Chapter 18
On The Realization of God
“Where do you come from? What news do you bear—what do you desire? We see your fatigued faces, dust-ridden garments, stained feet and disheveled hair. Your eyes lack luster and your limbs lack strength!
Speak!
Tell of your wishes for you have come to the sanctuary of the tired, the wretched—the tortured.”
“Friends hear our tale for we have travelled far. We leave behind a vile city, one which harbors the wicked and the deluded. Wasted by all we have witnessed and enchanted by what we have heard of Zarathustra we have set out on this path to turn to him for we have heard that he initiates a new god, a new discipline and a new way of life. Zarathustra’s mitreum is the seat of Mazda, the home of illuminated hearts. His God is a benevolent Creator—the most splendid brilliance of ultimate joy. He creates life to crown it with wisdom and reason. This wisdom he in turn illuminates with his own light. We turn to Zarathustra’s mitreum to calm our troubled souls in the shade of its cypress trees, to rid our bodies and spirits of their exhaustion in the tranquility of its rose beds. We come to bask in the light of his mitreum and to drench our hearts with his hymns in order to cure them of their aged sores. We come to enter this blissful world.
With this humble aim in our hearts did we embark on our vessel to face the waters of the great seas. Each of us carried a longing to find Zarathustra, yet each man bore his own god within his breast—a separate god from that of his fellow sea—farers. Each man knew his own deity as the true god and denied that of his neighbor. We each denounced the other gods and bore them malice. We plowed in silence upon the sea when all at once a storm arose. A hurricane howled about us as raging waves tore from the depth of the sea to whip their terrifying lashes against our ship. We rowed as quickly as we were able when a monstrous wave thrashed itself upon the vessel, ripped the sails, seized the rudder and cut the ropes. Gripped with fear we cried out, wept and lamented—the last rays of hope died within our heavy hearts as a bloody sun hied into the confines of the dark.
Winds howled and writhed about us as hungry wolves in the thick of winter nights. Maddened foaming waves roared and struck out as murderously as Ajhi Dahak seeking his victim. The waves beat their awe-inspiring knuckles upon the walls of the vessel making our very souls shudder within themselves. Shrieks of fear and desperation escaped us as we wailed into the night. Bodies convulsed and contorted and consciousness forsook us. The sea farers upon those dark and perilous waters threw their terror seized bodies into one another’s arms, groaned their last adieus, wept with each other, then knelt and each man prayed to his own god.
Prior to the storm each of us had rejected his friend’s god. Each had attested his own god as the ultimate truth bragging and boasting his deity before his fellow travelers. Each man had reprimanded the others for not believing in his god. Now as we all stood on the threshold of death we abandoned our arguments, left our quarrels, to collectively beg the gods for mercy.
Amongst us was one who worshiped his own hand carved idol. He turned to prostrate himself before this god and to beg salvation. Another voyager believed in another god, one whom he had name Zaravana Akrana. He was the god of eternity, of time and of death. This man knew Zaravana as the ruler of the universe and he held every incident in the world to stem from Zaravana’s wishes. Zaravana was eternal: he had always existed and would always exist—his desires surpassed and engulfed all things: he was the creator of destinies, the bearer of fates, the reaper of life and of existence. Zaravana had bent his furrow to plough the fields of existence and to sow his seeds of life. In time, Zaravana, dressed in his reaper’s robe—aged and grayed—would arrive with an iron scythe in hand to strike at the roots of life and thus to send the world into silence and oblivion. To Zaravana the melody of a ploughshare and the whimper of sown seeds are no more endearing than the staccato rhythms of a scythe reaping the stalks of life—neither one is able to arouse the least sympathy within his breast. He indifferently watches, hears and passes by the happy and the tormented alike: valuing not so much as a grain of millet all their pains and joys. None can compare with Zaravana for his strength and glory of sovereignty extend through eternity. Hence, we must bend in total submission to his every whim.
Unlike the others he who worshiped Zaravana silently waited, neither moaning nor supplicating nor weeping, for he knew his fate to be sealed. Alone and unattended was he to pass into another world that night. Zaravana had once chosen to send him forth into this earthly world and he now chose to pass him, by means of the storm, into another world—the seafarer was bent and prepared.
Another traveler believed in a number of gods; he had a separate deity for every natural phenomenon. Each of these gods had his own visage, form and disposition: each one had human characteristics. This man knew the hurricane as the will of the god of thunder. Thus, he raised his hands to this deity begging to be rescued from the clutches of the storm.
Another sea-farer believed in the great sun god—the deity of light and of love. Although the sun had chosen to hide his countenance from us on that evil night this man turned to the horizon beseeching the sun god to forgive his sins and to save him. He swore to sacrifice his finest and most beautiful cattle at Mithras’s atrium.
Another traveler carried a cruel, vengeful god. A god who mercilessly met the slightest wrongs of his worshipers with the harshest retributions. That night this god had risen to remind his worshipers of how grievously they had lost sight of his magnificence. He came to punish these wrongdoers by instilling the dread of thunder in them. This colossal god had no love—he was the epitome of cruelty, bloodlust, vengeance, pain, anguish and murder. He demanded that his adorers blindly plunder and destroy for his satisfaction.
Amongst us there travelled a sage who believed in yet another god. His god was light—the greatest all encompassing illumination, the force of life, the power of harmony the wisdom of creation. This sage did not see the hurricanes as the wrath of any one of these gods. He urged us to rise together and to row concentrating all our energies in the single aim of saving ourselves. He had never ceased his struggle against the storm. While we had groaned, wept and raised our arms to the heavens he had steadfastly gripped the oars and he had determinedly thrashed into the heart of the storm. At long last his power of perseverance aroused us all. We too took up the oars and thrust ourselves into the task of fighting the turbulent waves.
The wind screeched on as more waves came to whip themselves against the sides of the ship, yet we rode on combating their strength when cries of ‘horizon’ and ‘light’ met our ears—we had spotted land.
Thus, do we stand before you come to prostrate ourselves at Zarathustra’s temple after the horrors of that menacing night. We come to meet your God. We wish to enter your new order and to dwell beside you in Zarathustra’s city. We wish to learn the laws of this blessed city for we will strive to be citizens of Zarathustra’s kingdom.”
The Teacher descended his mitreum with a beaming face and a loving smile. He welcomed the newcomers with words which lightened their heavy hearts as he led them into his gardens. He bade his disciples hold the travelers dear, rid them of the dust which covered their faces and habiliments, clothe them in fresh garments and give them food and drink.
After the guests had been comforted Zarathustra gathered them about him. He listened to their probing with kindness, sang them his hymns and finally answered the questions they had set to him.
Presently, O Mazda Ahura,
Do we dedicate our immortality, truth and fullness,
Gained through our deeds, words and prayers,
Forevermore unto Thee.
(Gathas, chapter 30, verse 1)
O Mazda Ahura,
He who is pure in thought and soul offers himself to
Thee.
Succor my actions and my reflections!
Embrace me!
Accept me in my prayers!
(Gathas, chapter 34, verse 2)
O Mazda!
O purity and truth!
O Good-minded Ones!
Thou art as I perceive Thee!
Guide me along the transformations of life!
May I draw night unto Thee through praise and adoration!
(Gathas, chapter 34, verse 6)
O Mazda,
Guide me to the purity and truth I seek!
May I find them through my obedience and virtue!
Question us!
Try us!
For through your trials do we attain our endurance and
thus are we improved!
(Gathas, chapter 43, verse 6)
The finest rewards and fortune are for the wise one who
Spreads my message of truth and purity that men might
come to spiritual ripeness and immortality.
Mazda Ahura, with the help of the good-minded, will
increase the strength of the wise.
(Gathas, chapter 31, verse 6)
The finest rewards and fortune are for the wise one who
spreads my message of truth and purity that men might
come to spiritual ripeness and immortality.
Mazda Ahura, with the help of the good-minded, will
increase the strength of the wise.
(Gathas, chapter 31, verse 6)
Zarathustra first turned to he who worshiped his own hand carved idol and replied:
“I respect your beliefs. You are at liberty to openly venerate your god in any way you wish. I shall never stand in your way of worship neither shall I ever bear you harm. I will never fight another for what he believes for each man’s belief takes root in his wisdom and each man’s god is that which his wisdom dictates. I shall never fight another for the scope of his wisdom. I am but a teacher come to arouse minds into probing. I wish to lead men along the path of learning and to give flight to their thoughts in order that they themselves may find the light. I guide—I do not make war. I only fight against darkness, yet even against this enemy I do not draw my sword: I carry a torch.
Know this: should men come to fight over their creeds the world shall forever be a battlefield where armies clash to butcher and spoil in the name of religion. There shall never be a moment of peace or brotherhood amongst men for each man has his own beliefs and his own ability to develop those beliefs. Know too that I am a healer as well as an instructor and as such I have come to know that in the same way as retributions and reprimands are incapable of curing an ailing body so too are torture and bloodshed incapable of curing a perverted mind. For some are as ailing in the mind as others are in the body. We must attempt to cure them.
Now do I address you who has found his god within this piece of wood—I believe you to be right. You have perceived an embodiment of God and that is how you know Him. Yet, realize that your piece of wood has not always been thus. In the beginning it was a seed which rose from the heart of another tree and of another seed. That seed fell to the earth and sprang into life. Under the light of the sun, with the aid of water and soil, did it grow into a tree prior to standing before you as your god.
Thus, open your eyes and transcend your fragment of wood. Think of the seed—of the forces within that seed which brought it to life. Consider the elements of water, soil and air. Think of the sun and of that strength from which all life springs—the power of creation.
Behold the power of creation!
Behold the power of the Creator and find it in the sky, in the sun, in the stars, in the universe!
Search for it on the earth, in the soil, on land and in the great waters of the seas and rivers!
Seek it all about you!
You possess intelligence, thus the greatest phenomenon in the universe—your reason—can be yours to idolize instead of that fragment of wood you carry. Face your reason, contemplate and strive to know God through that reason. Reject your ancient training and ways of thought for they are now antiquated—they are the fabrications of a haggard imagination.
I now turn to you who perceives God as time—I respect your beliefs for you are dear to me as a human being. Indeed you are right in believing that each miraculous occurrence passes through the vasculum of time. All things are embedded in time but show me a time without space. Wheresoever time exists so too does there exist a locality—it is this very presence of locality, or space, which embodies time and it is space which renders time palpable changing it at every step. The aspects of time you see here differ vastly from those seen elsewhere. Should you marry time with space and see them as a single entity then will you behold the power, the wisdom and the harmony of creation—then shall you know the true God: the harmonizing force and wisdom of creation.
You are misled in your acceptance of providence. So very misled! You see each and every aspect of the universe to be governed by time. Hence, you lose sight of your own ability to will and to think.
Alas, how you stray!
Do you not comprehend your own strength?
Can you not understand your own power of reason?
Are you unaware that you have incarcerated the greatest force of the universe within you?
Do you not realize that you, a human being, are the only creature who carries such strength within yourself?
Why then is it that you hold this power so cheap?
This force rules everything you possess—it is this strength which controls you and it always will.
Look about you!
Witness this waterfall!
Watch the miller!
His intelligence has allowed him to govern the waters of that waterfall. He has directed them to turn his heavy millstone in order to grind his wheat! Until yesterday the cascades ruled over that man yet today it is he who reigns over them. Thus is it that wisdom and intelligence, if used wisely, are able to shape your destiny, not Zaravana. Use your intelligence to activate your reason then shall you overcome time!
You, friend, who has a divine image to worship molded in the shape of each earthly creation, you see every terrestrial proceeding as ruled over by divine will. Your trust is not misplaced. Your thoughts have led you to create a divinity for every earthly element you see—these divinities are but figments of your imagination. Should you concentrate your energies you shall pass beyond the realm of imagination and you shall arrive at the threshold of wisdom—a wisdom which shall lead you to the perception of the harmonized powers of the universe. Should you do as I bid you will no longer be burdened by the terror instilled within you by your gods and you will no longer have to sacrifice your finest offerings to the temples of these gods. You shall not make war on your fellow man nor will you resort to bloodshed for the satisfaction of your gods. In truth, I ask you, what are these sacrifices you make to these deities?
In what way can the blood of your herds give pleasure to your gods?
Is it not bewildering that the gods should create life and then proceed to demand that man waste that very life for their ultimate pleasure?
That they should truly want life to be taken and blood to be shed is wondrous strange!
Unnatural!
Monstrous!
Now I turn to you, the worshiper of the sun god. In the days when you dwelt on the cold inclement plains you were right to worship him for then did your livelihood depend on his light—you could not have but adored him then. But today you no longer inhabit those plains, hence your conception of the world has changed. You have migrated from your early habitat and your consciousness has travelled with you. Now must you realize that the sun too has been created with the sole purpose of shedding light and heat. Friend, our terrestrial existence depends on his radiance, but beyond him there exists an omnipotence: that potency from which the sun itself arises: the unifying intelligence of creation.
No longer fear the sun!
Refrain from offering him your herd in sacrifice!
Do not stain your hands with the blood of others for though you may wish to make recompense with Mithra by waging war on those who will not worship him you will in fact commit a grave sin—the greatest mortal sin: the taking of human life in the name of God and religion.
Finally, I turn to you who believes in God as a wrathful, vengeful, cruel, deceitful, ill-tempered, punishing ruler! I have made peace with and honored the beliefs of your fellow travelers but your god I will never accept!
You god is the reflection of your dark malicious mind. You are a being whose mind and soul are convulsing with pain, throbbing and lacerating under the desperation of harm. The face of your angry, revengeful, evil soul is thus exposed in your god. Your heart is as dry as the desert without a single drop of kindness to soften its arid sands. Your heartless behavior is but a mirror to your parched soul!
This vile spirit can breed no other conception of the Almighty!
Could you bear but the smallest grain of reflection and humanity you would never be capable of such vandalism as to rob others of life—ravaging all you touch. The god you worship within your breast justifies your savagery—a god which is nothing but a despicable tyrant to whose every whim you bend in submission. Is God this fiend which you worship? Are all these multitudinous facets of creation, this throb of life, merely to allow you to reach salvation by destroying others, ravaging and plundering the world to give pleasure to your god?
What an unnatural deity you adore!
How singular that you can subject yourself to the application of such rulers of your god!
Your god is a lie!
Flee him and behold the pastures!
Go, seek the Lord within the bosom of the flowers, in the heart of the fields!
Untie the darkened knot of your brows, wash your garments, make your ablution—cleanse yourself of this noisome stench which enshrouds you and replace your blackened countenance and drooping mouth with a smile!
Replace your murderous thieves’ thoughts with a consciousness of creating and planting!
Think of God as the omnipotent force of creation and under His guidance strive to become one with this force of life. Flood your heart with love for mankind, for the world, for being and for all things which bear the mark of creation—nourish and sustain creation within yourself. Do not harm and torture, instead pick the fruit of the trees to feed the hungry traveler and give him drink. Do not kill but plant seeds.
Arise, begin a new life!
Live in the light of God who is the illumination of benevolence and beauty. Abide under the guidance of Mazda Ahura who is the substantiality of being, the unity of creation, the love of life, the reality of existence, the limitless essence of all things.
I hereby profess before you all that should you seek to realize God you must first destroy the one you carry within your breasts—the god who is the fruit of your intellect, your anxieties, your desires, your wishes, your unconscious, your ignorance, your solitude and your insecurities. You have made a mould of your deities and you have given them human form allowing them to reign over you. They are able to terrify and appease you, to punish and reward you, to cherish and revile you. Banish them from your hearts. Then turn, with cleansed eyes, to behold the universe, look into yourselves, watch your birth and your creation and witness how you were conceived from a single sperm within the womb. You were but a mass of blood and then did you attain form to live off a mother’s blood as in time your shape developed in its various stages. Reaches of complexities took place before you were born a human being. Fathoms of complications, immeasurable by any human means, accompanied this creation to bring you forth to nurse you from a mother’s breast. Gradually you grew to consciousness, understanding and thought. You came to know and to realize action. You spoke to project your conceptions and to absorb those of others. You then set out on the path of life to ride its waves.
I now ask you, is it not better to face the miracle of creation to see God by questioning and by giving flight to your faculties of thought than to grope for Him in the crevasses of the mind with murder and massacre as your only means to the knowledge of Him?
Mark the heavens, observe the shine of the stars, the luster of the moon at night, the spread of the constellations, whose vastness in inconceivable.
Note the sun at dawn!
Consider its luster and warmth!
Watch and reflect upon the oceans, mountains, trees, animals and all things in the universe.
Scrutinize each one of them, bring all the changes in his world under your observation: the arrival of day, the departure of night, the coming of spring, the blossom of flowers, the advent of summer, the animation of the world, the vivacity of the earth, the arrival of autumn and the advent of winter. Never cease to note, study and learn for it is in that learning which you shall perceive God.
Which God?
A sulking, wrathful, vengeful, punishing deity ensconced on his heavenly throne?
Never!
Once you have attained that wisdom you shall be able to see the world with sagacity and you shall behold His countenance therein. At that moment shall your god descend his throne of brutality to evaporate into obscurity. Then shall a new god take seat within the volume of your brain—the God who is manifest in creation—the force which creates a flower from dust, drives a living blossom to sand, draws budding seeds from the heart of a dry grain, of a hardened sapling. From these seeds he brings forth flowers, greenery and fruit. This force of life turns a sperm into a human being within the womb. This intensity of creation is only to be sought in the universal arena for it lives within that arena and cannot be separated from it. One can only realize it with the realization of life.
When you contemplate this God you will realize that your gods were but the reflection of your thoughts and feelings—they sprang from your anger, your violence, your pride, your humility and your fears. Your self- made emotions and intelligence. When you find Him in the face of nature then will your treatment of all things change. He shall become the ever increasing light of creation, of beauty and above all of love. At that moment you shall cherish creation and you shall melt into it. Cruelty, pride, hate, solitude, anger, pain, theft and bloodlust will flee you and in their place charity for all created things and for mankind will reign in your hearts. The heaven you so ardently seek will stand before you on the face of this earth. My doctrines are the embodiment of paradise whose key lies in worthy thoughts, deeds and words. Hell is the incarnation of lies and the dwelling ground of prevarication—the abode of wrath, animosity, greed, falsehoods, jealousy, pride and knavery.
Rise and experience this new God!
Find Him whose form is light, whose psyche is the most highly illuminated heavenly truth: the radiance of eternal illumination. His singular light may be perceived in the earth and in every element of the universe. When you realize this God you too will transform into light-the fount of brilliance, warmth, birth, creation and growth. Your hearts will glow with this knowledge and your souls will blaze with it. You will be able to pass this light into the hearts and souls of others. There exists but a single path to the attainment of divine acceptance: creation, cultivation, justice, compassion, friendship, charity and love.
Hearken to my hymns, let them drench your hearts and never cease to recite them.”
O Mazda,
When I came to know Thee did I perceive that Thou art
the fount of good thoughts.
When I did Thee realize with my inward eye I found the
True Creator of truth.
Thou art the judge of all men’s deeds.
(Gathas, chapter 31, verse 8)
In the beginning did He light the world in His omniscience.
The order of the universe did He create in His wisdom.
May He forever succor the best thoughts!
O Mazda Ahura,
Thou art forever unchanging,
Illuminate and fulfill us with Thine wisdom!
(Gathas, chapter 31, verse 7)