries ago, when all over the world, there was a great renaissance: In India, Gautam Buddha, Mahavira, Goshalak, Sanjay Bilethiputta, Ajit Keshkambal, and others, had reached to the same peak of awakening; in China, Confucius, Mencius, Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu, Lieh Tzu and many others; in Greece, Socrates, Pythagoras, Plotinus, Heraclitus; and in Iran, Zarathustra.


It is a strange coincidence that suddenly, all over the world, there came a flood of consciousness and many people became awakened. Perhaps enlightenment is also a chain reaction -- when there are enlightened people they provoke the same revolution in others.


It is everybody's potential. One just needs a provocation, a challenge; and when you see so many people reaching to such beautiful heights of grace, you cannot remain where you are. Suddenly a great urge arises in you: "Something has to be done. I am wasting my life while others have reached the very destiny, have known all that is worth knowing, have experienced the greatest blissfulness and ecstasy... and what am I doing? -- collecting seashells on the beach."


Out of all these people, Zarathustra is unique. He is the only one who is not against life, who is for life; whose god is not somewhere else; whose god is nothing but another name for life itself. And to live totally, to live joyously and to live intensely, is all that religion is based on.


I feel a deep empathy, affinity, with Zarathustra. But perhaps because he was life-affirmative and not life-negative, he could not gather many followers. It is one of the strange things about human beings: anything that is easy, they cannot accept as worthy of being the goal -- the goal has to be very difficult and arduous.


Behind it is the psychology of the ego. The ego always wants something impossible, because only with the impossible can it exist. You will never be able to fulfill desire, and the ego will go on pushing you towards more and more -- more greed, more power, more money, more austerities, more spirituality, more discipline. Wherever you find "more", remember, that is the language of the ego. And there is no way to satisfy the ego; it is always asking for more.


Zarathustra's whole approach is exactly the same as Chuang Tzu: "Easy is right. Right is easy." And when you are utterly relaxed, at ease, at home, so relaxed that you have even forgotten that you are at ease; that you have forgotten that you are right -- you have become so utterly innocent like a child, you have arrived. But ego has no interest in this. This whole process is something like the suicide of the ego; hence, religions which have been giving the ego difficult tasks, arduous paths, unnatural ideals, impossible goals -- they have attracted millions of people.


Zarathustra's followers can be counted on the fingers. Nobody has bothered about Zarathustra, until, after almost twenty-four centuries, Nietzsche suddenly picked up on him. Nietzsche was against Jesus Christ, and he was against Gautam Buddha -- but he was for Zarathustra.


It is something very significant to understand. The man who was against Jesus Christ, against Gautam Buddha.... Why should he be for Zarathustra? -- because Nietzsche also has the same attitude and approach towards life. He has seen all these religions, great religions, creating more and more guilt in humanity; creating more and more misery, wars, burning people alive; talking all kinds of nonsense for which no proof at all exists, for which they don't have any evidence at all; keeping the whole of humanity in darkness, in blindness, because their teachings are based on belief -- and belief means blindness.


There is no belief which is not blind. A man with eyes does not believe in light, he knows it -- there is no need to believe. Only the blind man believes in light because he does not know it. Belief exists in ignorance, and all the religions -- with a few exceptions like Zarathustra and Chuang Tzu who have not been able to create great followings or great traditions -- are all for belief. In other words, they are all for blindness.


Nietzsche was against them -- symbolically. As far as the East is concerned, he chose Gautam Buddha as the symbol and as far as the West is concerned he chose Jesus Christ as the symbol. He was against these people for the simple reason that they were against life; they were against people enjoying the simple things; people living playfully, laughingly; people having a sense of humor, not seriousness; people loving songs and music; and people capable of dance and love.


Nietzsche was attracted to Zarathustra because he could see that this man alone, out of the whole past, was not against life, was not against love, was not against laughter.


In these fragments, you will see tremendously meaningful statements which can become the foundation of a life-affirmative religion. I am all for life. There is nothing for which life can be sacrificed. Everything can be sacrificed for life. Everything can be a means towards life, but life is an end unto itself.


Listen very carefully, because Friedrich Nietzsche writes in a very condensed form. He is not a writer, he writes aphorisms: anybody could have written a whole book but Nietzsche will write only one paragraph. So condensed is his writing, that unless you are very alert in listening, you may miss. It is not to be read like a novel.


These are almost like the sutras of the Upanishad. Each single sutra, and each single maxim, contains so much, has so many implications. I would like to go into all the implications so that you do not misunderstand Nietzsche because he is one of the most misunderstood philosophers in the world. And the reason for his being misunderstood is that he wrote in such a condensed form -- he never explained; he never went into detailed explanations about all the possible implications.


He is a very symbolic man, and the reason why he was so symbolic is that he was so full of new insights that there was not time enough to explain. He could not write treatises, and he had so much to share and to give, and life is so small.


Because his work was so condensed and crystallized, people in the first place did not understand him; in the second place, if they "understood", they misunderstood. In the third place, they found him unreadable; they wanted everything to be explained. Nietzsche was not writing for children, he was writing for mature people, but maturity is so rare: the average mental age is not more than fourteen, and with this mental age, Nietzsche is certainly going to be missed. He is missed by his opponents, and he is missed by his followers, because both have the same mental age.
<p class="sutra">WHEN ZARATHUSTRA WAS THIRTY YEARS OLD, HE LEFT HIS HOME AND THE LAKE OF HIS HOME AND WENT INTO THE MOUNTAINS.</p>


It has to be explained to you that Gautam Buddha left his palace when he was twenty-nine years old. Jesus started his teachings when he was thirty years old; Zarathustra went into the mountains when he was thirty years old. There is something significant about the age of thirty, or nearabout, just as at the age of fourteen, one becomes sexually mature. If we take life as it has been taken traditionally, that it consists of seventy years... those who have watched life very deeply have found that every seven years, there is a change, a turning.


The first seven years are innocent. The second seven years, the child is very much interested in enquiring, in questioning -- curiosity. After the fourteenth up to the twenty-first year, he has the most powerful sexuality. The highest peak of sexuality, you will be surprised to know, is nearabout eighteen or nineteen years. And humanity has been trying to avoid that period by providing educational programs, colleges, universities -- keeping boys and girls apart. That is the time when their sexuality and their sexual energy is at the highest point.


In those seven years, from fourteen to twenty-one, they could have experienced sexual orgasm very easily. Sexual orgasm is a glimpse which can create in you the urge to find more blissful spaces, because in sexual orgasm two things disappear: your ego disappears, your mind disappears, and time stops -- just for a few seconds.


But these three are the important things. Two things disappear completely; you are no more "I" -- you are, but there is no sense of the ego. Your mind is there but there are no thoughts, just a deep stillness. Suddenly, because the ego disappears and the mind stops, time stops, too. To experience time, you need changing thoughts of the mind; otherwise, you cannot experience the movement of time.


Just think of two trains, moving into empty space, together, with the same speed. Whenever you look out of the window at the other train -- which has the same window and the same number of compartments -- you will not experience that you are moving. Neither will the passengers in the other train experience that they are moving.


You experience movement because, when your train is moving, the trees are standing, the houses are standing, they are not moving. Stations come and platforms come and pass. It is because on both sides things are static, that against them, in relativity, you can feel your train moving.


Sometimes you may have experienced a very bizarre thing: your train is standing on the platform, and another train is standing by the side. Your train starts moving; you are looking at the other train, and it seems as if it has started moving; unless you look towards the platform, which is standing still. Movement is a relative experience.


When mind is not having any thoughts, you are in an empty sky; time stops because you cannot judge time without movement -- you are not there, mind is not there, time is not there... only a tremendous peace and a great relaxation.


My own understanding is that it was the sexual orgasm that gave the first idea to people about meditation, because a few geniuses must have tried: "If we can stop thoughts, if we can drop the ego and if the mind is not there, time disappears; then there is no need for any sexual orgasm." You can have the same orgasmic experience alone and it is no more sexual -- it becomes a spiritual experience.


Sexual orgasm must have given the first idea that the same experience is possible without sex; otherwise, there is no way how man could have found meditation. Meditation is not a natural phenomenon. Sexual orgasm is a natural phenomenon but all societies prevent their children from experiencing it. Nobody says anything about it. This is a strategy, a very dangerous strategy, a criminal act against the whole of humanity, because the children who are deprived of having sexual orgasm, will never be able to feel the urge for meditation; or their urge will be very weak; they will not risk anything for it.


So up to the age twenty-one, sex reaches to its peak, if it is allowed, as it was allowed in Gautam Buddha's life. All the beautiful girls of his kingdom were given to him; he was surrounded by all the beautiful girls; he knew deep experiences of orgasm.


Then from twenty-one to twenty-eight, the other seven years, one searches, because sexual orgasm is biological. Soon you will lose the energy and you will not be able to have the orgasm. Secondly, it is dependent on somebody else, a woman, a man; it is destructive of your freedom; it is at a very high cost. So if a man grows very naturally -- is allowed to grow naturally -- from twenty-one to twenty-eight, he will search and seek ways and means, of how to transcend physiology, biology, and yet remain capable of moving into deeper orgasmic experiences.


From twenty-eight to the age thirty-five, all these people -- Gautam Buddha, Zarathustra, Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu, Jesus -- all have moved in higher planes of being. And just not to be bothered, not to be hindered by people, not to be distracted, they moved into the mountains -- into aloneness. According to me, it was not against life -- they were simply searching a silent space where there were no distractions and they could find the greatest orgasmic experience... what William James has called "the oceanic orgasm," in which you completely disappear into the ocean of existence -- just like a dewdrop slipping from a lotus leaf into the ocean.


So the age thirty is not just incidental. All great seekers have left in the search between twenty-eight and thirty-five. That is the period of seeking, searching -- searching something that is not of the body, but of the spirit.


HERE HE HAD THE ENJOYMENT OF HIS SPIRIT AND HIS SOLITUDE AND HE DID NOT WEARY OF IT FOR TEN YEARS. He remained in the mountains for ten years. His solitude, silence, peace, became deeper and deeper, and he was full of bliss; although he was alone, he was not weary of it.


BUT AT LAST HIS HEART TURNED -- AND ONE MORNING HE ROSE WITH THE DAWN, STEPPED BEFORE THE SUN, AND SPOKE TO IT THUS.... This is where Zarathustra takes a new path. Mahavira remained in his solitude. Buddha remained in his aloneness, and the people who were watching, saw something had happened, something beyond their conceptions. These people were transformed; they had become luminous; they were radiating joy; they had a certain fragrance; they had known something; their eyes had a depth that was not there before; and their faces had a grace that was a totally new phenomenon.


A very subtle misunderstanding happened: the people who were watching thought that because these people went into the mountains, they had renounced life; hence, renouncing life became a fundamental thing in all the religions. But they had not renounced life.


I would like to write history completely from the very scratch, particularly about these people, because I know them from my own insight -- I don't have to be bothered about facts, I know the truth. These people had not gone against life: they had gone simply for solitude; they had gone for being alone; they had just gone away from distractions.


But the difference between Gautam Buddha and Zarathustra is that Gautam Buddha -- once he had found himself -- never declared, "Now there is no need for me to be a recluse, to be a monk. I can come back and be an ordinary man in the world."


Perhaps it needs more courage than going out of the world; coming back to the world needs more courage. Going uphill is arduous, but very gratifying. You are going higher and higher and higher, and once you have reached to the highest peak, it needs tremendous courage to come back downward into the dark valleys which you had left, just to give the message to people: "You need not remain always in darkness. You need not remain always in suffering and in hell."


This downward journey may even be condemned by those people whom you are going to help. When you were going upward, you were a great saint, and when you are coming downward, people will think perhaps you have fallen, you have fallen from your greatness, from your height. It certainly needs the greatest courage in the world, after touching the heights of the ultimate, to be again ordinary.


Zarathustra shows that courage. He is not worried about what people will say, that he will be condemned, that they will think that he has fallen from heights, that he is no more a saint. His concern is more to share his experience with those who may be ready, receptive, available -- they may be few.
<p class="sutra">AND ONE MORNING HE ROSE WITH THE DAWN, STEPPED BEFORE THE SUN, AND SPOKE TO IT THUS:
GREAT STAR! WHAT WOULD YOUR HAPPINESS BE, IF YOU HAD NOT THOSE FOR WHOM YOU SHINE!</p>


The implication of this statement is great. Zarathustra is saying that the birds are happy because the sun has risen; the flowers are happy because the sun has risen; the whole planet seems to be happy, awake, full of energy, full of hope for the coming day -- the sun has risen.


He is indicating in this statement that the sun also must be happy because so many flowers have blossomed, so many birds are singing. If there were no birds and no flowers, and there was nobody waiting for it, the sun would have been sad.


The implication is clear: we are all interconnected: the whole existence is interconnected. Even the smallest blade of grass is connected with the greatest star in the sky. Those connections are not visible.


It is known that if the sun does not rise one day, all life from the planet will disappear. Without the sun's heat and life-giving energy, nothing can remain alive here. But the mystics have always indicated about the other possibility too: if the whole of life disappears from the earth, the sun will not rise -- for whom?


Zarathustra is saying, "I am full of joy, full of peace. Now, I need somebody to receive it, I am overburdened. I have to share it, otherwise, even blissfulness will become too heavy." Even blissfulness can become painful if unshared.
<p class="sutra">GREAT STAR! WHAT WOULD YOUR HAPPINESS BE, IF YOU HAD NOT THOSE FOR WHOM YOU SHINE!
YOU HAVE COME UP HERE TO MY CAVE FOR TEN YEARS: YOU WOULD HAVE GROWN WEARY OF YOUR LIGHT AND OF THIS JOURNEY WITHOUT ME, MY EAGLE AND MY SERPENT.</p>


Zarathustra has two symbols: the eagle and the serpent. The serpent represents wisdom, and the eagle represents courage to fly into the unknown without any fear. He had with him the eagle and the serpent. One needs to be as conscious, as wise, as intelligent as possible; and one needs also the courage to go on entering into the unknown and finally into the unknowable. The jump into the unknowable is the jump into the godliness of existence.


'BUT WE WAITED FOR YOU EVERY MORNING, TOOK FROM YOU YOUR SUPERFLUITY AND BLESSED YOU FOR IT.' Whatever you have given to us was superfluous to you, you had too much of it; you were burdened with it. You wanted somebody to share it and we have taken from your superfluous abundant energy, overflowing energy, and we have blessed you for it.


BEHOLD! I AM WEARY OF MY WISDOM... In the same way as you are weary of your light and you want somebody to share it, I am weary of my wisdom -- it is too much. I cannot contain it anymore; I have to find someone to share. I have to unburden myself.


This is such a great insight -- that even wisdom can become a burden. Zarathustra is absolutely right.
<p class="sutra">... LIKE A BEE THAT HAS GATHERED TOO MUCH HONEY; I NEED HANDS OUTSTRETCHED TO TAKE IT.
I SHOULD LIKE TO GIVE IT AWAY AND DISTRIBUTE IT, UNTIL THE WISE AMONG MEN HAVE AGAIN BECOME HAPPY IN THEIR FOLLY...</p>


This can be said only by someone who has known. An ordinary person who is simply learned, who has borrowed knowledge, cannot even conceive the idea.


Nietzsche is saying, through Zarathustra: "I am going amongst men to share, to distribute and to unburden myself of my wisdom until the wise among men have again become happy in their folly."


The truly wise man is not serious; he is playful, because he understands that the whole of existence is playful. The truly wise man may appear to people somewhat crazy, foolish, because ordinary humanity has a fixed idea of the wise man -- that he is serious, that he cannot be playful, that he cannot laugh, that he cannot dance.


These things are for foolish people; and Zarathustra is saying, "I will go on sharing my wisdom until the wise amongst men have become so wise that they can accept even things which look foolish to the ordinary man."


... AND THE POOR HAPPY IN THEIR WEALTH. As far as the inner wealth is concerned, the poor man is as endowed by nature as any rich man. The rich man is too engaged with the outside world and perhaps may not find the way or the time to enter inwards. But the poor man is in a fortunate condition: He has nothing to be engaged with on the outside; he can close his eyes and go in. Zarathustra is saying that unless the wise are so wise that even foolishness becomes just playfulness, and the poor are so happy as if they have found the greatest treasure....
<p class="sutra">TO THAT END, I MUST DESCEND INTO THE DEPTHS: AS YOU DO AT THE EVENING, WHEN YOU GO BEHIND THE SEA AND BRING LIGHT TO THE UNDERWORLD TOO, SUPERABUNDANT STAR!
LIKE YOU, I MUST GO DOWN -- AS MEN, TO WHOM I WANT TO DESCEND, CALL IT.
SO BLESS ME THEN, TRANQUIL EYE, THAT CAN BEHOLD WITHOUT ENVY, EVEN AN EXCESSIVE HAPPINESS!
BLESS THE CUP THAT WANTS TO OVERFLOW, THAT THE WATERS MAY FLOW GOLDEN FROM HIM AND BEAR THE REFLECTION OF YOUR JOY OVER ALL THE WORLD!
BEHOLD! THIS CUP WANTS TO BE EMPTY AGAIN, AND ZARATHUSTRA WANTS TO BE MAN AGAIN.</p>


This is the rare quality of Zarathustra. There have been thousands of men who wanted to be supermen -- who wanted to be Buddhas, Jainas, Christs, Avataras -- but Zarathustra, alone in the whole of history, wants to be a man again. Seeing the heights, seeing the depths, knowing the ultimate solitude, being full of wisdom, he wants to go down and be just a man amongst men -- not anybody superior.


THUS BEGAN ZARATHUSTRA'S DOWN-GOING. This "down-going" of Zarathustra is so unique and so significant that unless every wise man has the same courage, humanity's destiny cannot be changed.


If all the Gautam Buddhas and all the Jesus Christs, all the Moseses and all the Mohammeds, had come back to humanity just as men, they would have given dignity to humanity; they would have given great courage to humanity -- they would have become sources of great inspiration. But they are far above; the distance is so great that it creates discouragement. Not only they, but their disciples have been trying in every possible way to create more and more distance.


For example, Jesus was born out of a virgin girl: it is a discouragement to the whole of humanity because you are born out of sin, and only Jesus is not born out of sin. If he is the only begotten son of God, then who are you? -- you are not even cousins.


Why is God so miserly that he should have only one son? Did he believe in birth control? The Christians are against it. At least one daughter was a must.... But to dishonor womankind, God cannot have a daughter, nor has he a wife; but he has a son. His son walks on water; you cannot do it. He brings dead people back to life; you cannot do that. He is crucified but he comes back again -- resurrection; you cannot manage that.


Naturally, the distance is too great. You are a mere human being; he is a god. At the most, you can worship him. He is a humiliation to you. He is a great insult to the whole of humanity. And all these miracles are fictitious. Nobody has ever done those miracles, but just to create the distance between you and Jesus, their followers have gone to extreme lengths.


Mohammed dies, but not like an ordinary man. In fact, he does not die in the way people die -- he simply goes directly alive to heaven. And not only he alone, he is riding on his horse, so the horse also goes directly into paradise. It is no ordinary horse -- it is Hazrat Mohammed's horse. You cannot think of yourself belonging to the same category.


Mahavira never perspired. In the hot summers of India -- and particularly in Bihar, on dusty roads -- he was moving naked for forty-two years, and he did not perspire! It is possible only if his body was not covered with skin but with plastic -- because the body is covered with skin and the skin breathes and perspiration is a very necessary process for your survival; otherwise you will die.


Perspiration is a protection. When it is too hot, your body pores start bringing water out of the body so that the heat gets engaged in evaporating your perspiration and it does not increase your temperature; your temperature remains the same. If the body does not perspire, your temperature will go on rising higher and higher. And you don't have much of a range -- between ninety-eight degrees and one hundred and ten. Just twelve degrees more and Mahavira would have popped out; he could not have stayed alive. But just to make a difference, he did not take a bath; there was no need; when he did not perspire, there was no need for taking a shower.


A snake bites him and instead of blood, milk comes out.... I was speaking at a Jaina conference and just before me, a Jaina monk had spoken. He had praised all these miracles of Mahavira and when I spoke, I said, "These were not miracles. Just a little thinking will make it clear that milk can come out from the feet only if, instead of blood, milk is circulating in Mahavira's body. But for forty-two years, milk circulating would have become curd, would have become butter, would have even become ghee. It remained milk! Fresh milk came out!


"The other possibility is that just as milk comes from a woman's breast... but the breast has a subtle mechanism to transform blood into milk. This was also possible, if you insist that Mahavir had all over his body milk-creating systems."


But this is nonsense. And yet everybody.... Gautam Buddha is born while his mother is standing up and it can be tolerated because it is not much of a problem. Perhaps the mother was a little crazy or something; otherwise, when the child is being born, the mother must be lying on the bed -- not standing. But one can accept that maybe the woman was crazy. But Gautam Buddha is himself born standing; he falls on the ground -- standing. That, too, sometimes happens. Ordinarily, the head comes first but once in a while a child is born with feet first.


If the story stops there, it is feasible, but it will not make a great impression on you.


But Buddha walked seven feet; a newly-born child, in fact, cannot stand, but he walked seven feet. And not only walked, after seven feet he looked at the sky and declared, "I am the greatest buddha, the greatest enlightened man, past, present, future."


Now these are great discouragements: you cannot manage these things. In the first place, you are already born. You can try next time, but this life is gone. This life you cannot become an awakened person, so just practice for the second life. Remember it, exactly what has to be done.


But all these things, these fictions have a certain purpose. The purpose is to make these people so far away from human beings that you can, at the most, worship them, but you cannot even dream that the same experience can happen to you.


What Zarathustra did should be done by every enlightened person. Every enlightened person should come back to the world; he owes it to the world; he is indebted to humanity; he is born a human child; and he cannot be forgiven for creating myths around himself, or letting other people create myths around him, so that he becomes something impossible.


Zarathustra is more human, more lovable and one can see his point in coming back to humanity. He has gathered so much wisdom, so much honey, he wants to share it -- to distribute it. He wants himself to be empty again, because now he knows that the more he gives, the more existence will go on pouring into him. He can go on emptying himself and still he will have an abundance to share.


A man who is in authentic love with humanity; a man who affirms life, is not condemnatory, is not negative, does not make anybody feel guilty. On the contrary, he helps everybody: "Whatever I have got, is hidden within you, too." His coming down is nothing but to encourage those who are ready, those who are in need of some guidance, those who want to know the path, those who want to experience their innermost treasure.


For the benefit of the coming humanity, Zarathustra should be more and more understood. He is more of a blessing than anybody else.
<p class="sutra">... THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA.</p>


Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.
			

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> Copyright 1964-1990 Osho (Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh)
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