Zartusht Part 5
Zartusht appears as the follower of truth and good mind or thoughts. The interesting fact is that in the gathas there is no mentioning of following zartusht or his creed. The basic principle is the advancement of truth and good deeds and refraining from lies and wiles.
The other interesting principle that we see appear in the Gathas is that zartusht words are his own and not those of God. God has granted him eloquence, pure wisdom and good thoughts. He has simply profited from these blessings and instructions in order to send forth words for mankind that had never been heard. Zartusht never claims that the Gathas are the words of God or that his hymns are divine inspiration. There are hymns that one can indirectly assume that has profited from inspiration and enlightenment, but what is actually stated in his own and not that of God.
The followers of other religions claim that their script is the direct word of God. This has made them carry out that which has been written word for word.
This belief has caused the exact enactment and empowerment of religious institutions and yet it has also cause innumerable controversy that has often ended in destruction and massacre. The churches try to put supernatural principles in their creed in order to turn their creed into the words of God which must be obeyed with blind submission. Undoubtedly that which was said three thousand years ago bears the ambience and condition of its own time. This particularly true of that which concerns the daily lives of men, their traditions and customs. All this could have been well enacted in its own days. Today, after the passage of several millennia and basic changes in the lives and possibilities of man, these ancient interpretations regardless of how superior they might have been, can no longer adhere to the lives of present day man. If we look into these practices we will see how illogical many of these instructions are. Thus, in order for the church to survive it has to claim that it is the direct word of God and therefore eternal. It needs to claim that it dose and will continue to be the command of God as long as man lives on this terrestrial plane.
The God of psalms and poetry is the creation of the poet’s imagination. He is not the great life giving dadar of the world. The psalms of God can be heard in the order of creation and in all universal phenomena, his countenance can be seen in the heart of the universe—an endless world. His realm can be attained through human wisdom. Those Gods who only listen to Gathic, Vedic, and Hebrew… are the creations of zartushtis, Indians, Jews… The language of God is the language of nature and of creation. All the creatures of the world speak this language for God is the creator of life, body, words and speech. The zartusht who is presented in the Gathas has placed love, kindness, wisdom, good thoughts, tolerance and understanding at the base of his teachings. These teachings cannot be the foundation of prejudice and rigidity that has found root in rendering the Gathas as divine nor in making the Bondahishn and Ardavirnameh sacred, which are all negation of God. Notably, Zartushti thinkers and scholars, through tradition and heredity, not only see zartusht’s saying and lamentations as the words of God, and continue to use them as prayers and incantations, but also consider many superstitions of the new Avesta sacred and accept it as their scripture. Unfortunately, zartushtis are not the only ones caught in the grips of indoctrinated hereditary belief for most followers of religions are caught in the same clutch and have thereby trapped humanity.
