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to be more powerful, to be more authentic. This overcoming is not something that becomes complete, ever.
You reach a goal, and suddenly you see: that goal is only a stepping-stone for a future goal. And the horizon in front of you always remains calling you, challenging you, pulling you towards unknown spaces.
This principle of overcoming is the very foundation of evolution; otherwise there would have been no evolution at all. Things would have remained static, things would have been just things -- dead, complete, no longer growing, no longer going higher, no longer trying to transcend themselves. Evolution is the religion that Zarathustra teaches.
Zarathustra is in many ways a pioneer. Charles Darwin thought that he had found the idea of evolution -- he was wrong. Two thousand years before him, this man Zarathustra had laid all the foundations of the philosophy of evolution.
Life can remain alive only if it goes on overcoming itself. The moment it stops overcoming itself, it disappears. The only death in the world is when something comes to a full stop. Life never comes to a full stop; hence, there is no death in reality.
Zarathustra says, THAT YOU MAY UNDERSTAND MY TEACHING ABOUT GOOD AND EVIL, I SHALL RELATE TO YOU MY TEACHING ABOUT LIFE AND ABOUT THE NATURE OF ALL LIVING CREATURES.
I HAVE FOLLOWED THE LIVING CREATURE, I HAVE FOLLOWED THE GREATEST AND THE SMALLEST PATHS, THAT I MIGHT UNDERSTAND ITS NATURE.
I CAUGHT ITS GLANCE IN A HUNDREDFOLD MIRROR WHEN ITS MOUTH WAS CLOSED, THAT ITS EYE MIGHT SPEAK TO ME. AND ITS EYE DID SPEAK TO ME.
BUT WHEREVER I FOUND LIVING CREATURES, THERE TOO I HEARD THE LANGUAGE OF OBEDIENCE. ALL LIVING CREATURES ARE OBEYING CREATURES.
But the concept of obedience in Zarathustra's philosophy is not the ordinary idea of obedience that religions have been teaching to us. Religions also teach obedience. But obedience to whom? Their obedience is always to someone outside yourself -- to some god, to some messenger, to some prophet, to some holy scripture.
Zarathustra's obedience is obedience to life; it is not to something outside yourself. It is the nature, very nature
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