Of the Bestowing Virtue Part three
When Zarathustra had said these words he paused like one who has not said his last word; long he balanced the staff doubtfully in his hand. At last he spoke thus, and his voice was different:
I now go away alone, my disciples! You too now go away and be alone! So I will have it.
Truly, I advise you: go away 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.
One repays a teacher badly if one remains only a pupil. And why, then, should you not pluck at my laurels?
You respect me; but how if one day your respect should tumble? Take care that a falling statue does not strike you dead!
You say you believe in Zarathustra? But of what importance is Zarathustra? You are my believers: but of what importance are all believers?
You had not yet sought yourselves when you found me. Thus do all believers; therefore all belief is of so little account.
Now I bid you lose me and find yourselves; and only when you have all denied me will I return to you.
Truly, with other eyes, my brothers, I shall then seek my lost ones; with another love I shall then love you.
And once more you shall have become my friends and children of one hope: and then I will be with you a third time, that I may celebrate the great noontide with you.
And this is the great noontide: it is when man stands at the middle of his course between animal and superman and celebrates his journey to the evening as his highest hope: for it is the journey to a new morning.
Then man, going under, will bless himself; for he will be going over to superman; and the sun of his knowledge will stand at noontide.
“All gods are dead: now we want the superman to live” – let this be our last will one day at the great noontide!

…Thus spake Zarathustra.

It is almost impossible to find in the long history of mankind another man with so many dimensions, so many insights, so wise and yet so human, as Zarathustra. His ordinariness is absolutely extraordinary. His humanness is so pure that one can say it is even superior to any divineness.

He is certainly capable of declaring, “All gods are dead”; in fact, they have never been living. He declares a god has to be created. Just look at the totally new insight of this man. God has always been the creator – and he is declaring that we have to create god, and the name of the god is going to be superman. It is going to be our creation.

Each statement today is so pregnant with meaning that one cannot believe that a man can condense so much meaning in such small and simple statements. I would like you to meditate over each statement, because each statement carries a complete philosophy of life. Its implications are tremendous and far-reaching. Even after twenty-five centuries, Zarathustra still remains ahead of us. He is not part of past history, he is someone who is going to be born in the future, because we are not yet his contemporaries.

We have not been able to transcend the meanness, the animality, of our so-called humanity. And we have not been able to take even a single step towards the superman, which for him is the very meaning of the earth, the very salt of the earth – which is going to be our greatest creation, which is our new god. Not the old god who created the world, but a new god, which we are going to create with our own consciousness.

When Zarathustra had said these words he paused like one who has not said his last word.

Perhaps the last word can never be said. Even if somebody succeeds in saying the first word, it is more than enough. And Zarathustra has succeeded in saying the first words of a new life, of a new man, of a new earth. But there is always a deep desire, a great longing not only to say the first words but to say the last, too.

Hence, after saying these words…

…he paused like one who has not said his last word…