Amesha Spentas’ accord

In organized fora and on the cocktail-circuit, one refrain stands out — that of an unacceptable degree of discord in our microscopic community. Any community which has no dissenting voice is a community heading for extinction.

I do not equate discord with dissent. A healthy exchange of ideas makes a community or a company vibrant. What we suffer from is not dissent but wanton discord.

Our scriptures give us a holy and classical example of the seven Amesha Spentas (Ahura Mazda being the first amongst them) working in total unison, for the well-being of the universe and that of all Zoroastrians. I quote only two small extracts which reflect the essence of this letter.

"vise vo Amesha Spenta staota zaota zbata yashta framareta aibijareta. Pairi ve Amesha Spenta hukhshtra hudhaon­ghho dadhami tanavaschit khakhyao ushtanem pairi vispao kujitayo. (For the prosperity of the good ones, for the love of the children, for righteousness, for victory, for peace of mind, (we promise) to worship you, Amesha Spentas, to sing your praises, to satisfy you and to command you)” — Visperad 5.1,2

"Fera ve rahi Amesha Spenta yasnemcha vahmemcha fera manangha fera vachanghha fera hyaothna fera anghaoya fera tanvaschit khakhyao ushtanem. [Here do I offer unto you, O Bountiful Immortals, worship and homage with thoughts, words and deeds and my entire being; (I offer) the life of my own body]” — Yasna 11.18

It appears that we have lost the message of our scriptures and gone centripetally and not centrifugally. A recent and disturbing trend has been that we fall back on our scriptures, by convenience. That is another malady from which we have started suffering in the last 10 years.

As a community, we need to repair the damage to our fabric by our divisive tendency. We do not cooperate with ourselves to the extent we should. There is a lot of bad blood within the community. I am told that we suffer from this malaise even overseas, though to a lesser extent than here.

We have to learn two great lessons from the Jews (with whom we have been wrongly compared by contemporary, western historians): their sense of closeness across national and continental barriers and their devout faith in the Old Testament.

Consciously we have to stand united if we have to continue to survive in a global population of 6.2 billion, growing at an average of 2.5 percent per annum!

How do we do it? How have the Jews done it? Place the community above self. Emulate the example of the Amesha Spentas who are all of one thought and one word and one deed.

The more we follow our scriptures scrupulously and without any fanaticism, the more secure we will be. The dilution of our faith was seen by Dr Dadabhai Naoroji, much before he died when he started the movement "Back to the Gathas,” and adopted by Lokmanya Tilak for his movement "Back to the Vedas.” Either unite and survive, or war and perish.

BEHRAM T. DASTUR