BELOVED OSHO,

OF THE VIRTUE THAT MAKES SMALL

I GO AMONG THIS PEOPLE AND LET FALL MANY A WORD; BUT THEY KNOW NEITHER HOW TO TAKE NOR TO KEEP.

THEY ARE SURPRISED THAT I HAVE NOT COME TO RAIL AT THEIR LUSTS AND VICES; AND TRULY, I HAVE NOT COME TO WARN AGAINST PICKPOCKETS, EITHER!...

AND WHEN I CRY: `CURSE ALL THE COWARDLY DEVILS WITHIN YOU WHO WOULD LIKE TO WHIMPER AND CLASP THEIR HANDS AND WORSHIP,' THEN THEY CRY: `ZARATHUSTRA IS GODLESS.'

AND THIS IS ESPECIALLY THE CRY OF THEIR TEACHERS OF SUBMISSION; BUT IT IS INTO PRECISELY THEIR EARS THAT I LOVE TO SHOUT: YES! I AM ZARATHUSTRA THE GODLESS!...

... THIS IS MY SERMON FOR THEIR EARS: I AM ZARATHUSTRA THE GODLESS, WHO SAYS `WHO IS MORE GODLESS THAN I, THAT I MAY REJOICE IN HIS TEACHING?'

I AM ZARATHUSTRA THE GODLESS: WHERE SHALL I FIND MY EQUAL? ALL THOSE WHO GIVE THEMSELVES THEIR OWN WILL AND RENOUNCE ALL SUBMISSION, THEY ARE MY EQUALS....

BUT WHY DO I SPEAK WHERE NO ONE HAS MY KIND OF EARS? AND SO I WILL SHOUT IT OUT TO ALL THE WINDS:

YOU WILL BECOME SMALLER AND SMALLER, YOU SMALL PEOPLE! YOU WILL CRUMBLE AWAY, YOU COMFORTABLE PEOPLE! YOU WILL YET PERISH --

THROUGH YOUR MANY SMALL VIRTUES, THROUGH YOUR MANY SMALL OMISSIONS, THROUGH YOUR MANY SMALL SUBMISSIONS!

TOO INDULGENT, TOO YIELDING: THAT IS THE STATE OF YOUR SOIL! BUT IN ORDER TO GROW BIG, A TREE WANTS TO STRIKE HARD ROOTS INTO HARD ROCKS!...

`IT IS GIVEN' -- THAT IS ALSO A DOCTRINE OF SUBMISSION. BUT I TELL YOU, YOU COMFORTABLE PEOPLE: IT IS TAKEN....

OH, THAT YOU UNDERSTOOD MY SAYING: `ALWAYS DO WHAT YOU WILL -- BUT FIRST BE SUCH AS CAN WILL!'

`ALWAYS LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELVES -- BUT FIRST BE SUCH AS LOVE THEMSELVES....

AMONG THIS PEOPLE I AM MY OWN FORERUNNER, MY OWN COCK-CROW THROUGH DARK LANES.

BUT THEIR HOUR IS COMING! AND MINE TOO IS COMING! HOURLY WILL THEY BECOME SMALLER, POORER, MORE BARREN -- POOR WEEDS! POOR SOIL!

AND SOON THEY SHALL STAND BEFORE ME LIKE ARID GRASS AND STEPPE, AND TRULY! WEARY OF THEMSELVES -- AND LONGING FOR FIRE RATHER THAN FOR WATER!

O BLESSED HOUR OF THE LIGHTNING! O MYSTERY BEFORE NOONTIDE! ONE DAY I SHALL TURN THEM INTO RUNNING FIRE AND HERALDS WITH TONGUES OF FLAME --

ONE DAY THEY SHALL PROCLAIM WITH TONGUES OF FLAME: IT IS COMING, IT IS NEAR, THE GREAT NOONTIDE!

... THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA.

Zarathustra has not any doctrine to preach, he has not any ideal that every man has to become. He has no fixed morality; his trust is in spontaneous consciousness. His trust in his own consciousness is so great that he can deny God without any difficulty. On the path of truth, one has to choose either God, or one's own being.

If you choose God, you have chosen your slavery, and you can never become more than a preacher and a victim of a whimsical God.But if you choose yourself you have to deny God. God is the greatest bondage for those who want to be themselves. Because humanity has chosen God, it has denied itself. And you can see the ultimate mess into which man has fallen.

Once you are a slave, you forget all responsibilities for yourself; then God takes care of you. And if God is just a hypothesis, just a belief, then you are in real trouble. You were a reality, your consciousness could have grown if you had trusted it, but you denied the reality in favor of the fiction, because the fiction is more comfortable. It relieves you of responsibilities, but it also takes away your freedom.

Remember this, that freedom and responsibilities are always together. You cannot just choose freedom, or just responsibilities. Either you have to choose them both, or you have to deny them both.

Zarathustra denies God because he loves man. Zarathustra denies God because he can see clearly that man himself can become a god. The only hindrance of his becoming a god is a belief in some other god; then he remains simply a worshiper, a believer. His insight is clear, and these twenty-five centuries that have passed between him and us have proved everything that he is going to say in this morning's statements.

Man has become very small. He cannot grow in the shadow of an almighty God. Just a small rosebush cannot grow under the shadow of a huge tree. And when you decide for anything fictitious invented by man himself, this becomes the beginning of your fall. This becomes the shattering of your dignity.

A man of dignity trusts in himself, and through himself he trusts in existence. He is real, existence is real, but God is just a creation of the priests to lead you astray from your reality. And once you have gone away from your nature and your reality, you are going to be more and more miserable, more and more mean, more and more jealous.

The very hypothesis of God has made man's life a tragedy. He has forgotten to sing, he has forgotten to dance, he has forgotten himself. He does not know who he is, what are his potentials, and what are his basic rights given by nature. He lives in darkness -- and he is not a creature of darkness. He lives unnaturally, in a perverted way that destroys his all grace and all his beauty and all the possibilities for his growth.

These words have to be understood very clearly, because they are almost prophetic. They are about you! They are about the world that has come to be in these twenty-five centuries.

I GO AMONG THIS PEOPLE AND LET FALL MANY A WORD; BUT THEY KNOW NEITHER HOW TO TAKE NOR TO KEEP.Man listens only if something supports his prejudices; then he feels good that he has always been right. He listens only if you speak the language of fictions, which he thinks is the ultimate truth. But if you speak the truth he becomes completely closed. He does not allow any truth to enter in his being, to disturb his comfortable beliefs. He listens only to what he wants to listen to, and he takes into himself only what fits with all kinds of garbage that he has been carrying down the ages.

Anything new -- and truth is always new -- freaks him out. Anything new creates a disturbance in him. If he keeps it, then what to do with the old ideas, ancient mythologies, half-baked truths? He has to throw them out -- that is too risky.

He is part of a crowd. If he keeps the new he becomes a stranger to his own crowd. He will be laughed at, he will be condemned. And if he is insistent, he can also be crucified. The crowd does not like the strangers. The crowd is very much against anybody disturbing its sleep -- although its sleep is nothing but a nightmare. But it is the only thing that the crowd has got. It has no idea, not even a distant echo, that life can be something else too, that this is not the only way of living; life can have a different style.

Right now he lives in a sad, miserable, torturous style. But this style has been supported by millions of people for thousands of years, and this is thought to be religious, spiritual. This is thought to be a necessary sacrifice if you want to realize God.

Zarathustra is a stranger. Obviously his words cannot be taken and cannot be kept. In fact, people like Zarathustra are nothing but a nuisance to the miserable crowd -- although they bring the good news. But nobody is ready to listen to them.

It is one of the most miserable facts about humanity that it has become accustomed to chains, superstitions, slavery, commandments. And it has forgotten completely that it has a soul, a sensitivity, an intelligence, which can be refined and which can become his only religion.

Religion is not in the scriptures, and not in the words of the priest; religion is a flowering of your own intelligence, of your own consciousness. It is not in the churches, nor in the temples, nor in the synagogues. Unless you become a temple, unless you become spacious enough -- pure and clean, just like the sky, unbounded -- you will not know anything of religious experience.

And this is the whole message of Zarathustra: how man can become a superman. God is not his message, his message is that you are carrying the seeds of superman but you are not taking any care about them. You have the right soil in your heart, you have the right love and the tenderness; just you have to be a gardener of your own inner world, and your life will become a festivity, a celebration. And this festiveness, this ecstasy, this celebration is the only religion there is. All else is just the profession of the priests to exploit you.

And they have exploited badly. They have taken away all your blood, they have taken away everything that was important in you. They have destroyed you completely, and they have left only corpses behind.

THEY ARE SURPRISED -- when they listen to Zarathustra -- THAT I HAVE NOT COME TO RAIL AT THEIR LUSTS AND VICES. That's what the priests have always been doing -- condemning their lust, condemning their vices, condemning their desires. They have become accustomed to that. The priests never praise anything in the inner world of man. Everything is wrong -- you are a born sinner. They have convinced you, through thousands of years of conditioning, that it is impossible for you to listen to any other kind of message.

THEY ARE SURPRISED THAT I HAVE NOT COME TO RAIL AT THEIR LUSTS AND VICES; AND TRULY, I HAVE NOT COME TO WARN AGAINST PICKPOCKETS, EITHER!

AND WHEN I CRY: `CURSE ALL THE COWARDLY DEVILS WITHIN YOU WHO WOULD LIKE TO WHIMPER AND CLASP THEIR HANDS AND WORSHIP,' THEN THEY CRY: `ZARATHUSTRA IS GODLESS.'

Who worships in you? Have you ever pondered over the problem? Is it not something cowardly in you that kneels down before stone statues made by man? It cannot be something courageous. One that worships is hiding his cowardliness in a beautiful word.

Who is it in you that surrenders, becomes a Christian or a Hindu, or a Mohammedan? Is it a lion in you, or a sheep?

Jesus used to say to his people, "You are my sheep and I am your shepherd." And not a single one of his followers ever raised the question, "You are insulting us. Why should we be sheep? Why should we not be lions, and why should we not bear in us a lion's roar?"

Naturally, lions don't need shepherds -- that is the problem. If people are really awakened to their bravery, then they don't need any shepherd, they don't need any savior, they don't need any messiah. They are their own saviors; and that gives pride and dignity and beauty to human beings.

To call human beings sheep is so insulting, so humiliating that one wonders how people listened to all this. And even today millions of Christians around the world -- and that is the greatest religion as far as numbers are concerned -- think of themselves as the sheep of Jesus Christ. If somebody wants to be a shepherd, he has to reduce the whole of humanity into an ugly state, into cowards.

Whenever you are in difficulty, why do you start immediately praying to God? -- although you know your prayers are never heard; there is nobody to hear them. It is possible, just by coincidence, you may think that your prayer has been heard.

A man used to come to me -- he had no child, and he said to me, "I cannot believe in God unless I have a child. And I hope that if God wants a believer, he should give me a child."

Now there is no need... even if there is a God, what is the use of having this fellow as a believer -- to fulfill his demands?

A child was born to him, and he came to me with sweets and fruits. He was distributing them in the whole neighborhood. I said, "What has happened?"

He said, "God has heard me."

I said to him, "Just wait a little. God cannot be so much concerned about you." The universe is big, and this beautiful planet earth is such a small thing. Even our own sun is thousands of times bigger than this earth, and even this great sun that is our life is a very mediocre star in the universe. There are millions of times bigger stars than this sun. And scientists guess that there must be at least fifty thousand planets in the whole universe where life exists. And this poor fellow is thinking that God has heard his prayer!

I told him a story by Bertrand Russell. The Vatican pope dies. Obviously he knocks on the doors of heaven, because heaven and hell are just in front of each other. Hours of knocking... because the door is so big, he cannot see its end. He tries hard -- it is so vast.

But finally a window opens in the door, and Saint Peter looks out. With great difficulty, he finds this pope standing there -- just as you can find an ant standing on your door. It is very difficult to have a dialogue. The pope shouts. Saint Peter says, "Say it a little louder, because you are too small."

He says, "You don't understand. I am the representative of Jesus Christ; I am coming from the earth. I was the pope in the Vatican, and what kind of reception is this?"

And Saint Peter says to him, "We have never heard of any earth. You will have to give me the index number."

The pope says, "Index number?"

Saint Peter says, "There are so many planets that unless I get the index number of your earth, I cannot go to the library to find out where you come from. What do you mean by the Vatican, and who is this Jesus Christ?"

The pope shouts, "Are you kidding? Jesus Christ is the only begotten son of God."

Saint Peter said, "Do you think he finished after only one son, in the whole eternity he could produce only one son? I will go to the library, but without an index number it is very difficult to find out... which earth do you mean?"

The pope says, "I am coming from the solar system."

He says, "That's perfectly good, but there are millions of solar systems. Which solar system? What Index number?"

The pope says, "It is better you take me directly to God."

Saint Peter said, "I myself have not seen Him. I am just a doorkeeper, and God is too big. I have only heard about Him. You will have to forgive me. But I will do my best to find the index number, find out about Jesus Christ and about this Vatican."

He goes off and after hours he returns. And he says, "It is almost impossible. Millions of planets... there is no way to pinpoint where your earth is, where your solar system is. And anyway, what right do you have to enter into heaven? The easiest way is... on the other side of the road... there they don't ask who you are, they are nice people. They don't ask whether you deserve hell or not; the moment they see you, they grab you. You just try the other place."

He was woken up by the very idea that he has to go to hell, and the devils will grab him -- they don't even ask who you are. And then he remembered all the tortures, the hellfire... and the most difficult thing about the Christian hell is that it has no exit. You can enter, but you cannot get out. Otherwise, just as a tourist one could enjoy. But once you get in, you become an eternal resident without any application to leave. He woke up out of fear; he was perspiring all over. He was not dead, he was dreaming.

I told this man, "The very idea is egoistic -- that God should hear your prayer, should give proof by giving you a child. Just wait for a few more proofs, because one proof is not enough. No science will allow a single proof; it has to be repeatedly proved.

"You ask something else. You suffer from migraine, now start asking, `Take my migraine away; otherwise I will not believe in you.' And you have a good strategy to blackmail God. He wants you to believe in Him, so exploit him as much as you can. Your brother is unemployed, ask for employment. Your father has cancer, ask for his cancer to be removed... you have so many problems. The child was not a problem at all. And are you certain the child is yours?"

He said, "I never thought that you will be so rude with me."

I said, "I am not being rude, because you have been trying for years, and there was no child coming, and suddenly it has come. Just look around the neighborhood, some rascal is doing it. Don't jump to God, first look around. There are so many rascals in the neighborhood."

He said, "That I know -- there are rascals."

I said, "Go back home. Don't waste your money in distributing sweets and fruits, first find out whose son has been born. Is it yours?"

He said, "To meet you is always a trouble. Now you have created a suspicion in my mind. I already have a migraine. Instead of being a help, now I will look with suspicion at every person who is connected with my family -- the servants, the neighbors, the relatives. And to tell you the truth," he whispered, "I had my suspicions, because the doctor has been telling me, `You cannot have a child.'

"But you should not be so harsh. I was happy that God has given me the child. And God is all-powerful; even if the doctor says I cannot have a child... God can change my chemistry, my hormones, my sperm. But I will go back. Now I cannot go on distributing sweets. I am afraid that you are right -- you may be right!"

The people who worship are cowards. The people who pray are naggers. Prayer is nothing but nagging God, "Do this!" -- every morning and evening. Mohammedans are the best nagging people; they nag God five times a day! Hindus don't let Him even sleep in the beautiful mornings. They get up early, at three o'clock, and start praying. Sufis pray in the middle of the night.

Even if there had been a God in the beginning, He must have gone mad by now! So many people, and so many demands.... But you don't see that when you pray you are simply demanding. And a prayer cannot be a demand; it can only be a gratefulness.

When you worship, it cannot be out of your cowardliness; it can only be a lion's roar. The sheer joy, the overflowing energy....

AND WHEN I CRY: `CURSE ALL THE COWARDLY DEVILS... THEY ALL CRY: `ZARATHUSTRA IS GODLESS.' They don't listen. On the contrary, they start abusing Zarathustra.

AND THIS IS ESPECIALLY THE CRY OF THEIR TEACHERS OF SUBMISSION; BUT IT IS INTO PRECISELY THEIR EARS THAT I LOVE TO SHOUT: YES! I AM ZARATHUSTRA THE GODLESS! Zarathustra respects what is evolving in man so deeply, so profoundly that he can sacrifice all gods for its growth.

THIS IS MY SERMON FOR THEIR EARS: I AM ZARATHUSTRA THE GODLESS, WHO SAYS `WHO IS MORE GODLESS THAN I, THAT I MAY REJOICE IN HIS TEACHING?'I am more godless than Zarathustra; but it is very difficult to bridge the gap, twenty-five centuries, because at least Zarathustra goes on denying God... I don't even care to deny him.

Even to deny God is, in a negative way, keeping his name alive.

I want humanity simply to forget that nightmare of thousands of years that is associated with God. I don't think it is even necessary to say, "There is no God." It simply is not.

I would have given Zarathustra good company, but perhaps twenty-five centuries ago it was difficult to find a man... particularly in Iran, where Zarathustra was teaching his tremendously important philosophy. But in India at that very time there was Mahavira who denies God, and there was Gautam Buddha who denies God. But their denial is very sophisticated.

Zarathustra is very raw and very wild, and that is his beauty. He does not speak in a polished way; he speaks like a child, utterly innocent. He does not speak in a roundabout way, he does not speak in a sophisticated way. Buddha and Mahavira both speak in such a way that many people may not understand that they don't believe in God.

But Zarathustra is straight. He simply calls a spade a spade. And that's what I love in him -- his rawness. He is not a diamond -- cut, polished; he is directly from the mine -- uncut, unpolished. Therein lies his beauty and his truth.

I AM ZARATHUSTRA THE GODLESS: WHERE SHALL I FIND MY EQUAL? ALL THOSE WHO GIVE THEMSELVES THEIR OWN WILL AND RENOUNCE ALL SUBMISSION, THEY ARE MY EQUALS. Those who renounce all submission, surrendering to any god, being obedient to any scriptures....

The other-world teachers have been insisting, "Renounce the world." Zarathustra is saying, "Renounce your scriptures, and the renouncers! Renounce submission, renounce your cowardliness." Be authentically yourself, and only then your life sources can start flowing.

BUT WHY DO I SPEAK WHERE NO ONE HAS MY KIND OF EARS? AND SO I WILL SHOUT IT OUT TO ALL THE WINDS. One can understand the difficulty. Particularly I can understand the difficulty. Many mystics have found the same problem.

Bodhidharma, one of the greatest masters, who became the source of the tradition of Zen, remained for nine years facing the wall. He would not face his audience. People would ask questions and he would answer to the wall.

Emperor Wu of China asked him, "This is a little strange. I have never seen such meetings. The speaker has to face the audience; you keep your back towards the audience. What kind of behavior is this?"

Bodhidharma said, "I used to keep, just like other speakers, the audience in front of me. But I found just a wall, and it was hurting, so I decided that it is better to keep the audience behind me and face the wall. The wall does not hurt, because it is a wall. It does not listen, but you cannot expect a wall to listen. But when I talk to people, and I see just walls around, it hurts. And I cannot stop speaking, because that which has grown in me is overflowing, and I cannot control it.

Zarathustra says, BUT WHY DO I SPEAK WHERE NO ONE HAS MY KIND OF EARS? AND SO I WILL SHOUT IT OUT TO ALL THE WINDS. I will not bother about people, whether they hear or not, I will talk to the winds. Perhaps they may carry the word, perhaps they may carry the message to the right kind of ears.

But it is very unfortunate that people like Zarathustra and Bodhidharma should feel so frustrated with our so-called humanity -- and the intelligentsia particularly are more dead, because they already think they know.

YOU WILL BECOME SMALLER AND SMALLER.... This is something so prophetic that it has come to be true.

YOU WILL BECOME SMALLER AND SMALLER, YOU SMALL PEOPLE! YOU WILL CRUMBLE AWAY, YOU COMFORTABLE PEOPLE! YOU WILL YET PERISH --

THROUGH YOUR MANY SMALL VIRTUES, THROUGH YOUR MANY SMALL OMISSIONS, THROUGH YOUR MANY SMALL SUBMISSIONS!

What are our virtues? Is what our so-called religions teach virtuous? In the eyes of Zarathustra they are so small that your virtues -- rather than making you greater, giving you a grandeur -- make you even smaller.

I have heard about a woman who was a miser. In her whole life, she had only given a rotten carrot to a beggar -- that was all you could call virtuous in her. She died, and the angels came to take her. The problem was the carrot -- she has done a virtuous act; you cannot send her to hell.

So they told the woman, "This is your carrot that you gave to a beggar. This is your only virtue, so hold onto it, and it will go like a rocket towards heaven. Remember not to lose the grip."

The people who had gathered -- hearing that the old woman, the old miser, has died -- were surprised that the woman was being uplifted by something they could not see. But she was going upwards! They could not lose such a chance, so somebody took hold of her legs.

It became a long queue. And the carrot was going up and the woman was very angry -- angry naturally because it was her virtue, and all these neighbors hanging in a long queue... she could not tolerate it. When they reached near heaven, she shouted, "You idiots. You have never done anything virtuous. This carrot is MINE!" But at that moment the carrot was lost, and with the woman the whole queue fell down to earth. The woman was dead, but she killed almost two hundred people.

What are our virtues: that you have given something to eat to a beggar, that you have donated for a temple to be raised. But do you think these are virtues?

I have heard, a man had just won a lottery, and he was so happy. Coming home he had to pass a bridge, and on the side of the bridge there was sitting an old blind beggar, who had always been sitting there. He had never given anything to him, but today was a different day; he had got such a big lump sum of money. He gave one rupee to the beggar.

The beggar looked at it and said, "Sir, it is fake."

The man said, "My God! You are blind, and you can see whether the coin is fake or authentic."

He said, "To tell you the truth, this is not my place; it belongs to my friend who is blind. Today he has gone to see the matinee show. I am the other fellow who sits on the other side of the bridge. I am just keeping his place, so nobody else gets into it. It is a very good corner.

"First I also used to be blind, but people were cheating, and I could not even say to them that they are cheating, so I dropped that idea. Now I have become deaf. Right now I am not, but when you see me in my place I am completely deaf -- because I saw that at least I can prevent people cheating me."

You think you are doing virtue by giving to a beggar; the beggar thinks he is cheating you, the beggar thinks that you are a fool. What are your virtues? Your virtues make you... but you are not great, you are not enjoying your virtues. They must be too small.

Zarathustra says, THROUGH YOUR MANY SMALL VIRTUES, THROUGH YOUR MANY SMALL OMISSIONS, THROUGH YOUR MANY SMALL SUBMISSIONS!

TOO INDULGENT, TOO YIELDING: THAT IS THE STATE OF YOUR SOIL! BUT IN ORDER TO GROW BIG, A TREE WANTS TO STRIKE HARD ROOTS INTO HARD ROCKS!

This small, so-called religiousness will not help. Because you fasted one day, you pray every day, you go to the temple every day, you kneel down before statues of God... just think what value all these things have. They keep you small.

TO GROW BIG, A TREE WANTS TO STRIKE HARD ROOTS INTO HARD ROCKS!

`IT IS GIVEN' -- THAT IS ALSO A DOCTRINE OF SUBMISSION. BUT I TELL YOU, YOU COMFORTABLE PEOPLE: IT IS TAKEN.

A very important point to be remembered. It has been said by all the teachers, without exception, that truth is given to you -- given by God. Zarathustra says, "It is not given, it is taken."

Only one man in this century, George Gurdjieff, had a similar idea, even more rough and more hard. He used to say, "Unless you are ready to steal the truth you will not get it." It is not only a question of taking; you have to steal it, you have to risk everything -- even your respectability, even your so-called virtue, your morality.

Truth cannot be given by anyone to anybody else. Zarathustra is right: it has to be taken.And to take it, you need to be not a coward, not a slave, not a beggar, but a lion: strong, able to take it.

A given truth is just a lie. And all your truths are given truths. Who has given you your God? Who has given you your truth? Who has given you your religion?

Just check one thing: has it been given to you, or have you taken it? If it has been given to you, throw it away -- it means nothing, it is self-deception. You have to be strong enough to take it.

OH, THAT YOU UNDERSTOOD MY SAYING: `ALWAYS DO WHAT YOU WILL -- BUT FIRST BE SUCH AS CAN WILL!' -- a very subtle difference, but very great. He is saying, ALWAYS DO WHAT YOU WILL. You understand it, there is nothing difficult in understanding it -- ALWAYS DO WHAT YOU WILL -- but are you capable of willing?

BUT FIRST BE SUCH AS CAN WILL! -- because willing needs a non-submissive, strong, independent individuality; otherwise you cannot will. You can only pray; you can ask, you can beg. Your will will remain impotent. Become more crystallized, more of an individual, less a part of the crowd, so that you can will.

ALWAYS LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELVES. This is a famous statement, later on made by Jesus. But Zarathustra's insights are far deeper.

He says -- he had no idea about Jesus, Jesus came five hundred years afterwards; but the saying must have been in existence -- ALWAYS LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELVES -- BUT FIRST BE SUCH AS LOVE THEMSELVES. That is more difficult. Love them as they are -- not as yourselves.

Loving your neighbor as yourself is simply loving your own image in the mirror. It is not a great virtue, it is a small virtue.

Love the neighbor as he is. Whether he fulfills your ideas or is against them, whether he looks moral to you or immoral, these are unimportant things. He is a human being, and he has every right to be himself. Love him as he is. Your love should not become a demand, your love should not ask him to be different than he is.

This statement, LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELVES, has another implication also which Zarathustra has not mentioned, which I have come across almost every day.

And this is how man remains blind.

LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELVES... and you have forgotten one thing: Do you love yourself? It is very rare to find a person who loves himself. People hate themselves. They don't want to be the way they are; they want to be somebody else... somebody else has a better nose, somebody else has better eyes, somebody else has a better body, somebody is more proportionate, somebody has better intelligence.

People hate themselves. And your religions have been teaching you contradictory things, which have created confusion and a chaos in your mind. On the one hand they say, "You have to become like Gautam Buddha." Then how can you love yourself? You have to hate yourself, you have to destroy yourself, dismantle yourself, and try to be like Gautam Buddha or Jesus or Krishna.

On the one hand they say, "Be like the great religious leaders, saints," and on the other hand they go on saying, "Love your neighbor as yourself."

If you really love your neighbor as yourself, you will have to hate him, because you hate yourself. You don't find anything in yourself which is worth loving. In fact, when people fall in love with each other, both are surprised: "My God, what has this man found in me which I have not found myself?" And the man also thinks, "This woman is a little bit crazy -- she loves me, who has lived with himself for all these thirty years and has not found a single thing worth any value."

Lovers surprise each other. Although nobody says it, both feel, deep down, really strange -- such a beautiful woman... a beauty loving a beast! And the beautiful woman knows perfectly well that she is a bitch -- such a young fellow, so beautiful falling in love with a bitch!

But these are inside things. They will become apparent after the honeymoon -- then they will come to know each other -- but then it is too late. They have promised to each other, "I will love you for my whole life. And not only in this life, if I am born again I will love you again. My love is not the ordinary love that changes, it is love eternal."

Now, what to do with your promises when you discover who the other person is in reality? Then they go on accumulating hate for each other -- pretending, acting love, but it becomes just acting.

AMONG THIS PEOPLE I AM MY OWN FORERUNNER, MY OWN COCK-CROW THROUGH DARK LANES. Every great mystic has been a forerunner to himself, because every great mystic has come before his time. You can see it -- Zarathustra is even today not our contemporary. He is still ahead of us; he had come too soon, too early.

BUT THEIR HOUR IS COMING! AND MINE TOO IS COMING! HOURLY WILL THEY BECOME SMALLER, POORER, MORE BARREN -- POOR WEEDS! POOR SOIL!

AND SOON THEY SHALL STAND BEFORE ME LIKE ARID GRASS AND STEPPE, AND TRULY! WEARY OF THEMSELVES -- AND LONGING FOR FIRE RATHER THAN FOR WATER!

Perhaps we have come to the point... his prophecy seems to be coming true. Man is preparing more for war than for peace. Man is creating more for death than for life. Seventy percent of all the wealth of the world is devoted to creating nuclear weapons.

WEARY OF THEMSELVES... perhaps humanity is tired now of being small, being too mean, being too jealous, being too ugly, and has lost all hope of growing out of this muddy state, has forgotten that lotuses are born in mud... AND LONGING FOR FIRE RATHER THAN FOR WATER!

It seems that people are deep-down ready to commit a global suicide; otherwise there is no reason why so much money should be wasted, and so much energy should be wasted for war.

All that money and all that energy and all that scientific genius can make this earth a paradise. But nobody is interested in that. Everybody is interested in finding more and more dangerous weapons. And now it is absolutely clear that nobody can be the victor, nobody can be the defeated; all will be dead. Still man goes on accumulating.

Even poorer countries, like Pakistan or India, are dying to create nuclear weapons. And the scientific surveys show that by the end of this century... right now only five nations have nuclear weapons, but by the end of this century twenty-five more nations will have joined in the nuclear club. Thirty nations will be nuclear powers.

What has happened to man's intelligence, that it is only devoted to a single cause -- death?

O BLESSED HOUR OF THE LIGHTNING! O MYSTERY BEFORE NOONTIDE! ONE DAY I SHALL TURN THEM INTO RUNNING FIRE AND HERALDS WITH TONGUES OF FLAME --

ONE DAY THEY SHALL PROCLAIM WITH TONGUES OF FLAME: IT IS COMING, IT IS NEAR, THE GREAT NOONTIDE!

But Zarathustra still hopes that we can even transform fire into a creative energy. You cook your food on fire and you can also burn your house with fire. Fire is neutral. All energies are neutral; it depends on you to what use you want to put them.

Zarathustra is not weary of himself. He still hopes that one day he will be able to declare... THE GREAT NOONTIDE.

That is his symbolic expression for the greatest explosion of light, love, individuality, freedom. All these he calls, THE GREAT NOONTIDE -- the highest peak in human consciousness.

... THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA.

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.