contents - AMORC

The figure of Ahura Mazda, the “wise Lord,” sculpted onto a
building in ancient Persepolis in modern day Iran.
believe collectively constitute the divine creation.
In myth, the Holy Immortals care for and protect
their creations, and in the rituals, a token of
each creation is present to represent the spiritual
presence of that Holy Immortal.
Asha, considered as the most beautiful
of the Holy Immortals, represents not only the
opposite of untruth, but also the divine law and
moral order in the world. Asha preserves order on
earth as he smites disease, death, fiends, sorcerers
and all vile creatures. He is truth and cosmic
order and is considered to be the closest of the
Holy Immortals to God.
Asha connotes the eternal, immutable
law that governs the universe, and regulates
both the spiritual and corporeal worlds. In
Zoroastrianism, natural law and divine law
are the same. Asha constitutes the yardstick
for determining right and wrong. He
sets normative ethics and provides the
standards that apply to all people at all
times. He represents absolute values. The
assumption is that right deeds produce
benefits alike for the author of the action
and for society at large. The accruance of benefits
to the author of the act is automatic. As with
the law of Karma, the law of Asha ensures that
happy consequences accrue to good acts. An
individual reaps what he or she sows.
Asha is Truth
Asha means many related things, and can't be
translated by just one English word. You need
a whole constellation of words to translate it:
righteousness, law, cosmic order, truth and
justice. But Asha is first and foremost “Truth,” the
opposite of the “Lie” (druj).
The concept encompasses all clear and
objective vision, all honesty and unclouded
thoughts, words and deeds. Then it is
The Rosicrucian Beacon -- September 2006
“Righteousness,” which involves a commitment
to good actions that build society and lead toward
health, peace and good will. These actions are not
prescribed, as they are in Jewish or Islamic sacred
law, but they will vary as the conditions of history
or society vary. The underlying call to right action
however, remains the same.
Asha is also “Law;” not a prescribed set
of commandments, but a description of the laws
that rule our lives and the universe around us.
Asha is impersonal. In Zoroastrianism, Ahura
Mazda is not the type of God who suspends
the laws of reality in order to make a point
or to help someone. In Zoroaster’s concept of
divine governance, there are no suns standing
still, miraculous healings, miraculous plagues
or deliverances, no resurrections from the dead.
In all the Gathas (Zoroastrian hymns), there are
no miracles or supernatural occurrences; this is
astonishing for something composed at least 3,500
years ago. In Asha, God set up the laws of reality,
both in the natural world and the social world;
and he will not break them.
The law of Asha describes what actually
happens, not what should happen. It encompasses
the law of gravity and all physical laws discoverable
by science as well as the laws of consequences
governing our own behaviour, which are
discoverable by sometimes painful experience.
Throw a rock in the air and, if unhindered in
Asha represents not only the opposite of
untruth, but also the divine law and moral
order in the world.
its descent, it will come down: that is Asha.
Overindulge in alcohol one night and you will
wake up with an unpleasant hangover; that is also
Asha, the law of consequences. If you do wrong,
quite often the world itself will punish you, either
by its own laws, or by someone taking the law into
their own hands. But what of those who do wrong
and prosper, who die happily after a life of evil?
Then we must look to the world to come, which
is also under the rule of Asha, where, as Zoroaster
states, the “Best Existence” (heaven) is waiting for
those who choose good in this world, and where
the “Worst Existence” (hell) is reserved for those
who have done evil. This “hell” is not eternal,
since all things will be purified by the end of time;
but it is long enough to purify evildoers.
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