Book Sample

Thus Spake
the Real
Zarathushtra

Mid morning in the supernatural forests near Vancouver in blessed Beautiful British Columbia, immersed in my thoughts, I was walking, breathing in the fresh air. Suddenly I saw a bright light appear right in front of me, approximately 15 feet away. Startled I stopped. It was so quick and so mesmerizing that I did not have time to check my feelings. There was neither panic nor joy. I was rooted to the ground, immobile in my astonishment.

Out of the bright light stepped a young bearded figure. He seemed to be in his early thirties, approximately my own age. His beard was thick, curly and black. He had a white T-shirt on and was wearing a pair of faded blue jeans. His blue-green eyes were glowing with a special light. The kind that you normally find looking at wise grandfathers.

As he approached me he said, "Hi!"

In spite of my astonishment, I calmly responded.

"I am Zarathushtra," He introduced himself without blinking.

"Yeah right!" I thought to myself and responded, "Zarathushtra who?"

"Zarathushtra Spitama. You know, the one you have been reading about." Again he was very calm. Too calm.

In mocking disbelief I responded, "Yeah right! I am Julius Caesar. No, better than that, I am Jesus Christ!"

He smiled very calmly and said, "I thought you may have difficulty accepting this. I suppose you want some proof."

"Look man," I said, "either you are a nut case if you expect me to believe this, or I have lost it completely."

He almost laughed and continued, "I understand. In the books that you have read, I was born a few thousand years ago and died a few decades later. I am long gone. I do not exist except in history books. That is why I thought you may need some proof."

"Go on...." I responded.

"Well, perhaps it would be best if I told you a little bit about yourself. That way you will be able to verify the information, because you lived it yourself."

"I am listening...." I said, wondering what on earth was going on.

"OK. Where do I start? I suppose in the beginning. You were born in the same country as I was, into a family of Zoroastrians. That is what they call your religion nowadays, right?"

I nodded in response.

"Your parents did not believe in the rituals of the religion, and never tried to indoctrinate you into it either. In fact you did not care about your religion until you were in your mid twenties, after you migrated to the opposite side of the world."

"How does he know all these things?" I was thinking to myself.

"When you first started reading about your religion, you were quite impressed by the cosmology that I had proposed. In fact it was so interesting for you that you started presenting the idea to other young people in your religion."

"Hmm!" I was still baffled.

"And you found my philosophy so exciting, you started studying my divine songs. Do you still call them the `Gathas'?" He asked.

I simply nodded.

"Right now, among your people, at least on this continent, you are quite well known, not as a scholar, but as someone who understands this philosophy quite well".

"You flatter me," I said, half mockingly.

"Do you have enough proof, or do you still want me to get more specific?" He asked.

I was thinking, "This must be a trick that my subconscious mind is playing on me. After all, I am in this beautiful natural setting. The weather is nice and warm, the sun is filtering through the trees, and the air is amazingly fresh. Even though I have not taken any mind expanding substances, it is quite conceivable that I am experiencing a naturally induced altered state of consciousness."

I was also thinking how on earth I could explain all of this to anybody else?

I was not sure how to respond, but by then, perhaps because of his calmness, I was very calm too. So I simply thought to myself that I should play along. After all, what harm can this do? So I softly said, "I am satisfied with your information and proof. Now, why have you come here?"

He said, "You have reached a stage in your thoughts and belief that you have certain questions. I have come here to discuss them with you, and maybe I can help you, and maybe you can help me with mine."

"OK, that is fair," I said, "where do we start?"

"Well, let's start by you asking me questions. Imagine that Zarathushtra has come to visit you and you can ask him anything you want."

"Anything I want?" I asked.

"Yes, anything. I won't promise that I will have answers for all of your questions though. I will only answer as much as I know."

"Fair enough," I responded, thinking that even enlightened prophets have their limitations. "Let me ask you a few questions which arise out of my curiosity. But they have nothing to do with your philosophy."

"OK," He very simply responded.

"Why are you so young? I mean in most of the pictures that I have seen of you, you were much older, and your hair was longer and so was your beard, and they were both red not black. How come you have black hair and beard now?"

"Well, I must say, all the pictures you have seen of me were fictitious drawings coming out of the imagination of the artists who wanted to create my portrait. So in their attempts to glorify me, they chose a colour which was unusual for them. They opted for red hair and it stuck with my portraits. There are some pictures where my hair and beard is a different colour. Anyway, in my physical features, I looked a lot like the others in that region of the world."

"And what about your age? Are you as wise at this age and would you be able to give decent answers to my questions?" I asked.

"I have to explain to you that in the fifth dimension, the dimension of consciousness, age is irrelevant. When I chose to appear to you in your four dimensional world, I chose this age. I could just as easily have chosen a different form or age, including having red hair and appearing in my sixties. Does this bother you? If it is that important to you for me to appear older, I could change."

"No this is just fine," I responded hastily, realizing the folly of my question. "You know how it is when you live in the four dimensional world. You get so used to appearances that anything different from what you expected brings up questions and doubts." I was also glad that he had established he was from the fifth dimension, whatever that was.

"That is OK. I know what you mean. I had to struggle with this when I was here too," He responded with a very kind and gentle voice.

"Now one more question which may sound stupid to you, but I kind of want to get it out of the way," I said.

"Go on," He responded just as kindly, "and don't worry about how stupid or strange your question may sound, then I will feel free to answer as strangely as I want."

"It's a deal!" I said quickly, and went on to ask, "You know, there is a very large discrepancy among the scholars as to the date of your birth. Some put it at about 27 centuries ago, while others go as far back as 7-8 millennia. Can you clarify this once and for all? What was the correct time of your birth?"

He was pensive for a while, I suppose thinking how to answer me so that he would not offend me. Then he said, "You know when I told you that age is irrelevant in the fifth dimension?"

I nodded.

"Well, frankly I have not kept track of how many of your years have passed since I left this planet. So I can't tell you who is right. In a way, I guess it is not important to know when I was born. What is really important is if my message makes any sense and if people understand it today. And even more important than that is whether they put it into practice in their lives or not."

"You are right," I said half ashamed, but then I remembered that we had a deal to ask and say whatever felt right, regardless of how absurd it would appear to the other. Anyway, if my subconscious mind is playing this game, who cares what I ask. I mean nobody would hear or judge me for this.

"Tell me, which one of my teachings is the most famous today?" He asked, I suppose prompting me to get to the philosophy.

"The 3 G's!" I answered.

"The 3 G's?" He was not sure what I meant.

"Yes. You know, Good Thoughts, Good Words, Good Deeds," I said casually.

"It is very interesting to see how the people of your generation can only digest what is given to them in sound bites. I suppose if you could not say this in less than two lines, nobody would know it."

"That's the 20th century for you," I responded. "But luckily we are moving into the 21st century soon."

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This page was last updated on Tuesday, November 13, 2001.