Course XXVII - Teaching 10: The Sun of Iran

From the shores of the Oxus and Laxartes, placed near the mystical plateau of Pamir, the Iranian descended toward Bactriana and Nizaya. The Empires of Medes and Persians emerged from this numerous nomadic tribes.
Stories about great cities (Ecbatana and Persepolis) of these nations came to us like a dream. It is in vain to discuss about the Aryan source of these peoples, since it is too much patent their likeness in literature and language.
The Zend-Avesta is an image of the Vedas. Their early language is like Zenzar and Sanskrit, as it appears in the Avesta, a book entirely lost, since the Zend-Avesta was just a commentary on the early text (“Zen” means Commentary).
The religious concept of Persians was natural and divine. Everything emanated from the Eternal Being, called Zervani-Akerena (the Non-Manifested Being), expressed as a manifested god: Ormuzd or Ahuramazda. Also there was a god of evil: Ahriman.
Their concept about life was not of absolute good or absolute evil, because in their view the highest sense of pairs of opposites prevailed. Ormuzd does not win always, but periodically does; there is an age of good and an age of evil. One thing balances the other. But the great god of Persians is Mithra, image of cosmic energy.
Ormuzd, Ahriman and Mitra form the Holy Trinity. Good and evil pass away, but the Divine Energy remains eternally.
This concept of Solar worship, makes the Solar image shine in Persian palaces and standards. The entire Iran is the city of the god Sun.
Worship of fire emerges as a result of this fire adoration.
In those shining temples of gold, fire is the only symbol, the only image. Priests foretell the future by means of flames, and the voice of the gods reaches them through fire. Moses would remember this when God spoke to him from the burning bush.
The Great Prophet of Iran was Zarathustra, Divine Incarnation appeared four-thousand years ago to renew the Persian people in decay. One should not mistake this prophet for Zoroaster, who was the Initiate that led the early Iranians from Bactriana to the plateau of Iran.
The entire Persian religion is cosmogonic and astronomic, both as to its symbol as to its form. The Sun is the abode of the blessed souls, but to go up go it, souls have to pass through seven doors, image of the planets, but also image of initiatic stages that have to be climbed to reach liberation or the state of Solar Initiate.
No evidence remains of this great civilization or of the great progress of the Persians, since history only knows something since Sasanids’ dynasty.
Persians also had in Persepolis is fantastic library and a museum with samples of the most remote times of the Aryans, which were vandalized by the Greeks under Alexander’s command.
Now, Persian religion has disappeared totally in Iran, but in India we find Mazdeism, an image of that ancient religion, second religion after Hinduism, which is extant up to our days. Even today, a Mazdeistic or parsi priest kindles but does not touch the holy fire; upon the top of two poles of sandal, he puts the ember and, in certain temples, he remains but does not kindle this fire, expecting for years a lightening from the sky to kindle it.
From Persians and early Aryan worshipers of Agni, the worship of fire has passed to any religion and will cross with them this symbol of Nature and Divinity until the end of the race.