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in having it. We are rich, more rich than you, in rejecting it."
The old man's advice is based on great wisdom. `SEE TO IT THAT THEY ACCEPT YOUR TREASURES! THEY ARE MISTRUSTFUL OF HERMITS, AND DO NOT BELIEVE THAT WE COME TO GIVE.
`OUR STEPS RING TOO LONELY THROUGH THE STREETS. AND WHEN AT NIGHT THEY HEAR IN THEIR BEDS A MAN GOING BY LONG BEFORE THE SUN HAS RISEN, THEY PROBABLY ASK THEMSELVES: WHERE IS THAT THIEF GOING?
`DO NOT GO TO MEN, BUT STAY IN THE FOREST! GO RATHER TO THE ANIMALS!'
I have loved this advice of the old saint, because animals are innocent: they will not reject you, and they will not be annoyed with you, and they will not crucify you.
I would just like to add to it: Go to the animals, go to the trees -- they are more sensitive. Man has become almost insensitive, and the higher the value, the more insensitive he is. He understands only the language of money, power, prestige. He has forgotten the language of love, the language of joy, the language of dance.
`WHY WILL YOU NOT BE AS I AM -- A BEAR AMONG BEARS, A BIRD AMONG BIRDS?'
`AND WHAT DOES THE SAINT DO IN THE FOREST?' ASKS ZARATHUSTRA.
THE SAINT ANSWERED, `I MAKE SONGS AND SING THEM, AND WHEN I MAKE SONGS, I LAUGH, WEEP, AND MUTTER: THUS I PRAISE GOD.
`WITH SINGING, WEEPING, LAUGHING, AND MUTTERING I PRAISE THE GOD WHO IS MY GOD. BUT WHAT DO YOU BRING US AS A GIFT?'
WHEN ZARATHUSTRA HEARD THESE WORDS, HE SALUTED THE SAINT AND SAID: `WHAT SHOULD I HAVE TO GIVE YOU! BUT LET ME GO QUICKLY, THAT I MAY TAKE NOTHING FROM YOU!' AND THUS THEY PARTED FROM ONE ANOTHER, THE OLD MAN AND ZARATHUSTRA, LAUGHING AS TWO BOYS LAUGH.
Zarathustra said, "What should I have to give to you? You sing, you create songs, you are joyous. In your aloneness you are absolutely happy. What can I give to you? Let me go, I am afraid I may take something from you, and I am already too much burdened with songs, with blissfulness. We both are burdened. You have chosen to live with the bears as a bear; to live with the birds as a bird; to live with the trees as a tree. I have chosen to go back to man, and to live as a man. I have nothing to give to you.
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