Comments on Almost Everyone vs. The Whole Thing by Scott Miller

@ CK MacLeod:
All that can be true and there can still be the other side. Again, the Zarathustra prescriptions connect with higher consciousness. "Leaping beyond our limitations" brings up a whole long spiritual debate that, again, goes to the idea of "Revealed Knowledge." I wrote 800 pages on that subject. I called it "A Prelude to Yogic Radical Discourse." In a nut-shell, it's equally connected to charlatanism for us to claim that our limitations are real and have the power to keep us from leaping. That belief makes way for the spiritual "middle-man" who stands before Nietzsche's bridge and tells people they can't cross unless he teaches them how. Business. N spoke to the alternative. He did so without back-up, and while his physical-mental afflictions certainly built to a final breakdown, the horse moment represents something on a spirit level. I know he was flawed. Even his best Zarathustra revelations are flawed. That's why I rewrote them in a crazed leap beyond my limitations. Perhaps I'll post the re-write someday.

@ CK MacLeod:
Yes, I knew the point was your point. Didn't mean to imply that it was really missing.
I also think his nuisance-ness also has to do with our expectations. If he had been "religious," we would expect him to be crazy. Hearing the voice of God makes people crazy. I like the fact that he heard the voice, called it by a different name, didn't use any "crutch," and went crazy (I think as a result of doing it the hard way). That's why the easy way is the easy way. A mystic named Andrew Harvey says something funny when people say things like "faith in God is a crutch." He says, "Oh, no, it's not just a crutch, it's the whole damn hospital." So I admire N for doing it the hard way. Without the hospital, witnessing a horse being beaten pushed his love soaked heart over the edge. He still hugged the horse, but lost his mind. I think there was a lot of love there--too much for someone who didn't have what even Buddhist teachers like Jack Kornfield refer to as "back-up."

@ CK MacLeod:
Right. It is missing the exclamation point.

To use Nietzsche's own words...
"With [Thus Spoke Zarathustra] I have given mankind the greatest present that has ever been made to it so far. This book, with a voice bridging centuries, is not only the highest book there is, the book that is truly characterized by the air of the heights—the whole fact of man lies beneath it at a tremendous distance—it is also the deepest, born out of the innermost wealth of truth, an inexhaustible well to which no pail descends without coming up again filled with gold and goodness."

@ CK MacLeod:
Nicely stated. But at this point, since it has come back up one more time, and you only went half way there, I have to defend Nietzsche. I have read accounts of at least one yogi-type (I can't remember which one) who met him face to face, saw a kind of "aura" around him, and felt he was "realized" on some level and that was despite how much N was suffering from the physical afflictions you mention. Also, I think Nietzsche's prescriptions as Zarathustra speaks to spiritual realization, especially in connection with non-theism, and are hugely underrated as yogic philosophy. They get to the point of dynamic dualism. So if he was a "nuisance," I think he would be a good one if people hadn't misapplied his philosophies so egregiously and failed to see the yogic connection. Oh, and actually, one yogi did. His name was Sri Aurobindo. He was educated at Oxford and used N's Overman-Superman idea in connection with "Supra-consciousness."

I just want to point out how important this early CK point was and is...
CK MacLeod wrote:

So he rushes the Owl of Minerva into flight at dawn instead of dusk, and chaos, destruction, and dreadful reversals and dire revelations ensue. It’s comforting to think that we could understand our world before we set out to change it, but it’s comforting only if we pre-suppose that the understanding is one that must somehow suit us or our abilities.

We make the mistake when we look to philosophy (philosophers) and revelation (mystics) for comfort. There is what yogis refer to as "Shiva" type energy to real philosophy and revelation. It is destructive, not comforting.

CK MacLeod wrote:

For the revelation to stand as a revelation, the universe revealed in the revelation can no longer be the same as the universe prior to the revelation. To say otherwise would be to say that the revelation was insignificant, and thus no revelation at all.

That's what Ken Wilber told his fellow Buddhists. He told them Buddha's revelations needed updating and when they got pissed, he explained it just that way.
Also--love your use of the Karamazov brothers to explain the whole "polyvocalic" universe. Great word "polyvocalic."

@ George Jochnowitz:
The soft-tissue of every ass should be recognized for its energetic sensitivity. In yoga, that recognition is called mulabandha. Oh, and thanks to CK, I think I almost get it now. The "whole" thing is almost really working for me I think. Seriously.