Zoroastrianism is Philosophy as Religion

Very elegantly put!
Philosophy AS religion = The celebration or worship of Philosophy.
That is what Mazdayasna, Zarathushtra's thought system, is all about.
Ushta
Alexander

2011/8/17 Special Kain

Asha is "that which truly exists". Ahura is "that which is divine". Mazda is "wisdom" (as in "having a wise mind"). Therefore Ahura Mazda means "the sacredness of wisdom" or "to have a wise mind is something sacred and divine". In other words, we hold wisdom and intelligence to be sacred. We take philosophy far more seriously than the Greeks did!

Ushta,
Dino

Von: Alexander Bard
An: Ushta@yahoogroups.com
Gesendet: 18:30 Dienstag, 16.August 2011
Betreff: Re: [Ushta] Asha vs Druj compared to Chaos vs Order

Correct!
Except I would add that for Ahura to be SACREDNESS it is actually Ahura WITH Mazda.
Ahura is what Asha becomes WHEN VIEWED THROUGH Mazda.
Ushta
Alexander

2011/8/16 Special Kain

Alexander is right.
Asha is that which exists and how it has come into existence (how things work properly), Ahura is the SACREDNESS of existence, druj is that which isn't real. Charles Darwin vs. ignorant creationists!

Ushta,
Dino

Von: Alexander Bard
An: Ushta@yahoogroups.com
Gesendet: 15:05 Dienstag, 16.August 2011
Betreff: [Ushta] Asha vs Druj compared to Chaos vs Order

Chaos and order are GREEK and not Iranian concepts.
I'm not interested in chaos or order, they don't exist as such but are rather just fantasies of our imagination.
Everything is chaos. Chaos only becomes order when we decide to make it order.
Zarathushtra's opposites are instead "that which has existence" versus "that which does not exist". Just like Nietzsche and Heidegger, actually, philosophers who were also against Plato's distinctions of chaos and order.
Ushta
Alexander

2011/8/16 Behnaz Larsen
Yes, Alexander, however I have a question about this nothingness: chaos versus order, where do they fit in? If druj is "nothing", and "the lack of" etc then chaos could not be categorised under druj. It has been said that in every chaotic situation there is beauty and order. Obviously these people have not seen my kitchen, so I think you are right not to translate these from one language to the next, since words keep failing us.
Behnaz

On Aug 16, 2011, at 2:46 PM, Alexander Bard wrote:
Two things:
1. The Oxford Dictionary has a VERY DIFFERENT understanding of real from Gilles Deleuze. Daniel mixes the two up, please don't.
2. The proper English word for druj outside of our minds is "nothingness". It is the LACK OF EXISTENCE which is druj in its purest sense in the Avestan language. In this sense "Asha" is "Something" or "Substance" or "How Things work" whereas Druj is "Nothingness" or "Lack of substance" or "Illusions of how things actually don't work".
Ushta
Alexander

2011/8/15 Daniel Samani

Great! Then lie is a good translation to the Avestan concept druj, I guess that depends what aspect one empathise. People use the English language with different styles. Some more inflated by vitalism and absolutism then others. If one make the statement that the definition of a lie is that it's not true - it weight heavily on what one mean by truth (that can be coloured heavily on abramitic thought).

I am confident that we will reach an agreement on this matter. This will occur when I have grasped what you have a long time ago. ;) Too me the concept real in itself is confusing this is what Oxford says: "The term is most straightforwardly used when qualifying another adjective: a real x may be contrasted with a fake x, a failed x, a near x, and so on. To treat something as real, without qualification, is to suppose it to be part of the actual world. To
reify
something is to suppose that we are committed by some doctrine to treating it as a thing. The central error in thinking of reality and existence is to think of the unreal as a separate domain of things, perhaps unfairly deprived of the benefits of existence."

At least one thing I agree 100% with, asha is a rather complex concept.

Ushta
Daniel

Zoroastrianism vs General Pantheism

The interesting thing with Zarathushtra's special brand of Pantheism (as I believed Arthur Pearlstein once pointed out, thereby differentiating it from all other forms of Pantheism; defending Zoroastrianism against General Pantheism) is that Zarathushtra never divinifies Existence (Ahura) as such on its own. There is no Ahura proper without Mazda, so the mind aspect of human existence is also at play. The Universe indeed has no divinity of its own, it only becomes divine through THE ACT OF THE MIND. It is indeed a proclamation, not so much through a choice of the mind but rather through the very existence of mind (as an affirmative and cheerful RECOGNITION of Asha rather than as a choice). Which also explains why we, as Parviz has often pointed out, are not Ahurayasni but Mazdayasni. We celebrate Mind first and Existence second. And all this WITHOUT making History a Necessity as Abrahamic determinism or historicism would have it (material existence exists as to make mind possible), History is still totally contingent according to Zarathushtra, even in itself truly miraculous, not at all Buddha's negation of existence. Like in Hegel's philosophy, Zarathushtra's meaning is always a meaning as after-thought, as a kind of CHOSEN NECESSITY, well after the Act that manifests Substance is established. It's all quite peculiar, but it is very very smart and obviously very truthful. I don't consider myself a Pantheist lightly anymore. ;-)
Ushta
Alexander

2011/8/16 Special Kain

Dear sisters and brothers

Asha can mean different things depending on the context.

(1) It is "the truth" and "that which is true", as opposed to illusions, fraud and lies. The world as it is vs. the lies we have been told. Ashavahishta therefore is "the best truth", one's willingness to surrender to what it true, or "furthering the truth", one's willingness to live truthfully through thoughts, words and deeds.

(2) It also is "that which exists" and "that which is real" as in "something that actually exists", as opposed to that which is unreal (illusions, deception). Asha is that which is in conformity with reality. In Heideggerian terms, there is something (asha) rather than nothing (druj).

(3) Eventually, asha also is "that which fits (with what is real)" and "that which works", the mechanisms and laws of nature as discovered and studied by modern science - a rather technical and pragmatic approach towards this issue. Think of agriculture!

Ahura also is "that which exists", but in a different sense. Since "Ahura" also is a title usually given to deities ("supreme being" or "supreme power"), it could mean that existence is sacred - Existence with a capital E.

What do YOU think?

Ushta,
Dino

Zoroastrianism as the Opposite of Islam

Dear Dino and Daniel

What Zarathushtra so vehemently opposes is the human desire to SEEK LEADERSHIP TO OBEY, to masochistically subordinate ourselves to the will of a God, a Father, a Big Other, The Others in a Society, political leaders, idols etc. Therefore he is against all "ought to's" that we possibly could come up with. There are no ought-to's from others, and if there are they should be ignored and overruled and crushed.
All of this to create the ETHICAL BEING that constantly reinvates and expands itself - THROUGH CREATIVE ACTIONS eminanting from creative thoughts and words - and time and space as the Zoroastrian IDEAL OF EXISTENCE. This is what Zarathushtra teaches in The Gathas: We do not BECOME Maxzdayasni by OBEYING (neither by obstructing) but by independently DO WHAT IS US COMING FROM WITHIN US.
You could not be further from the cult of subordination in the Abrahamic religions with their horrible "commandments". Islam for example literally means "Obedience". If anything Zarathushtra's reply should be called "Creation".

Ushta
Alexander

2011/8/16 Special Kain

No, asha DOES NOT SPEAK - it DOES NOT tell us anything about how things ought to be. There is NO NORMATIVITY. Forget about "should do", "has to do", "ought to do", "shouldn't do", etc. here in this context. Asha simply is that which turns out to be real and true. Asha is existence as in "something that really exists" and also the rules that apply here (the laws of nature in the broadest possible sense). It therefore refers to a LEARNING PROCESS that will prove that asha (that which works in the long run) is fundamentally superior to druj (that which deceives us).

Von: Daniel Samani
An: "Ushta@yahoogroups.com"
Gesendet: 16:11 Dienstag, 16.August 2011
Betreff: Re: AW: [Ushta] Meaning of Asha

This makes sense, does asha tell us how things ought to be? Or does this materialise when we see existence for what it is and what it's not?

Ushta
Daniel

16 aug 2011 kl. 14:46 skrev Alexander Bard :

Two things:
1. The Oxford Dictionary has a VERY DIFFERENT understanding of real from Gilles Deleuze. Daniel mixes the two up, please don't.
2. The proper English word for druj outside of our minds is "nothingness". It is the LACK OF EXISTENCE which is druj in its purest sense in the Avestan language. In this sense "Asha" is "Something" or "Substance" or "How Things work" whereas Druj is "Nothingness" or "Lack of substance" or "Illusions of how things actually don't work".
Ushta
Alexander

2011/8/15 Daniel Samani

Great! Then lie is a good translation to the Avestan concept druj, I guess that depends what aspect one empathise. People use the English language with different styles. Some more inflated by vitalism and absolutism then others. If one make the statement that the definition of a lie is that it's not true - it weight heavily on what one mean by truth (that can be coloured heavily on abramitic thought).

I am confident that we will reach an agreement on this matter. This will occur when I have grasped what you have a long time ago. ;) Too me the concept real in itself is confusing this is what Oxford says: "The term is most straightforwardly used when qualifying another adjective: a real x may be contrasted with a fake x, a failed x, a near x, and so on. To treat something as real, without qualification, is to suppose it to be part of the actual world. To reify something is to suppose that we are committed by some doctrine to treating it as a thing. The central error in thinking of reality and existence is to think of the unreal as a separate domain of things, perhaps unfairly deprived of the benefits of existence."

At least one thing I agree 100% with, asha is a rather complex concept.

Ushta
Daniel

Asha vs Druj compared to Chaos vs Order

Chaos and order are GREEK and not Iranian concepts.
I'm not interested in chaos or order, they don't exist as such but are rather just fantasies of our imagination.
Everything is chaos. Chaos only becomes order when we decide to make it order.
Zarathushtra's opposites are instead "that which has existence" versus "that which does not exist". Just like Nietzsche and Heidegger, actually, philosophers who were also against Plato's distinctions of chaos and order.
Ushta
Alexander

2011/8/16 Behnaz Larsen
Yes, Alexander, however I have a question about this nothingness: chaos versus order, where do they fit in? If druj is "nothing", and "the lack of" etc then chaos could not be categorised under druj. It has been said that in every chaotic situation there is beauty and order. Obviously these people have not seen my kitchen, so I think you are right not to translate these from one language to the next, since words keep failing us.
Behnaz

On Aug 16, 2011, at 2:46 PM, Alexander Bard wrote:
Two things:

1. The Oxford Dictionary has a VERY DIFFERENT understanding of real from Gilles Deleuze. Daniel mixes the two up, please don't.
2. The proper English word for druj outside of our minds is "nothingness". It is the LACK OF EXISTENCE which is druj in its purest sense in the Avestan language. In this sense "Asha" is "Something" or "Substance" or "How Things work" whereas Druj is "Nothingness" or "Lack of substance" or "Illusions of how things actually don't work".
Ushta
Alexander

2011/8/15 Daniel Samani

Great! Then lie is a good translation to the Avestan concept druj, I guess that depends what aspect one empathise. People use the English language with different styles. Some more inflated by vitalism and absolutism then others. If one make the statement that the definition of a lie is that it's not true - it weight heavily on what one mean by truth (that can be coloured heavily on abramitic thought).

I am confident that we will reach an agreement on this matter. This will occur when I have grasped what you have a long time ago. ;) Too me the concept real in itself is confusing this is what Oxford says: "The term is most straightforwardly used when qualifying another adjective: a real x may be contrasted with a fake x, a failed x, a near x, and so on. To treat something as real, without qualification, is to suppose it to be part of the actual world. To
reify
something is to suppose that we are committed by some doctrine to treating it as a thing. The central error in thinking of reality and existence is to think of the unreal as a separate domain of things, perhaps unfairly deprived of the benefits of existence."

At least one thing I agree 100% with, asha is a rather complex concept.

Ushta
Daniel

15 aug 2011 kl. 20:44 skrev Special Kain :

Dear Daniel

I have been actively involved in Zoroastrianism longer than you have. I have a profound knowledge of the history of philosophy. And I check my sources very carefully in order to accurately describe Avestan terms in English.
Druj means "lie" in English, but could also be translated as "that which deceives". It is all the things we believe to be there, even though they don't exist. Simply put, it is that which is not real. And no-one here has ever claimed that there are "more real" and "less real" things. A fleeting idea that we forgot the very moment it popped up in our mind is not less real than Mount Everest.
There are different translations of asha, since the concept is rather complex and means "that which exists" as much as "how it works properly". It refers to something that is in conformity with the workings of nature. Think of engineers, for example! It has nothing to do with the actual/virtual dichotomoy that I find useless in this context.

Ushta,
Dino

Von: Daniel Samani
An: "Ushta@yahoogroups.com"
Gesendet: 19:48 Montag, 15.August 2011
Betreff: Re: AW: [Ushta] Meaning of Asha

So my point is that lies are a bad translation of druj. And that I'm highly skeptic about that stating that what is real is a good translation of asha.

Ushta
Daniel

15 aug 2011 kl. 18:48 skrev Special Kain :

No, LIES do NOT refer to something that is unlikely to happen or something that is irrelevant or even destructive. Lies refer to things that are NOT TRUE. It has nothing to do with probabilities, relevance or destruction. World War II was quite real, wasn't it? And even the most improbable and most irrelevant events are real. And that which is real and which fits with what is real is asha. As Alexander pointed out, there is NOTHING NORMATIVE about asha. The world is as it is. What we are now doing with the facts is a different story altogether.

If you choose to mix Zoroastrianism with Deleuzianism, you should not make things unnecessarily complicated and confusing. ;-)
Ahura is existence as such, but it's also a title usually given to deities (as in designating something as divine). Mazda is wisdom and "the mind". Ahura is the fact that existence is sacred, the universe is sacred, and Mazda is our capacity to think which we as Zoroastrians worship and celebrate.

Ushta,
Dino // is also deeply fascinated with Deleuzianism

Von: Daniel Samani
An: "Ushta@yahoogroups.com"
Gesendet: 18:20 Montag, 15.August 2011
Betreff: Re: AW: [Ushta] Meaning of Asha

Then we might be in disagreement. It's cause lies point to something not durable (as in low probability, low relevance, low effectiveness or destructiveness) that makes them unattractive. Could you define what you mean by real? To me something real is something part of the actual or virtual world. If it's not part of these worlds it can be classified unreal (can anything be classified unreal?).

How does we distinguish what is real from that which is not? Why not distinguish what is actual from what is virtual. And what in this world that are durable. That's my 50 cent.

Side note: Isn't the actual world Ahura and the virtual world Mazda?

Ushta
Daniel

15 aug 2011 kl. 17:48 skrev Special Kain :

Dear Daniel

Forget about Gilles Deleuze for a moment.
Druj is that which isn't real. Lies exist, but they refer to something that isn't true. The liar exists, his words exist, his words reach your ears, and so on - the whole process actually takes place and is 100% real. But not that something that the lie refers to. For example, the liar tells you that rabbits can fly, his statement exists. But there are no rabbits with wings. They don't exist, they are not real.
Got it?

Ushta,
Dino

Agreeing or disagreeing with Zarathushtra on Asha vs Druj?

2011/8/16 Parviz Varjavand wrote:
There are parts of the Gathas that I do not enjoy, the parts that Zarathustra keeps referring to all that he is doing as pure Asha and accuses his opponents of engaging in pure Droj.

Dear Parviz

I actually strongly disagree.
I think it takes GUTS and COURAGE to tell the truth when one is doing the right thing and others are doing the wrong thing.
It was exactly this attitude from the Americans that made them join World War 2 and beat the horrors of fascism and nazism in Europe and Asia and gain a foothold for democracy in what was then properly established as the free world. This was the best and wisest decision ever made by the American presidents and congresses. It was Asha!
I admire Zarathushtra for his guts in telling the truth also when he chooses superior ways. However, I do not admire self-haters who believe they are superior by denying their superiority of decision-making when they actually are making the right decisions.
Self-hatred and fake humility is actually rather pathetic.
Furthermore, convicts in jail know exactly when and why they have done druj: It is when they were SHORT-SIGHTED and only saw to their own and immediate gains ignoring the long-term effects for all of their decisions. Sometimes things are actually not very complicated at all.

Ushta
Alexander

Pragmatism vs Stalinism

Not at all.
Pragmatism would never defend a deceitful dictatorship like North Korea.
Because hardly any hypotheses even allowed to be promoted in North Korean society were ever maximally useful for the people of North Korea, not even for its dictator.
Haven't you grasped even the definition you just quoted?
Pragmatism is by far the most democarcy-promoting philosophy ever invented precisely because it does NOT recognize ultimate truths, only the meta-truth of conditions for truth, which in turn is an aggressive oponent of any form of closed society with a closed debate.
Ushta
Alexander

2011/8/13 Parviz Varjavand

"Pragmatism, as a tendency in philosophy, signifies the insistence on usefulness or practical consequences as a test of truth. In its negative phase, it opposes what it styles the formalism or rationalism of Intellectualistic philosophy. That is, it objects to the view that concepts, judgments, and reasoning processes are representative of reality and the processes of reality. It considers them to be merely symbols, hypotheses and schemata devised by man to facilitate or render possible the use, or experience, of reality. This use, or experience, is the true test of real existence. In its positive phase, therefore, Pragmatism sets up as the standard of truth some non-rational test, such as action, satisfaction of needs, realization in conduct, the possibility of being lived, and judges reality by this norm to the exclusion of all others."<<

So for the many persons who were born and died during the communist rule in North Korea, the norms, the rules, the tools used to enforce, and the results achieved by that state, should be Pragmatically, the Asha, the Truth and another name for God. Opposing that regime would bring all manners of harm upon them while obeying it would WORK for them. I do not know of any government who does not have Jails and Spy networks, so Jails and Secret Agencies are Asha, because they Work and everybody is using them. Who cares what the TRUTH may be and what DROJ might be, any DROJ that WORKS is the TRUTH and ASHA! Members of the CIA are the true ASHAVANDS then, because they care for nothing other than what WORKS for them. Is this correct according to you Dino, or am I mistaken here somewhere?

Also a student of philosophy,
Parviz Varjavand

Civilizations vs Hedonism (was: A Scientist and a Judge)

Dear Parviz

I believe what you are missing is whether something IS asha or druj or whether we experience it as asha or druj.
Asha and druj are not substances or essences, things just ARE, they are NOT in themselves asha or druj.
Asha or druj is what things become to us depending on which attitude we confront phenomena with.
Zarathushtra does not even dicuss substances or essences, HE FINDS THAT NOT INTERESTING. He only discusses mentalities and what different mentalities RESULT IN. Think feedback loops. What does a thought result in? Which is its outcome? THAT is what concerns us as Mazdayasni.
Leave the rest to science to figure out.

Ushta
Alexander

2011/8/13 Parviz Varjavand

Dear Dino,

If .."There are no fixed meanings, because things mean what they cause".., then Asha or Droj are meaningless terms too. If a Droj can bring positive results for us, then it is an Asha.
I see your point, yet a feeling in me lingers that there is something missing here. What is it that I am missing?

Ushta,
Parviz

From: Special Kain
To: Ushta@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Fri, August 12, 2011 2:02:40 AM
Subject: Re: AW: [Ushta] Creating Civilizations vs Simple Hedonism (was: A Scientist and a Judge)

Dear Behnaz

It is important and healthy to be part of something larger than one's ego - whatever this may be - and manage the dynamic tensions between one's individuality and one's commitment to the cause. So it's not about totalitarianism or collectivism where you're told which meaning you should give to your life. Meaning does not only exist in one's head, but develops and changes between people. It is an open-ended process, work in progress, "under construction", it changes over time. There are no fixed meanings, because things mean what they cause.

Ushta,
Dino

Von: Behnaz Larsen
Betreff: Re: AW: [Ushta] Creating Civilizations vs Simple Hedonism (was: A Scientist and a Judge)
An: "Ushta@yahoogroups.com"
CC: "Ushta@yahoogroups.com"
Datum: Donnerstag, 11. August, 2011 23:21 Uhr

Interesting, so a Chines busy bee is less melancholy than a middle-class, western individual!?