Why I turn my back on Ressentiment

Ronald Delavega is still Ronald Delavega - a man whose heart is so full of hatred it's unbelievable. Your problem is that I and my kind don't have time for bitterness of your kind in my precious life. I too much enjoy a life where you don't even exist to me and my friends. But feel welcome to keep your one-man-show of Pentacostal Zoroastrianism running. You even disagree with Ali Jafarey on the fundamentals of his and my faith these days. If you wanted to have a vulgarized religion of which you are the sole practicioner in the world ever, you have indeed succeeded. May you enjoy whatever remains of your bitter and resentful religious isolationism. Goodbye! Ushta Alexander 2012/8/1 Park East Security Ushta Alex First you have no idea Zero as a natter of fact as tro what I have or have not studied. second to claim that because you have studied Avesta, which by the way is not the correct name for the language of the Gathas , that being Old Avestan or Gathic, you and only you KNOW the meanings of words whose ACTUAL, as opposed to wished for, meaning is debated by professionals who have studied the language, its philology , grammar, syntax etc for decades while you were busy making $ with your rock band. What fits and how things words imply , to any one with an open mind and even a minor understanding of the nuances and intricacy of languages, not only Right, but Truth, What is correct, and What is Ordered.(or arranged) Furthermore, Zarathushtra was not born in an sterilized egg, kept away from the culture and world views of his fellow Aryans, to ignore he cultural context totally as you seem to do is ... well I rather not offend since it solves no problems. But the fact is, according to overwhelming historical evidence, that, CULTURALLY, to contemporary Aryan, Rta and Arta meant several things perhaps the most important being the Cosm9c Law underlying reality or reality itself It is in that context that it could be thought of , and was as right, truth, what fits what is correct May I humbly suggest, a little humility and tolerance before you pass judgment on what others that happen to be in the overwhelming majority of people PROFESSIONALLY QUALIFIED in the field and whose credentials as scholars far outweigh your own? The question of the meaning of Asha, whether you know it or not, or care to admit it or not, is far from being as easily determined as you state. In reality, considering the many varied opinions of scholars and the nuances of Old Avestan, its antiquity and isolation, its far more likely that Asha would need to be expressed by a number of different words in modern languages and its meaning established contextually. In other words, in some cases Asha might, primarily, be meant as Order, or even Law, in others, as Truth, in others as Correct, and yet in others as Right and/or Righteous As to objective truth and whether it existed or not for the Aryans we can argue a till the sun dies out and still not come to a conclusion there is a lot of evidence , which you conveniently either ignore or refuse to discuss, that in the Gathas there is a concept of subjective and objective truth. That Asha Vahista implies the Asha as conceived and perceived in the Mainyava existence and that it is devoid of falsehood, deceit, illusion and wrongfulness, that is, of Druj. And , at the same time, it is hinted at by Zarathushtra that we are to act choosing Asha as we perceive it here in this plane where Druj can exist, because we cannot fully perceive the nature of Asha Vahishta from House of Druj, that is, from the state of mind where Druj is possible. But then these nuances of the Gathas are lost on persons that claim to have sole possession of the truth. So be it Go ignore context, philology and the very Gathas if you wish , that is your choice Mine is different and both choices will have their consequences and its those that would tell which was Asha like and which one was not.. Ushta te Ron On Sun, Jul 29, 2012 at 3:28 PM, Alexander Bard wrote: Contrary to you, dear Mr Delavega, I have actually bothered to learn Avesta myself. So I don't have to depend on hundreds of "authorities" to make up my own mind as to what I believe, Asha means "that which fits" or "how things work". The concept of "objective truth" did not exist in neither Iranian or Indian philosophy but is a Babylonian concept built into the Abrahamic faiths. Zarathushtra is interested in how we deduct what is true, what is correct, from what we LEARN about the world we live in. Otherwise his RELATIVIST ethics would be impossible. It is consequently wrong and misleading to translate asha as "truth". If asha was truth, Zarathushtra and not the Judaists would have thrown the weight of The Ten Commandments on the world. But then again, yours was always a Judeo-Christian form of Zoroastrianism. The problem is Zarathushtra predates the Abrahamic faiths with at least 700 years. Ushta Alexander 2012/7/29 Park East Security Ushta Alex If you have not heard of scholars translating Asha as truth in the last 20 years then you have not read enough :) If you have not met a scholar in the last 20 years as truth then you have not met enough scholars :) If you mean to say that, in the past twenty years, scholars with new translations have not translated Asha as truth, you are still wrong, but more in line with what has happened. Unfortunately since Insler has concentrated in Sanskrit, and his expected revision or new version has not come forth as of yet, one of the best translators has been mute on the point since then. And the only translator worth his salt to have made a major translation, in the past 20 years is Humbach, who supports right for Asha. However, if you dig around his notes, you will find that he does concede that Asha could have a secondary meaning of truth I am now about to acquire the lattest Gatha translation (By an European ) 'The Hymns of Zoroaster: A New Translation by Professor ML West, and I am told, (the caveat is that I have not yet read the book) he openly advocates for an understanding of Asha that contains all the following meanings What is correct, that is what is right and true, the Universal Law of Creation and Maintenance of Existence immanent in everything that exists. Christian thinking, in the translation of Asha, has very little to do with translating it as Truth. It is far more present in the frequent translation of Asha as Holyness and or Holy by many early European translators. There is no so much emphasis on a truth as an independent or even immanent part of God in the Bible Yeshua ( The Salvationor Savior of/from Yah or God) presumably states I am (which literally means Yah) the truth the way and the life no ones comes to the father but through me. That is the main and 1 of the few statements as truth being a part of God in the Bible . The God is the Bible is first holy, then supposedly righteous and love. The God of the the Gathas Is a Supremely Wise Creator and Good Lord of Existence. .Asha is Her/His "son' ('Pta' means father in the original) so is Vohumanah Good Loving Thinking ( The Vo I believe with Taraporewalla, comes from a Sanskrit root meaning desire love, an Aarmaity Her/His daughter. This can more clearly be seen by Anglophone in the feminine of vo which is van and is a cognate of want) But the Bible never affirms that Truth is an imamnent part or Aspect of God, nor that there is an opposite deception/illusion chaos that opposes Truth/Right/Order. It merely says that Yah is truth and that the Salvation of Yah (that is Jesus, the Anointed) is the only way to the "Father". The Bible sees the world as 'fallen' the Gathas see the world as Joy Bringing. Early Xian influenced or Xian practicing scholars tended to more direct and crass errors thatn this, like Holy for Spenta and missing the connection between mainyu and mind. However some of them like, Maria Wilkins Smith, saw this connections Insler saw the conection to truth as well, The Greeks which were the most directly influenced my Medan-Achamenian era Zoroastrianism almost universally refered to Asha as truth. If it were a wrong definition of Asha, something that is not quite certain by far, then the blame would go to the Greeks not to Xian scholars. Then, it is important to know that Gathic has other words that mean right. Arta, for example, is a direct cognate of both English right and Sanskrit Rta. So if Zarathushtra wanted to say right, and only right or even right law, why on earth will he not use the word that is most closly related to right in Gathic, which is Arta instead of its derivative, Asha? Furthermore, when the Achaemenians found themselves with an Empire that extended from Ethiopia to China, they need a 'lingua franca', and they chose Aramean as such a language ,because as in English today, it was the most common language of international commerce. Well the word for truth, certainly, verily is amen. it cannot be denied that amen did not enter the Bible untill after the Persian period. Now if an Aramean speaker (and jews at that time were Aramean speakers) were to hear at least 5 times a day (the 5 Gahs) many re[petitions of Ashem Vohu, would it not then Amen which, at least according to the Greeks, meant almost the same as Ashem, become a prayer word for them? Finally, any Parthian-Sassanian era scholar worth his salt would know two things Pahlavi used a great deal of Aramean words and it used Amen ( called it mostly amin) and it used it as truth. So no I don't think we live in different worlds Alex I think that you are ignoring the linguistics because you think they might disagree with your ideas. THat is your choice, ,but if you cared to pay attention to them you will find many cases in which they could (interpretatively speaking) agree with you. What we disagree on is methodology , that leads us to different conclusions. However, neither you nor I can claim to posses the objective Truth; since that can only be known in the other side of the Chinvat. Or as the quasi Zarathushtrian ( in his better more spiritual moments) Paul said : ":...But when the Complete comes (disregard translations that say the Perfect, the Greek word means Complete) then, we will see as we are seen we will kno as we are known ..." The Complete, by the way, is a literal translation of Haurvatat. Hamazor Ron I have not met a single scholar in the past 20 years who translated "asha" as "truth" as the concept of "truth" clearly starts with Judeo-Christian thinking rather than in Iran 3,700 years ago, since people in Iran had a far more scientific approach to the world than in the Babylon where Judaism was born. We seem to live in very different social worlds, dear Ron! Very different worlds. And Zarathushra was concerned 100% with THE MIND and how it operates. He was interested in MENTALITY: so the mentality he describes is a mentality STRIVING FOR TRUTHFULNESS AND HONESTY. But truthfulness is NOT truth! Ushta Alexander 2012/7/25 Park East Security Ushta Alex The problem with your statement above is that Non-European scholars, Zarathushtrians most of them, mostly agree that Asha means truth at least that it is one of its meanings. You are indicting 99% of all Gatha scholars who, at the very least, consider Truth to be a secondary meaning of Asha. . I am sorry but, with all due respect, your credentials cannot be compared to theirs. Giving that fact, forgive me if i totally disagree with you on this issue.. Hamazor Ron On Sun, Jul 22, 2012 at 5:45 PM, Alexander Bard wrote: Christian scholars love to translate Zoroastrian texts to suit their fantasy of Zoroastrianism as a primitive prototype for Christianity. Nothing could be further from the truth. Ushta Alexander 2012/7/21 Park East Security Ushta Alex I would say that at least 100 translators of the Gaathas disagree with your statements below Asha by the way is translated as Truth by many if not most scholars. But hey what do they know right? Hamazor Ron On Fri, Jul 20, 2012 at 4:32 AM, Alexander Bard wrote: No, Parviz what you talk about is NOT truths but INTENTIONS. There are no truths in social contracts, there are only INTENTIONS. As in "Give me your most functional fantasy of how the world works" equals "Give me what is best for me according to your very best intentions". Social contracts are broken when people ON PURPOSE gove you something inferior to what they could have intended. Which is PRECISELY why asha and druj operate as INTENYIONS, as MENTAL conflicts. But Zarathushtra did not use the term truth even once in The Gathas. Nor did he ever speak of lies. Ushta Alexander