SUNDAY SCHOOL – THE NATURE OF GOD
THE NATURE OF GOD ACCORDING TO ZOROASTRIANISM
The nature of God is extremely complex. Humans are incapable of understanding the true nature of God because we have only 5 senses and limited capabilities.
101 Names (Ek soh ek naam)
An aiyafah – beyond comprehension
1. Who created God?
• God is The First One. Gathas: “…when I saw Thee to be the First One ….”
• Nothing before God and therefore, he is The UNCREATED FIRST ONE
• Since God is the First One, His job was to create everything that we see around us
101 Names (Ek soh ek naam)
Bune stih – the root of all creation
A chem – without cause
Jamaga – the primal cause
Chamana – the cause of all causes
Meeno-Steeh-Gar - Creator of the Universe Invisibly
Gar-Gar - Creator of Creators
Khudaavand - Lord of Creation
2. God is Eternal
• Since God was never created, He has no beginning and no end.
• God is permanent, unlike everything else around us
101 Names (Ek soh ek naam)
Abadeh – without beginning
Abi Anjam – without end
A Khuan – eternally awake
Anah Aoshak - Immortal
3. The Name of God
Zarathushtra gave God the name Ahura Mazda meaning Lord of Wisdom.
• Mazda means Wisdom or Wise. Feminine noun (like the Greek Sophia)
• Ahura means High Being (Lord). Masculine noun
• In the Gathas, God is portrayed as neither male nor female but abstract in nature. For convenience, we usually refer to God as “He”, but it would not be wrong to refer to God as “She” or “It”.
• God is not like human beings (non-anthropomorphic)
• All Knowing and Wise – It implies that God has knowledge of All That Is, was, and will be in the Universe.
101 Names (Ek soh ek naam)
Aokh tan – not of human form and without gender
An ainah – formless
Mino tum – invisible
A bish – no human vulnerabilities
Rakhoh – no emotions
A sato – does not show anger or favors
Ahura Mazda Is Righteous, Just, Kind and Benevolent
• God should not be feared because he neither judges nor punishes us. He has given humans the gift of free will to make our own good (or bad) choices.
• Through Asha (Truth, Universal Order of how things should be in a perfect World), God is just in rewarding both good AND bad choices. The “rewards” for bad choices are given lovingly NOT through anger, and not as punishment, since they work for our eventual benefit. We are meant to learn from our bad choices and evolve towards making the right choices in the future and attain perfection.
God is Perfect [The Nature of Evil]
• Since God is perfect, anything that is evil cannot come from God.
• Everything negative comes from us moving away from the path of Ahura Mazda and Asha.
• Anything negative and bad is like a shadow – it appears only when Light (God) is blocked, and is not an entity in itself.
God is Omnipotent
• Ahura Mazda has given us free will as part of His Divine Plan, he chooses not to interfere with the choices we make, however bad they may be.
• The presence of evil in the World should not be confused with God’s lack of omnipotence.
Take Home Discussion: Parents please use this to continue today’s lesson at home.
How did Zarathushtra Realize and Experience God?
• Zarathushtra turned to his inner self and to nature to find answers to questions which baffled his mind.
• Through contemplation, meditation and reflection, he pondered on the nature of reality, with an open mind free of preconceptions.
• This quest led him to discover a precise order and organization in the Universe. He concluded that such precision within creation was not possible without the existence of a Super Intellect Being.
[Note: Zoroastrian texts discuss the world is a creation of Ahura Mazda, and this creation took place in seven stages. Remember that Zoroastrianism lays emphasis on intellect and the good mind, and therefore, CANNOT ignore scientific facts like evolution. A hybrid of God creating life and then letting it evolve is the best explanation of our world today.]
• God did not appear to Zarathushtra in bodily form, or as an angel, or through a bush or a mountain. Zarathushtra saw Him in his "Mind's Eye.” Zarathushtra describes this revelation in the Gathas by talking to Ahura Mazda: “…You give rewards to both the wrongful and the righteous, by means of the warmth of your Fire, which is mighty through Righteousness and through which the strength of Good Mind comes to me." (Gathas: Song 8:4)
• The reference to Fire in the Gathas is to enlightenment or Fire of Thought (thinking, reflecting, meditating). It is this same Fire of Thought, which he wishes to awaken within all of us.
• God-realization came to Zarathushtra, encircling him with enlightenment through his own Good Mind (Vohu Manah), one that he had acquired by choosing to seek reality through reflective thought and meditation free of prejudice.
• This was MAZDA (a super intellect), the God that Zarathushtra realized. A Divinity, who with His superior intellect creates, orders and sustains creation and who communicates with Man through his Good Mind; through the "Fire of Thought".
• The reward of enlightenment is given to both the righteous and the wrongful. But the strength of such a reward increases (becomes 'mighty' in Zarathushtra’s words) only through Righteousness, that is through thoughts, words and actions in accordance with what is Right; in accord with God's Ultimate Truth (Asha).
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