Gayti and Minoo

Dear Parviz

I know. Of course! But I don't think what I'm saying is contradicting the concepts of Gayti and Minoo. Rather this division only strengthens the argument. Gayti and Minoo is how things actually work, the strange fantasy here is Plato's division between ideals and reality where ideals are superior to reality as if ideals represent "the world as it should be". This is exactly the opposite of Zoroastrian thought. We believe that Minoo adjusts itself to Gayti since Gayti is sacred and the starting point (the realness of reality). Minoo is not a representation of Gayti - as Plato wrongly assumed - we do not think of Gayti or Minoo as representations of anything and least of all each other. Minoo has its value precisely as its own entity - for example in art and poetry. It is when Minoo is applied as if it were Gayti that we get things wrong (for example when Minoo is wrongly assumed to have anything to say about science). As Zarathushtra and others have pointed out.

Ushta
Alexander

2009/8/4 Parviz Varjavand



Dear Alex,

The world that the mind is capable of constructing for itself becomes real in an unreal sense. Pegasus is a horse that flies and is real as far as the mind constructing such a horse goes. The separation of Gayti and Minoo or the world as it is constructed by physics and the world that is constructed by the mind is not the same as the separation of body and soul or heaven and earth. The Jinn is a real creature in the minds of those who have constructed such a creature and implanted it in the mind of others. If you miss this first step in understanding how Z.ism correctly separates these two and deals with them, you will lecture much, but not in the right direction.

Ushta,
Parviz

--- On Mon, 8/3/09, Alexander Bard wrote:


From: Alexander Bard
Subject: [Ushta] Asha and Monism
To: Ushta@yahoogroups.com
Date: Monday, August 3, 2009, 3:31 PM




Dear Clint

I absolutely agree.
Even if Mazdayasna as a complete message gets corrupted over the centuries and Zarathushtra is quite possibly the most misquoted and misunderstood philosopher ever, the monism in early Mazdayasna culture stays for centuries and only gets challanged with the frontal confrontation with the Abrahamic faiths from the 9th century AD onwards. And then we should still point out that early Judaism also shows signs of monism. It appears dualism really arrives in the Middle East with Helenic culture, then developed by the Greeks as an idea originally developed by the Egyptians. Dualism was always alien to Indo-European thought, it ws alien to Paganism in Europe and alien to Brahmanist philosophy in India too. So why should we assume that Zoroastrianism was dualist when it clearly never was. The MATERIAL is sacred to all of Zoroastrianism, this is what all Zoroastrian diversions have in common. And you can not regard that as sacred which you have earlier assumed to be seondary in grade to whatever else is primary. Mazdayasna is all about manifestations of forces (mentalities) with The Universe as the manifestation of Ahura Mazda (pantheism or panentheism) and with the Mazdayasna congregation as the manifestation of asha in harmony. Think forces, and you get at how Zarathushtra and his contemporaries viewed the world. This is of course also why they understood the actual world better than the Greeks or the Egyptians.

Ushta
Alexander

2009/8/3 wagnerian1



Ushta,

This is what I have discovered too, and reading translations of the liturgical texts, even some of the later Magian-crafted junk, you still get phrases alluding to how the gorgeousness of the universe is the body of Ahura Mazda. Usually in these passages there are references to the starry heavens, etc. There appears to be a monism that is somewhere between pantheism and panentheism, yet breaks open the categorical limits those two terms impose. Whatever the case, the ancient texts seem to point us toward emanation as the way in which Ahura Mazda creates the uni/multiverse.
Also Alexander's point about the search for Truth to find the ethical Right is also a theme in Buddhism, where one of the primary goals of meditation is to see things as they really are without judgment or what have you, so that you don't miss anything and can make the kind of decision afterwards that is useful and, as Z's would say, progressive. The reality, and the process that leads to it, and the decisions made that are truly in accordance with this reality, are all included in the word "Dharma", in which all Buddhists take refuge every day, all the time. I can't help but see a deep similarity between Dharma and Asha. Asha is the True, it is the Right, and the Teachings concerning how to get there.

--Clint