Thus Spake Zarathustra.

[PDF] So how did Nietzsche arrive at his concept of the overman? We have to refer to the beginning of Thus Spake Zarathustra, have to refer to the section which is called Zarathustra's Prologue. Zarathustra is, of course, the name of the founder of the ancient Zoroastrian faith. But here, in Nietzsche's work, Zarathustra has very little to do indeed with the historical Spitama Zarathustra. In Thus Spake Zarathustra, the figure of Zarathustra is simply a mouthpiece for Nietzsche's own ideas. There's no connection between those ideas and historical Zoroastrianism.

Now Zarathustra's Prologue represents him as coming down from the mountain; and this is of course symbolical and meant to be symbolical. Apparently, we gather, Zarathustra has spent, on the mountain, a period of ten years. He's been thinking, he's been meditating, and now his wisdom has become ripe, is ready to overflow, and he wants to share it with mankind. So he comes down the mountain. And on the way down he meets a saintly hermit, someone who had been living in the forest at the foot of the mountain for years and years together. And the saintly hermit recognises Zarathustra. Apparently he had seen him years earlier on his way up; now he meets him on his way down. And the saintly hermit tries to persuade Zarathustra not to go down amongst men. He says, 'It will be a waste of time, don't trouble yourself. Men are ungrateful. Men are distracted. Don't waste your time going down amongst them'. He says, 'It's much better to be a hermit like me, it's much better to live in the forest with the birds and the beasts. It's much better to live in the forest, ignoring men, forgetting men, simply worshipping God'. But Zarathustra is not to be dissuaded from his mission. He leaves the saintly hermit at his prayers in the forest, and he goes on down the mountain. And as he goes, he says to himself, 'Could it be possible that this old saint in the forest has not yet heard anything of this, that God is dead?' And this, of course, this remark that 'God is dead', represents, constitutes one of Nietzsche's most important insights. 'God is dead'.

We've heard a lot about the 'God is dead' or the 'death of God' theology in recent years, in recent decades, but it all started with Nietzsche. He was the first one to see this, to see that God was dead, that he wasn't up there in the heavens any longer. Now this of course means that Nietzsche saw, clearly, what many people don't even seem able to see today, a hundred years afterwards. Nietzsche saw clearly that orthodox Christian teaching, the teaching of the Churches, orthodox Christian theology with its doctrines of a personal God, of a Supreme Being, a Creator, the doctrines of sin and faith, justification and atonement and resurrection, and all the rest, that this whole system is in fact dead, is in fact finished, is in fact irrelevant; and that we are now living not just in the Age of Science and Technology, not just in the Age of Globalisation even, we are living now, though we haven't yet perhaps woken up to the fact, in the Post-Christian Age. The Christian Ages, whether of faith or un-faith, are behind us. So God is dead. And this fact, this statement, gives us also a clue to the sources of Nietzsche's thought regarding the overman. If God is dead, if Christianity is dead, if Christian dogma is dead, if Christian theology is dead, then the Christian view, the Christian conception of Man, is dead as well. The conception of Man as a fallen being, a being who once was disobedient, who sinned, who now needs grace to redeem him, who has to believe, who will be judged, who will be punished perhaps, this sort of concept, this sort of dogma about Man is exploded, is finished, is dead.

So one has to get a new conception of Man. Man finds himself, as it were, in a universe without God. He is on his own, he is alone. So Man has to try to understand himself afresh. He can't take ready-made any conception, any idea about himself. He can't simply accept what the Christian tradition tells him about himself. He just finds himself here, here and now, and has to ask himself 'Who am I? What am I?' He finds himself in the midst of the starry universe, he finds himself standing on the Earth, surrounded by other men, with a history behind him, perhaps with a future before him, and he has to ask himself, and ask only himself - nobody else because there's nobody else to tell him - he has to ask himself 'Who am I? What am I?' Now that all the old definitions are gone, Man has to define himself, has to define himself anew, has to discover himself, to know himself. And this in fact is what Zarathustra has already done on the mountain. He has thought, he has meditated perhaps, contemplated perhaps, for ten long years, and now he knows what Man is. And this is the message that he now brings to humanity. This is the insight that he now brings to humanity.

So Zarathustra reaches the edge of the forest, he comes to a town on the edge of the forest, he enters the town and there in the town, in the market square, he finds people gathered together. So what are they gathered together for? They certainly haven't gathered together to listen to him. They didn't even know he was coming, they knew nothing about him. They have come to see a travelling tightrope-walker. That's what they are really interested in. But nevertheless, as the tightrope-walker hasn't turned up yet (apparently he's late or something like that), Zarathustra, taking advantage of the opportunity, seizing it with both hands as it were, he speaks to them. And what does he say? Zarathustra says, addressing the people in that market square, addressing if you like all humanity, he says, 'I teach you the 'overman'. Man is something that shall be overcome. What have you done to overcome him?'

Friedrich Nietzsche, Buddhism and the Superman:

1. Friedrich Nietzsche, Buddhism and the Superman.
2. The philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche.
3. The Superman, the Overman or Übermench.
4. Thus spake Zarathustra.
5. * Man is something to be overcome.
6. Giving style to one’s character.
7. The will to power.
8. The Higher Evolution and the Overman.

By Urgyen Sangharakshita.

[in French] [Introduction] [Buddha] [Buddhism] [Meditation] [Sangharakshita] [FWBO] [the Centre].

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Dernière mise à jour:
04 avril, 2007.