Friedrich Nietzsche’s most famous work, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, is a fictional account of a spiritual quest by his protagonist, Zarathustra, who after ten years of meditative retreat in the wilderness, descends from the mountains to teach what he has learned to awaken the spirit of humanity. Written in archaic, scripture-style language, Nietzsche considered this creative narrative his most important statement on the possibility of human enlightenment and on the reactionary human resistance to higher evolutionary forms of life.
The story below, written by Dale Wright and narrated by Krzysztof Piekarski, follows Nietzsche’s Zarathustra in both archaic style and its focus on spiritual awakening but brings a fictional Buddhist named Nagarjuna into dialogue with Nietzsche’s spiritual pilgrim. In the same sense that Nietzsche’s Zarathustra is not the same as the ancient Persian Zoroastrian by that name, our fictional Nagarjuna is not to be identified with the famous second century Buddhist logician of that name, even though the two share Buddhist perspectives and concerns. In our story, Zarathustra, Nagarjuna and the mayor of a local village debate each other on what might be at stake in waking up to the realities of life. All quotations are from one section of Thus Spoke Zarathustra, a section called “the Three Evil Things.”
When Zarathustra awoke from his dream, the decisive dream in which the "three evil things" had been revealed to him, he burned with energy and yearned for an opportunity to test these new teachings in the public square. Thrice he entered the village square to announce these three revelations assuming that on each occasion he would be reviled by the townspeople for denouncing their community’s foundational values. On the first day he ridiculed those whose actions showed their contempt for the body. Upon hearing him, he thought, these “despisers of the body” would avert their eyes and cover their ears, thus evading his critique of the first evil thing—ascetic self-denial based on a mistaken dichotomy between spirit and matter.
On the second day he offered them justification for their innate yearning for power, now long inhibited, and laughed at them when through cowardice they suppressed their deepest instincts and refused to do battle with him. In predictable humility, he thought, they could not defend their “dog-like compliance” and so removed themselves from Zarathustra's company as quickly as possible to avoid his denunciation of the second evil thing.
When Zarathustra entered the village on the third day, however, he found the townspeople gathered around another speaker, a stranger called Nagarjuna. Although fascinated by the persuasive presence of this traveler, Zarathustra laughed out loud when the orator extolled the selfless virtues of compassion. Zarathustra had come to denounce that very virtue, the third evil thing--selflessness. As Zarathustra joined them in the square, the townspeople began to depart, soon leaving the two thinkers alone there. Zarathustra immediately began a torrent of ridicule for the “slave-like selflessness” being valorized by Nagarjuna.
Zarathustra said: "Mine is the teaching of glorious selfishness, the sound healthy selfishness that issues from a mighty soul. It banishes from itself all that is cowardly; it despises the woeful wisdom proclaiming that All is Vain. It regards as baser yet him who is quick to please, who, dog-like, lies upon his back, the humble man. It spits at slaves of all kinds, this glorious selfishness." Thus spoke Zarathustra.
Upon hearing these words, Nagarjuna lowered his head. Then, looking up and directly into the eyes of Zarathustra, he just smiled, unintimidated, but without saying a word. Zarathustra said: Good Sir. Are you deaf and dumb? Do you not hear the radical cutting edge of my denunciation. Do you not fear this overturning of the traditional value of selflessness?
The stranger said: Indeed, Dear Prophet, I am deaf and dumb. I am deaf to all aggressive rhetoric, dumb in the face of all misguided hyperbole. In truth, the radical cutting edge that you proclaim escapes me and I fear neither the valorization of selfishness nor its opposite. Words are not to be feared. They are to be received, thoughtfully considered, and then released. Come sit with me in the shade so that we can share ideas.
Despite their sharp difference of opinion on the teaching of selfless compassion, Zarathustra could not help but be intrigued by the composed courage of the traveler. Eagerly he sought debate sensing that this stranger alone might be capable of appreciating the glorious selfishness that he now embraced. Zarathustra began by ridiculing deluded dreams of an unembodied life in an imaginary heaven beyond this world, daydreams that persuade people to forgo the very life they are living. He dismissed the fearful ones who suppress the dynamic pulse of life that empowers people to face the world with passion and conviction. He condemned religious recluses who are "servile before god and divine kicks," calling them and their followers "world-weary cowards."
Nagarjuna said: Oh Fiery Prophet, your denunciations, while overwrought, expose a tragic human weakness, one that undermines many lives. They make clear that fear is a debilitating force in life, causing human beings to retreat when they ought to advance, causing them to eschew risk even though risk is the condition of possibility for awakening. You, Zarathustra, recognize the debilitating urge to denounce one’s own highest values out of fear of not attaining them. Woe to those who retreat into cowardly sloth when the gift of enlightenment lies before them. Nevertheless, Zarathustra, I cannot recommend your means, your methods. They appear to lack the skill to lead the meek into courage, the lethargic into effort. Your rhetoric of condemnation drives the villagers away and undermines the transformative role that your teachings might otherwise play.
Without hesitation, Zarathustra spoke thus: Compromise and accommodation are flags of surrender for the weak. They foster tepid consideration but never radical reversal and reorientation in life. The quest for enlightenment isn't a mild-mannered pastime for sedated non-strivers. Either you gather the strength and courage to stare into the abyss of truth, or you look away in lifelong self-surrender. My rhetoric is harsh, I understand, but it echoes the radical harshness of truth. When my words are heard and received, they beckon the recipient out of complacency and denial and into greater forms of freedom and awareness. I don't come to the village to bring ease and comfort; I come to announce the pain and discipline of world transformation. That the villagers prefer the soothing message of compassion, I completely understand, just as they prefer retreat to engagement and illusions to truth.
Nagarjuna, moved by a level of passion and commitment beyond any he had encountered, elevated his critique, saying: But surely, Bold Prophet, you cannot mean to valorize the selfishness of the greedy, the deceitful. Surely you cannot admire the prosperous thief who cultivates nothing but greedy self-absorption by defrauding immigrants and the elderly out of their homes and sustenance. Surely you cannot praise the corrupt politician who seizes power through deception to secure his own comfort and welfare. Surely these are not your heroes of “glorious selfishness.”
Nodding in affirmation, Zarathustra said: Verily, Compassionate Wanderer, these are not the paragons of authentic selfishness. This is not the "sound, healthy selfishness” that issues from a mighty soul. Those just described have through ignorance abandoned their own lives just as foolishly as those who they defraud. The self they cultivate is the self of evasion and delusion, the cowardly self that hides from authentic encounter with the world. Those who are profoundly self-seeking are not greedy; they covet and hoard nothing. Possessions, fame, and fortune are of no concern to them. Nor are they deceitful, for they understand that only in the mirror of truth does the self become visible, only out in the open space of pure encounter is the self not cowering, not hiding in disguise. My admiration is reserved for the highest form of selfishness, a demanding selfishness without fearful compromise or petty possessiveness.
Then on that point we are in accord, Nagarjuna replied. Those who truly seek enlightenment recognize that, although common among human beings, worldly self-absorption is unprincipled foolishness. It claims to seek its own liberty while in truth undermining any chance of it. Still, I wonder whether the inversion effected by your critique might lodge you, Zarathustra, in a similar position. So, while I sympathize when you warn the "too patient man who puts up with everything, is content with everything," I wonder whether it is any better to be the never patient man who puts up with nothing, is content with nothing. You say that the "too patient man is a slave," but observe for a moment the slavery of the never patient man. He is enslaved by his deluded sense of lack, his never fulfilled desires, by his resentment and perpetual unhappiness. Adhering firmly to one side of this dichotomy, do you not infuse your every thought and act with a joyless discontent?
Zarathustra then said: Indeed, Agile Logician, so it may be. There is danger in my emphasis. But I risk that danger in order to address what I take to be a far greater danger, the danger that the pious valorization of patient humility just disguises a spineless lack of nerve, a pathetic failure to take a stand in life. Servility is a slavish delusion compelling people to forgo their lives without ever having lived them with discipline, insight, and courage. Admirable human beings stand up for themselves, as themselves, thereby honoring the gift of having been born. "Entirely hateful and loathsome is he who will never defend himself."
Nagarjuna said: Nothing is entirely hateful and loathsome, however much many things deserve our judgment. And in juxtaposition to he who will never defend himself, let us examine the life of he who is always defending himself, the defensive soul, the one who is always embattled, always taking offense whether offense is meant or not. The greatest danger is to be entrapped within a dichotomy, to have the positions you espouse be determined in advance by a mental opposition to which you are bound. Setting the Always Yielding Person in juxtaposition to the Never Yielding Person, we delude ourselves by failing to see the slavish limitations of dualism. Is it any more admirable never to yield than always to yield? Or is there in truth a more subtle link between the forces of give and take in play all around us, a balance to be achieved between open and closed, toleration and conviction?
Zarathustra smiled and said: Truly, Noble Traveler, there is clarity and depth to your vision. Since “the same” will return eternally in that our every act will forever be inscribed in the universe, it is incumbent upon us to shape our actions to be as comprehensive and as subtle as the realities in which we live. So let us pursue this insight one step further, Nagarjuna. Earlier you chided me for lack of skill in my mode of address to the townspeople. But now I ask you whether the balance that you prescribe between yield and anti-yield is a static balance always straddling the middle ground or whether the optimal balance might in fact be temporal, one that sways back and forth over time through sequences of action and composure, movement and rest?
If there is skill to prophecy, that is the skill of timing. One whose rhetoric is always balanced, always in proportion, cannot account for the sway of the universe, its movement through ebb and flow. When my words are extreme and I appear to rant rather than to reason, it is because I judge that the “great noontide” has arrived, and that at this historical juncture the awakening of humanity will not occur through reticence and composure. At the arrival of noontide, only radical prophecy will awaken the slumbering populace. Only the rhetoric of existential crisis will turn the tide of mental slavery that right now threatens to pull humanity down into the undertow of darkness.
Nagarjuna paused a moment and then said: Your explanation has brought us into accord, Zarathustra, except for a fundamental point upon which we may remain in substantial disagreement. And this, of course, is the issue of the “self” upon which these questions of selfishness and selflessness are founded. What is this self that is presupposed in our exchange? Your position rests upon the assertion of the self and mine upon its opposite, the assertion of no self. You refer to "the mighty soul, around which everything becomes a mirror." But when the world is mirror filled, no matter where you look, all you see is yourself.
What I propose works in the opposite direction. When I look at the world I want to see the world, not myself. When I look at myself, I see the impact and influence of the world, the way the world flows through me, shattering the deluded sense that I am fundamentally separate and self-constituted. I partake in the pleasure of the entire cosmos coursing through my veins. So, tell me, Zarathustra, what is the pleasure in a world of mirrors, in solipsism?
Zarathustra shook his head in pleased disbelief: I now understand what animates your teachings of compassion, he said. You see deeply into the self and find the magnificence and enormity of the world, a world encompassing all living beings. And I can also see the transformative effect that this realization brings to your comportment, the way you stand, move, and speak. But permit me please another turn of thought to show you the other side of your realization, one that might enhance its balance. When I say that everything around becomes a mirror to the visionary, I make essentially the same point you make but in the mode of inversion. Not only is my existence grounded in the enormity of the world, Nagarjuna, the world is grounded in me. Not only do I receive its impact, but it receives mine as well. That impact may be great or small, noble or perverse, but impact it is.
That is precisely why I strive to awaken the villagers. I want to shake their lives so that they witness their own unique role in the world, so that at least momentarily they sense the astonishing possibilities that stand right before their unknowing, slumbering minds. I want to awaken them to the possibility of their own freedom, their own personal power. This freedom is not a birthright; it is not a simple inheritance. Freedom must be earned; it must be achieved, created, even if out of nothing more than the impact on their lives of my verbal shaking.
When I look at the world, I want to see the world, of course, but I also want to see that my existence within it has not been a nothing, a pathetic escape, a failure of nerve that never seeks to grasp the unique point of my being here. I am here, I have been here, and that will eternally be the case. But unless I will the freedom and power of singularity, enough freedom to live courageously as my own creation, this eternity will just be more of the same, and I refuse to let my miniscule share of that eternity be a slumbering whimper, a cowardly cringing before the challenge of existence. I feel the cosmos beckoning me to become who I am, calling all of us to become who we really could be.
The two thinkers just looked at each other, astonished by what had transpired in the space between them. Staring at each other, both suddenly burst into liberating laughter, an uncontrollable hilarity drawing a flood of tears from their eyes. Then finally, exhausted from intense verbal competition and the humbling experience of joyful union, they looked up to see that the villagers had returned to the square and were now surrounding them.
The Mayor of the Village stepped forth to speak on behalf of the townspeople. Without intimidation or fear, she spoke plainly: Oh, Formidable Thinkers, you misunderstand us. You take our acceptance of your presence in our village as a sign of our inability to understand, or as cowardice. You take it as a sign that we either refuse your words without comprehension or cower in fear of them. In truth we do neither. We are often challenged by your words, often inspired or bemused by your lives. We find you sometimes insightful and prophetic, while at other times woefully out of touch with the lives we lead.
You, Zarathustra, show contempt for us even while we labor to provide the means of your existence. Your words relegate us to a lowly status while you position yourself as the prophet of a new historical age. You accuse us of cowardice while we labor in the fields and in our kitchens to feed our children. You denounce our selfless cooperation but suggest no alternative form of community. Your contempt is sometimes compensated for by the brilliance of your challenge to us, by the way you force us to recognize our limitations. But not always.
And you Nagarjuna, while your doctrine of compassion valorizes human inter-connectedness, doctrines of compassion are to compassionate actions what thoughts of food are to the reality of eating. There are times when the teachings of compassion just mask the actual lack of it. There are times when we experience these teachings as a thinly disguised version of the same distain that Zarathustra openly parades. Authentic feelings of compassion and degrading forms of pity are readily distinguishable in deed but not so easily in words. Although you have yet to prove yourself one way or another, from where we stand, those who come to our village to preach compassion while providing none deserve our inattention, not our discipleship. In our view they, not us, are the proper target for Zarathustra's fiery sword.
When the two thinkers stepped forth to respond the Mayor just held up her hand, silencing them. She continued: Zarathustra, you assume that we flee the town square each day to avoid the impact of your invective, but in fact we just go to work. We labor as most human beings must to provide the basic needs of our existence--and yours. Our labors today have completed preparations for the harvest festival which we begin tonight. We invite both of you to join us, but we impose one condition upon that invitation. This condition is that throughout the evening festival you practice complete silence. Having attended to you and having listened to your teachings, we ask that you now attend and listen to us while we all share the joyful bounty of our labor with feast, song, and dance. Should you be capable of following through on this vow of silence, we will welcome you back into the village square as our equals and as teachers from whom we have much to learn.
Thus spoke the townspeople, and to their credit, the thinkers had nothing to say.
All quotations from Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra translated by R.J. Hollingdale, Penguin Classics, 1961.
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