"The parable greatly served the purpose, because it can be easily remembered, and because it has many layers of meaning – at least at the lowest everybody can remember it.

"At its highest, only those who have that quality of consciousness. For example, all these parables are based on dialogues between animals, or between animals and man. And we know that animals don't speak. Still, around the world the same pattern has been followed; and great truths have been expressed through the animals.

"The animal is a symbol of absolute innocence. Even a child is not so innocent; even a child starts becoming diplomatic, political from the very beginning, because he's surrounded by an atmosphere which contaminates his consciousness.

"The smallest child will smile at the mother – not that he really feels like smiling; his smile is no different from the smile of Jimmy Carter – he knows that by smiling he persuades the mother. His smiling is diplomatic; it is not from his heart. It is not that he is very happy, seeing the mother, but he depends on the mother. His whole nourishment is in the hands of the mother – he has to keep her happy. He smiles, not without some reason – his smile is not innocent.

"In the parables animals have been used because they are absolutely uncontaminated by human cunningness, diplomacy, and dirty politics. They are absolutely simple and innocent. They represent innocence – an innocence which, even though it may not speak, its very presence radiates truth. Today's fragment on Zarathustra starts with a small parable.

One morning not long after his return to his cave, Zarathustra passes through a period of seven days when he is as dead.

"In parables everything has to be searched, because one never knows where the meaning has been hidden in its words. For example:

Zarathustra passes through a period of seven days.

"Seven days are symbolic and significant; they are symbolic of the seven stages of human consciousness. For centuries the so-called crowd of humanity has known only one stage, in which we live – the so-called consciousness.

"It was only in this century in the West that Sigmund Freud and his colleagues introduced the very shocking idea of the unconscious mind – because he was working with dreams, with hypnosis, with analysis, and he found a great unconscious space in man, of which he is not aware; although it affects his actions, his ideas, his behavior, his whole life-style."