Zoroaster

Here is the life and teachings of Zoroaster as preserved in Zoroastrian scripture and traditions.

Zoroaster was born into a virtuous family that took their religious practices seriously but that did not prevent him from questioning what he saw happening. As a young man he was dismayed at the bloody animal sacrifices carried out by the clergy, unable to understand how killing helpless animals constituted worship worthy of the Creator. He grew to hate the greed of the priests and the ways in which they manipulated the populace to support their self-indulgent lifestyles. Because he could not accept the practices he saw around him, Zoroaster set out to discover religious truth for himself by observation and meditation.

The years spent in this contemplative lifestyle led Zoroaster to the conclusion that there must be an underlying intelligence to the universe. He deduced from the existence of a universal intelligence that there must also be universal laws, so he then began to live his own life at the moral and ethical level that seemed implicit in nature; practicing selfless love, moral courage and truth in all things. Once successful in practicing this lifestyle Zoroaster felt he was qualified to dedicate his life to the preaching of truth, the guidance of his fellow human beings and the preservation of nature. Zoroaster's teachings were put into writing in the form of hymns called Gathas.

The Gathas contain a comprehensive set of rules for living a life in accordance with God's eternal law, known as Asha, a word that has no correspondence in English. It connotes the eternal, immutable law that rules the universe on all physical and spiritual planes. This law requires selfless service carried out with love and dedication for the preservation and development of the world. The ultimate goal of Asha was to remove injustice, inequality and evil in all its forms from the earth by battling ignorance, the root of all error. This victory was to be achieved by following the most often-quoted maxim of Zoroaster: Good Thought, Good Word, and Good Deed.

Fundamental to Zoroastrianism is the doctrine that the one god, called Ahura Mazda by Zoroaster, is the one and only source of creation, a creation that has neither beginning nor end. Ahura Mazda is transcendent, impersonal and immanent. In his transcendence he is beyond all creation, yet the cosmos depends upon him for existence. In his immanence he is within all creation: in the rocks and flowers, trees and grains, in the animals and in the spirit of man. He is in all creation but is not identical with that creation, it is not his body. He has no spatial location.

Man can know Ahura Mazda only through his attributes, which are: Intelligence, Righteousness-with-Justice, Tranquillity-with-Love, Divine Might, Perfection and Eternity. These qualities are also present in the world and in the human spirit. There is a seventh quality called Spenta Mainyu, Sublime Constructive Force, which is the essence of constructiveness, creativity and positiveness and is shared only with the human spirit. It is the sharing of these qualities that leads to one of the more unique aspects of Zoroastrianism, the belief that Man is co-creator of the Earth with Ahura Mazda.

Because humanity is co-creator and has free will, it is incumbent upon Man to obey the law of Asha. The failure to do so brings evil into the world. This is a critically important doctrine in Zoroastrian belief and bears repeating: Ahura Mazda is the One Creator and all goodness emanates from him, while evil emanates only from humanity's willing disregard for the laws of proper living. The evil produced by human activity is called Angra Mainyu, which can be translated as "evil mentality."

It is important to understand that this doctrine of Spenta Mainyu and Angra Mainyu is a moral dualism existing only in the human mind. Zoroaster maintained a pure monotheistic stand that gave evil no independent existence. Since this conflict between good and evil is a mental one it will end ultimately with the victory of good when patience and right living will defeat the ignorance that is the source of the "evil mentality."

Zoroaster rejected the old rituals associated with the worship of the gods of the religion he grew up with. He taught instead that Ahura Mazda was to be worshiped by virtuous acts rather than empty ceremonies, by selfless love rather than by bloody sacrifices. He made clear distinctions between mythology and theology. He rejected the idea that royalty was divine and encouraged people to stand up against injustice.

In Zoroastrianism it was forbidden to harm nature. Defilement of the soil, water, air or fire in any way was considered a crime against nature and a violation of the law of Asha. Unlike most other religions Zoroastrianism treats life and matter as aspects of God's bounty and therefore perfect in every way. It was truly the first ecological religion.

The concept of human rights is deeply ingrained in Zoroastrianism and it was the first religion to take a doctrinal and political stand on the subject of human rights, including equality of the sexes. It has condemned the limitation or curtailment of those rights under any pretext. All these enlightened concepts derive from the idea that God is good and we are His coworkers.

Zoroaster taught that there is an afterlife very much like life on Earth. This was in marked contrast to the belief common throughout the ancient world that after death the spirit dwelt in a dreary, shadowy underworld. However this wonderful afterlife was available only to those who lived by the law of Asha. Those who chose the path of Angra Mainyu were held in a suspended state until the end of the world when they would be purified of their error by fire.

This is a very brief look at the exquisite elegance of Zoroaster's religious teaching, which survived intact for quite some time after his death. Eventually the Magis, who were priests in the native religion that Zoroastrianism had replaced, infiltrated themselves into the religion and began to incorporate some elements from their pre-Zoroastrian beliefs. The first change was to bring back some of the old gods and then turn the various qualities of Ahura Mazda into beings.

The final and most dramatic change was to turn Angra Mainyu from a state of mind into a being, with a new name, Ahriman. This turned the moral dualism taught by Zoroaster into a cosmic dualism portrayed as a gigantic battle between the forces of good and evil being played out on the earth through the actions of humanity. They turned the character of the Saoshyant, which was a group of all the pious men who work for the improvement of the world, into one or more messiahs who would come at the time of the final great battle of good and evil.

It was after all these changes had been made that the Jewish people came into contact with Zoroastrianism during the Babylonian captivity, beginning with the first capture of Jerusalem in 597 BCE and ending in 538 BCE. This was necessary since Abraham had not passed on the appropriate teachings and the Jewish people needed to be brought into alignment with the teachings if this was to be the people to produce the Christ-exemplar. This is recorded in Jeremiah 29:7: "And seek the peace of the city whither I have cause you to be carried away captives, and pray unto the Lord for it: for in the peace thereof shall ye have peace."

It is from this exposure that Judaism and Christianity acquired their belief in a dualistic cosmos being torn between the forces of good and evil. It was here that the Jews acquired knowledge of angels. It was here that the Jews were exposed to the idea of a messiah who would come at the end of time to assure the restoration of Divine Law to the world.

Had the Magi not distorted Zoroaster's teachings the religious history of the western world would have been remarkably different. I believe it would have been far more tolerant of other beliefs--something Zoroastrians are justly famed for--and might have managed without religious wars and crusades. We should at least acknowledge the debt that Jews, Moslems and Christians owe to the pioneering religious thought of Zoroaster. The New Testament Jesus said that the truth would set us free; words that could easily have been spoken by Zoroaster. The modern world would do well to study the original teachings and understand the ways in which they represent a more enlightened spirituality than most being taught in the world today.

* * * * * * *

This incarnation is relevant for at least three reasons: First, it marks the first opportunity to see first-hand some of the teachings promulgated by the spirit of Melchizedek. Second, a new idea of humans being co-creators was promulgated and took root in the collective consciousness and thereby began changing the collective unconsciousness where the archetypes do their work in shaping humanity's destiny. Third, through the image of the Saoshyant, Zoroaster put into place the beginning of the messiah archetype that would play such a major role in the future of religion.