Yazdan

Yazdan means 'what is worshipped'. It is the Persian term for the English word 'God'.

However Yazdan is not just anything that somebody happens to worship. It is the totality of what should be worshipped. It is what humans need to pay attention to and ascribe value to. It what we should regard as important. God is important because it is enables us to live the good life.

Zartians are careful about treating Yazdan as a person. In some ways it can indeed be helpful to do so, but in other cases it can trip us up and cause confusion.

So how should we explain God?

Here are some ideas:

1. Hat - Hat is 'reality'. Hat is 'what actually is', as opposed to what we might imagine.

2. Khoda - Khoda is what is 'self-sufficient' or 'sovereign'. It is what is just itself and not dependent on something else. Khoda is the foundation of our existence.

3. Arche - Arche is 'the source'. Everything that comes into being, comes from somewhere. That thing it comes from is Arche the Source. Our lives are in constant relationship with The Source. If we act in good ways then we gain the benefits of the Source, but if in bad ways we will be starved of its blessings.

4. Agathon - Agathon is 'the Good'. We can distinguish between 'intrinsic Good' (what is good in itself) and 'causative Good' (what is Good because it leads to intrinsic Good). Causative Good most obviously are good actions that lead ultimately to intrinsic Good, but also include 'awareness of what is, including awareness of the Bad', because knowledge of the workings of reality is needed in order to take good actions.

These concepts about God of course are not mutually exclusive. They are four ways for our minds to try and make sense of what God is. There is of course a lot of overlap between them.

Auramazda and Zurvan

Auramazda is considered by many to be the name of the Zoroastrian God. In some historic periods Zurvan has also taken that role.

Zurvan is the underlying expanse of time and space within which all beings live out their lives. It is the ocean in which we all swim.

Auramazda is 'active wisdom' or 'wise creative power' behind the ordered world we experience every day. Auramazda is the positive power of wisdom to bring things together in right relationship to create new higher things.

In Zartian understanding Auramazda is a divine being - i.e. an abstract ideal being, but it is still a real being living in the Universe of Zurvan as we all do. As Auramazda lives inside Zurvan it cannot have created Zurvan. Rather Zurvan is regarded as uncreated and eternally existent. Both Zurvan and Auramazda are aspects of Yazdan the ultimate God, but neither can be said to be identical to it.

Apr 4026 ZHE

God

God is that which is of ultimate importance. We believe that there is something that is of ultimate importance, and therefore we believe in God. We believe that we should pay attention to and assign value (worship) that which is of ultimate importance, and thus we worship God.

Two things in particular are of ultimate importance. One is Reality. The second is The Good. In fact we believe these are not really separate because Good or Bad is not something purely subjective in the eyes of the beholder, but has a basis in Reality itself. Nevertheless there is a distinction because while Reality is something we must pay attention to, it is not always something to worship in quite the same way as the Good.

God may be seen as Reality and the Good. God may also be seen as that which connects humans to Reality and the Good. In this function God may change its appearance to suit the needs of different people.

God

God is defined as what we worship - and what we worship - i.e. pay attention to and treat as valuable and important - is all that is the foundation and producer of the good life for us and for everybody.

God is the source of life, but God had a complex nature. God is both in the underpinning of the Universe and in the Good Actors within the Universe. Thus Zorochristians resist any over-simplified unitary view of God.

Chrestomazdeans recognise the tensions between the different aspects of God. God allows evil things to happen and this may not be fair at all for us as individuals, even if it is a consequence of our collective actions as human beings. However we believe that God desires the Good for He has placed such knowledge at the heart of our being in our innate distinction of Pain and Joy.

God has also given us the ability to progress towards the Good if we are sufficiently free and determined enough to do so. As Zoroaster teaches, existence unfolds according to rules that our minds can potentially discover. If we align ourselves with Truth then our actions will become the Right ones to create the righteous order of maximum happiness and joy.

God

God is the ultimate focus of our worship.

God is by definition that which is most worthy of being attended to. What is most worthy of being attended to is that which is the source of our existence in all its various manifestations.

God desires what is Good, which we know because Good and Bad have been built into the fabric of existence as Pleasure and Pain. Nobody who has experienced the extremes of Pleasure and Pain can doubt that former is better than the latter in an absolute sense. It is God who has set this distinction into reality and motivated us to seek one and avoid the other.

God as One

"The One which is also known as the Monad and the First Principle, is the ultimate and true unknowable Godhead. It has an utterly singularly unitary nature as one of its most defining characteristics is the sum of all things in existence. The One is utterly immovable, abiding in the solitude of its own unity. Plato tells us that even to give it a name or speak of it places limiting labels and definitions, writing that “you cannot say that it ‘has’ anything or that there is anything ‘of’ it. Consequently, it cannot have a name or be spoken of, nor can there be any knowledge or perception or opinion of it. It is not named or spoken of, not an object of opinion or of knowledge, not perceived by any creature”. This is because the One is not only the sum of everything, but transcends and lays beyond each thing as the ultimate source of the all, manifesting multiplicity through the overflowing emanation of its superabundant goodness, It is without beginning or end, and is even beyond the Gods which manifest from it."
Updated October 4024 ZHE

Yazdan

Yazdan is God. It is what we worship because that is what is the ultimate cause of everything.

God in three names

God can be described by three names. These three names point to the mystery of God.

The first name is Yazdan . Yazdan means 'the one who is worshipped'. This is a similar meaning to the English word 'God' itself.

The second name is Khoda meaning the 'sovereign one', the one who is self-sufficient and not dependent, 'the Lord'.

The third name is Agathon meaning 'the Good'.

God

God is that which is of ultimate importance. We believe that there is something that is of ultimate importance, and therefore we believe in God. We believe that we should pay attention to and assign value (worship) that which is of ultimate importance, and thus we worship God.

Two things in particular are of ultimate importance. One is Reality. The second is The Good. In fact we believe these are not really separate because Good or Bad is not something purely subjective in the eyes of the beholder, but has a basis in Reality itself. Nevertheless there is a distinction because while Reality is something we must pay attention to, it is not always something to worship in quite the same way as the Good.

God may be seen as Reality and the Good. God may also be seen as that which connects humans to Reality and the Good. In this function God may change its appearance to suit the needs of different people.

God

God is defined as what we worship - and what we worship - i.e. pay attention to and treat as valuable and important - is all that is the foundation and producer of the good life for us and for everybody.

God is the source of life, but God had a complex nature. God is both in the underpinning of the Universe and in the Good Actors within the Universe. Thus Zartians resist any over-simplified unitary view of God.

Zartians recognise the tensions between the different aspects of God. God allows evil things to happen and this may not be fair at all for us as individuals, even if it is a consequence of our collective actions as human beings. However we believe that God desires the Good for He has placed such knowledge at the heart of our being in our innate distinction of Pain and Joy.

God has also given us the ability to progress towards the Good if we are sufficiently free and determined enough to do so. As Zoroaster teaches, existence unfolds according to rules that our minds can potentially discover. If we align ourselves with Truth then our actions will become the Right ones to create the righteous order of maximum happiness and joy.

God

God is the ultimate focus of our worship.

God is by definition that which is most worthy of being attended to. What is most worthy of being attended to is that which is the source of our existence in all its various manifestations.

God desires what is Good, which we know because Good and Bad have been built into the fabric of existence as Pleasure and Pain. Nobody who has experienced the extremes of Pleasure and Pain can doubt that former is better than the latter in an absolute sense. It is God who has set this distinction into reality and motivated us to seek one and avoid the other.

Agathon

Agathon is the Absolute Good. Mithraists strive towards the Absolute Good.

We are concerned about the well-being of the souls of the living world both now and into the future.

We do our best to be a good influence on the course of the living world and move closer to the Paradisium - the ideal worldly existence - through our support for the Arta Thalica - the Flourishing Order.

Updated January 4025 EHE

Yazdan

Yazdan is what we worship, what we pay attention to. It is what we ought to pay attention to, what deserves to be paid attention.

Fundamentally Yazdan is Reality - but Yazdan is not 'everything that exists' , rather it is the 'Ground of Existence', and the 'Nature of Existence' and the 'Cause of Happening and Being', and the 'Cause of Life and the Good'.

Zartians recognize a differentiation in Yazdan, in God. Yazdan is involved with the causation of everything, whether that turns out to be Good or Bad, yet Yazdan is not neutral as to outcomes. Yazdan prefers the Good. In our practice we pay attention to all the causes of things, so that we can predict and influence the outcomes, yet we value more the causes of the good things, than the causes of the bad.

N.B. Yazdan is a Persian word for 'God', used especially by Zoroastrians. In origin it has a meaning similar to the English word God.

God as Three

We can describe God in a three-fold manner:

1. God as the Ground of Being - the substrate within which everything moves, and which thus contains everything. In fact everything is made out of God. Nothing can be without God.

2. God as the Universal Mover - the blower of the spirit across the face of the Earth. Every movement, every happening is caused by God.

3. God as the Wise Creator. With His wisdom God directs the world to bring everything into existence needed for the good life and the general flourishing.

God as One

"The One which is also known as the Monad and the First Principle, is the ultimate and true unknowable Godhead. It has an utterly singularly unitary nature as one of its most defining characteristics is the sum of all things in existence. The One is utterly immovable, abiding in the solitude of its own unity. Plato tells us that even to give it a name or speak of it places limiting labels and definitions, writing that “you cannot say that it ‘has’ anything or that there is anything ‘of’ it. Consequently, it cannot have a name or be spoken of, nor can there be any knowledge or perception or opinion of it. It is not named or spoken of, not an object of opinion or of knowledge, not perceived by any creature”. This is because the One is not only the sum of everything, but transcends and lays beyond each thing as the ultimate source of the all, manifesting multiplicity through the overflowing emanation of its superabundant goodness, It is without beginning or end, and is even beyond the Gods which manifest from it."
Updated October 4024 EHE