A Zoroastrian Educational Institute

Journal

The Cosmos and Zarathushtra [i]

We have the Semitic founders/reformers of religions – Judaism, Christianity, Islam and Baha’ism. These are persons, chosen by God and are given, through revelation, the prescriptions and proscriptions to obey.  For them, the chaos – floods, storms, earthquakes, epidemic and many more calamities in the world is either the divine punishments for disobedience or the works of a rebel archangel who is running free to run down his creator’s world.

On the other hand, we have Zoroastrianism, Buddhism and Jainism, which have their founders as researchers who have found the path to eternity.  While Buddhism and Jainism know only about the causes of “misery” in the human society and see the solution in forsaking social activities, Zoroastrianism wants a “mentally and physically” free, democratic, productive, beneficial, progressive, refreshing and happy society in a healthy natural environment.

Of all these founders, Zarathushtra is the only person who asks ninety-three questions in his songs of a total of only two hundred forty one stanzas about Cosmos, an orderly harmonious systematic universe and the human society.  His very questions provide the thought-provoking answers.  He observes the sky, sun, moon, stars, and the earth (with its air, water, vegetation and animals) to form a part of the COSMOS.  He does not see any unnatural occurrences.  And he clearly observes Mazda Ahura, the Supper-Intellect Essence as the creator, maintainer and promoter of the Cosmos.

He discovers wrong only in the human society.  It is the humans who kill, harm, hurt and rob humans and the animals.  It is they who destroy and ruin the natural environment.  He has his Sublime Songs to guide humanity to “entirety and eternity” by reforming and refreshing the society to its beneficially progressive status.  With no prescriptions and proscriptions, which outdate themselves, Zarathushtra’s Songs are the Divine Guide to Entirety and Eternity in the Cosmos we live.  

 Seeking Principles of Life

 tat thwâ peresâ eres-môi vaochâ, ahurâ!
mėñdaidyâi yâ-tôi, mazdâ âdistis,
yâ -châ vohû ukhdâ frashi manańhâ,
yâ –châ ashâ ańhêus arêm vaêidyâi,
kâ –mê urvâ vohû urvâshat âgemat tâ.

This I ask You, tell me truly, Lord
In order to bear Your directives in mind Wise One,
the words I ask through good mind
and the facts about life to be correctly
 understood through righteousness are;
What shall my soul ultimately attain.

[Source: “Gāthās Our Guide”: Ali A. Jafarey – Song 9.8, Ys. 44.8]