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EDITORIAL  Nietzsche, Like Buddha, A Disguised Devotee Of Krishna BY TOD DESMOND EDITORIAL, Nov 11 (VNN) — Nietzsche was indeed a great devotee of Krishna using in the west the same strategy Buddha used in the east. Nietzsche said "I could become the Buddha of Europe." (KSA 10, 4[2]) In Shrimad Bhagavatam 1.3.24 we learn: "Then, in the beginning of Kali-yuga, the Lord will appear as Lord Buddha, the son of Anjana, in the province of Gaya, just for the purpose of deluding those who are envious of the faithful theist." In Beyond Good and Evil #40 Nietzsche said, "Whatever is profound loves masks; ... Might nothing less than the opposite be the proper disguise for the shame of a god?" In the Gay Science #106 Nietzsche had a disciple say to his master:
"But I believe in your cause and consider it so strong that I shall say everything, everything that I still have in my mind against it." The innovator laughed in his heart and wagged a finger at him. "This kind of discipleship," he said, "is best; but it is also the most dangerous, and not every kind of doctrine can endure it." Just two aphorisms later, at a very significant #108, Nietzsche dropped his most famous line: "After Buddha was dead, his shadow was still shown for centuries in a cave-- a tremendous, greusome shadow. God is dead; but given the ways of men, there may still be caves for thousands of years in which his shadow will be shown." It was no accident that Nietzsche combined the famous statement that God is dead with Buddha and the most sacred Vedic number, 108. Nietzsche knew exactly what Buddha did, and he was following the same strategy. About God and Buddha's shadow being in a cave, let us hear what else Nietzsche said about caves: "Does not one write books precisely to conceal what one harbors? Indeed, he will doubt ... whether behind every one of his caves there is not, must not be, another deeper cave. ... Every philosophy also conceals a philosophy; every opinion is also a hideout, every word also a mask." (Beyond Good and Evil #289) This recalls us to the earlier quote, BGE #40, when Nietzsche said profound things love masks, and precisley the opposite would be the mask of a god. Did Nietzsche really play the Buddha game? He said himself, "I could become the Buddha of Europe." (KSA 10, 4[2]) He also said, "The strange family resemblance of all Indian, Greek, and German philosophizing is explained easily enough, where there is affinity of languages, it cannot fail, ... everything is prepared at the outset for a similar development and sequence of philosophical systems." (BGE#20) Before my computer shuts down again let me cite one last piece of evidence, the second to last section of Beyond Good and Evil, #295, in which Nietzsche plainly describes his God, and plainly admits he is using a secret code name, Dionysus, a.k.a Krishna: "The genius of the heart, as that great concealed one possesses it, the tempter god and born pied piper of consciences whose voice knows how to descend into the netherworld of every soul, ... Of whom am I speaking to you? ... no less a one than the god Dionysus, that great ambiguous one and tempter god to whom I once offered, as you know, in all secrecy and reverence, my first-born ... for I have found no one who understood what I was doing then. Meanwhile I have learned much, all too much, more about the philosophy of this god, and, as I said, from mouth to mouth-- I, the last great disciple and initiate of the god Dionysus--and I suppose I might begin at long last to offer you, my friends, a few tastes of htis philosophy, insofar as it is permitted me? In an undertone, as is fair, for it concerns much that is secret, new, strange, odd, uncanny. Even that Dionysus is a philosopher, and that gods, too, thus do philosophy, seems to me to be a novelty that is far from innocuous and might arous suspicion precisely among philosophers. ... For today, as I have been told, you no longer like to believe in God and gods. Perhaps I shall also have to carry frankness further in my tale than will always be pleasing to the strict habit of your ears? Certainly the god in question went further,very much further, in dialogues of this sort and was always many steps ahead of me." (BGE#295) Nietzsche's God, code named Dionysus, is a genius in the heart of every soul, a pied piper (or flute player), and a master at the art of philosophical dialogue, a philosophy, moreover, that is handed down from master to disciple "from mouth to mouth." Other than Socrates' (whom some people claim Nietzsche is secretly describing in this passage), the only other philosophical dialogues worthy of discussing are the Vedas. And so we turn to the most famous of all, the Bhagavad-gita, in which Krishna, the flute player, affirms: "I am seated in everyone's heart, and from Me come rememberance, knowledge and forgetfulness. By all the Vedas am I to be known; indeed I am the compiler of Vedanta, and I am the knower of the Vedas." In Thus Spoke Zarathustra Nietzsche also said "I could only believe in a God who could dance." This too is Krishna. Nietzsche was clearly a devotee of Krishna, the king of the athiests was in fact a great devotee of God. If we can prove this to people we will win a great victory for Lord Krishna and all His devotees. Thank you again for taking an interest. Hare Krishna. You can contact me at toddesmond@yahoo.com or tdesmond@keystone.org  Comment on this storyContact VNN about this storySend this story to a friend
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