On the Despisers of the Body

To the despisers of the body I want to say my word. I do not ask them to relearn and reteach, but only to bid farewell to their own body—and so fall silent.

“I am body and soul”—so speaks the child. And why should one not speak like children?

But the awakened one, the knowing one, says: I am body through and through, and nothing besides; and soul is only a word for something about the body.

The body is a great reason, a multiplicity with one sense, a war and a peace, a herd and a shepherd.

An instrument of your body is your little reason too, my brother, which you call “spirit,” a little instrument and toy of your great reason.

You say “I” and are proud of this word. But the greater thing, in which you do not want to believe, is your body and its great reason: it does not say I, but does I.

What the sense feels, what the spirit knows, never has its end in itself. But sense and spirit would like to persuade you that they are the end of all things: so vain are they.

Instruments and toys are sense and spirit: behind them there still lies the Self. The Self also seeks with the eyes of the senses; it also listens with the ears of the spirit.

The Self is always listening and seeking: it compares, compels, conquers, destroys. It rules and is also the I’s ruler.

Behind your thoughts and feelings, my brother, stands a mighty commander, an unknown sage—his name is Self. He dwells in your body; he is your body.

There is more reason in your body than in your best wisdom. And who knows, then, for what purpose your body needs precisely your best wisdom?

Your Self laughs at your I and its proud leaps. “What are these leaps and flights of thought to me?” it says to itself. “A detour to my purpose. I am the leading string of the I and the prompter of its concepts.”

The Self says to the I: “Feel pain here!” And then it suffers and thinks about how it might suffer no more—and that is the very thing it is meant to think about.

The Self says to the I: “Feel joy here!” Then it rejoices and thinks about how it might often rejoice again—and that is the very thing it is meant to think about.

To the despisers of the body I want to say a word. Their despising is the work of their esteeming. What is it that created esteeming and despising and value and will?

The creating Self created esteeming and despising for itself; it created joy and woe for itself. The creating body created spirit for itself as a hand of its will.

Even in your folly and contempt, you despisers of the body, you serve your Self. I tell you: your Self itself wants to die and turns away from life.

It is no longer able to do what it wants most:—to create beyond itself. That is what it wants most, that is its whole fervor.

But it has now grown too late for that:—so your Self wants to go under, you despisers of the body.

Your Self wants to go under, and that is why you became despisers of the body! For you are no longer able to create beyond yourselves.

And that is why you are now angry with life and with the earth. An unwitting envy is in the squint-eyed glance of your contempt.

I do not go your way, you despisers of the body! You are no bridges to the Übermensch for me!—

Thus spoke Zarathustra.