Tag: World Religions

This article explains the nature of Zoroastrianism, The concept of Dualism such as good and evil. This is recognised in cosmic dualism (opposing forces within the universe) and moral dualism (opposing forces within the mind). The article introduces you to the attributes of God, good and evil as well as Zoroaster’s vision.

The Nature of Zoroastrianism

Zoroastrianism is one of the world’s oldest monotheistic religions. It was founded by the ProphetZoroasterin ancient Iran. It is now one of the world’s smallest religions.

• Zoroastrians believe there is oneGodcalled Ahura Mazda (Wise Lord) and He created the world.
• Zoroastrians are not fire-worshippers, as some people wrongly believe. Zoroastrians believe that the elements are pure and that fire represents God’s light or wisdom.
• Ahura Mazda revealed the truth through the Prophet, Zoroaster.
• Zoroastrians traditionally pray several times a day.
• Zoroastrians worship communally in aFire TempleorAgiary.
• The Zoroastrian book of Holy Scriptures is called The Avesta.
• The Avesta can be roughly split into two main sections:
  • The Avesta is the oldest and core part of the scriptures, which contains the Gathas. The Gathas are seventeen hymns thought to be composed by Zoroaster himself.
  • The Younger Avesta – commentaries to the older Avestan written in later years. It also contains myths, stories and details of ritual observances.

The nature of Zoroastrianism

Dualism in Zoroastrianism

Dualism in Zoroastrianism is the existence of, yet complete separation of, good and evil. This is recognised in two interconnecting ways:

• Cosmically (opposing forces within the universe)
• Morally (opposing forces within the mind)

Cosmic dualism

Cosmic dualismrefers to the ongoing battle between Good (Ahura Mazda) and Evil (Angra Mainyu) within the universe.

It is important to understand that Angra Mainyu is notGod‘s equal opposite rather that Angra Mainyu is the destructive energy that opposes God’s creative energy. This creative energy is calledSpenta Mainyu. God created a pure world through his creative energy, which Angra Mainyu continues to attack, making it impure. Aging, sickness, famine, natural disasters, death and so on are attributed to this.

With cosmic dualism we have life and death, day and night, good and evil. One cannot be understood without the other. Life is a mixture of these two opposing forces.

Moral dualism

Moral dualismrefers to the opposition of good and evil in the mind of mankind. God’s gift to man was free will; therefore man has the choice to follow the path of Evil (druj– deceit) or the path of Righteousness (asha– truth). The path of Evil leads to misery and ultimately Hell. The path of Righteousness leads to peace and everlasting happiness in Heaven.

As with cosmic dualism, we have the polarity of happiness and sadness, truth and deception and so on but with an emphasis on choice. This choice is crucial as it determines whether we are the helper of Ahura Mazda or the helper of Angra Mainyu. When all of mankind chooses the former over the latter, evil will finally be defeated and Paradise on earth will be realized.

In practice, modern Zoroastrianism has a positive outlook. It teaches that Mankind is ultimately good and that this goodness will finally triumph over evil. This could be seen as a retrenchment from the faith’s original purity of dualism.

Humanity in Zoroastrianism

Everyday life

Zoroastrian beliefs can best be summed up by the maxim:

Good Thoughts, Good Words, Good Deeds

Zoroastrians try to live their daily lives by this creed.

At the age of seven, Zoroastrians are given asudreh(shirt) andkusti(cord) as part of aninitiation ceremony. These garments are considered sacred. They tie the kusti around the sudreh three times to remind themselves of ‘Good Words, Good Thoughts, and Good Deeds’.

Family and community

Zoroastrianism is a home and community oriented religion. There is no tradition of monasticism or celibacy. Zoroaster himself was a family man and most worship happens in the family home.

Zoroastrianism is also about action. Zoroastrians work towards improving the local community and society in general.

Man and God

Unlike some religions where man isGod‘s child or servant, in Zoroastrianism man is considered more as God’s helper. Through man’s positive choices,evilwill be eradicated and God’s Paradise on Earth will be established.

Men and women, rich and poor, and young and old are all seen as equal. One only surpasses the other through their righteousness.

Zoroastrian beliefs about God

One God

Zoroastrians believe in one God, called Ahura Mazda (meaning ‘Wise Lord’). He is compassionate, just, and is the creator of the universe.

Ahura Mazda is:

• Omniscient (knows everything)
• Omnipotent (all powerful)
• Omnipresent (is everywhere)
• Impossible for humans to conceive
• Unchanging
• The Creator of life
• The Source of all goodness and happiness

God is worshiped as supreme. Zoroastrians believe that everything he created is pure and should be treated with love and respect. This includes the natural environment, so Zoroastrians traditionally do not pollute the rivers, land or atmosphere. This has caused some to call Zoroastrianism ‘the first ecological religion’.

Zoroaster and God

Zoroastrians believe thatZoroasteris the prophet of God. Zoroaster himself is not worshipped, but through his teachings man can become close to God by following the path of truth and righteousness (asha).

Zoroaster’s Vision

At the age of thirty, Zoroaster had a divine vision whilst bathing in a river during a pagan purification rite. On the bank of the river he saw a ‘Shining Being’ made of light who revealed himself asVohu Manah(‘Good Mind’).

Vohu Manah led Zoroaster to the presence ofAhura Mazda(God) and five other radiant beings, which are called theAmesha Spentas(Holy Immortals). This was the first of a number of visions in which Zoroaster saw Ahura Mazda and his Amesha Spentas; during each vision he asked many questions. The answers given to Zoroaster are the foundations of Zoroastrian religion.

Good and Evil

In Zoroastrianism, Ahura Mazda has anadversarycalledAngra Mainyu(meaning ‘destructive spirit’). Angra Mainyu is the originator of death and all that is evil in the world.

Ahura Mazda, who is perfect, abides in Heaven, whereas Angra Mainyu dwells in the depths of Hell. When a person dies they will go to Heaven or Hell depending on their deeds during their lifetime.

It is generally accepted that in the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam), the concepts of Heaven and Hell, as well as the Devil, were heavily influenced by Zoroastrian belief.

Conclusion

Zoroastrians believe there is oneGodcalled Ahura Mazda (Wise Lord) and He created the world. Zoroastrians are not fire-worshippers, as some people wrongly believe. Zoroastrians believe that the elements are pure and that fire represents God’s light or wisdom. Ahura Mazda revealed the truth through the Prophet, Zoroaster. Zoroastrians traditionally pray several times a day. Zoroastrians worship communally in aFire TempleorAgiary.

The Zoroastrian book of Holy Scriptures is called The Avesta. The Avesta can be roughly split into two main sections the Gathas and the Younger Avesta. The Gathas are seventeen hymns thought to be composed by Zoroaster himself, while the Younger Avesta consists of the commentaries to the older Avestan written in later years. It also contains myths, stories and details of ritual observances.

Exploration of this article will help you to know the nature of Sikhism. You will be exposed to monotheistic concept of God and the circle of life in Sikhism. The article examines the duties of a Sikh and vices in this religion.

Sikhism wasfoundedin the 16th century in the Punjab district of what is now India and Pakistan. It was founded by Guru Nanak and is based on his teachings and those of the nine Sikh gurus who followed him.

The most important thing in Sikhism is the internal religious state of the individual.

• Sikhism is amonotheistic religion
• Sikhism stresses the importance of doing good actions rather than merely carrying out rituals
• Sikhs believe that the way to lead a good life is to:
  • keep God in heart and mind at all times
  • live honestly and work hard
  • treat everyone equally
  • be generous to the less fortunate
  • serve others
• The Sikh place of worship is called aGurdwara
• The Sikh scripture is the Guru Granth Sahib, a book that Sikhs consider a living Guru

Sikh Beliefs

God

• There is only one God
• God is without form, or gender
• Everyone has direct access to God
• Everyone is equal before God
• A good life is lived as part of a community, by living honestly and caring for others
• Empty religious rituals and superstitions have no value

Living in God and community

Sikhs focus their lives around their relationship with God, and being a part of the Sikh community. The Sikh ideal combines action and belief. To live a good life a person should do good deeds as well as meditating on God.

God and the cycle of life

Sikhs believe that human beings spend their time in a cycle of birth, life, and rebirth. They share this belief with followers of other Indian religious traditions such as Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism.

The quality of each particular life depends on the law of Karma. Karma sets the quality of a life according to how well or badly a person behaved in their previous life. The only way out of this cycle, which all faiths regard as painful, is to achieve a total knowledge of and union with God.

The God of grace

Sikh spirituality is centred round this need to understand and experience God, and eventually become one with God. To do this a person must switch the focus of their attention from themselves to God. They get this state, which is calledmukti(liberation), through the grace of God. That means it’s something God does to human beings, and not something that human beings can earn. However, God shows people through holy books, and by the examples of saints, the best ways to get close to him.

Truth is the highest of all virtues, but higher still is truthful living. Sikhs believe that God can’t be understood properly by human beings, but he can be experienced through love, worship, and contemplation. Sikhs look for God both inside themselves and in the world around them. They do this to help themselves achieve liberation and union with God.

Getting close to God

When a Sikh wants to see God, they look both at the created world and into their own heart and soul. Their aim is to see the divine order that God has given to everything, and through it to understand the nature of God. Most human beings can’t see the true reality of God because they are blinded by their own self-centred pride (Sikhs call ithaumain) and concern for physical things.

God inside us

Sikhs believe that God is inside every person, no matter how wicked they appear, and so everyone is capable of change.

Just as fragrance is in the flower, and reflection is in the mirror, in just the same way, God is within you.

God beyond ourselves

Sikhs believe that God’s message can be found in several ways outside ourselves.

• The message is written in the whole of creation; look at it with open eyes and see the truth of God, for creation is the visible message of God
• Sikhs believe that most of us misunderstand the universe. We think that it exists on its own, when it really exists because God wills it to exist, and is a portrait of God’s own nature
• The message has been shown to us by the Gurus in their lives and in their words
• The message is set down in the teachings of scripture

Living a good life in this world

Sikhs don’t think it pleases God if people pay no attention to others and simply devote themselves slavishly to religion.

Sikhism doesn’t ask people to turn away from ordinary life to get closer to God. In fact it demands that they use ordinary life as a way to get closer to God.

A Sikh serves God by serving (seva) other people every day. By devoting their lives to service they get rid of their own ego and pride.

Many Sikhs carry out chores in the Gurdwara as their service to the community. These range from working in the kitchen to cleaning the floor. The Langar, or free food kitchen, is a community act of service. Sikhs also regard caring for the poor or sick as an important duty of service.

The three duties of a Sikh

The three duties that a Sikh must carry out can be summed up in three words; Pray, Work, Give.

• Keeping God in mind at all times.
• Earning an honest living. Since God is truth, a Sikh seeks to live honestly. This doesn’t just mean avoiding crime; Sikhs avoid gambling, begging, or working in the alcohol or tobacco industries.
• Giving to charity and caring for others.

The five vices

Sikhs try to avoid the five vices that make people self-centered, and build barriers against God in their lives.

• Lust
• Covetousness and greed
• Attachment to things of this world
• Anger
• Pride

If a person can overcome these vices they are on the road to liberation.

Conclusion

The most important thing in Sikhism is the internal religious state of the individual. Sikhism is amonotheistic religion. Sikhism stresses the importance of doing good actions rather than merely carrying out rituals. Sikhs believe that the way to lead a good life is to: keep God in heart and mind at all times, live honestly and work hard, treat everyone equally, be generous to the less fortunate and serve others. The Sikh place of worship is called aGurdwara. The Sikh scripture is the Guru Granth Sahib, a book that Sikhs consider a living Guru

This article will avail you with important explanations on the nature of Taoism. It elucidates the concept of The Tao and the meaning of immortality in Taoism. We shall help you to make the distinction between knowledge and relativity.

The Nature of Taoism

Taoism is anancient traditionof philosophy and religious belief that is deeply rooted in Chinese customs and worldviews.

Taoism is aboutthe Tao. This is usually translated asthe Way. But it’s hard to say exactly what this means. The Tao is the ultimate creative principle of the universe. All things are unified and connected in the Tao.

Taoism originated in China. It is a religion of unity and opposites;Yin and Yang. The principle of Yin Yang sees the world as filled with complementary forces – action and non-action, light and dark, hot and cold, and so on. The Tao is notGodand is not worshipped. Taoism includes manydeitiesthat areworshippedin Taoist temples, they are part of the universe and depend, like everything, on the Tao.

• Taoism promotes:
  • achieving harmony or union with nature
  • the pursuit of spiritual immortality
  • being ‘virtuous’ (but not ostentatiously so)
  • self-development
• Taoist practices include:
  • meditation
  • fortune telling
  • reading and chanting of scriptures

Before the Communist revolution, Taoism was one of the strongest religions in China. After a campaign to destroy non-Communist religion, however, the numbers significantly reduced and it has become difficult to assess the statistical popularity of Taoism in the world.

What is the Tao?

The Tao cannot be described in words. Human language can only give hints that may help the mind to form an idea. The most important thing about the Tao is how it works in the world and how human beings relate to it. Philosophical speculation about what the Tao actually is less important thanliving in sensitive response to the Tao.

The Tao is not a thing

The Tao is not a thing or a substance in the conventional sense. It cannot be perceived but it can be observed in the things of the world. Although it gives rise to all being, it does not itself have a being.

It might be more helpful to regard Tao as asystem of guidance. And if one does this one can translate ‘achieving union with the Tao into developing oneself so as to live in complete conformity with the teachings of the Tao which is easier to understand and closer to the truth.

The Tao is not God

The Tao is not God and is not worshipped. Taoism does includemany deities, but although these are worshipped in Taoist temples, they are part of the universe and depend, like everything, on the Tao.

The Tao includes severalconceptsin one word:

• the source of creation
• the ultimate
• the inexpressible and indefinable
• the unnameable
• the natural universe as a whole
• the way of nature as a whole

Gods and spirits

Taoism does not have a God in the way that the Abrahamic religions do. There is no omnipotent being beyond the cosmos, who created and controls the universe. In Taoism, the universe springs from theTaoand the Tao impersonally guides things on their way.

Immortality

Immortality doesn’t mean living forever in the present physical body. The idea is that the Taoist draws closer and closer to nature throughout his or her life and death is just the final step in achieving complete unity with the universe.

Spiritual immortality, the goal of Taoism, raises the practices to a yet higher level. To attain it, people have to transform all their qi into primordial qi and proceed to refine it to subtler levels. This finer qi will eventually turn into pure spirit, with which practitioners increasingly identify to become transcendent spirit-people.

The path that leads there involves intensive meditation and trance training as well as more radical forms of diet and other longevity practices. Immortality implies the overcoming of the natural tendencies of the body and its transformation into a different kind of qi-constellation. The result is a bypassing of death so that the end of the body has no impact on the continuation of the spirit-person. In addition, practitioners attain supersensory powers and eventually gain residence in wondrous otherworldly paradises.

Knowledge and relativity

Human knowledge is always partial and affected by the standpoint of the person claiming that knowledge. There can never be a single true knowledge, merely the aggregate of uncountable different viewpoints. Because the universe is always changing, so knowledge is always changing.

Religious Taoism

Taoism is often taught in the West as an atheist or agnostic philosophy, but in China and Taiwan particularly, Taoism still functions like any conventional religion and not like an abstract philosophy of life.

There are Taoist temples, monasteries and priests,rituals and ceremoniesand a host ofgods and goddessesfor believers to worship. These are as vital to the survival of Taoism as individual understanding and practice.

Taoism’s rich palette of liturgy and ritual makes the Tao more real to human beings and provides a way in which humanity can align itself more closely to the Tao to produce better lives for all.

The religious elements of Taoism draw much of their content from other Chinese religions (including many local cults) and so enfold a very wide range of culture and belief within the wings of theTao.

Conclusion

Taoism is aboutthe Tao. This is usually translated asthe Way. But it’s hard to say exactly what this means. The Tao is the ultimate creative principle of the universe. All things are unified and connected in the Tao.

Taoism originated in China. It is a religion of unity and opposites;Yin and Yang. The principle of Yin Yang sees the world as filled with complementary forces – action and non-action, light and dark, hot and cold, and so on. The Tao is notGodand is not worshipped. Taoism includes manydeitiesthat areworshippedin Taoist temples, they are part of the universe and depend, like everything, on the Tao.