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Video Description
One man, Professor Jiang argues, built the spiritual architecture beneath Judaism, Christianity, and Islam — and his name was Zarathustra. His great idea was Asha: not just truth, but truth acted on — a personal war against the lie and the prison of the material world. From the Gathas to Rumi to Nietzsche’s own Thus Spoke Zarathustra, the lecture follows a single flame from ancient Iran to the cave we are all still trying to escape. The takeaway is theurgy in miniature: think well, speak well, act well.
Full Video Transcript
So we’ve done the Greeks and we’ve done the Israelites and today we discuss the Persians.
And today I introduce to you the most influential person who has ever lived and his name is
Zarathustra. And Zarathustra will create the world’s first great religion world religion
called Zoroastrianism and this will lead to the rise of the world’s first great empire
called the Persian Achaemenid Empire okay so to understand Zoroastrian let’s go back and understand
how we humans have traditionally understood the world okay so intuitively we’ve understood that
the world is one of consciousness okay the universe is conscious it’s constantly vibrating
okay these vibrations are infinite and the lower that the vibrations go the slower they are and
and therefore they give rise to matter, okay?
And that gives rise to humans.
So we both inhabit the material universe,
but our minds inhabit the spiritual universe.
And as a result, when we vibrate as well,
our consciousness returns to the universe, okay?
So we’re in constant dialogue with the universe.
Now, this is hard to understand,
So, we’ve used metaphors or stories to explain this system, all right?
So, let’s go over how we’ve explained the system using metaphors.
So, this is God.
Okay, the God is called the Monad or the One or Noose.
But there are different names for this God.
And this God is perfect.
The problem with perfection is that you lack imagination, you lack creativity.
And that’s why when God emanates, he created us, humans.
Why? Because we are material, we have bodies, and therefore we are imperfect.
What this means is that when we hit a wall, we feel pain.
We can fall down, we can die, we can suffer, we can make mistakes.
At the same time, it is through constantly making mistakes, disobedience, fallibility, that we are able to be creative, okay?
And as a result, both God and we are in the process of becoming, okay?
We are becoming into perfection.
We are becoming into eternity and infinity.
And so, we are co-creators with God.
Now, there are certain characteristics about the system that you have to remember.
First of all, in the system, we need to have free will.
Because only by having complete freedom can we be truly creative.
The monad is controlling us, then there can’t be any creativity.
It’s all intentional. It’s all planned.
So free will is very important.
Another very important idea is the individual.
okay so what so how the system works is what matters is what happens inside of us okay because
only us individually can give rise to creativity and so it is our interactions with the monad
that’s important okay another way of saying this is that use a metaphor okay the metaphor is a
candle a candle sorry this is a bad drawing okay candle and we are all mirrors surrounding this
candle and we are all we kind of is reflected in us okay so the monad is in us and um we’re all
part of one together so what happens is what happens to us individually okay another very
important part of this is its eternity okay reincarnation the idea here is that when you die
you just don’t disappear your consciousness returns to the spirit world why because maybe
in this world you made a lot of mistakes and because you made a lot of mistakes you can’t
really appreciate all the pain you’ve caused so when you return to spirit world then it’s a time
for you to reflect understand your significance on this world okay and so the idea is that if you’ve
done a lot of good in this world if you’ve been virtuous you ascend to a higher plane and if you
did a lot of bad things then you stay in the lower realm okay and this idea of heaven and hell why
because if you did a lot of good first of all you can appreciate all that all that you’ve done
you can be closer to the moon okay if you’ve done a lot of bad then you will see for yourself all
that the hurt you’ve caused in the world.
And you’ll be further down from the Monad.
So this is how intuitively
we’ve understood the universe to work.
When we’re born, we’re born almost
with an intuitive understanding of this.
The problem is that as our populations continue
to grow and grow, eventually we have war.
And war gives rise to patriarchy and property.
Why? Because how do you incentivize people to go fight?
Well, you promise them this wife will be yours, okay?
You’ll be the master of the household.
And whatever you win, whether it’s gold or whatever, it’ll be yours forever, okay?
And so these three things, war, patriarchy, and property are all interlinked together, okay?
And this, you can argue, gives rise to the idea of capital.
Remember, when we last discussed the Bronze Age, the Bronze Age was the height of capital.
And therefore, it was the height of war, slavery, corruption, violence, evil in this world.
And in this time, there will emerge prophets, the port prophets, who come and tell us that what we’re doing is wrong.
And we must remember who we came from originally.
We must remember that we are part of the monad and that we’re here to celebrate life, not to destroy life, to be creative, not to be destructive, to love, not to make war.
And so during the Bronze Age emerges a man named Zarathustra.
And he is a port prophet, just like Homer and the Yahwehs.
And he’s dealing with a situation.
okay we’ve entered a system where war patriarch and property are prevalent and we can’t imagine
a world without these things so now he has to create a new system yes he has to present
for his poetry new ideas that help us return to the monad okay and so he creates the beginnings
of a new world religion called uh zoroastrianism okay so let’s go over the basic ideas so remember
that this is a polytheistic world where you fight for your god and the gods don’t really care about
what’s good and what’s evil all they care about is themselves so you celebrate them you make
sacrifices to them if you give them enough money you brought them well enough then you win wars
okay so that’s a system that is pop that we call polytheism so what um azura master does is that he
He reimagines the system and creates a new hierarchy where a Hora Master is the top god, okay?
And you can call him the Monad as well.
And for Zoroastrian, Hora Master is the Lord of Wisdom, okay?
It literally translates into Lord of Wisdom.
And he’s represented by the idea of fire, okay?
So what is Zoroastrianism in Chinese?
It’s Bai Huo Jiao, right?
Bai Huo Jiao, okay?
The religion of white fire.
it’s a religion of wisdom and what then he also says is that the war of heaven and hell is within
us okay and there are two forces that tear at us that divide us okay the first is the force of asha
and second is the force of zhush okay these ideas are hard to translate but asha just means truth
and drush means the lie okay so the greeks um really admire the persians and what and what they
What they said about the Persians is the Persians are good at three things.
They’re good at horse riding.
They’re good at archery.
They’re good at telling the truth.
The Persians find it abhorrent, hateful to lie.
So they’re always telling the truth.
But that’s a very simplistic understanding of the system.
Telling the truth is not what Asher is.
What Asher really is, is a system of virtue.
By being virtuous, by doing good in the world, you become closer to our master.
You become his representative on earth.
So to better understand this idea, I’m going to introduce to you another concept called
the categorical imperative.
So Immanuel Kant.
So we don’t know when Zarathustra lived, but he lived about 3,000 years ago.
Immanuel Kant is the 18th century.
So he’s closer to our time.
And he introduces a concept called the categorical imperative.
For him, the categorical imperative is the highest moral law, the highest moral good,
what we all should strive to.
And what I will show you is that it’s very similar to the concept of Asha.
So there are three principles of the categorical imperative.
The first, the most important, is the law of universality.
And what this idea states is that what is good?
Well, to know what is good, imagine this.
Imagine that whatever you do, whatever you say,
everyone in the world will immediately do as well, okay?
So if you get angry, everyone gets angry at the same time.
If you are violent, everyone’s violent at the same time, okay?
If you curse God, everyone curses God.
Do you want to live in a world like that?
Obviously not, okay?
So that is what the categorical imperative is.
act and do and think as though everything you do will be reflected throughout the universe
and you are the universe itself okay now um this idea has been misunderstood as uh the golden law
right or do unto others as others would do unto you but actually no it’s it’s a much higher
concept the higher concept is that imagine that you are god yourself okay and you everything you
do will be reflected throughout the universe then how would you behave well you would behave the
highest virtue okay because you want to make the world a better place because if you do bad things
people could do bad things to you okay so that’s the first idea it’s a very important idea second
idea um is free will so whatever you do cannot be coerced okay whatever you do must be out of your
own desire your own will your own volition your own choice otherwise it’s
wrong okay so I cannot make you do good you only want to do good by yourself if
I do evil you should do evil because it’s your choice okay even though it
leads to a worse world it’s important to maintain principle of free will and free
choice okay the last is the idea of humans as the end now you have heard
maybe heard the phrase the means to an end right so um maybe i’m a king and i need to build a
better world so i need to start wars conquer the world so i need to sacrifice a billion human
beings in order to create a perfect world right that may sound good in theory but what kant and
zorathustra would say is that’s wrong because humans are the end unto themselves every life
every human life is as valuable as all human life together okay you cannot sacrifice one person for
the sake of the others that is fundamentally wrong do never do that that can only lead you
into hell okay so these three things together gives us a concept of asha you can see or you
can see immediately how complicated it is but at the same time you can also understand how
revolutionary it is okay because now asha presents to us three new concepts that will revolutionize
human history they are the individual what matters is what matters inside of you okay
everyone’s doing bad that’s their problem don’t worry about them just do what is good to you okay
what is good for you the second is free choice don’t ever feel as though you’re being forced
to do something do something because you will it so okay and the last is truth why do you do this
because the monad will know okay because our master will know because you will know okay so
what your family says what your community says what your nation says does not matter only what
you feel in your heart matters okay and let’s introduce a new concept in human history called
monotheism and guess what guys Zoroastrianism will give birth to three new religions okay
Judaism Christianity and Islam okay and this together is two to three point billion people
on earth and that’s why I say Zoroastrianism is the most important individual who’s ever lived
because he will create the structure for monotheism okay these three concepts that
will give rise to three world religions all right okay so something else I want you to understand
is that Zoroastrian had a major impact on the Greeks,
especially Greek philosophy.
In fact, the Greeks didn’t consider him just a poet.
They considered him the first scientist,
the first astronomer,
the first philosopher,
the first magician, okay?
The Greeks had tremendous reverence for him.
And Plato will take a lot of his ideas
and create a very powerful metaphor
that helps us understand Asher better, okay?
It calls it the allegory of the cave.
So imagine this.
Imagine that we are in a cave, okay?
We’re all prisoners inside a cave.
We are chained to the ground, okay?
So we can’t ever get up.
We can’t even move our necks.
We only stare at the wall in front of us.
Now behind us is a fire.
This fire is projecting shadows onto the wall, okay?
And we give names to these shadows.
And this is what we call reality, okay?
But it’s a shadow reality.
It’s all fake.
It’s all false.
It’s all what we imagine it to be.
One day, for whatever reason, one of us, the chains disappear.
And so we stumble upwards out of the cave, okay?
And now we’re suddenly in the light, right?
We see the sun.
The sun, of course, is Asha, truth, okay?
Or Ahura Masta.
And we’re blinded because our eyes are used to seeing the dark, right?
we can’t see we feel nothing but pain for a long long time but over time we start to see more
clearly and we see the world is beautiful okay we see the birds flying the sky we see the trees
around us we see the animals and we’re like this is beautiful okay i found heaven i found the truth
i found aksha i found our master this is what life is really about okay but over so but after
some time you’re like but this is not enough okay i have found the truth but the truth is not
complete because i know there are my friends my family that are stuck inside the cave therefore
for me to fully achieve asha i must go down and tell them the truth tell them there is an asha
and we can all break favor change escape into the light and see the truth for ourselves and then we
you’ll be truly happy and free and wise, okay?
That’s what Asherah is.
Asherah is not just bringing fear to change
and seeing the truth for yourself,
but it’s a responsibility to go and spread this virtue
to everyone around you.
If you see injustice, speak out, okay?
Another way of saying this is, let’s use a metaphor.
A choir, okay?
Singing choir.
How does a choir work?
Well, our master, the monad, he’s singing a song.
We have to sing along with him, okay?
If we do that, the world is harmonized, the world is perfect, the world is beautiful.
But if most of us are out of tune, then we need to get into tune, right?
So that’s what Asha is.
Asha is not just self-individualization, self-truth.
It is helping others see the truth for themselves.
So if you yourself see the truth, you now have responsibility to teach this truth to
others.
the problem is of course if you go down and tell everyone hey man this world we’re living in it’s
a shadow world it’s a prison we need to break our chains and escape into the real world everyone’s
like you’re crazy man right get out of here man you’re crazy and they’re like no no no we have to
go and they’re like okay well describe this world to us and you’re like um it’s hard it’s kind of
hard to describe well you’re crazy then okay all right so that’s Plato’s Alley Go to the Cave
And this gives you a better understanding of the idea of Asher.
So, if you move towards the truth, you’re moving towards Asher.
But if you’re moving away from Asher, you’re moving towards the Druush.
So, that’s a basic premise of Zoroastrianism.
This is the idea that Zoroastrianism brought to the world.
And it will forever change the world.
We’ll go into the specific history next week.
but first what i want to do this week is just go into his ideas okay all right all right so
zorathusa we don’t know when he lived okay but we estimate anywhere between the year 2000 bce
to about a thousand bc that’s a bronze age right i suspect he lived towards the end of a bronze age
why because when the bronze age is coming to the form people are in love with capitalism people
want to get rich, right? But after the system matures, there’s slavery, there’s debt, there’s
corruption, there’s misery, there’s suffering. And so people want to hear another voice.
Zarathustra himself was a priest. It was discussed by the corruption of priests. Because remember,
being a priest means being a teacher, leading people into the light, leading people into Asha.
But once the Brian Chase becomes more mature, then priests are corrupt.
They want a lot of money for helping you achieve immortality.
They sort of spread false teachings.
They become very corrupt.
And so Zoroastria becomes disgusted,
and he wanders around spreading his new message of Asha.
Now, what’s important to understand is that
we don’t know where Zoroastrianism worked specifically,
but we suspect northern Iran, okay?
Why is this important?
Because during the Bronze Age,
the main centers of wealth were Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Levant.
So this is more like a colony
where there’s a lot of mining going on, okay?
So what’s going on here
is basically the most human suffering in the world, okay?
So imagine maybe Congo,
where they’re using they’re using child slaves to dig for rare earths okay it’s it’s a march of
empire where war is a very common thing violence is very common thing people are being kidnapped
and forced to work in the mines in order to get tin for the branch age economy okay all right so
as you can see um zoroastrian is about here okay either northeast iran or northwest uh iran okay
And as I mentioned, the global economy is around here, okay?
This is where most of the wealth is.
These people are poor, they’re enslaved, and they’re extremely violent, okay?
So, Zoroastrian comes, and he’s a poor prophet, okay?
He’s a priest, and he’s singing songs to help people better understand the world around them.
He’s trying to remind them of who they are really, okay?
They really are parts of God, all right?
So he says, listen with your own ears, with a bright mind, choose truth from false creed,
each person for his own self before the final judgment comes, okay?
So the idea of the individual, what matters is yourself, what you do, what your family
does, what your clan does, what your tribe does, does not matter.
What you do, because when you die, you will face Ahura Masta, the final judgment, okay?
Not your family, but you yourself.
and so what you must do is choose Asha the truth okay what is the truth being
virtuous because you yourself are virtue okay um so um he wrote in a language
called Avastin and it’s a beautiful language and if you are a Zoroastrian
priest you can memorize all this okay but I am NOT and I don’t have butcher
the language okay but it’s poetry it’s beautiful right so Asha is the best of
all that is good. And Asha is happiness. Happiness belongs to the one who follows the righteous path
for the sake of the best righteousness. So how do you know you’re doing Asha? Because you are happy.
Okay. Do you understand? So the metaphor is imagine that you live in a world of like fat people who
don’t exercise and then all they do is watch TV, right? But you decide to go and work out and
become more thin. How do you know you’re on the right path? Because you feel happy about yourself.
okay but the problem of course is that you lose all your friends you lose all your family okay
that’s why people don’t do this not because um they don’t know the truth it’s because they fear
the truth all right so this is some trusted poetry called the gathas that we know that
joel thruster wrote okay or he didn’t write it they were all illiterate at this point but he
sang it okay now the two primal spirits who reveal themselves in vision as twins are the better and
the bad in thought and word and action and between these two the wise ones choose all right the
foolish one not so okay so we in our nature always um divide into into two halves okay the good and
the bad the asher and the jewish and to be truly virtuous it has to be good thoughts um good words
and good actions okay you have to be unified as a person you can’t speak the truth but then do bad
things okay you have to think good thoughts speak good thoughts and do good works and that’s what
um zoroastrianism okay and when these twin spirits came together in the beginning they created life
and not life and that at the last worst existence shall be the followers of the lie for the best
existence to him that follows right of these two twine spirits he that followed the life the lie
choose doing the worst things the holiest spirit choose right he that clothes him with the massy
heavens as a garment so likewise they that are fain to please our master by beautiful actions
between these twin the davos okay those that lead you to the jews also chose not a right for
infatuation came upon them as they took counsel together so that they chose the worst thought
then they rushed together to violence that they might enfeeble the world of man so we’re leaving
living a world run by davos by demons who choose violence to control us okay and what do you do
and to him came dominion and good mind and right and piety gave continued life to their bodies
and indestructibility so that by the retributions through metal he may gain the prize over the
others even in a world of evil you can choose and you must choose to be good all right if people are
lying you tell the truth because what matters is your individual action not what others are doing
So when there come of their punishment for their sins, then, O Master, at thy command shall good thought establish the dominion and the consummation for those who deliver the lie, O Ahara, into the hands of right.
So God will know what good you did, what evil you did.
When you die, it will be the final judgment.
You will have to face God.
so we may be those that make this world advance oh master any other harass come hither without
saving submission into your company and asha in order that our thought may gather together while
reason is still shaky okay so even though the world has turned evil even though the people the
elite are evil you can still do good and god will know you do good and god will reward you for doing
good okay so again this is the beginning of monotheism and as you can see this idea will
echo in christianity and islam as well then truly on the world of life shall come the destruction
of the light but they who get themselves good name shall be partakers in the promised reward
in the fair abode of good thought of master and of right oh if oh ye mortals ye mark those
commandments which master have ordained of happiness and pain the long punishment for
the follower of the Druze and blessings for the followers of the right. Then hereafter shall it
be well. Okay. So you should do what is virtuous, not only because God will reward you for doing
so, but because you will feel eternal happiness in doing so. When though a master in the beginning
did create the individual and the individuality through thy spirit and powers of understanding,
when though did make life clothed with a body, when actions and teachings whereby one may exercise
one’s convictions at once free okay so you see individual free will these are the core concepts
here okay never say you’re being coerced you always have the choice you always have the choice
to resist then lives up his voice the false speaker or the true speaker he that knows or he
that knows not each according to his own heart and mind passing from one to another armati confers
with the spirit in whom there is wavering okay clear it is to the man of understanding as one
who has realized it was thought he upholds asher together with good dominion by his word and deed
he will be oh master the most helpful helper to thee okay so when we choose to follow asha
we are doing god’s work when we in our hearts choose asha we at that moment change the world
for the better okay so this sounds a bit complicated a bit abstract and honestly he was
speaking to people at that time okay so what does he really really mean and how can we understand
what he’s really saying well the argument i want to make you today is that all poor prophets are
the same they’re all divinely inspired they’re all speaking a certain truth so by understanding
other poor prophets of that region of that culture we gain insight into the true thinking of
Zoroastrianism, okay? So this is Rumi, who is considered the greatest Persian poet who has ever
lived. He lived in the 13th century, which is about 2,000 years, 3,000 years after Zoroastrianism.
In many ways, if you actually read his poetry, he is the reincarnation of Zoroastrianism, okay? So
we’re going to read a bit of his poetry, and then once you read his poetry, it’ll give you insight
into the cosmology of Zoroastrianism.
I see so deeply with myself.
I so see deeply with myself.
Not needing my eyes, I can see everything clearly.
Why would I want to bother my eyes again
now that I see the world through his eyes?
His eyes, okay?
Through the eyes of Asher,
through the eyes of the Monad,
through Ahura Master, okay?
That’s how you should be seeing, okay?
In other words, you should be seeing the world
through your imagination.
You can imagine a better world.
If you imagine a better world,
you can create a better world.
So don’t be fooled by the material world around us.
It’s all fake.
It’s all an illusion.
Not Christian or Jew or Muslim, not Hindu, Buddhist, Sufi, or Zen.
Not any religion or cultural system.
I’m not from the East or the West, not out of the ocean or up from the ground,
not natural or ethereal, not composed of elements at all.
I don’t exist.
I’m not an entity in this world or in the next.
Do not descend from Adam and Eve or any origin story.
My place is placeless, a trace of the traceless.
neither body or soul.
I belong to the beloved, have seen the two worlds as one,
and that one called and know, first, last, outer, inner,
only that breath-breathing human being, okay?
Does that make sense to you?
We’re all part of God.
That’s our true nature.
There’s a divine spark in us.
Don’t be fooled by the material world, okay?
And don’t be fooled by labels.
Christians, Buddhists, Jews, there’s no difference.
We’re all the children of God, okay?
We’re all the same.
So don’t be fooled by labels.
So there’s a joke.
The joke is this.
God and Satan are fighting over humanity.
And God says to Satan,
Ha! Humans have discovered religion, therefore I have won.
And then Satan says,
Yeah, but then I’ll just organize it.
So the idea is that religion is great.
I’m a big supporter of religion.
But organized religion is problematic.
Because organized religion serves the interests of the priests who control the religion.
And that’s why there are differences in these religions,
in Buddhism, in Judaism, in Islam, in Christianity,
because the people in charge need to differentiate the religion
in order to exploit you, in order to justify their existence.
But at the end of the day, we’re all connected to the divine,
and all that matters is our connection.
So all these differences is something that is artificially created to fool us.
All right, all that I think about it, then I say it.
Where did I come from and what am I supposed to be doing?
I have no idea.
My soul is from elsewhere, I’m sure of that, and I intend to end up there.
I don’t remember where I came from, but I know that I must have come from somewhere.
The strugglingness began in some other realm, some other tavern.
When I get back around to that place, I’ll be completely sober.
Meanwhile, I’m like a bird from another continent, sinning in its aviary.
The day is coming when I fly off, but who is it now in my ear who hears my voice?
Who says words within my mouth?
Who looks out with my eyes?
What is the soul?
I cannot stop asking.
If I could taste one sip for an answer,
I could break out of this prison for drunks.
I didn’t come here on my own accord.
I can’t leave that way.
Whoever brought me here will have to take me home.
Okay?
This is beautiful.
And it’s also a rewriting of Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, right?
This is a prison for drunks.
Here, we’re all drunk.
We’re all blind from our true reality.
This is a prison.
When we return to the monad, to our master,
then we’ll see the truth for ourselves okay so here’s another poor prophet frederick nietzsche
okay frederick nietzsche is one of the three great german philosophers of the past um 500 years
um emmanuel khan frederick hegel and frederick nietzsche and frederick nietzsche wrote thus
spoke zora thrusha and he wrote in a very interesting way he likes to take these long
walks he can walk walk for like hours and hours in the mountains and then now and then he feels
as though he’s being seized okay a force has seized him and compels him to speak and he
believes this person is zorathustra okay so he wrote a book and it is a recollection of
all the moments when he was seized by zorathustra and forced to speak his words all right and we
actually read what nietzsche writes you will see that it’s actually pretty similar to what
Zarathustra himself promoted during his time. Of course, Nietzsche is promoting it in a more
modern contemporary lens. So if Zarathustra were to come back, he would basically be Nietzsche.
So in many ways, Nietzsche and Rumi are reincarnations of Zarathustra. They’re all
trying to speak a divine truth to humanity. So this is the prologue, the first page of
thus spake Zarathustra okay and what you will notice okay look for this what you’ll notice is
that this is exactly like the alligator the cave okay all right when Zarathustra was 30 years old
he left his home in the lake of his home and went into the mountains there he enjoyed his spirit in
his solitude and for 10 years did not wear of it but at last his heart changed and rising one
morning the rosy dawn he went before the sun and the inspect does on to it though great star what
What would thy happiness be if thou hadst not those for whom thou shyest?
For ten years hast thou climbed hither unto my cave, thou wouldst have weather of thy
light and of the journey, had it not been for me, mine eagle, and my serpent.
But we awaited thee every morning, took from thee thine overflow, and blessed thee for
it.
Lo, I am weary of my wisdom, like the bee that hath gathered too much honey.
I need hands outstretched to take it.
I would fain bestow and distribute, until the wise have once more become joyous in the
folly and the poor happy in their riches therefore my side i descend into the deep as though does in
the evening when though go behind the sea and give light also the neither world though exuberant star
like thee must i go down as men say to whom i shall descend okay so zoroastra has hid himself
in the cave and inside the cave in solitude he has discovered asha he has discovered the secrets
of universe and he’s discovered that this is not enough i must now go shine the light on everyone
Otherwise, I can never achieve Asha fully, okay?
So it’s exactly like the allegory of the cave
where the prisoner, he escapes into the light
and he’s happy until he realizes that
you can’t be happy alone.
You have to share this happiness with everyone else, okay?
So it’s exactly like the allegory of the cave.
All right, let’s continue.
Though in Plantis, thy highest aim
to the heart of those passions
then became thy virtues and joys.
And though the word of the race of the hard-tempered
or the voluptuous or the fanatical or the vindictive,
All thy passions in the end become virtues, and all thy devils angels.
Once had thou wild dogs in thy cellar, but they changed at last into birds and charming
songsters.
Out of thy poisons breathed thou balsam for thyself, thy cow’s affliction milked so.
Thou drinkest thou the sweet milk of her udder.
And nothing evil groweth any longer, unless it be the evil that groweth out of the conflict
of thy virtues.
My brother, if thou be fortunate, then wilt thou have one virtue and no more?
Thus goes thou easier over the bridge.
Illustrious is to have many virtues, but a hard lot.
And many a one have gone into the wilderness and killed himself,
because he was aware of being in the battle and battlefield of virtues.
Okay, the question then is, if our master is wisdom,
why do we live in a world of hate, of evil, of sin?
And the answer is, because virtue must come from vice.
Good can only come from evil, okay?
To live in good forever is to live in ignorance, okay?
We are born in the Druush so that we may discover Asha.
From our struggles, we will discover what truly good is.
And that’s a gift that God has given us.
To grow, to live in a time of evil so that we ourselves may create good for humanity, okay?
That’s the central message of this.
Without vice, there can be no virtue.
And to have one virtue itself is not enough.
You must be constantly in a battle to create more and more virtue.
So if you are a man of sin or a woman of evil,
be thankful because now is your opportunity to be a star, a sun,
that through transformation of oneself can brighten the world.
And when you do that, you transform the world.
and then when you after you do that your next battle is to go and transform someone else or
look deeper and discover the evil in you okay so don’t worry about the world itself just worry
about you yourself because within yourself is a universe of evil that can be transformed into a
universe of good so um one really important thing i i have to say is that this is not buddhism okay
the the structure and the framework are very similar but what zoroastrianism fundamentally
says is that compassion is not enough, okay? You have to act because justice is about action. If
you see injustice, you must speak out. You can’t be like, oh, I’m indifferent because I’m
compassionate, okay? That’s not enough. You have to act out. And that’s why people who believe in
this religion were so creative, okay? Because they believe in action. Being indifferent is
simply being it’s basically being complicit in the system all right all right you tell me life is
hard to bear but for what purpose shall you have your pride in the morning and your resignation
in the evening life is hard to bear but don’t affect to be so delicate we are all of us find
sumter asses and she asses okay what we have in common with a rosebud which trembled because a
drop of dew have formed upon it it is true that we love life not because we are want to live but
because we want to love love is asha right um we always want to achieve asha there is always some
madness in love but there’s always also some method and madness and to me also who appreciate
life the butterflies and soap bubbles and whatever is like them amongst us seem most to enjoy
happiness to see those light foolish pretty lively little sprites flit about that move
to tears and song i should only believe in a god that would know how to dance and when i saw my
devil i found him serious thorough profound solemn he was a spirit of gravity through him
all things fail okay so what nishi hates is organized religion because organized religion
it is very serious very somber it basically wants to enslave us right it’s like don’t do anything
bad don’t drink don’t smoke don’t have sex or you’ll burn in hell okay that’s very serious
and what durafusta and what nishi is saying is that that’s not what asha is man asha is
recognize that the world is beautiful that our master is all merciful all forgiving all love all
compassion and you must delight in the world because that’s why he created us okay so the
only way to survive this world of evil is to recognize that beauty is everywhere around us
and it’s our responsibility to discover this beauty and celebrate this beauty okay dance sing
make love laugh smile that’s what life is about okay if a priest is telling you
hey meditate for your life don’t be his only food that will you avoid sin he’s a
devil man okay because he’s denying you your free will he’s denying you your
capacity to love to seek after yourself okay but one day will the solitude weary
thee one day will thy pride yield and thy courage quail though one day cry
I’m alone one day will those see no longer thy loftiness and see too closely
thy lowliness the solemnity itself will frighten thee as a phantom that will one
day cry all was false so life is a constant struggle okay between hope and
tragedy there are some days when you will be very hopeful but then some days
when you’ll be very depressed that’s just the process of life and that’s the
process of wisdom okay to seek wisdom you always have to constantly destroy
yourself you have to destroy the world around you and it’s a never-ending process of pain and
suffering and tragedy but it will gradually lead you to enlightenment what’s really important is to
act okay to seek self-destruction so another way of saying this is always assume that whatever you
know no matter how truthful is probably wrong and to go and negate yourself okay it also means
leaving your family leaving your comfort zone all right a heretic will thou be to thyself okay a
A heretic is someone who doubts yourself, right?
Saying, everything I’ve known is wrong, okay?
So, I know we’re saying this,
and I know it’s hard to understand is,
you come to my class for a semester,
and everything I teach you, you’re like,
wow, this makes a lot of sense, okay?
And every day you’re excited, you learn a lot.
But at the end of the semester,
what you want to say is,
everything I’ve learned this semester is wrong.
So I’m going to learn for myself.
I’m going to negate everything I’ve learned
and believe everything I’ve learned is deceitful
so that i can rebuild my own knowledge and through that process will you actually achieve enlightenment
okay the truth is oh it has to be to you there can be no truth for everyone the truth has to be
for you and you must fight for it every day okay ready must out be to burn thyself in thy own flame
okay you must destroy yourself how could though become new if though have not first become ashes
you understand to live is to die if you really want to understand you must first destroy every
everything that you think you understand in order to build a new understanding though lonesome one
though go the way of the creating one a god will though create for thyself out of the seven dev
devils though lonesome one though goes the way of the loving one though loves thyself and on account
despise though thyself as only the loving one despise to create desire the loving one become
because he despised what know he of love who have not been obliged to despise just what he loved
Okay, this is a really hard cause to understand, but like, you know, in the Buddhist tradition, it’s like, avoid anger.
No, no, no. Embrace your anger.
Embrace your hate.
Because hate and love go together.
Anger and calm go together, okay?
So by going to one extreme, you can now embrace the other extreme.
And your life is a kind of struggle between these two different extremes.
When you negate yourself, when you move into nothingness, you can only move into ignorance and slavery.
Okay, does that make sense?
You are born of two natures.
You must let these two natures fight, okay?
When Zoroastria had spoken these words,
he paused like one who had not said his last word
and longed to balance the staff unthoughtfully in his hand.
At least he spoke thus and his voice had changed.
I now go alone, my disciples.
Ye also now go away and alone, so will I have it.
Verily, I advise you, depart from me
and guard yourselves against Zoroastria.
And better still, be ashamed of him.
perhaps he have deceived you the man of knowledge must be able not only to love
his enemies but also hate his friends okay you want to knowledge you can learn
from me but at the end we must leave each other and you must say he’s not my
enemy I must now destroy him if I really want to be myself I need to destroy my
teachers in order to discover my true self okay and as you can imagine most
people don’t want to do this most people just want to cling to their mother when
to cling to the teacher but you can never achieve true asha if you do this okay you love your virtue
as a mother love her child but when did one hear of a mother want to be paid for her love it is
your dearest self your virtue the ring’s thirst is in you to reach itself again struggle every ring
and turn itself and like the star that go off so is every work of your virtue ever is is its light
on its way and traveling and when would cease to be on its way thus is the light of your virtue
still on its way even when its work is done be forgotten and dead still its ray of light
live and travel okay so when we die our bodies decompose what’s still left is our virtue okay
that’s who we are our virtue all that good we’ve done in the world all the knowledge all the
enlightenment all the emotions that we’ve generated okay that will be eternal and so we must embrace
this nature and become virtue itself okay being human is to be first and foremost virtuous to
seek asha for this is the truth i’ve departed from the house of the scholars and the door have i also
slammed behind me too long did my soul sit hungry at their table not like them have i got the knack
of investigating as a knack of nut cracking freedom do i love in the air over fresh soil
rather would i sleep on ox skins than on their honors and dignities i am too hot and scorched
with thine own thought often is it ready to take away my breath then have I go then I then I have
I to go into the open air and away from all dusty rooms but they sit cool in the cool shade they
want everything to be merely spectators and they avoid sitting where the sun burn on the steps
like those who stand in the street and gape at the passage by thus do they also wait and gape
at the thoughts which others have thought okay so this is a radical idea but it’s very true
You go to university not to learn how to think, but to fall into ignorance.
Okay, why?
Because the professors there, the priests there, they have departed from reality
and they’ve chosen to live a life of comfort, of ease, of pleasure.
And as a result, they can’t know anything.
True knowledge can only be found in the everyday, in the mundane, with ordinary people.
That’s where God is.
okay universe are constructed to be away from God they are temples for the comfort of priests
so if you want true knowledge go out into the world and talk to other people suffer okay so
that’s it okay so now you can understand the beauty and power of Zoroastrian and and I really
do believe this I really believe that Nietzsche was channeling Zoroastrian but he was channeling
in a way for the common mind, okay?
Because the thing about Asha
is that it’s always changing, all right?
The Asha that was true 3,000 years ago
is not the Asha that’s true for us today, all right?
And what’s really important to understand
is that Asha is constantly coming.
So you have to constantly work towards it.
There’s no end point to Asha, all right?
And Asha is gonna be different for everyone.
But if everyone’s moving towards Asha,
and the world becomes a more virtuous, a better place, and a more just place, okay?
So, any questions, guys?
All right, so last class, I gave a lecture on the Bible.
And I made a mistake in my lecture.
So, in my discussion about the story of the patriarchs,
between the love story of Rachel and Jacob,
I said that Jacob had to work seven years for Rachel after his marriage to Leah.
But as this Substack subscriber, Cole, tells me,
actually, that’s not what the Bible says.
The Bible says that Laban, the father, gave Rachel to Jacob right away.
But then he had to work seven years to pay off that debt.
Okay, so thank you to Cole for correcting the error.
In fact, I probably made a lot of small errors in my talk last class.
And I obviously make a lot of mistakes every class, okay?
So I apologize for that.
But the thing about this class, and it’s really important for us to remember,
is that this is a class not about answers.
It’s about questions, okay?
So what makes this class interesting and special is that
we’re always asking the hard questions.
What does it mean to be human?
Where do we come from?
Why are we here?
Where are we going?
Okay?
we’re always asking these questions because these are questions that actually matter for us okay
that’s the first thing second thing is that i’m constantly in the process of becoming i’m
constantly um trying to discover the answers and so for me this is a journey so for example
um zora thrush is a revelation to me before i didn’t know about zora thrush and i made a lot
of mistakes so for example i said that christianity was the first monotheistic religion last um
semester and now i recognize that’s wrong it’s actually zoroastrianism okay so i’m constantly
in the process of discovery of becoming um and what’s really important is that we continue to
speculate we continue to explore together all right and so if you don’t like what i say this
class or you don’t like my opinion just wait a year or two and i’ll probably change my opinion
okay because that that’s what true knowledge is about if you really want to pursue knowledge
You must be willing to, as Nietzsche, as Zarathustra says,
you constantly need to destroy yourself,
to burn yourself into ashes so that you may build yourself anew.
And that’s what the process of real education should be about.
So in this class, I’m not here to give you easy answers.
I’m not here to give you facts that you must memorize.
I’m here to ask you questions that help you better understand yourself
and better understand the world around you.
to help. This class is about conversation, dialogue, and debate.
Okay? Alright? So, any questions, guys?
Yeah. Sorry. Let me give you the mic.
So, as you say, the action is different for different individuals.
So, I was thinking about an example is, so, Hitler as a racist,
um he he he not only himself but he also making uh um some uh like a lot a lot a lot of people
to hate jewels and let’s assume that he um think jewels are evil in his heart and trying to destroy
them so if he think that this is a real justice does this still count for ash okay look um look
It’s a very sensitive topic, you know, Hitler and the Holocaust.
I don’t want to spend too much time on it, okay?
But if you truly understand Asha, if you truly understand Zarathustra,
what it would say is that our master is complete forgiveness, compassion, and love, okay?
So whatever we do in this world, we’ll be forgiven in the end.
I know, I understand this is hard for a lot of people to accept.
I know that we grew up knowing that there must be evil in this world because of the holocaust
and there must be satan and all that but if you really want to discover Asha you have to
let go of these ideas and understand that in the end all will be forgiven okay I’m sure that there
are people you hate in this world and you think that they must burn in hell because of all the
evil they’ve done they’ve done in this world but if we want to appreciate asha if we really want
to discover the truth okay we need to let go of this hatred we need to let go of um of of this
judgment okay um i mean i mean the very point of asha is don’t worry about other people just
worry about yourself don’t compare yourself to other people compare yourself to yourself okay
and and so how do you know you’re moving towards asha because you can feel it all right the problem
is what keeps us from asha are two things our ego and our fear we want to be liked by everyone
our ego okay and our fear of rejection people of saying something that offends other people
being politically correct okay like i know that in my class i offend a lot of people and i get
get shot at all the time on youtube and i know that okay but if i want to achieve asha i need
to take this risk okay because at the end of the day what matters is my own individual pursuit of
the truth what others think of me does not matter okay so the problem our society is we’re
brainwashed and thinking that the opinions of others matter okay what what your teacher says
about you matters because the digital recognition will decide whether or not you get into good
university how much money you make matters because that will give you status in society okay and what
zero through star what nichi what roommate what play they’re all saying is this it doesn’t matter
man what matters if you want true happiness if you want to enlightenment if you want uh asha
you have to embark on a personal journey that requires solitude that requires rejecting everything
that you know in the past so you can rebuild yourself once you make that once you make that
decision actually will come to you naturally okay but first and foremost what you need to do is let
go of these prejudices let go of these ideas that have been put into you okay i know yes i i know i
will get shut out i i i don’t get cursed online for saying you know hitler will be forgiven but
but Hillary will be forgiven
because everyone will be forgiven, okay?
Everyone will be forgiven, okay?
There is no hell.
I’m sorry to say this, okay?
I’m sorry to say, but there is no hell.
Hell is what we create in our hearts, okay?
Everyone will be forgiven, all right?
But thank you for the question.
Any more questions?
Okay.
My question would be,
I know that, actually, for everyone will have different,
but will it change in a different period,
Like when I was being as a child or when I grow up, would that change?
Okay, so like I’m not a Zoroastrian priest and I don’t insult the religion, okay?
Because what they will tell you is that at the end of the day, Asher is virtue and God is virtue, okay?
So when you do Asher, you’re moving towards God, which is perfection, okay?
But I think that what Nietzsche would say, and maybe Zoroastrian, but I think Nietzsche would definitely say this.
that God is creativity okay so God so what you really want to do is when you
move towards Asher is to constantly reinvent yourself to discover new ideas
about yourself and this is a never-ending process okay there’s no
finale finale to it there’s no finale to it that means that each of us will live
our own individual lives that’s different from from others okay and and
And so what this means is that Asher will become different for each of us.
But what’s important is, and Rumi would say this, Evan would say this, is follow your heart.
Ignore what others think.
Dissipate your fears.
Kill your fears.
And just believe in yourself.
Follow your heart.
And Asher will come naturally to you.
And when that happens also, God will come naturally to you.
And you will discover new truths, new powers, new understandings that will bring you greater happiness.
in life okay does that make sense okay great any more questions guys all right yeah so does that
mean we’ll never be like like uh not physically but like with asha but like we’re always trying to
get closer with them yeah okay yeah so again there’s no end point okay there’s no destination
here okay it’s becoming okay it’s a possible constant process of becoming and it’s not
possible to seek asha in one lifetime right that’s why we are reincarnated because we come back and
we do it over again and we move closer towards asha each time but there can never be an end
point okay because let’s just say you reach that end point guess what everyone else hasn’t so you
have a duty now to help other people okay does that make sense so if you move closer asha you
you also want to move others closer to Asha.
So it’s a constant struggle,
but that’s what gives meaning and purpose to the universe,
the fact that we’re all striving to be better, okay?
Virtue, truth, Asha, these are all we strive for, okay?
There can be no perfection,
there can just be only a process of becoming, right?
Does that make sense?
So look, I mean, I know people want simple answers,
I know that, oh, there’ll be a final judgment,
going to heaven and we’ll live every happy happily ever after okay that’s not what that’s not what
the truth is the truth is that the universe is a constant process of becoming of struggle of pain
of tragedy but from that we can build hope and virtue and good okay all right so thank you so
what i’ve done is i’ve gone over into the three major civilizations okay the greeks uh the
israelites and the persians that that have come after collapse of the bronze age okay what i’m
gonna do next week is i’m gonna put i’m gonna show you how these three civilizations interact with
each other okay we’re going to go into the history of these civilizations okay all right so i’ll see
you guys next week
Source: Predictive History