Zarathustra The Laughing Prophet ~ 21
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| event type | discourse |
| date & time | 18 Apr 1987 am |
| location | Chuang Tzu Auditorium, Pune |
| language | English |
| audio | Available, duration 1h 57min. Quality: good. Live music after the discourse. |
| online audio | |
| video | Available, duration 2h 1min. Quality: good. |
| online video | |
| see also |
|
| online text | find the PDF of this discourse |
| shorttitle | ZARA221 |
- notes
- synopsis
- Reader of the sutra: Ma Prem Maneesha.
- The sutra
- Of the meeting with a higher man
- Months and years pass, and Zarathustra's hair grows white as he waits until the sign that it is time for his descent to men again. One day, while sitting outside his cave, Zarathustra is visited by the old prophet, who warns Zarathustra that he has come to seduce him to his ultimate sin -- that of pity, pity for the 'higher man'. Zarathustra is horror-struck by this, but finally agrees to answer the cry of the higher man, to seek him out and help him.
- He leaves his cave, and sets out on a path on which he meets diverse people. First, the kings -- who tell Zarathustra that they are in search of the higher man. Zarathustra invites them to wait in his cave for his return. He then encounters the 'conscientious man of spirit' who wishes to discard all knowledge. He tells Zarathustra, 'I am blind and want to be blind. But where I want to know, I also want to be honest, that is, severe, stern, strict, cruel, inexorable.' He came to this conclusion through once hearing Zarathustra saying that, 'Spirit is the life that itself cuts into life.'
- Zarathustra tells the man where his cave is, and invites him to await his return.
- Next, Zarathustra comes across a sorcerer, who finally admits to being fed-up with his own trickery; he meets, too, the last pope on earth, who reveals that, having been intimate with God, he knows how and why God died: he suffocated through excessive self-pity.
- But the sorcerer and the old pope are invited to go to Zarathustra's cave. Next Zarathustra finds himself face to face with 'the ugliest man' -- the man who killed God. This man is on his way to Zarathustra, finding in him his last refuge. He explains why God had to die -- he saw too much about man, his pity knew no shame -- so that finally the ugliest man realized that either he himself would die of shame or take revenge on God. 'Man,' he explained to Zarathustra, 'could not endure such a witness should live.'
- Again, Zarathustra indicates where his cave is, and the ugliest man makes his way there. The voluntary beggar meets and converses with Zarathustra, and joins the others in his cave.
- On this same day at noontide, Zarathustra is passing by a tree where he pauses to sleep. He is filled with a sense of the perfection of the world, and when he arises from the bed some time later, he feels as if he is intoxicated.
- Zarathustra makes for the direction of his cave. As he approaches it, he hears the cry of distress -- the same cry that the old prophet had said came from 'the higher man'. Zarathustra hurries forward to see all his visitors assembled there -- the kings, the conscientious man of spirit, the sorcerer, the old pope, and so on: for they are the 'higher men'.
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