Predictive History - The Story of "Civilization", "Secret History", "Game Theory" and more - Secret History #18: Thus Spoke Zarathustra

Episode Date: February 5, 2026

Secret History #18: Thus Spoke Zarathustra

So we've done the Greeks and we've done the Israelites. And today we discuss the Persians. And today I introduced to you the most influential person who has ever lived. And the name is Zoroastra. And Zoroastra will create the world's first great religion, world religion, called Zoroastrianism. And this will lead to the rise of the world's first great empire called the Persian Akamid Empire. So to understand Zoroastah, let's go back and understand how we humans have traditionally understood the world. So intuitively, we've understood that the world is one of consciousness.

The universe is conscious, and it's constantly vibrating. These vibrations are infinite. And the lower that the vibrations go, the slower they are, and therefore they give rise to matter. And that gives rise to humans. So we both inhabit the material universe, but our minds inhabit the spiritual universe. And as a result, when we vibrate as well, our consciousness returns to the universe. So we're in constant dialogue with the universe. Now, this is hard to understand, so we've used metaphors or stories to explain this system.

All right, so let's go over how we've explained the system using metaphors. So this is God. Okay, the God is called the Monad or the One or News. but there are different names for this God. And this God is perfect. The problem with perfection is that you lack imagination, you lack creativity. And that's why when God emanates, he created us, humans. Why?

Because we are material. We have bodies. And therefore, we are imperfect. What this means is that when we hear, hit a wall, we feel pain, we can fall down, we can die, we can suffer, we can make mistakes. At the same time, it is through constantly making mistakes, disobedience, fallibility, that we are able to be creative, okay? And as a result, both God and we are in the process of becoming. We are becoming into perfection. We are becoming into perfection. We are becoming

into eternity and in infinity. And so we are co-creators with God. Now there are certain characteristics about the system that you have to remember, okay? First of all, in the system, we need to have free will. Because only by having complete freedom can we be truly creative. The monad is controlling us, then there can't be any creativity.

It's all intentional. It's all planned. Okay? So free will is very important. Another very important idea is the individual. So what so how the system works is what matters is what happens inside of us. Okay, because only us individually can give rise to creativity. And so it is our interactions with a monad that's important. Okay. Another way of saying this is that Use a metaphor, okay? The metaphor is a candle. A candle, sorry, this is a bad drawing, okay, candle. And we are all mirrors surrounding this candle.

And we are all, the candle is reflected in us. Okay, so the monad is in us, and we're all part of the monad together. So what happens is what happens to us individually, okay? Another very important part of this is its eternity, okay, reincarnation. The idea here is that when you die, you just don't disappear. Your consciousness returns to the spirit world. Why? Because maybe in this world you made a lot of mistakes.

And because you made a lot of mistakes, you can't really appreciate all the pain you've caused. So when you return the spirit world, then it's a time for you to refute it. and understand your significance on this world, okay? And so the idea is that if you've done a lot of good in this world, if you've been virtuous, you ascend to a higher plane. And if you did a lot of bad things, then you stay in the lower realm, okay? And this idea of heaven and hell. Why?

Because if you did a lot of good, first of all, you can appreciate all that you've done, you can be closer to the moon at. If you don't know a lot bad, then you will see for yourself all the hurt you've caused in the world. And you'll be further down from the monad. So this is how intuitively we've understood the universe to work. When we're born, we're born almost with an intuitive understanding of this. The problem is that as our populations continue to grow and grow, eventually we have war. Okay? And war gives rise to patriarchy and property. Why? Because how do you incentivize people

to go fight? Well, you promised them this wife will be yours, okay? You'll be the master of the household, and whatever you win, whether it's gold or whatever, it'll be yours forever, okay? And so these three things, war, patriarchy, and property are all interlinked together. Okay, and this, you can argue, rise to the idea of capital. Remember, when we last discussed the Bronze Age, the Bronze Age was the height of capital, and therefore it was the height of war, slavery, corruption, violence, evil in this world. And in this time, there will emerge prophets, they're port prophets who come and tell us that what we're doing is wrong and we must remember who we came from originally okay we must remember that we are part of the monad and that

we're here to celebrate life not to destroy life to be creative not to be destructive to love not to make war and so during the Bronze Age emerges a man named Zoroastra and He is a port prophet just like Homer and the Yahwehs. And he's dealing with this situation. We've entered a system where war, patriarch, and property are prevalent. And we can't imagine a world without these things. So now he has to create a new system.

He has to present for his poetry new ideas that help us return to the Monad. And so he creates the beginnings of a new world. religion called Zoroastrianism. So let's go over the basic ideas. So remember that this is a polytheistic world where you fight for your God. And the gods don't really care about what's good and what's evil. All they care about is themselves.

So you celebrate them, you make sacrifices to them. If you give them enough money, you broaden them well enough, then you win wars, okay? So that's a system that we call polytheism. So what Azora Master does is that, he reimagines the system and creates a new hierarchy where a Hora master is the top god. You can call them a monad as well. And for Zoroastra, a Hora master is the Lord of Wisdom.

It literally translates into Lord of Wisdom, and he's represented by the idea of fire. So what is Zoroastrianism in Chinese? It's Ba'Hua Chiao, right? Mai Huo, Jiao, the religion of white fire. It's a religion of wisdom. And what then he also says is that the war of heaven and hell is within us. And there are two forces that tear at us, that divide us, okay? The first is the force of Asha, and second is the force of Zroosh.

These ideas are hard to translate, but Asha just means truth. And Druge means the lie. Okay? So the Greeks really admire the Persians. And what they said about the Persians is the Persians are good at three things. They're good at horse riding. They're good at archery. They're good at telling the truth.

The Persians find it abhorrent, hateful to lie. So they're always telling the truth. Okay? But that's a very simplistic understanding of the system. Tell me the truth is not what Asha is. What Asha really is, is a system of virtue. By being virtuous, by doing good in the world, you become closer to a Haraab Masta. You become his representative on Earth.

So to better understand this idea, I'm going to introduce to you another concept called the categorical imperative. So Immanuel Kant. So we don't know when Zoroathusa lived, okay? But he lived about 3,000 years ago. Emilio Kont is the 18th century. So he's closer to our time. And he introduces a concept called the categorical imperative.

For him, the categor imperative is the highest moral law, the highest moral good, what we all should strive to. What I will show you is that it's very similar to the concept of Asha. So there are three principles of the categorical imperative. The first, the most important is the law of universality. And what this idea states is that what is good. Well, to know what is good, imagine this. Imagine that whatever you do, whatever you say, everyone in the world will immediately do as

well. Okay? So if you get angry, everyone gets angry at the same time. If you are violent, everyone's violent at the same time, okay? If you curse God, everyone curses God. Do you want to live in a world like that? Obviously not, okay? So that is what the kind of imperative is. Act and do and think as though everything you do will be reflected throughout the universe.

And you are the universe itself. Okay? This idea has been misunderstood as the golden law, right? Or do onto others as others would do onto you. But actually, no, it's a much higher concept. The higher concept is that imagine that you are God yourself, okay? And everything you do will be reflected throughout the universe. Then how would you behave?

Well, you would behave the highest virtue, okay? Because you want to make the world a better place. Because if you do bad things, people can do bad things to you. Okay? So that's the first idea. It's a very important idea. Second idea is free will. So whatever you do cannot be coerced.

Whatever you do must be out of your own desire, your own will, your own volition, your own choice. Otherwise, it's wrong. Okay? So I cannot make you do good. You only want to do good by yourself. If you want to do evil, you should do evil because it's your choice. Even though it leads to a worse world, it's important to maintain the principle of free will and free choice. Now last is the idea of humans as the end.

Now you have heard, maybe heard the phrase, the mean to an end, right? So maybe I'm a king and I need to build a better world. So I need to start wars, conquer the world. so I need to sacrifice a billion human beings in order to create a perfect world, right? That may sound good in theory but where Kant and Zoroastra would say is, that's wrong.

Because humans are the end onto themselves. Every life, every human life is as valuable as all human life together. You cannot sacrifice one person for the sake of the others. That is fundamentally wrong. Do never do that. That can only lead you

into hell. So these three things together gives us a concept of Asha. You can see immediately how complicated it is. But at the same time, you can also understand how revolutionary it is,

because now Asha presents to us three new concepts that will revolutionize human history. They are the individual. What matters inside of you, everyone's doing bad. That's their. problem. Don't worry about them. Just do what is good to you, okay? What is good for you. The second

is free choice. Don't ever feel as though you're being forced to do something. Do something because you will so, okay? And then last is truth. Why do you do this? Because the monad will know, okay? Because our master will know, because you will know. Okay? So what your family says, what your community says, what your nation says, does that matter. Only what you feel in your heart matters. And this introduced a new concept in humanism called monotheism. And guess what, guys? Zoroastrianism will give birth to three new religions, okay? Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. And this together is two to three point billion people on earth. And that's why I say Zoroathustra is the most,

important individuals ever lived because he will create the structure for morning theism okay these three concepts that will give rise to three world religions all right okay so something else I want you understand is that Zoroa Thusta had a major impact on the Greeks especially Greek philosophy in fact the Greeks didn't consider him to support they consider him the first scientist the first astronomer the first philosopher, the first magician, okay? The Greek settlement is reverence for him.

And Plato will take a lot of his ideas and create a very powerful metaphor that helps us understand Asher better, okay? It calls it the allegory of the cave. So, imagine this. Imagine that we are in a cave, okay? We are all prisoners inside a cave. We are chained to the ground, okay? So we can't ever get up.

We can't even move our necks. We only steer at the wall in front of us. Now behind us is the fire. This fire is projecting shadows onto the wall. Okay? And we give names to these shadows. And this is what we call reality. Okay?

But it's a shadow reality. It's all fake. It's all false. It's all what we imagine it to be. One day, for whatever reason, one of us, the chains disappear. And so we stumble upwards out of the cave, okay? And now we're suddenly in the light, right? We see the sun.

The sun, of course, is Asha, truth, okay? Or a hurrah master. And we're blinded because our eyes are used to seeing the dark, right? We can't see. We feel nothing but pain for a long, long time. But over time, we start to see more clearly, and we see the world is beautiful, okay? We see the birds flying the sky. We see the trees around us.

We see the animals. And we're like, this is beautiful. Okay? I found heaven. I found the truth. I found Aharamaata. I have found Aharamaasta. This is what life is really about.

But after some time, you're like, but this is not enough. Okay? I have found the truth, but the truth is not complete because I know there are my friends. my family that are stuck inside the cave. Therefore, for me to fully achieve Asha, I must go down and tell them the truth. Tell them there is an Asha, and we can all break forever change, escape into the light, and see the truth for ourselves. And then we will be truly happy and free and wise. That's what Asha is.

Asha is not just bringing free your change and seeing the truth for yourself, but it's a responsibility to go and spread this virtue to everyone around you. If you see injustice, speak out. Okay? Another way of saying this is, let's use a metaphor. A choir, okay? Sing choir. How does a choir work?

Well, our master, the monad, he's singing a song. We ought to sing along with him, okay? Ah! Okay? If we do that, the world is harmonized. The world is perfect. the world is beautiful. But if most of us are out of tune,

then we need to get into tune, right? Okay? So that's what Asha is. Actually, it's not just self-indualization, self-truth. It is helping others see the truth for themselves, okay? So if you yourself see the truth, you're not have responsibility to teach its truth to others. But the problem is, of course,

if you go down and tell everyone, Hey man, this world we're living in, it's a shadow world. It's a prison. We need to break our chains and escape into the real world. Everyone's like, you're crazy, man. Get out of here, man, you're crazy. And they're like, no, no, no, we have to go. And they're like, okay, well, describe this world to us.

And you're like, it's kind of hard to describe. Well, you're crazy then, okay? So that's Plato's Aligo, the Cave. And this gives you a better understanding. of the idea of Asher. So if you move towards the truth, you're moving towards Asha. But if you're moving away from Asher,

you're moving towards the Druche, okay? So that's a basic premise of Zoroastrianism. This is the idea that Zoroathusra brought to the world, and it will forever change the world, okay? We'll go into the specific history next week. But first, what I want to do this week is just go into his ideas. Okay? All right.

All right. So Zoroosa, we don't know when he lived, okay? But we estimate anywhere between the year 2000 BC to about 1,000 BC. That's a Bronze Age. I suspect he lived towards the end of the Bronze Age. Why? Because when the Bronze Age is coming into the form, people are in love with capitalism. People want to get rich, right?

But after the system matures, there's slavery, there's debt, there's corruption, there's misery, there's suffering. And so people want to hear another voice. Zorathustra himself was a priest. It was discussed by the corruption of priests. Because remember, being a priest means being a teacher, leading people into the light, leading people into Asha. But once the brine shades becomes more mature, then priests are corrupt. They want a lot of money for helping you achieve immortality. They sort of spread false teachings.

They become very corrupt. And so Zoroastra becomes disgusted and he runs around spreading his new message of Asha. Now what's important to understand is that we don't know where Zoroastra worked specifically, but we suspect northern Iran. Why is this important? Because during the branch age, the main centers of wealth were Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Levant. So this is more like a colony where there's a lot of mining going on.

So what's going on here is basically the most human suffering in the world. So imagine maybe Congo where they're using child slaves to dig for rare earths. It's a march of empire where war is a very common thing. Violence is a very common thing. People are being kidnapped and forced to work in the mines in order to get tin for the branch age economy.

Okay? All right. So as you can see, Zoro Thusha is about here, okay? Either northeast Iran or northwest Iran, okay? And as I mentioned, the global economy is around here. This is where most of the wealth is. These people are poor, they're enslaved, and they're extremely violent. All right.

So, Zorohusa comes, and he's a poet prophet, he's a priest, and he's seeing songs to help people better understand the world around them. He's trying to remind them of who they are really, okay? They really are parts of God. All right, so he says, listen with your own ears, with a bright mind, choose truth from false creed each person for his own self before the final judgment comes.

So the idea of the individual, what matters is yourself, what you do, what your family does, what your clan does, what your tribe does, does not matter. What you do, because when you die,

you will face a horror master, the final judgment. Not your family, but you yourself. And so what you must do is choose Asha, the truth. What is the truth?

Being virtuous. Because you, you yourself are virtue. So he wrote in a language called Avastin, and it's a beautiful language. And if you are a Zoroastrian priest, you can memorize all this, okay? But I am not, and I don't want to butcher the language, okay? But it's poetry, it's beautiful. So Asha is the best of all that is good, and Asher is happiness.

Happiness belongs to the one who follows the righteous path for the sake of the best righteousness. So how do you know you're doing Asha? because you are happy, okay, do you understand? So the metaphor is, imagine that you live in a world of, like, fat people who don't exercise, and all they do is watch TV, right? But you decide to go and work out and you become more fin. How do you know you're on the right path? Because you feel happier about yourself, okay?

But the problem, of course, is that you lose all your friends. You lose all your family, okay? That's why people don't do this. Not because they don't know the truth. because they fear the truth. All right. So this is some translated poetry called the Gathas that we know that George Thus wrote, okay? Or he didn't write it.

They were all illiterate at this point, but he sang it, okay? Now the two primal spirits who reveal themselves in vision as twins are the better and the bad in thought and word and action. Between these two, the wise ones choose, all right, the foolish one, not so. So we in our nature always divide into two halves, okay? The good and the bad, the ayesha and the Jewish. And to be truly virtuous, it has to be good thoughts, good words, and good actions. You have to be unified as a person.

You can't speak the truth, but then do bad things, okay? You have to think good thoughts, speak good thoughts, and do good works. And that's what's the rationalism, okay? And when these twin spirits came together in the beginning, they created life and not life, and that at the last worst existence shall be to the followers of the lie, but the best existence to him that follows right. Of these two twine spirits, he that followed the life, the lie, choose doing the worst things, the holiest spirit choose right.

He that close him with the massy heavens as a garment. So likewise, they that are fain to please our master by beautiful actions. Between these twin, the Davos, those that lead you to the Druge also chose not a right, for infatuation came upon them as they took counsel together so that they chose the worst thought. Then they rushed together to violence that they might enfeeble the world of men. So we're living a world run by Davos by demons who choose violence to control us. And what do you do? And to him came dominion and good mind and right and piety gave continued life to their bodies

and indestructibility so that by the retributions through metal he may gain the price over the others. Even in a world of evil, you can choose and you must choose to be good. If people are lying, you tell the truth because what matters is your individual action, not what others are doing. So when there come of their punishment for their sins, then, Omasa, thy command, shall good thought establish the dominion and the consumm'd consummation for those who deliver the lie O'Aara into the hands of right. So God will know what good you did, what evil you did, okay? When you die, you'll be the final judgment.

You will have to face God. So we may be those that make this world advance Omasa and ye Odaaharas, come hither, without saving submission into your country. company in Asha in order that our thought may gather together while reason is still shaky. So even though the world has turned evil, even though the people, the elite are evil, you can still do good and God will know you to do good and God will reward you for doing good. So again, this is the beginning of monotheism. And as you can see, this idea will echo in Christianity and Islam as well. Then truly on the world of life shall come the destruction of the light.

But they who get themselves good name shall be partakers in the promised reward in the fair abode of good thought of master and of right. Oh, if, O ye mortals, ye mark those commandments which master have ordained of happiness and pain, the long punishment for the follower of the drouge and blessings for the followers of the right. Then hereafter shall it be well, okay? So you should do what is virtuous, not only because God will reward you for doing so, but because you will feel eternal happiness in doing so. When though a master in the beginning did create the individual and the individuality through thy spirit and powers of understanding,

when though did make life clothed with the body when actions and teachings whereby one may exercise one's convictions at once free. So you see individual, free will. These are the core concept here, okay? Never say you're being coerced. You always have the choice. You always have the choice to resist.

Then lives up his voice, the false speaker, or the true speaker, he that knows or he that knows not each according to his own heart and mind passing from one to another, Armati confers with the spirit in whom there is wavering. Okay. Clear it is to the man of understanding as one who has realized it was thought. He upholds Asha together with good dominion by his word and deed. He will be, O Master, Ahara, the most helpful helper to thee, okay?

So when we choose to follow Asha, we are doing God's work. When we in our hearts choose Asha, we at that moment change the world for the better. All right. So this sounds a bit complicated and a bit abstract. And honestly, he was speaking to people at that time. So what does he really, really mean? And how can we understand what he's really saying? Well, the argument I want to make you today is that all poor prophets are the same.

They're all divinely inspired. They're all speaking a certain truth. So by understanding other part prophets of that region of that culture, we gain insight into the true thinking of Zoroastra. So this is Rumi, who is considered the greatest Persian poet who has ever lived. He lived in the 13th century, which is about 2,000 years, 3,000 years after Zoroastra. In many ways, if you actually read his poetry, he is the reincarnation of Zoroastra. Okay, so we're gonna read a bit of his poetry.

And then once you read his poetry, they'll give you insight into the cosmology of Zoroastrianism. All right. I see so deeply with myself. I so see deeply with myself, not needing my eyes, I can say everything clearly. Why would I want to bother my eyes again now that I see the world through his eyes, his eyes, okay?

Through the eyes of Asha, through the eyes of the monad, through our master. That's how you should be seeing. In other words, you'd be seeing the world. through your imagination. You can imagine a better world. If you imagine a better world, you can create a better world. So don't be fooled by the material world around us.

It's all fake. It's all an illusion. Not Christian or Jew or Muslim, not Hindu, Buddhist, Sufi, or Zen. Not any religion or cultural system. I'm not from the East or the West, not out of the ocean or up from the ground, not natural or ethereal, not compulsive elements at all. I don't exist. I'm not an entity in this world or in the next. did not descend from Adam and Eve or any origin story.

My place is placeless, a trace of the traceless, neither body or soul. I belong to the beloved, have seen the two worlds as one, and that one called and know, first, last, outer, inner, only that breath-breathing human being. Does that make sense to you? We're all part of God. That's our true nature. There's a divine spark in us. Don't be fooled by the material world, okay?

And don't be fooled by label. fooled by labels. Christians, Buddhists, Jews, there's no difference. We're all the children of God, okay? We're all the same. So don't be fooled by labels. Okay, so there's a joke. Okay, the joke is this. God and Satan are fighting over humanity. And God says to Satan, ha, humans have discovered religion, therefore I have one. And then Satan says, yeah, but then I'll organize it. Okay? So the idea is that religion is great, okay? I'm a big supporter of religion, but organized religion is problematic because organized religion serves the interests of the priests who control the religion. Okay? And that's why there are the differences in these religions,

in Buddhism, in Judaism, in Islam, and Christianity. Because the people in charge need to differentiate the religion in order to exploit you, you, okay? In order to justify their existence. But at the end of the day, we're all connected to divine and all, all that matters is that connection. So all these differences is something that is artificially created to fool us. All right, all that I think about it, then that night I say it. Where did I come from and what am I supposed to be doing? I have no idea.

My soul is from elsewhere, I'm sure of that, and I intend to end up there. I don't remember where I came from, but I know that I must have come from somewhere. Okay? The strickenness began in some other realm, some other tavern. When I get back around to that place, I'll be completely sober. Meanwhile, I'm like a bird from another continent sitting in his ivory. The day is coming when I fly off, but who is it now in my ear, who hears my voice? Who says words within my mouth?

Who looks out with my eyes? What is the soul? I cannot stop asking. If I could taste for an answer, I could break out of this prison for drunks. I didn't come here on my own accord. I can't leave that way. Whoever brought me here will have to take me home. This is beautiful.

And it's also a rewriting of Plato's Allegrode the cave, right? This is a prison for drunks. Here we're all drunk, we're all blind from our true reality. This is a prison. When we return to the monad to our master, then we'll see the true for ourselves, okay? All right, so here's another poor prophet, Frederick Nietzsche, okay? Fedric Nietzsche is one of the three great German philosophers of the past 500 years. Manuel Kant, Frederick Hageo, and Frederick Nietzsche.

And Frederick Nietzsche wrote, thus spoke, Zoroastra. And he wrote in a very interesting way. He likes to take these long walks. He can walk for, like, hours and hours in the mountains. And then now and then he feels as though he's being seized, okay? A force has seized him and compels him to speak. And he believes this person is Zoroastra. Okay?

So he wrote a book, and it is a recollection of all the moments when he was seized by Zoroastusa and forced to speak his words. And we actually read what Nietzsche writes, you will see that it's actually pretty similar to what Zoroastr himself promoted during his time. Of course, Nietzsche is promoting it in a more modern contemporary lens. So if Zoroastah were to come back, he would be, he would basically be Nietzsche, okay? So in many ways, Nietzsche and Rumi are reincarnations of Zoroastra. They're all trying to speak a divine truth to humanity.

All right. So this is the proleth, the first page of Thus Bech, Zoroastra, okay? And what you will notice, look for this. What you will notice is that this is exactly like the other than the cave, okay? All right. When Zoroastra was 30 years old, he left his home in the lake of his home and went into the mountains. There he enjoyed his spirit and his solitude, and for ten years did not wear of it, but at last his heart changed, and rising one morning with a rosy dawn, he went before the sun, and the inspect thus on to it. Though great star, what would thy happiness if thou had not those for whom those shyness?

For ten years, has thou climbed hither unto my cave, though would have weather of thy light and of the journey, had it not been for me, mine eagle and my serpent. But we awaited thee every morning, took from thine overflow, and bless thee for it. Lo, I am wearing my wisdom, like the bee that have gathered too much honey. I need hands outstretched to take it. I would fain bestow and distribute until the wise have once more become joyous and the folly, and the poor happy in their riches. Therefore, my side, I descend into the deep, as thou dost in the evening, when thou go behind the sea, and give light also the neither world, though exuberant star.

Like thee, must I go down, as men say, to whom I shall descend. So Zorathustah has hit himself in the cave. And inside the cave in solitude, he has discovered Asha. He has discovered the secrets of the universe. And he's discovered that this is not enough. I must now go shine the light on everyone. Otherwise, I can never achieve Asha fully. So it's exactly like the Allegrolet Cave where the prisoner, he escaped into the light

and he's happy until he realizes that you can't be happy alone. You have to share this happiness with everyone else, okay? So it's exactly like the algorithm of the cave. All right, let's continue. Though in plentists, thy highest aim to the heart of those passions, then became thy virtues and joys. And though the word of the race of the heart-tempered or the voluptuous, or the fanatical or the vindictive,

all thy passions in the end become virtues, and all thy devils and angels. Once had those wild dogs in thy cellar, but they change at last into birds and charming strong-sures. Out of thy poised, Breeds, though, balsam for thyself, thy cow affliction, milk so. Though drinketh though the sweet milk of her other, and nothing evil grow any longer, unless it be the evil that grow out of the conflict of thy virtues.

My brother, if thou be fortunate, then will thou have one virtue and no more? That goes, though, easier, over the bridge. Illustrious is to have many virtues but a hard lot, and many of one have gone into the wilderness and killed himself, because he was aware of being the battle and battlefield of virtue. Okay, the question then is, if our master is wisdom, why do we live in a world of hate, of evil, of sin? And the answer is, because virtue must come from vice. Good can only come from evil.

To live in good forever is to live in ignorance. We are born in a drouche so that we may discover Asha. from our struggles we will discover what truly good is and that's a gift that God has given us to grow to live in a time of evil so that we may ourselves may create good for humanity okay that's the central message of of this without advice there can be no virtue and to have one virtue itself is not enough you must be constantly in a battle to create more and more virtue Okay? So if you are a man of sin or a woman of evil, be thankful because now is your opportunity to be a star, a son that through transformation of oneself can broaden the world, okay? And when you do that, you transform the world. And then after you do that, your next battle is to go and transform someone else. Or to look deeper and discover the evil in you, okay? So don't worry about the world itself. Just worry about you yourself because within yourself is a universe of evil that can be transformed into a universe of good. So one really important thing I have to say is that this is not Buddhism, okay?

The structure and the framework are very similar, but what Zoro-Zerrothianism fundamentally says is that compassion is not enough, okay? You have to act because justice is about action. If you see injustice, you must speak out. You can't be like, oh, I'm indifferent because I'm compassionate. That's not enough. You have to act out. And that's why people who believe in this religion were so creative, okay, because they believe in action. Being indifferent is simply being, it's basically being complicit in the system, all right?

All right. You tell me, life is hard to bear, but for what purpose shall you have your pride in the morning and your resignation in the evening. Life is hard to bear. But don't affect me so delicate. We are all of us find sumter asses and she asses. Okay? What we have in common with the rosebud which trembled because a drop of dew have formed upon it. It is true that we love life, not because we are want to live, but because we are want to love. Love is Asha, right? We always want to achieve Asha. There is always some madness in love, but there's always also some method and madness. And to me also who appreciate life, the butterflies and soap bubbles

and whatever is like them amongst us seem most to enjoy happiness. To see those light, foolish, pretty, lively little sprites flit about that move Zorozada to tears and strong, I should only believe in a God that would know how to dance. And when I saw my devil, I found him serious, thorough, profound, solemn. He was the spirit of gravity. For him, all things fell. Okay, so what Nietzsche hates is organized religion.

Because organized religion, it is very serious, very somber. It basically wants to enslave us. It's like, don't do anything bad, don't drink, don't smoke, don't have sex, or you'll burn in hell, okay? That's very serious. And what Zorofrusta, and what Nietzsche is saying is that that's not what Asha is, man. Asha is recognized that the world is beautiful, that our master is all merciful, all forgiving, all love, all compassion. And you must delight in the world because that's why he created us, okay? So the only way to survive this world of evil is to recognize that beauty is everywhere around us.

And there's our responsibility to discover this beauty and celebrate this beauty. Dance, sing, make love, laugh, smile. That's what life is about. If a priest is telling you, hey, meditate for all your life, because only for that will you avoid sin, he's a devil, man. Okay? Because he's denying you your free will. He's denying you your capacity to love, to seek action yourself.

But one day will the solitude weary thee, one day will thy pride yield and thy courage quail? Though one day will one day cry, I'm alone. One day will those see no longer thy loftiness and see too closely thy lowliness, thus eliminate itself or frighten thee as a phantom. That will one day cry all as false. So life is a constant struggle between hope and tragedy. There are some days when you will be very hopeful, but then some days when you'll be very depressed.

That's just the process of life, and that's just a process of wisdom. To seek wisdom, you always have to constantly destroy yourself. You have to destroy the world around you. And it's a never-ending process of pain and suffering and tragedy, but it will gradually lead you to enlightenment. What's really important is to act, okay? You seek self-destruction. So another way is saying this is always assume that whatever you know, no matter how truthful, it's probably wrong.

And to go and negate yourself, okay? It also means leaving your family, leaving your comfort zone. All right. A heretic will thou be to thyself. Okay, a heretic is someone who doubts yourself, right? Saying everything I've known is wrong, okay? So I know we're saying this, and I know what's hard to understand is you come to my class for a semester, and everything I teach you, you're like, wow, this makes a lot of sense, okay?

And every day you're excited, you learn a lot. But at the end of semester, what you want to say is, everything I've learned a semester is wrong. So I'm going to learn for myself. I'm going to negate everything I've learned and believe everything I've learned is deceitful so that I can rebuild my own knowledge. and through that process where you actually achieve enlightenment, okay? The truth is, oh, it has to be to you.

There can be no truth for everyone. The truth has to be for you, and you must fight for it every day, okay? Ready must thou be to burn thyself in thy own flame, okay? You must destroy yourself. How could thou become new if thou had not first become ashes?

You understand? To live is to die. If you really want to understand, you must first destroy everything that you think you know, understand in order to build a new understanding. Though lonesome one, they'll go the way of the creating one. A God will, thou create for thyself out of the seven dev devils.

Though lonesome one, though goes the way of the loving one, though loves thyself and on account despise though thyself as only the loving one despise. To create desire the loving one become because he despised. What know he of love who have not been up obliged to despise just what he loved? Okay, this is a really hard cause to understand, but like, you know, in the Buddhist tradition, it's like, avoid anger. No, no, no, embrace your anger. Embrace your hate. Because hate and love go together.

Anger and calm go together, okay? So by going to one extreme, you can now embrace the other extreme. And your life is a kind of struggle between these two different extremes. When you negate yourself, when you move into nothingness, you can only move into ignorance and sense. slavery. Okay? Does that make sense? You are born of two natures. You must let these two natures fight, okay? All right. When Zoroosa had spoken these words, he paused like one who had not said his last word, and long did he balance the staff unethfully in his hand. At least he spoke thus, and his voice had changed. I now go alone, my disciples, ye also now go away and alone, so I have it.

Verily, I advise you, depart from me and guard yourselves. against Zoro Thustra and better still, be ashamed of him. Perhaps he have deceived you. The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also hate his friends. You want true knowledge? You can learn from me, but at the end, we must leave each other and you must say, he is now my enemy. I must now destroy him.

If I really want to be myself, I need to destroy my teachers in order to discover my true self. Okay? And as you can imagine, most people don't want to do this. Most people just want to cling to their mother, want to cling to the teacher. But you can never achieve true ayesha if you do this. Ye love your virtue as a mother loved her child. But when did one here of a mother want to be paid for her love? It is your dearest self, your virtue.

The ring's thirst is in you. To reach itself against struggle every ring and turn itself. And like the star that go out, so is every work of your virtue. Ever is, is its light on its way and traveling. And when will it cease to be on its way? Thus is the light of your virtue still on its way, even when its work is done. Be forgotten and dead, still its ray of light, live and travel. So when we die, our body decompose.

What's still left is our virtue. That's who we are, our virtue. All that good we've done in the world, all the knowledge, all the enlightenment, all the emotions, that we've generated, okay? That will be eternal. And so we must embrace this nature and become virtue itself. Being human is to be first and foremost virtuous,

to seek Asha. For this is the truth, I have departed from the house of the scholars and the door have I also slammed behind me. Too long did my soul sit hungry at their table. Not like them have I got the knack of investigating as a knack of nutcracking. Freedom do I love in the air over fresh soil.

Rather would I sleep on oxkins, than on their honors and dignities. I am too hot and scorched with thine own thought. Often is it ready to take away my breath. Then I have I to go into the open ear and away from all dusty rooms. But they sit cool in the cool shade. They want everything to be merely spectators.

And they avoid sitting where the sun burn on the steps. Like those who stand in the street and gape at the passage by, thus do they also wait and gape at the thoughts which others have thought. Okay? So this is a radical idea, but it's very true. You go to university not to learn how to think, but to fall into ignorance.

Okay? Why? Because professors there, the priest there, they have departed from reality, and they've chosen to live a life of comfort, of ease, of pleasure. And as a result, they can't know anything. True knowledge can only be found in the everyday, in the mundane, with ordinary people. That's where God is.

The universe is constructed to be away from God. They are temples for the comfort of priests. So if you want true knowledge, go out into the world and talk to ordinary people. Suffer. Okay? All right. So that's it. Okay?

So now you can understand the beauty and power of Zorthustah. And I really do believe this. I really believe that Nietzsche was channeling Zorohthrusha. But it was channeling in a way for the common mind, okay? Because the thing about Asha is that it's always changing, all right? The Asha that was true 3,000 years ago is that the Asha that's true for us today. All right? And what's really important to understand is that Asha is constantly becoming.

So you have to constantly work towards it. There's no end point to Asha. And Asha is going to be different for everyone. But if everyone's moving towards Asha, then the world becomes a more virtuous, a better place, and a more just place. Okay? So, any questions, guys? All right.

So last class, I gave a lecture on the Bible. And I made a mistake in my lecture. So in my discussion about the story of the patriarchs between the love story of Rachel and Jacob, I said that Jacob had to work seven years for Rachel after his marriage to Leah. But as this sub-struct subscriber, Cole tells me, actually, that's not the Bible says. The Bible says that Laban, the father, gave Rachel to Jacob. right away but then he had to work seven years to pay off that debt okay so thank you to cole for correcting the error in fact i probably made a lot of small errors um in my uh talk last class and

i obviously made make a lot of mistakes every class okay so i apologize for that but the thing about this class and it's really important for us to remember is that this is a class not about answers it's about questions okay so what makes this class interesting and special is that that we're always asking the hard questions. What does it mean to be human? Where do we come from? Why are we here? Where are we going?

We're always asking these questions because these are questions that actually matter for us. That's the first thing. Second thing is that I'm constantly in the process of becoming. I'm constantly trying to discover the answers. And so for me, this is a journey. So for example, Zora Thrustra is a revelation to me.

Before I didn't know about Zoro Thurstra. And I made a lot of mistakes. So for example, I said that Christianity was the first monophistic religion last semester. And now I recognize that's wrong. It's actually zoroastrianism, okay? So I'm constantly in the process of discovery, of becoming. And what's really important is that we continue to speculate. We continue to explore together.

And so if you don't like what I say this class or you don't like my opinion, just wait a year or two. and I'll probably change my opinion. Because that's what true knowledge is about. If you really want to pursue knowledge, you must be willing to, as Nietzsche, as Zoroathusa says, you constantly need to destroy yourself, to burn yourself into ashes so that you may build yourself anew. And that's what the process of real education should be about.

So in this class, I'm not here to give you eight easy answers. I'm not here to give you facts that you must memorize. I'm here to ask you questions that help you better understand yourself and better understand the world around you. To help, this class is about conversation, dialogue, and debate. Okay? All right. So, any questions, guys?

Yeah. Sorry, let me give you the mic. So I just say, the action is different for different individuals. So I was thinking about an example is, so Hitler as a racist, he, he, he not only himself but he also making some like a lot a lot of people to hate Jews and let's assume that he think jewels are evil in his heart and trying to destroy them so if he think that this is real justice does this still count for

ash okay look um look It's a very sensitive topic, you know, Hitler and the Holocaust. I don't want to spend too much time on it, okay? But if you truly understand Asha, if you truly understand Zoroastu, what it would say is that our master is complete forgiveness, compassion, and love. Okay? So whatever we do in this world, we'll be forgiven in the end.

I know, I understand this is hard for a lot of people. to accept. I know that we grew up knowing that there must be evil in this world because of the Holocaust and there must be Satan and all that. But if you really want to discover Asha, you have to let go of these ideas and understand that in the end, all will be forgiven. I'm sure that there are people you hate in this world and you think that they must burn in hell because of all the evil they've done in this world. But if we want to appreciate Asha, if we want to discover the truth, okay, we need to let go of this hatred. We need to let go of this judgment, okay?

I mean, the very important of Asha is, don't worry about other people, just worry about yourself. Don't compare yourself to other people. Compare yourself to yourself, okay? And so how do you know you're moving towards Asha? Because you can feel it, all right? The problem is what keeps us from Asha are two things. Our ego and our fear. We want to be liked by everyone, our ego, okay?

And our fear of rejection. People of saying something that offends other people, being politically correct. Okay, like I know that in my class I offend a lot of people and I get shot at all the time on YouTube and I know that okay But if I want to achieve Asha, I need to take this risk Okay, because at the end of the day what matters is my own individual pursuit of the truth What other single meat does not matter. Okay, so the problem our society is we're brainwashed in thinking that the opinions of others matter, okay? What your teacher says about you matters because the teacher recommendation will decide whether

not you get into a good university. How much money you make matters because that will give you status in society. And what Zoroastra, what Nietzsche, what roommate, what Plato, they're all saying is this. It doesn't matter, man. What matters if you want true happiness, if you want true enlightenment, if you want Aisha, you have to embark on a personal journey that requires solitude, that requires rejecting everything that you know in the past so that you can rebuild yourself once you make that once you make that that decision actually will come to you naturally okay but first and foremost what you need to do

is let go of these prejudices let go of these ideas that have been put into you okay i know yes i know i know i will get shout out i i i know get cursed online for saying you know Hitler will be forgiven but hitler will be forgiven because everyone will be forgiven okay Everyone will be forgiven. Okay, there is no, there is no hell. I'm sorry to say this, okay? I'm sorry to say, but there is no hell. Hell is what we create in our hearts.

Okay? Everyone will be forgiven. All right, but thank you for the question. Any more questions? Okay. My question would be, I know that Asha for everyone will have different, but like, will it change? in a different period, like when I was being as a child or when I grow up, would that change?

Okay, so like, I'm not a Zoro Ashton priest, and I don't insult the religion, okay? Because what they will tell you is that at the end of the day, Asher is virtue, and God is virtue, okay? So when you do Asher, you're moving towards God, which is perfection. okay but um i think that what nietzsche would say and maybe is our throughstop but i think nisha would definitely say this is that god is creativity okay so god so what you really want to do is when you move towards asha is to constantly reinvent yourself to discover new ideas about yourself and this is a never-ending process okay there's no finale to it there's no finale to it there's no finality to it, that means that each of us will live our own individual lives that's different

from others. And so what this means is that Ashtra will become different for each of us. But what's important is, and Rumi would say this, everyone would say this, is follow your heart, okay? Ignore what others think, dissipate your fears, okay? Kill your fears and just believe in yourself, father your heart, and Asher will come naturally to you, okay? And when that happens also, God will come naturally to you.

And you will discover new truths, new powers, new understandings that will bring you greater happiness in life. Okay? Does that make sense? Yeah. Okay, great. Any more questions, guys? All right. Yeah.

So does that mean we'll never be like, like, not physically, but like with Esha, but like we're always trying to. get close it with them yeah yeah so again there's no end point okay there's no destination here okay it's becoming okay it's a possible constant process of becoming and it's not possible to seek Asha in one lifetime right that's why we are reincarnated because we come back and we do it over again and we move closer towards Asha each time but there can never be an endpoint okay because let's just say you that end point guess what everyone else hasn't so you have a duty now to help other

people okay does that make sense so if you move closer to Asha you also want to move others closer to Asha so it's a constant it's a constant struggle but that's what gives meaning and purpose to the universe the fact that we're all striving to be better okay virtue truth Asha these are all we strive for okay there can be no perfection there can just be only a process of becoming Does that make sense? Yes. Okay.

So, look, I mean, I know people want simple answers. I know that, oh, there'll be a final judgment, we're going to go to heaven, and we'll live ever happily ever after, okay? That's not what the truth is. The truth is that the universe is a constant process of becoming of struggle, of pain, of tragedy. But from that, we can build hope and virtue and good. Okay, all right, so thank you. So what I've done is I've gone over into the three major civilization, okay?

The Greeks, the Isolites, and the Persians that have come after collapse of the bronze age, okay? What I'm going to do next week is I'm going to show you how these three civilizations interact with each other. Okay, we're going to the history of these civilizations. Okay, all right, so I'll see you guys next week.