Leģenda par Zaratustru

Once, when Vishtaspa, king of Persia, was returning from a victorious campaign, he came near to the place where Zoroaster lived and taught his disciples. He decided to visit the famous man, whose name was known to every Persian, and to see if he could answer those difficult questions which the wise men in his palace were unable to explain.
The king and his retinue turned aside to Zoroaster’s place and saw a man who seemed to be a teacher, with a group of disciples round him. All were busy in an orchard and the Master appeared to be instructing them. At the king’s approach the disciples withdrew.
Then the king said to Zoroaster: “I believe you to be the great Zoroaster, and I have come that you may explain to me the laws of Nature and the Universe. If you are as wise a man as my people declare, this will doubtless not take you long. I cannot tarry, as I am on my way home from a war and important matters of state await me at my palace.”
Looking at the king, Zoroaster took a grain of wheat from the earth and gave it to him. “In this small grain of wheat,” he declared, “are contained all the laws of the universe and the forces of Nature.” The king was much astonished by this answer, which he did not understand. And when he saw smiles on the faces of those around him, he was angry and threw the grain upon the ground, thinking that he was being mocked. And to Zoroaster he said: “I believed that you were a wise man and a great philosopher, but I now see that you are a stubborn and ignorant man, hiding your ignorance beneath the cloak of exaggeration. I was foolish to waste my time by coming here to see you.” And with that the king turned to depart and rode on to his palace.
Then Zoroaster picked up the grain of wheat, saying to his disciples: “I will keep this grain of wheat, because it will one day be needed by the king and will be his teacher.”
The years passed. The king was successful as ruler and warrior, and led a life of luxury and apparent contentment in his palace. But at night, when he went to bed, strange thoughts came into his mind and troubled him.
“I live in luxury and abundance in this splendid palace,” thought the king, “but not far away are multitudes of people who live in misery and want, who are cold and are hungry. Why am I king? Why do I have power over all men and all things in my empire? Why are the people poor and why do they suffer? How long shall I enjoy this abundance and power, and what will happen to me when I die? Can my power and my riches save me from illness and death? What will they avail when I lie in my grave? What will happen when my body turns to dust and feeds the worms? Will aught be left of this life or is everything lost with the coming of death? If I pass on to another life, shall I still be myself, or shall I be someone entirely different? And if there is another life, what shall I experience in it? Shall I continue to have the power and riches of my present life, or shall I be a vagabond with no place to lay my head, exposed to all the inclemency of nature and lacking money for the morrow’s food? What happened before I came into this life? Did I live before in this country or in another? Or was I born for the first time into this life? How did life begin? How did the world come into being, and what was there before life appeared? What was there before the creation of the universe? Was the universe created by someone, and was that someone God? Who created God? What is time? What existed before time? Does eternity exist? If so; how can we conceive eternity?”
The nights of the king were tormented by such questions, and often he did not sleep till morning came.
No one in the palace could answer these questions, but meanwhile the fame of Zoroaster grew. The king was aware that many disciples were coming to the teacher from many lands, and he felt that there was the man who might be able to tell him more of these problems than anyone else. So putting by his pride, he dispatched a great caravan of treasure to Zoroaster and with it an invitation and a request. “I regret,” he wrote, “that when I was impatient and thoughtless in my youth, I asked you to explain the great problems of existence in a few minutes of time. I have changed and do not want the impossible. But I am still deeply interested to know the laws of the universe and the forces of nature, even more so than when I was a young man. Come to my palace, I pray you, or if that is not possible, then send to me the best of your disciples that he may teach me all that he can about these questions.”
After an interval the caravan and the messengers returned. These told the king that they had found Zoroaster, who sent him greeting but returned the proffered treasure. The treasure, Zoroaster had said, was of no use to a gardener, but he was glad to keep the wrappings of the packages, as they would be useful to protect his trees and plants against the cold of winter. Moreover, Zoroaster had sent the king a gift wrapped in a leaf and had asked the messengers to tell him that this was the teacher who would teach him everything concerning the forces of nature and the laws of the universe. “I am not sending one of my disciples,” Zoroaster had said, “but my own teacher who has taught me all I know about the laws of life. I trust that the king will be as apt to learn as my teacher is to teach.”
Then the king asked where the teacher was and in reply the messengers handed him the little gift wrapped in the leaf. The king opened it and found the same grain of wheat that Zoroaster had given him before. He was greatly perturbed by the wheat and thought there must be something mysterious and magical in it. So he put it in a golden box and hid it among his treasures. Almost every day he looked at it, expecting some miracle to happen, such as the turning of the grain of wheat into something or someone that would teach him all he wished to know.
Months went by, but nothing happened. At last the king lost patience and said:
“It seems that Zoroaster has deceived me again. Either he is making a mock of me or else he does not know the answers to my questions. I will show him that I can find the answers without his help.” So the king sent a caravan to the great Indian philosopher Tshengregacha, to whom came disciples from all parts of the world, and with the caravan went the same messengers and the same treasure that he had once sent to Zoroaster.
After many months the messengers returned from India and announced that the philosopher had consented to become the king’s teacher and would soon arrive at his court. Then the king was glad and ordered that festivities be held in honor of his guest and, when the philosopher arrived, he thanked him for coming from such a far country.
But Tshengregacha said to him: “I am honored to be your teacher, but in frankness must tell you that I come chiefly to your country that I may meet the great Zoroaster, of whom I have heard such wide report. Indeed I do not know why you should have need of me when you are so near to one who can doubtless tell you more than I.” Then the king took the golden box containing the grain of wheat and answered: “I asked Zoroaster to teach me; see, this is what he sent me. Here is the teacher who shall teach me the laws of the universe and the forces of nature. Is this not ridiculous? How can as great a teacher as you think Zoroaster to be commit such folly?”
Tshengregacha looked long at the grain of wheat and silence fell upon the palace while he meditated. At length he said: “I do not regret my many months of journeying, for now I know that Zoroaster is in truth the great teacher that I have long believed him tobe. This tiny grain of wheat can indeed teach us the laws of the universe and the forces of nature, for it contains them in itself. Even as you must not keep the grain of wheat in its golden box if you would learn the answers to the weighty questions which trouble you, and if you would grow in wisdom and understanding, so you yourself must not stay in this luxurious palace. If you plant this little grain in the earth where it belongs, in contact with the soil, the rain, the air, the sunshine and the light of the moon and of the stars, then, like a universe in itself, it will begin to grow bigger and bigger. Likewise you, if you would grow in knowledge and understanding, must leave this artificial palace and go into your garden, where you will be close to all the forces of Nature and of the Universe—to the sum total of things. Just as inexhaustible sources of energy are ever flowing towards the grain planted in the earth, so will innumerable sources of knowledge open and flow towards you, till you become one with Nature and the organic universe. If you watch the growth of this seed of grain you will find that there is an indestructible and mysterious power in it—the power of life. If you watch long enough, you will see that the grain disappears and is replaced by a plant which will triumph over all obstacles and opposition—which will grow higher and higher because it has life within it. If you throw a stone upwards, it falls again to the ground, since it is dead and not living and has not the mysterious power of life which enables the plant to grow higher and higher and to triumph over death. At the moment when the grain sprouts there is victory over death, and indeed at every instant of the plant’s growth towards the sun in the face of great opposing forces.”
“All that you say is true,” answered the king, “yet in the end the plant will wither and die and will be dissolved in the earth.”
“But not,” said the philosopher, “until it has done an act of creation and has turned itself into hundreds of grains each like the first. The tiny grain disappeared as it grew into a plant, and you, too, as you grow, must turn yourself into something and someone else. In the same way a great truth also seems to disappear and be turned into something that is seemingly different, but only to return in a greater form, like the hundred grains that take the place of the one.
“You, too, must one day cease to be your present self, so that you may become a richer personality, in pursuance of the law that life always creates more life, truth more abundant truth, the seed more abundant seeds. This is one answer to your problems given by the grain of wheat. It teaches that everything is in movement and is constantly changing and growing: that life and all things else are the result of struggle between two opposite forces. If you go into your garden and will look at soil and rain, at the sky and the sun and the stars, they will teach you many more truths of a like kind.
“The grain of wheat is indeed a great teacher. We should be thankful to Zoroaster for having sent it to us. I propose that now we go to rest and that on the morrow we journey to Zoroaster himself that he may teach us more of these things. He will be able to tell you all that you wish to know of the matters which trouble you, and I myself will profit from his wisdom.”
The king was much moved by Tshengregacha’s words and readily agreed to his suggestion. In a few days’ time they came to the garden of Zoroaster and understood at once the method by which he taught his disciples. His only book was the great book of Nature, and he taught his disciples to read in it.
The two visitors learned another great truth in Zoroaster’s garden: that life and work, study and leisure, are one and the same; that the right way to live is a simple, natural life—a creative life within which individual growth is a single total dynamism. They spent a year in the garden, learning to read the laws of existence and of Life from the vast book of Nature. At the end of that time the king returned to own city and asked Zoroaster to set out systematically the essence of his great teaching. Zoroaster did so, and the result was the sacred book of the Zend Avestas, which by the king’s command became the official religion of the Persian Empire. Meanwhile Tshengregacha wentback to India and there, being a poet as well as philosopher, he summed up all that he had learnt in Zoroaster’s garden in the beautiful hymns of the Rig-Veda, another of the great sacred books of the East.
Persia became a great nation, growing ever more powerful as long as it followed Zoroaster’s teaching in all its depth and simplicity, and as long as its people lived simple, natural and creative lives in accordance with the teaching of the Avestas. And when, like all imperial powers, the Persians departed from their simple, patriarchal way of life, becoming lazy from excess of wealth and might, they fell before the arms of a rising warrior nation, whose strength derived from the same purity and simplicity of life which had once formed the basis of the Persian power. Such is the cycle constantly recurring throughout universal history. The fate of the individual or of the nation will always be determined by the degree of his or its harmony with the forces of Nature and with the laws of life and of the Universe.