Secret History #18: Thus Spoke Zarathustra
We've done the Greeks and the Israelites, and now we discuss the Persians. Today I introduce to you the most influential person who has ever lived, and his name is Zoroaster (or Zarathustra).
Zoroaster would create the world's first great world religion, called Zoroastrianism. This would lead to the rise of the world's first great empire: the Achaemenid Empire. To understand Zoroaster, let's go back and understand how we humans have traditionally understood the world.
The Intuitive Universe
Intuitively, we've understood that the world is one of consciousness. The universe is conscious; it's constantly vibrating. These vibrations are infinite. The lower the vibrations go, the slower they are, and therefore they give rise to matter and to humans. We both inhabit the material universe, but our minds inhabit the spiritual universe. As a result, when we vibrate as well, our consciousness returns to the universe. We're in constant dialogue with the universe.
Now, this is hard to understand, so we've used metaphors or stories to explain this system. This is God, called the monad or the One or Nous. There are different names for this God, and this God is perfect. The problem with perfection is that you lack imagination and creativity. That's why when God emanates, he created us, humans. Why? Because we are material. We have bodies and therefore we are imperfect. This means that when we hit a wall, we feel pain. We can fall down, die, suffer, and make mistakes. At the same time, it is through constantly making mistakes, disobedience, and fallibility that we are able to be creative.
As a result, both God and we are in the process of becoming. We are becoming into perfection; we are becoming into eternity and infinity. We are co-creators with God.
There are certain characteristics about this system that you have to remember. First of all, we need to have free will. Only by having complete freedom can we be truly creative. If the monad is controlling us, then there can't be any creativity; it's all intentional and planned. So, free will is very important.
Another very important idea is the individual. How the system works is that what matters is what happens inside of us, because only we individually can give rise to creativity. It is our interactions with the monad that are important. To use a metaphor, imagine a candle. We are all mirrors surrounding this candle, and the candle is reflected in us. The monad is in us, and we are all part of it together. What happens is what happens to us individually.
Another very important part of this is eternity, or reincarnation. The idea here is that when you die, you don't just disappear. Your consciousness returns to the spirit world. Why? Because maybe in this world, you made a lot of mistakes, and you can't really appreciate all the pain you've caused. When you return to the spirit world, it's a time for you to reflect and understand your significance in this world. The idea is that if you've done a lot of good in this world, if you've been virtuous, you ascend to a higher plane. If you did a lot of bad things, then you stay in the lower realm. This is the idea of heaven and hell. If you did a lot of good, you can appreciate all that you've done and be closer to the monad. If you've done a lot of bad, then you will see for yourself all the hurt you've caused in the world, and you'll be further down from the monad.
This is how we've intuitively understood the universe to work. When we're born, we're born almost with an intuitive understanding of this. The problem is that as our populations continue to grow, eventually we have war. War gives rise to patriarchy and property. How do you incentivize people to go fight? You promise them, "This wife will be yours. You'll be the master of the household, and whatever you win, whether it's gold or whatever, it will be yours forever." These three things—war, patriarchy, and property—are all interlinked. This, you can argue, gives rise to the idea of capital.
The Bronze Age was the height of capital and therefore it was the height of war, slavery, corruption, violence, and evil in this world. In this time, there emerged prophets—poet prophets—who came to tell us that what we're doing is wrong. We must remember where we came from originally. We must remember that we are part of the monad and that we're here to celebrate life, not to destroy it; to be creative, not destructive; to love, not to make war.
During the Bronze Age, a man named Zoroaster emerges. He is a poet prophet, just like Homer and the Yahwists, and he's dealing with a situation where war, patriarchy, and property are prevalent. We can't imagine a world without these things. So now he has to create a new system. He has to present through his poetry new ideas that help us return to the monad. He creates the beginnings of a new world religion called Zoroastrianism.
Zoroaster's Revolution: Asha vs. Druj
Remember that this is a polytheistic world where you fight for your god. The gods don't really care about what's good and what's evil; all they care about is themselves. You celebrate them, you make sacrifices to them. If you give them enough money, if you bribe them well enough, then you win wars. That's the system we call polytheism.
What Zoroaster does is reimagine the system and create a new hierarchy where Ahura Mazda is the top god. You can call him a monad as well. For Zoroaster, Ahura Mazda is the "Lord of Wisdom." He's represented by the idea of fire. Zoroastrianism in Chinese is 拜火教 (bài huǒ jiào), the religion of worshipping fire. It's a religion of wisdom.
He also says that the war of heaven and hell is within us. There are two forces that tear at us, that divide us. The first is the force of Asha. The second is the force of Druj. These ideas are hard to translate, but Asha means truth and Druj means the lie.
The Greeks really admired the Persians. They said the Persians are good at three things: horse riding, archery, and telling the truth. The Persians find it abhorrent and hateful to lie. But that's a very simplistic understanding of the system. Telling the truth is not all that Asha is. What Asha really is is a system of virtue. By being virtuous, by doing good in the world, you become closer to Ahura Mazda. You become his representative on earth.
The Philosophy of Asha and the Categorical Imperative
To better understand this idea, I'm going to introduce another concept called the Categorical Imperative. We don't know when Zoroaster lived, but it was about 3,000 years ago. Immanuel Kant is from the 18th century, closer to our time, and he introduces this concept. For him, the categorical imperative is the highest moral law, the highest moral good, what we all should strive for. It's very similar to the concept of Asha.
There are three principles of the categorical imperative.
- The Law of Universality: The first and most important is the law of universality. What is good? To know what is good, imagine that whatever you do, whatever you say, everyone in the world will immediately do as well. If you get angry, everyone gets angry at the same time. If you are violent, everyone is violent at the same time. If you curse God, everyone curses God. Do you want to live in a world like that? Obviously not. That is what the categorical imperative is: act, do, and think as though everything you do will be reflected throughout the universe and you are the universe itself. This idea has been misunderstood as the Golden Rule, "Do unto others as others would do unto you," but it's a much higher concept. The higher concept is to imagine that you are God yourself, and everything you do will be reflected throughout the universe. Then how would you behave? You would behave with the highest virtue because you want to make the world a better place.
- Free Will: Whatever you do cannot be coerced. Whatever you do must be out of your own desire, your own will, your own volition, your own choice. Otherwise, it's wrong. I cannot make you do good. You must want to do good by yourself. If you want to do evil, you should do evil because it's your choice. Even though it leads to a worse world, it's important to maintain the principle of free will and free choice.
- Humans as an End: You may have heard the phrase "the means to an end." Maybe I'm a king and I need to build a better world, so I need to start wars and conquer the world. I need to sacrifice a billion human beings in order to create a perfect world. That may sound good in theory, but what Kant and Zoroaster would say is that's wrong because humans are an end unto themselves. Every human life is as valuable as all human life together. You cannot sacrifice one person for the sake of others. That is fundamentally wrong. To do that can only lead you into hell.
These three things together give us a concept of Asha. You can see immediately how complicated it is, but at the same time, you can also understand how revolutionary it is. Asha presents to us three new concepts that will revolutionize human history:
- The Individual: What matters is what matters inside of you. If everyone's doing bad, that's their problem. Don't worry about them. Just do what is good for you.
- Free Choice: Don't ever feel as though you're being forced to do something. Do something because you will it so.
- Truth: Why do you do this? Because the monad will know. Because Ahura Mazda will know. Because you will know. What your family says, what your community says, what your nation says does not matter. Only what you feel in your heart matters.
This introduces a new concept in human history called monotheism. Zoroastrianism will give birth to three new religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Together, this is 2 to 3 billion people on earth. That's why I say Zoroaster is the most important individual who's ever lived, because he will create the structure for monotheism—these three concepts that will give rise to three world religions.
Plato's Cave and the Responsibility of Truth
Zoroaster had a major impact on the Greeks, especially Greek philosophy. In fact, the Greeks didn't consider him just a poet; they considered him the first scientist, the first astronomer, the first philosopher, the first magician. The Greeks had reverence for him. Plato will take a lot of his ideas and create a very powerful metaphor that helps us understand Asha better. He calls it the Allegory of the Cave.
Imagine that we are in a cave. We're all prisoners inside, chained to the ground. We can't ever get up; we can't even move our necks. We only stare at the wall in front of us. Behind us is a fire, and this fire is projecting shadows onto the wall. We give names to these shadows, and this is what we call reality. But it's a shadow reality. It's all fake, it's all false, it's all what we imagine it to be.
One day, for whatever reason, for one of us, the chains disappear. We stumble upwards out of the cave. Suddenly we're in the light. We see the sun. The sun, of course, is Asha, truth, or Ahura Mazda. We're blinded because our eyes are used to seeing the dark. We can't see. We feel nothing but pain for a long, long time. But over time, we start to see more clearly, and we see the world is beautiful. We see the birds flying in the sky, the trees around us, the animals, and we're like, "This is beautiful. I found heaven. I found the truth. I found Asha. I have found Ahura Mazda. This is what life is really about."
But after some time, you realize this is not enough. "I have found the truth, but the truth is not complete because I know my friends and my family are stuck inside the cave. Therefore, for me to fully achieve Asha, I must go down and tell them the truth. Tell them there is an Asha and we can all break through our chains, escape into the light, and see the truth for ourselves. Then we will be truly happy and free and wise."
That's what Asha is. Asha is not just breaking through your chains and seeing the truth for yourself; it's a responsibility to go and spread this virtue to everyone around you. If you see injustice, speak out.
Another way of saying this is to use the metaphor of a choir. How does a choir work? Ahura Mazda, the monad, is singing a song. We have to sing along with him. If we do that, the world is harmonized, perfect, and beautiful. But if most of us are out of tune, then we need to get into tune. Asha is not just self-realization, self-truth. It is helping others see the truth for themselves. If you yourself see the truth, you now have a responsibility to teach this truth to others.
But the problem is, of course, if you go down and tell everyone, "Hey man, this world we're living in is a shadow world. It's a prison. We need to break our chains and escape into the real world," everyone's like, "You're crazy, man. Get out of here." And you're like, "No, no, no, we have to go." And they're like, "Okay, well then describe this world to us." And you're like, "Um, it's kind of hard to describe." "Well, you're crazy then."
That's Plato's Allegory of the Cave, and this gives you a better understanding of the idea of Asha. If you move towards the truth, you're moving towards Asha. But if you're moving away from Asha, you're moving towards the Druj. This is the basic premise of Zoroastrianism, the idea that Zoroaster brought to the world that will forever change it.
The Historical Zoroaster
We don't know when Zoroaster lived, but we estimate anywhere between 2000 BCE to about 1000 BCE. That's the Bronze Age. I suspect he lived towards the end of the Bronze Age. Why? Because when the Bronze Age is coming into form, people are in love with capitalism. People want to get rich. But after the system matures, there's slavery, debt, corruption, misery, and suffering, and so people want to hear another voice.
Zoroaster himself was a priest, and he was disgusted by the corruption of priests. Remember, being a priest means being a teacher, leading people into the light, leading people into Asha. But once the Bronze Age becomes more mature, priests are corrupt. They want a lot of money for helping you achieve immortality. They spread false teachings. Zoroaster becomes disgusted and wanders around spreading his new message of Asha.
We don't know where Zoroaster worked specifically, but we suspect northern Iran. Why is this important? Because during the Bronze Age, the main centers of wealth were Mesopotamia, Egypt, and the Levant. This area was more like a colony where there was a lot of mining going on. What's happening here is basically the most human suffering in the world. Imagine Congo, where they're using child slaves to dig for rare earths. It's a marginal empire where war and violence are very common. People are being kidnapped and forced to work in the mines to get tin for the Bronze Age economy.
Zoroaster is a poet prophet. He's a priest, and he's singing songs to help people better understand the world around them. He's trying to remind them of who they really are: parts of God. He says, "Listen with your own ears, with a bright mind. Choose truth from false creed. Each person for his own self before the final judgment comes." The idea of the individual: what matters is yourself. What you do, what your family does, what your clan does, what your tribe does—none of it matters. What you do matters, because when you die, you will face Ahura Mazda in the final judgment. Not your family, but you yourself. And so you must choose Asha, the truth. What is the truth? Being virtuous, because you yourself are virtue.
He wrote in a language called Avestan, and it's a beautiful language. It's poetry.
Asha is the best of all that is good. Asha is happiness. Happiness belongs to the one who follows the righteous path for the sake of the best righteousness.
How do you know you're doing Asha? Because you are happy. The metaphor is, imagine that you live in a world of overweight people who don't exercise and all they do is watch TV. But you decide to go and work out and you become more fit. How do you know you're on the right path? Because you feel happier about yourself. The problem, of course, is that you might lose all your friends and family. That's why people don't do this—not because they don't know the truth, but because they fear the truth.
Here is some of Zoroaster's poetry, called the Gathas, that we know he sang.
Now the two primal Spirits, who revealed themselves in vision as Twins, are the Better and the Bad in thought and word and action. And between these two the wise ones chose aright, the foolish not so.
And when these twain Spirits came together in the beginning, they created Life and Not-Life, and that at the last the Worst Existence shall be to the followers of the Lie, but the Best Existence to him that follows Right.
Of these twain Spirits he that followed the Lie chose doing the worst things; the Holiest Spirit chose Right, he that clothes him with the massy heavens as a garment. So likewise they that are fain to please Ahura Mazda by dutiful actions.
Between these twain the Daevas also chose not aright, for infatuation came upon them as they took counsel together, so that they chose the Worst Thought. Then they rushed together to Violence, that they might enfeeble the world of man.
Even in a world of evil, you can choose and you must choose to be good. If people are lying, you tell the truth, because what matters is your individual action, not what others are doing. God will know what good you did and what evil you did. When you die, it'll be the final judgment. You will have to face God.
So we may be those that make this world advance! O Mazda, and you other Ahuras, come hither, vouchsafing your fellowship and Asha, in order that our thought may gather together where wisdom is still shaky.
Then truly on the creation of the Lie shall come the destruction of delight; but they who get themselves good name shall be partakers in the promised reward in the fair abode of the Good Mind, of Mazda, and of Asha.
O ye mortals, mark these commandments which Mazda has ordained—of happiness and pain, the long punishment for the follower of the Druj, and blessings for the followers of the Right. Then hereafter shall it be well.
You should do what is virtuous not only because God will reward you for doing so, but because you will feel eternal happiness in doing so.
When thou, O Mazda, in the beginning didst create the Individual and the Individuality through thy Spirit, and powers of understanding—when thou didst make life clothed with the body, when thou madest actions and teachings whereby one may exercise one's convictions at one's free will.
Then lifts up his voice the false speaker or the true speaker, he that knows or he that knows not, each according to his own heart and mind. Passing from one to another, Armaiti confers with the spirit in whom there is wavering.
Clear it is to the man of understanding, as one who has realized it with thought. He upholds Asha together with good dominion by his word and deed. He will be, O Mazda, the most helpful helper to thee.
When we choose to follow Asha, we are doing God's work. When we in our hearts choose Asha, at that moment we change the world for the better.
Echoes of Zoroaster: Rumi and Nietzsche
This sounds a bit complicated and abstract, and honestly, he was speaking to people of that time. How can we understand what he's really saying? The argument I want to make is that all poet prophets are the same. They're all divinely inspired; they're all speaking a certain truth. By understanding other poet prophets of that region and culture, we gain insight into the true thinking of Zoroaster.
This is Rumi, who is considered the greatest Persian poet who has ever lived. He lived in the 13th century, about 2,000-3,000 years after Zoroaster. In many ways, if you actually read his poetry, he is the reincarnation of Zoroaster. Reading his poetry will give you insight into the cosmology of Zoroastrianism.
I see so deeply within myself, not needing my eyes.
I can see everything clearly.
Why would I want to bother my eyes again
now that I see the world through His eyes?
You should be seeing the world through your imagination. You can imagine a better world. If you imagine a better world, you can create a better world. Don't be fooled by the material world around us. It's all fake, an illusion.
Not Christian or Jew or Muslim, not Hindu,
Buddhist, sufi, or zen. Not any religion
or cultural system. I am not from the East
or the West, not out of the ocean or up
from the ground, not natural or ethereal, not
composed of elements at all. I do not exist,
am not an entity in this world or the next,
did not descend from Adam and Eve or any
origin story. My place is placeless, a trace
of the traceless. Neither body or soul.
I belong to the beloved, have seen the two
worlds as one and that one call to and know,
first, last, outer, inner, only that
breath breathing human being.
We're all part of God. That's our true nature. There's a divine spark in us. Don't be fooled by the material world, and don't be fooled by labels. Christians, Buddhists, Jews—there's no difference. We're all the children of God; we're all the same.
There's a joke: God and Satan are fighting over humanity. God says to Satan, "Ha, humans have discovered religion. Therefore, I have won." And then Satan says, "Yeah, but then I'll just organize it." The idea is that religion is great, but organized religion is problematic because it serves the interests of the priests who control it. That's why there are differences in Buddhism, Judaism, Islam, and Christianity—because the people in charge need to differentiate the religion in order to exploit you and justify their existence. But at the end of the day, we're all connected to the divine, and all that matters is our connection. All these differences are artificially created to fool us.
All day I think about it, then at night I say it.
Where did I come from, and what am I supposed to be doing?
I have no idea.
My soul is from elsewhere, I’m sure of that,
and I intend to end up there.
This drunkenness began in some other tavern.
When I get back around to that place,
I’ll be completely sober. Meanwhile,
I’m like a bird from another continent, sitting in this aviary.
The day is coming when I fly off,
but who is it now in my ear who hears my voice?
Who says words with my mouth?
Who looks out with my eyes? What is the soul?
I cannot stop asking.
If I could taste one sip of an answer,
I could break out of this prison for drunks.
I didn’t come here of my own accord, and I can’t leave that way.
Whoever brought me here will have to take me home.
This is beautiful, and it's also a rewriting of Plato's Allegory of the Cave. This is a prison for drunks. Here, we're all drunk, blind to our true reality. This is just a prison. When we return to the Monad, to Ahura Mazda, then we'll see the truth for ourselves.
Here's another poet prophet: Friedrich Nietzsche. He is one of the three great German philosophers of the past 500 years, along with Immanuel Kant and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Nietzsche wrote Thus Spoke Zarathustra. He wrote in a very interesting way. He liked to take long walks for hours in the mountains, and now and then he felt as though he was being seized by a force that compelled him to speak. He believed this person was Zoroaster. He wrote a book that is a recollection of all the moments when he was seized by Zoroaster and forced to speak his words. If you read what Nietzsche writes, you will see that it's pretty similar to what Zoroaster himself promoted, but Nietzsche is promoting it in a more modern, contemporary lens. If Zoroaster were to come back, he would basically be Nietzsche. In many ways, Nietzsche and Rumi are reincarnations of Zoroaster, all trying to speak a divine truth to humanity.
This is from the prologue of Thus Spoke Zarathustra. What you will notice is that this is exactly like the Gathas.
When Zarathustra was thirty years old, he left his home and the lake of his home and went into the mountains. Here he enjoyed his spirit and his solitude, and for ten years did not tire of it. But at last his heart changed,—and rising one morning with the rosy dawn, he went before the sun, and spake thus unto it:
Thou great star! What would be thy happiness if thou hadst not those for whom thou shinest!
For ten years hast thou climbed hither unto my cave: thou wouldst have wearied of thy light and of the journey, had it not been for me, mine eagle, and my serpent.
But we awaited thee every morning, took from thee thine overflow, and blessed thee for it.
Lo! I am weary of my wisdom, like the bee that hath gathered too much honey; I need hands outstretched to take it.
I would fain bestow and distribute, until the wise have once more become joyous in their folly, and the poor happy in their riches.
Therefore must I descend into the deep: as thou doest in the evening, when thou goest behind the sea, and givest light also to the nether-world, thou exuberant star!
Like thee must I GO DOWN, as men say, to whom I shall descend.
Zoroaster has hidden himself in a cave, and in solitude, he has discovered Asha, the secrets of the universe. And he's discovered that this is not enough. He must now go shine the light on everyone; otherwise, he can never achieve Asha fully. It's exactly like the Allegory of the Cave, where the prisoner escapes into the light and is happy until he realizes that you can't be happy alone. You have to share this happiness with everyone else.
You have implanted your highest aim into the heart of those passions: then they became your virtues and joys.
And though you were of the race of the hot-tempered, or of the voluptuous, or of the fanatical, or of the vindictive;
All your passions in the end became virtues, and all your devils angels.
Once you had wild dogs in your cellar: but they changed at last into birds and charming songstresses.
Out of your poisons you have brewed balsam for yourself; your cow, affliction, you have milked—now you drink the sweet milk of her udder.
And nothing evil grows in you any longer, unless it be the evil that grows out of the conflict of your virtues.
My brother, if you be fortunate, then will you have one virtue and no more: thus you go easier over the bridge.
Illustrious is it to have many virtues, but a hard lot; and many a one has gone into the wilderness and killed himself, because he was weary of being the battle and battlefield of virtues.
If Ahura Mazda is wisdom, why do we live in a world of hate, evil, and sin? The answer is because virtue must come from vice. Good can only come from evil. To live in good forever is to live in ignorance. We are born in the Druj so that we may discover Asha. From our struggles, we will discover what is truly good, and that's a gift that God has given us: to grow, to live in a time of evil so that we ourselves may create good for humanity. That's the central message. Without vice, there can be no virtue. And to have one virtue itself is not enough; you must be constantly in a battle to create more and more virtue.
If you are a person of sin or evil, be thankful, because now is your opportunity to be a star, a sun that through transformation of oneself can brighten the world. When you do that, you transform the world. Your next battle is to go and transform someone else, or to look deeper and discover the evil in you. Don't worry about the world itself; just worry about yourself, because within yourself is a universe of evil that can be transformed into a universe of good.
One really important thing I have to say is that this is not Buddhism. The structure and framework are very similar, but what Zoroastrianism fundamentally says is that compassion is not enough. You have to act, because justice is about action. If you see injustice, you must speak out. You can't be indifferent because you're compassionate. That's not enough. You have to act out. That's why people who believed in this religion were so creative—because they believed in action. Being indifferent is simply being complicit in the system.
You tell me, "Life is hard to bear." But for what purpose should you have your pride in the morning and your resignation in the evening?
Life is hard to bear: but do not affect to be so delicate! We are all of us fine sumpter asses and she-asses.
What have we in common with the rose-bud, which trembles because a drop of dew has formed upon it?
It is true we love life; not because we are wont to live, but because we are wont to love.
There is always some madness in love. But there is always, also, some method in madness.
And to me also, who appreciate life, the butterflies, and soap-bubbles, and whatever is like them amongst us, seem most to enjoy happiness.
To see these light, foolish, pretty, lively little sprites flit about—that moves Zarathustra to tears and songs.
I should only believe in a God that would know how to dance.
And when I saw my devil, I found him serious, thorough, profound, and solemn: he was the spirit of gravity—through him all things fall.
What Nietzsche hates is organized religion because it is very serious and somber. It basically wants to enslave us. It's like, "Don't do anything bad. Don't drink, don't smoke, don't have sex, or you'll burn in hell." That's very serious. What Zoroaster and Nietzsche are saying is that's not what Asha is. Asha is recognizing that the world is beautiful, that Ahura Mazda is all-merciful, all-forgiving, all-love, all-compassion. You must delight in the world because that's why he created us. The only way to survive this world of evil is to recognize that beauty is everywhere around us, and it's our responsibility to discover this beauty and celebrate it. Dance, sing, make love, laugh, smile. That's what life is about. If a priest is telling you to meditate for your life because only through that will you avoid sin, he's a devil. He's denying you your free will, your capacity to love, to seek action yourself.
But one day will the solitude weary you; one day will your pride yield, and your courage quail. You will one day cry, "I am alone!"
One day will you see no longer your loftiness, and see too closely your lowliness; your sublimity itself will frighten you as a phantom. You will one day cry, "All is false!"
Life is a constant struggle between hope and tragedy. There are some days when you will be very hopeful, but there are some days when you'll be very depressed. That's just the process of life and the process of wisdom. To seek wisdom, you always have to constantly destroy yourself. You have to destroy the world around you. It's a never-ending process of pain, suffering, and tragedy, but it will gradually lead you to enlightenment. What's really important is to act, to seek self-destruction.
Another way of saying this is to always assume that whatever you know, no matter how truthful, is probably wrong, and to go and negate yourself. It also means leaving your family, leaving your comfort zone.
A heretic will you be to yourself, and a wizard and a sooth-sayer, and a fool, and a doubter, and a reprobate, and a villain.
A heretic is someone who doubts. You must say, "Everything I've known is wrong." To achieve enlightenment, you must negate everything you've learned and believe it is deceitful so that you can rebuild your own knowledge. The truth has to be for you. There can be no truth for everyone. The truth has to be for you, and you must fight for it every day.
Ready must you be to burn yourself in your own flame; how could you become new if you have not first become ashes!
You lonesome one, you go the way of the creating one: a God will you create for yourself out of your seven devils!
You lonesome one, you go the way of the loving one: you love yourself, and on that account despise yourself, as only the loving ones despise.
To create, desires the loving one, because he despises! What knows he of love who has not been obliged to despise just what he loved!
This is a really hard concept to understand. In the Buddhist tradition, it's about avoiding anger. No. Embrace your anger. Embrace your hate, because hate and love go together. Anger and calm go together. By going to one extreme, you can now embrace the other extreme. Your life is a constant struggle between these two different extremes. When you negate yourself, when you move into nothingness, you can only move into ignorance and slavery. You are born of two natures; you must let these two natures fight.
I now go alone, my disciples! You also now go away, and alone! So will I have it.
Verily, I advise you: depart from me, and guard yourselves against Zarathustra! And better still: be ashamed of him! Perhaps he has deceived you.
The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies, but also to hate his friends.
If you want true knowledge, you can learn from me, but in the end, we must leave each other, and you must say, "He is now my enemy. I must now destroy him." If I really want to be myself, I need to destroy my teachers in order to discover my true self. Most people don't want to do this. Most people just want to cling to their mother or their teacher, but you can never achieve true Asha if you do this.
You love your virtue as a mother loves her child; but when did one hear of a mother wanting to be paid for her love?
It is your dearest Self, your virtue. The ring's thirst is in you: to reach itself again struggles every ring, and turns itself.
And like the star that goes out, so is every work of your virtue: ever is its light on its way and travelling—and when will it cease to be on its way?
Thus is the light of your virtue still on its way, even when its work is done. Be it forgotten and dead, still its ray of light lives and travels.
When we die, our bodies decompose. What's still left is our virtue. That's who we are. Our virtue, all the good we've done in the world, all the knowledge, all the enlightenment, all the emotions that we've generated—that will be eternal. We must embrace this nature and become virtue itself. Being human is to be first and foremost virtuous, to seek Asha.
For this is the truth: I have departed from the house of the scholars, and the door have I also slammed behind me.
Too long did my soul sit hungry at their table; not like them have I got the knack of investigating, as the knack of nut-cracking.
Freedom do I love, and the air over fresh soil; rather would I sleep on ox-skins than on their honours and dignities.
I am too hot and scorched with mine own thought: often is it ready to take away my breath. Then have I to go into the open air, and away from all dusty rooms.
But they sit cool in the cool shade: they want in everything to be merely spectators, and they avoid sitting where the sun burns on the steps.
Like those who stand in the street and gape at the passers-by: thus do they also wait, and gape at the thoughts which others have thought.
This is a radical idea, but it's very true. You go to university not to learn how to think but to fall into ignorance. Why? Because the professors there, the priests there, have departed from reality and have chosen to live a life of comfort, ease, and pleasure. As a result, they can't know anything. True knowledge can only be found in the everyday, in the mundane, with ordinary people. That's where God is. Universities are constructed to be away from God. They are temples for the comfort of priests. If you want true knowledge, go out into the world, talk to other people, and suffer.
Now you can understand the beauty and power of Zoroaster. I really believe that Nietzsche was channeling Zoroaster, but in a way for the modern mind. The thing about Asha is that it's always changing. The Asha that was true 3,000 years ago is not the Asha that's true for us today. What's really important to understand is that Asha is constantly coming, so you have to constantly work towards it. There's no endpoint to Asha. It's going to be different for everyone, but if everyone's moving towards Asha, then the world becomes a more virtuous, a better, and a more just place.
What About True Evil, Like Hitler?
This is a very sensitive topic. If you truly understand Asha, if you truly understand Zoroaster, what it would say is that Ahura Mazda is complete forgiveness, compassion, and love. Whatever we do in this world will be forgiven in the end. I understand this is hard for a lot of people to accept. I know that we grew up knowing that there must be evil in this world because of the Holocaust, and there must be Satan and all that. But if you really want to discover Asha, you have to let go of these ideas and understand that in the end, all will be forgiven.
I'm sure that there are people you hate in this world and you think they must burn in hell because of all the evil they've done. But if we want to appreciate Asha, if we really want to discover the truth, we need to let go of this hatred. We need to let go of this judgment. The very point of Asha is: don't worry about other people. Just worry about yourself. Don't compare yourself to other people; compare yourself to yourself.
How do you know you're moving towards Asha? Because you can feel it. The problem is, what keeps us from Asha are two things: our ego and our fear. We want to be liked by everyone—our ego. We fear rejection, fear saying something that offends other people, fear being politically incorrect. But if I want to achieve Asha, I need to take this risk. At the end of the day, what matters is my own individual pursuit of the truth. What others think of me does not matter.
The problem in our society is we're brainwashed into thinking that the opinions of others matter. What your teacher says about you matters because that will decide whether or not you get into a good university. How much money you make matters because that will give you status in society. What Zoroaster, Nietzsche, Rumi, and Plato are all saying is this: it doesn't matter. If you want true happiness, true enlightenment, true Asha, you have to embark on a personal journey that requires solitude, that requires rejecting everything that you know from the past so that you can rebuild yourself. Once you make that decision, action will come to you naturally. But first and foremost, you need to let go of these prejudices, these ideas that have been put into you.
Hitler will be forgiven because everyone will be forgiven. There is no hell. Hell is what we create in our hearts. Everyone will be forgiven.
Does Asha Change Throughout a Person's Life?
At the end of the day, Asha is virtue, and God is virtue. When you do Asha, you're moving towards God, which is perfection. But I think what Nietzsche would say, and maybe Zoroaster, is that God is creativity. What you really want to do when you move towards Asha is to constantly reinvent yourself, to discover new ideas about yourself. This is a never-ending process. There's no finale to it.
If there's no finale, that means that each of us will live our own individual lives that are different from others. This means that Asha will become different for each of us. But what's important, and Rumi would say this, is to follow your heart. Ignore what others think. Dissipate your fears. Kill your fears and just believe in yourself. Follow your heart, and action will come naturally to you. When that happens, God will come naturally to you, and you'll discover new truths, new powers, new understandings that will bring you greater happiness in life.
Does This Mean We Can Never Fully Achieve Asha?
Yes. There's no endpoint. There's no destination here. It's becoming. It's a constant process of becoming. It's not possible to seek Asha in one lifetime, which is why we are reincarnated. We come back and we do it over again, and we move closer towards Asha each time. But there can never be an endpoint. Because let's just say you reach that endpoint. Guess what? Everyone else hasn't. So you have a duty now to help other people. If you move closer to Asha, you also want to move others closer to Asha.
It's a constant struggle, but that's what gives meaning and purpose to the universe: the fact that we're all striving to be better. Virtue, truth, Asha—these are all we strive for. There can be no perfection. There can only be a process of becoming. The truth is that the universe is a constant process of becoming, of struggle, of pain, of tragedy. But from that, we can build hope and virtue and good.