Zoroastrianism and Sufism

Dear Osred

I agree with Parviz.
Zoroastrianism and Sufism have the same origin, Sufism definitely predates Islam in Iran. And the dominant Pantheism of Sufism definitely has its roots in Zoroastrianism and obviously not in Abrahamic dualism.
But there are thousands of different Sufi schools - Sufism is basically ANY Islamic mysticism - so I would not say that Sufism is disguised Zoroastrianism within Islam as some people have wrongly claimed.
And even if one and many can sometimes be the same thing, I believe the basiv tenent of Zoroastrianism is that there are an infinite number of paths available rather than just one path. The passive "submission" inherent to Sufism is Islamic and not Zoroastrian. Zoroastrians (and Pagans) do NOT have a submissional relationship to Ahura Mazda the way Islam is always, also within Sufism, a submission to Allah (literally the practice of "Islam").

Ushta
Alexander

2009/1/8 Parviz Varjavand

Dear Osred,

Please know that Sufism, like Zoroastrianism, is not only one thing, it is many things.
Safavid Iran, a kingdom of the great Sufies, did the greatest atrocities against Zoroastrians, the Zarvanists (Dahri) and the Mithraists (Mehri). In this Sufi pile of stuff, you can find jewels and you can find trash (about %90). The Hazrat does not speak for the majority of Sufis, but I will read him and get back to you. If he says that the "Book" is nature (instead of you know what book!), the great Sufis would skin him alive in their time of power. Many jewels of Mithraic thought can be found in distorted ways amongst the Sufis, so I would look for Mithraism-Sufism conections more than Zoroastrian ones.

Mehr Afzoon,
Parviz

--- On Wed, 1/7/09, osred90 wrote:

From: osred90
Subject: [Ushta] Zoroastrianism & Sufism
To: Ushta@yahoogroups.com
Date: Wednesday, January 7, 2009, 5:37 PM


I'm starting to get interested in possible connections between
Zoroastrianism and Sufism.

Sufism is a spiritual practice associated with Islam - yet
essentially it is a Persian phenomenon which very likely pre-dated
Islam.

Can Zoroastrians go along with his creed below (written by
Hazrat Inayat Khan) (Best not get distracted by the Abrahamic 'one
god' language)

Ten Sufi Thoughts

1 .There is One God, the Eternal, the Only Being; none exists save
He.

2. There is One Master, the Guiding Spirit of all Souls, Who
constantly leads His followers towards the light.

3. There is One Holy Book, the sacred manuscript of nature, the only
scripture which can enlighten the reader.

4. There is One Religion, the unswerving progress in the right
direction towards the ideal, which fulfills the life's purpose of
every soul.

5.There is One Law, the law of reciprocity, which can be observed by
a selfless conscience, together with a sense of awakened justice.

6. There is One Brotherhood, the human brotherhood which unites the
children of earth indiscriminately in the Fatherhood of God.

7. There is One Moral, the love which springs forth from selfdenial
and blooms in deeds of beneficence.

8.There is One Object of Praise, the beauty which uplifts the heart
of its worshippers through all aspects from the seen to the unseen.

9. There is One Truth, the true knowledge of our being, within and
without, which is the essence of all wisdom.

10. There is One Path, the annihilation of the false ego in the real,
which raises the mortal to immortality, in which resides all
perfection.

Hazrat Inayat Khan is noted for trying to introduce Sufism into the
West as a vehicle for promoting tolerance between people of d
ifferent religions and nationalities.

THE WAY OF ILLUMINATION
The Sufi Message of Hazrat Inayat Khan

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TEN SUFI THOUGHTS
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SUFI THOUGHT #1

'There is One God, the Eternal, the Only Being; none exists save He.'

The God of the Sufi is the God of every creed, and the God of all.
Names make no difference to him. Allah, God, Gott, Dieu, Brahma, or
Bhagwan, all these names and more are the names of his God; and yet
to him God is beyond the limitation of name. He sees his God in the
sun, in the fire, in the idol which diverse sects worship; and he
recognizes Him in all the forms of the universe, yet knowing Him to
be beyond all form: God in all, and all in God, He being the Seen and
the Unseen, the Only Being. God to the Sufi is not only a religious
belief, but also the highest ideal the human mind can conceive.

The Sufi, forgetting the self and aiming at the attainment of the
divine ideal, walks constantly all through life in the path of love
and light. In God the Sufi sees the perfection of all that is in the
reach of man's perception and yet he knows Him to be above human
reach. He looks to Him as the lover to his beloved. and takes all
things in life as coming from Him, with perfect resignation. The
sacred name of God is to him as medicine to the patient. The divine
thought is the compass by which he steers the ship to the shores of
immortality. The God-ideal is to a Sufi as a lift by which he raises
himself to the eternal goal, the attainment of which is the only
purpose of his life.

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SUFI THOUGHT #2

'There is One Master, the Guiding Spirit of all Souls, Who constantly
leads His followers towards the light.'

The Sufi understands that although God is the source of all
knowledge, inspiration, and guidance, yet man is the medium through
which God chooses to impart His knowledge to the world. He imparts it
through one who is a man in the eyes of the world, but God in his
consciousness. It is the mature soul that draws blessings from the
heavens, and God speaks through that soul. Although the tongue of God
is busy speaking through all things, yet in order to speak to the
deaf ears of many among us, it is necessary for Him to speak through
the lips of man. He has done this all through the history of man,
every great teacher of the past having been this Guiding Spirit
living the life of God in human guise. In other words, their human
guise consists of various coats worn by the same person, who appeared
to be different in each. Shiva, Buddha, Rama, Krishna on the one
side, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Mohammed on the other; and many more,
known or unknown to history, always one and the same person.

Those who saw the person and knew Him recognized Him in whatever
form or guise; those who could only see the coat went astray. To the
Sufi therefore there is only one Teacher, however differently He may
be named at different periods of history, and He comes constantly to
awaken humanity from the slumber of this life of illusion, and to
guide man onwards towards divine perfection. As the Sufi progresses
in this view he recognizes his Master, not only in the holy ones, but
in the wise, in the foolish, in the saint and in the sinner, and has
never allowed the Master who is One alone, and the only One who can
be and who ever will be, to disappear from his sight.

The Persian word for Master is Murshid. The Sufi recognizes the
Murshid in all beings of the world, and is ready to learn from young
and old, educated and uneducated, rich and poor, without questioning
from whom he learns. Then he begins to see the light of Risalat, the
torch of truth which shines before him in every being and thing in
the universe. Thus he sees Rasul, his Divine Message Bearer, a living
identity before him. Thus the Sufi sees the vision of God, the
worshipped deity, in His immanence, manifest in nature, and life now
becomes for him a perfect revelation both within and without.

It is often for no other reason than clinging to the personality of
their particular teacher, claiming for him superiority over other
teachers, and degrading a teacher held in the same esteem by others,
that people have separated themselves from one another, and caused
most of the wars and factions and contentions which history records
among the children of God.

What the Spirit of Guidance is, can be further explained as follows:
as in man there is a faculty for art, music, poetry and science, so
in him is the faculty or spirit of guidance; it is better to call it
spirit because it is the supreme faculty from which all the others
originate. As we see that in every person there is some artistic
faculty, but not everyone is an artist, as everyone can hum a tune
but only one in a thousand is a musician, so every person possesses
this faculty in some form and to a limited degree; but the spirit of
guidance is found among few indeed of the human race.

A Sanskrit poet says, 'Jewels are stones, but cannot be found
everywhere; the sandal tree is a tree, but does not grow in every
forest; as there are many elephants, but only one king elephant, so
there are human beings all over the world, but the real human being
is rarely to be found.'

When we arise above faculty and consider the spirit of guidance, we
shall find that it is consummated in the Bodhisatva, the spiritual
teacher or divine messenger. There is a saying that the reformer is
the child of civilization, but the prophet is its father. This spirit
has always existed, and must always exist; and in this way from time
to time the message of God has been given.

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SUFI THOUGHT #3

'There is One Holy Book, the sacred manuscript of nature, the only
scripture which can enlighten the reader.'

Most people consider as sacred scriptures only certain books or
scrolls written by the hand of man, and carefully preserved as holy,
to be handed down to posterity as divine revelation. Men have fought
and disputed over the authenticity of these books, have refused to
accept any other book of similar character, and, clinging thus to the
book and losing the sense of it, have formed diverse sects. The Sufi
has in all ages respected all such books, and has traced in the
Vedanta, Zendavesta, Kabah, Bible, Qur'an, and all other sacred
scriptures, the same truth which he reads in the incorruptible
manuscript of nature, the only Holy Book, the perfect and living
model that teaches the inner law of life: all scriptures before
nature's manuscript are as little pools of water before the ocean.

To the eye of the seer every leaf of the tree is a page of the holy
book that contains divine revelation, and he is inspired every moment
of his life by constantly reading and understanding the holy script
of nature.

When man writes, he inscribes characters upon rock, leaf, paper,
wood or steel; when God writes, the characters He writes are living
creatures.

It is when the eye of the soul is opened and the sight is keen that
the Sufi can read the divine law in the manuscript of nature; and
that which the teachers of humanity have taught to their followers
was derived by them from the same source; they expressed what little
it is possible to express in words, and so they preserved the inner
truth when they themselves were no longer there to reveal it.

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SUFI THOUGHT #4

'There is One Religion, the unswerving progress in the right
direction towards the ideal, which fulfills the life's purpose of
every soul.'

Religion in the Sanskrit language is termed Dharma, which means
duty. The duty of every individual is religion. 'Every soul is born
for a certain purpose, and the light of that purpose is kindled in
his soul', says Sa'adi. This explains why the Sufi in his tolerance
allows every one to have his own path, and does not compare the
principles of others with his own, but allows freedom of thought to
everyone, since he himself is a freethinker.

Religion, in the conception of a Sufi, is the path that leads man
towards the attainment of his ideal, worldly as well as heavenly. Sin
and virtue, right and wrong, good and bad are not the same in the
case of every individual; they are according to his grade of
evolution and state of life. Therefore the Sufi concerns himself
little with the name of the religion or the place of worship. All
places are sacred enough for his worship, and all religions convey to
him the religion of his soul. 'I saw Thee in the sacred Ka'ba and in
the temple of the idol also Thee I saw.'

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SUFI THOUGHT #5

'There is One Law, the law of reciprocity, which can be observed by a
selfless conscience, together with a sense of awakened justice.'

Man spends his life in the pursuit of all that seems to him to be
profitable for himself, and when so absorbed in self-interest in time
he even loses touch with his own real interest. Man has made laws to
suit himself,, but they are laws by which he can get the better of
another. It is this that he calls justice, and it is only that which
is done to him by another that he calls injustice. A peaceful and
harmonious life with his fellow-men cannot be led until the sense of
justice has been awakened in him by a selfless conscience. As the
judicial authorities of the world intervene between two persons who
are at variance, knowing that they have a right to intervene when the
two parties in dispute are blinded by personal interest, so the
Almighty Power intervenes in all disputes however small or great.

It is the law of reciprocity which saves man from being exposed to
the higher powers, as a considerate man has less chance of being
brought before the court. The sense of justice is awakened in a
perfectly sober mind; that is, one which is free from the
intoxication of youth, strength, power, possession, command, birth,
or rank. It seems a net profit when one does not give but takes, or
when one gives less and takes more; but in either case there is
really a greater loss than profit; for every such profit spreads a
cover over the sense of justice within, and when many such covers
have veiled the sight, man becomes blind even to his own profit. It
is like standing in one's own light. 'Blind here remains blind in the
hereafter.'

Although the different religions, in teaching man how to act
harmoniously and peacefully with his fellow-men, have given out
different laws, they all meet in this one truth: do unto others as
thou wouldst they should do unto thee. The Sufi, in taking a favor
from another, enhances its value, and in accepting what another does
to him he makes allowance.

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SUFI THOUGHT #6

'There is One Brotherhood, the human brotherhood which unites the
children of earth indiscriminately in the Fatherhood of God.'

The Sufi understands that the one life emanating from the inner
Being is manifested on the surface as the life of variety; and in
this world of variety man is the finest manifestation, for he can
realize in his evolution the oneness of the inner being even in the
external existence of variety. But he evolves to this ideal, which is
the only purpose of his coming on earth, by uniting himself with
another.

Man unites with others in the family tie, which is the first step in
his evolution, and yet families in the past have fought with each
other, and have taken vengeance upon one another for generations,
each considering his cause to be the only true and righteous one.
Today man shows his evolution in uniting with his neighbors and
fellow-citizens, and even developing within himself the spirit of
patriotism for his nation. He is greater in this respect than those
in the past; and yet men so united nationally have caused the
catastrophe of the modern wars, which will be regarded by the coming
generations in the same light in which we now regard the family feuds
of the past.

There are racial bonds which widen the circle of unity still more,
but it has always happened that one race has looked down on the
other.

The religious bond shows a still higher ideal. But it has caused
diverse sects, which have opposed and despised each other for
thousands of years, and have caused endless splits and divisions
among men. The germ of separation exists even in such a wide scope
for brotherhood, and however widespread the brotherhood may be, it
cannot be a perfect one as long as it separates man from man.

The Sufi, realizing this, frees himself from national, racial, and
religious boundaries, uniting himself in the human brotherhood, which
is devoid of the differences and distinctions of class, caste, creed,
race, nation, or religion, and unites mankind in the universal
brotherhood.

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SUFI THOUGHT #7

'There is One Moral, the love which springs forth from self-denial
and blooms in deeds of beneficence. '

There are moral principles taught to mankind by various teachers, by
many traditions, one differing from the other, which are like
separate drops coming out of the fountain. But when we look at the
stream, we find there is but one stream, although it turns into
several drops on falling. There are many moral principles, just as
many drops fall from one fountain; but there is one stream that is at
the source of all, and that is love. It is love that gives birth to
hope, patience, endurance, forgiveness, tolerance, and to all moral
principles. All deeds of kindness and beneficence take root in the
soil of the loving heart. Generosity, charity, adaptability, an
accommodating nature, even renunciation, are the offspring of love
alone. The great, rare and chosen beings, who for ages have been
looked up to as ideal in the world, are the possessors of hearts
kindled with love. All evil and sin come from the lack of love.

People call love blind, but love in reality is the light of the
sight. The eye can only see the surface; love can see much deeper.
All ignorance is the lack of love. As fire when not kindled gives
only smoke, but when kindled, the illuminating flame springs forth,
so it is with love; it is blind when undeveloped, but, when its fire
is kindled, the flame that lights the path of the traveller from
mortality to everlasting life springs forth; the secrets of earth and
heaven are revealed to the possessor of the loving heart, the lover
has gained mastery over himself and others, and he not only communes
with God but unites with Him.

'Hail to thee, then, O love, sweet madness! Thou who healest all our
infirmities! Who art the physician of our pride and self conceit! Who
art our Plato and our Galen!' says Rumi.

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SUFI THOUGHT #8

'There is One Object of Praise, the beauty which uplifts the heart of
its worshippers through all aspects from the seen to the unseen.'

It is said in the Hadith, 'God is beautiful, and He loves beauty.'
This expresses the truth that man, who inherits the Spirit of God,
has beauty in him and loves beauty, although that which is beautiful
to one is not beautiful to another. Man cultivates the sense of
beauty as he evolves, and prefers the higher aspect of beauty to the
lower. But when he has observed the highest vision of beauty in the
Unseen by a gradual evolution from praising the beauty in the seen
world, then the entire existence becomes to him one single vision of
beauty.

Man has worshipped God, beholding the beauty of sun, moon, stars,
and planets; he has worshipped God in plants, in animals; he has
recognized God in the beautiful merits of man, and he has with his
perfect view of beauty found the source of all beauty in the Unseen,
from whence all this springs, and in Whom all is merged.

The Sufi, realizing this, worships beauty in all its aspects, and
sees the face of the Beloved in all that is seen, and the Beloved's
spirit in the Unseen. So wherever he looks his ideal of worship is
before him. 'Everywhere I look, I see Thy winning face; everywhere I
go, I arrive at Thy dwelling-place. '

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SUFI THOUGHT #09

''There is One Truth, the true knowledge of our being, within and
without, which is the essence of all wisdom.'

Hazrat All says, 'Know thyself, and thou shalt know God.' It is the
knowledge of self which blooms into the knowledge of God. Self-
knowledge answers such problems as: whence have I come? Did I exist
before I became conscious of my present existence? If I existed, as.
what did I exist? As an individual such as I now am, or as a
multitude, or as an insect, bird, animal, spirit, jinn, or angel?
What happens at death, the change to which every creature is subject?
Why do I tarry here awhile? What purpose have I to accomplish here?
What is my duty in life? In what does my happiness consist, and what
is it that makes my life miserable? Those whose hearts have been
kindled by the light from above, begin to ponder such questions but
those whose souls are already illumined by the knowledge of the self
understand them. It is they who give to individuals or to the
multitudes the benefit of their knowledge, so that even men whose
hearts are not yet kindled, and whose souls are not illuminated, may
be able to walk on the right path that leads to perfection.

This is why people are taught in various languages, in various forms
of worship, in various tenets in different parts of the world. It is
one and the same truth; it is only seen in diverse aspects
appropriate to the people and the time. It is only those who do not
understand this who can mock at the faith of another, condemning to
hell or destruction those who do not consider their faith to be the
only true faith.

The Sufi recognizes the knowledge of self as the essence of all
religions; he traces it in every religion, he sees the same truth in
each, and therefore he regards all as one. Hence he can realize 'the
saying of Jesus, 'I and my Father are one.' The difference between
creature and Creator remains on his lips, not in his soul. This is
what is meant by union with God. It is in reality the dissolving of
the false self in the knowledge of the true self, which is divine,
eternal, and all-pervading. 'He who attaineth union with God, his
very self must lose,' said Amir.

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SUFI THOUGHT #10

'There is One Path, the annihilation of the false ego in the real,
which raises the mortal to immortality, in which resides all
perfection.'

'I passed away into nothingness- -I vanished; and lo! I was all
living.' All who have realized the secret of life understand that
life is one, but that it exists in two aspects. First as immortal,
all-pervading and silent; and secondly as mortal, active, and
manifest in variety. The soul being of the first aspect becomes
deluded, helpless, and captive by experiencing life in contact with
the mind and body, which is of the next aspect. The gratification of
the desires of the body and the fancies of the mind do not suffice
for the purpose of the soul, which is undoubtedly to experience its
own phenomena in the seen and the unseen, though its inclination is
to be itself and not anything else. When delusion makes it feel that
it is helpless, mortal and captive, it finds itself out of place.
This is the tragedy of life, which keeps the strong and the weak, the
rich and poor, all dissatisfied, constantly looking for something
they do not know. The Sufi, realizing this, takes the path of
annihilation, and, by the guidance of a teacher on the path, finds at
the end of this journey that the destination was himself. As Iqbzl
says:

'I wandered in the pursuit of my own self; I was the traveller, and
I am the destination.'