"Joy is nothing but the fragrance of a whole heart, and misery the outcome of a heart which has been dissected into parts, into fragments.

"As far as Zarathustra is concerned there is only one thing unchanging and that is change itself. Except change, everything goes on changing. And the man of consciousness will respond to every change – not according to any fixed values but according to his alertness, consciousness, according to his spontaneity.

"In the vision of Zarathustra, spontaneity has a very fundamental role to play. If values are not fixed then the only source you can get your values from is going to be your spontaneous response to the reality in which you are. It will be fresh and new; and there is no need for feeling any guilt. You have to live now. The people who lived five thousand years ago had no idea what life is going to be in the future. They decided their values according to their time.

"For example, fourteen hundred years ago Islam was born, and it was born in the great desert of Arabia. In Arabia it was a problem that there were four times more women than men, because men were continually warring with each other, fighting with each other, killing each other. The ultimate result was that there were four times more women and it was creating a great problem for the society. It was their situation, and Mohammed responded very spontaneously. He decided that every Mohammedan could have four wives. But the Mohammedans are still insisting in the world that they should have four wives. Now the situation has changed: men and women are of equal numbers. Now, to insist that, 'Because in our religious scriptures four wives are allowed.' To make it a law forever is sheer stupidity.

"But that is the situation of all the religions. They have responded to their own time correctly, but time is not a fixed thing. Life is a moving river. It is entering into new areas, new territories, new potentialities, and it has to be alert about it.

"Life cannot be lived according to the past.

"That is one of the basic teachings of Zarathustra: one has to live according to the present, aware of the future."