ZARATHUSTRA: THE LAUGHING PROPHET

About Zarathustra: The Laughing Prophet
On Friedrich Nietzsche’s Thus Spake Zarathustra

“Man doesn’t end with himself; he is a growth. Man is a becoming, a growing, a continuous transcendence. Friedrich Nietzsche has said, ‘That day will be the most unfortunate day when man will not aspire to become higher, when man will not aspire to transcend himself. That day will be the most unfortunate when the arrow of man’s desire will not be moving higher than man, when there will be no target to reach, when man will be confined, closed in himself. That day will be the most unfortunate day.’”
Osho, The Beloved, Vol.2

Nietzsche’s creative genius sought out a great master from the past and he wrote of Zarathustra in a way that enabled him to project all his longing, his vision, and all of his yearning to break out of a life that had become an intolerable prison for him.

In these talks on Friedrich Nietzsche’s Thus Spake Zarathustra, Osho is indicating where Nietzsche’s vision came close to the truth and where it fell short. Osho says that had Nietzsche been exposed to the mystical traditions of the East he could have become enlightened.

“Zarathustra brings a total revolution in the concept of God and religion. Now religion is no longer a worship or a belief; now religion becomes the greatest creative act of man. Now religion is not what enslaves man, imprisons his spirit. In Zarathustra’s hands religion becomes the art of shattering all the chains, destroying all the hindrances, so that human consciousness can become divine consciousness…”