Zarathustra

Zarathustra

This office in hierarchy is presently held by one who was embodied as the founder of Zoroastrianism in ancient Persia. He is the highest initiate of the sacred fire on the planet and the governing authority of the energies of fohat. He is over the priests of the sacred fire and the priesthood of Melchizedek.

All members of the Great White Brotherhood serve in the Order of Melchizedek even as they serve the sacred fire, but only those who have reached a certain level of initiation may be called Priests of the Order of Melchizedek. Other members serve the purposes of the Order but do not bear the title of priest. Zarathustra has many disciples serving under him, and when the most advanced of these reaches a certain attainment, he will qualify for the office, and the teacher will go on to cosmic service.

The historical record

Zoroastrianism is the one of the oldest of the world’s religions. Zarathustra, its founder, was a prophet who spoke to his God face-to-face.

Mary Boyce, Emeritus Professor of Iranian Studies at the University of London, points out:

Zoroastrianism is the oldest of the revealed world-religions, and it has probably had more influence on mankind, directly and indirectly, than any other single faith.

According to R. C. Zaehner, former Spalding Professor of Eastern Religions and Ethics at Oxford University, Zarathustra was

... one of the greatest religious geniuses of all time.... [He] was a prophet, or at least conceived himself to be such; he spoke to his God face to face.... [Yet] about the Prophet himself we know almost nothing that is authentic.

Zarathustra lived in a nonliterate society, whose people did not keep records. His teachings were passed down by oral tradition, and much of what was later written down about his life and teachings has been lost or destroyed. What scholars have been able to piece together about him comes from three sources: the study of the historical milieu prior to and during the time Zarathustra is believed to have lived, tradition, and seventeen sacred hymns called Gathas. Scholars concur that Zarathustra composed these hymns. The Gathas are recorded in the Avesta, the sacred scriptures of Zoroastrianism.

It is believed that Zarathustra was born in what is now east central Iran, but that is not certain. Zarathustra’s date of birth is even more difficult to establish. Scholars place it sometime between 1700 B.C. and 600 B.C. The consensus is that he lived around 1000 B.C. or earlier.

The Gathas are the key to determining Zarathustra's approximate year of birth. They are linguistically similar to the Rigveda, one of the sacred texts of the Hindus. According to Boyce:

The language of the Gathas is archaic, and close to that of the Rigveda (whose composition has been assigned to about 1700 B.C. onwards); and the picture of the world to be gained from [the Gathas] is correspondingly ancient, that of a Stone Age society.... It is only possible therefore to hazard a reasoned conjecture that [Zarathustra] lived some time between 1700 and 1500 B.C.

Other scholars working with the same evidence place his birth between 1400 and 1200 B.C.

The Gathas say that Zarathustra was of the Spitama family, a family of knights. The Greek name for Zarathustra is Zoroaster, meaning “Golden Star,” or “Golden Light.” He was one of the priest class who formulated mantras.

Zarathustra was also an initiate. According to Boyce, “He ... describes himself [in the Gathas] as a ‘vaedemna’ or ‘one who knows,’ an initiate possessed of divinely inspired wisdom.” But first and foremost, Zarathustra was a prophet, and he is a prophet and he lives today among us as an ascended master.

The Gathas depict him as talking to God. They say:

He is “the Prophet who raises his voice in veneration, the friend of Truth,” God’s friend, a “true enemy to the followers of the Lie and a powerful support to the followers of the Truth.”

Calling as a prophet

Tradition holds that at the age of twenty, Zarathustra left his father, mother and wife to wander in search of Truth. Ten years later he had the first of many visions.

Boyce writes:

According to tradition Zoroaster was thirty, the time of ripe wisdom, when revelation finally came to him. This great happening is alluded to in one of the Gathas and is tersely described in a Pahlavi [Middle Persian] work. Here it is said that Zoroaster, being at a gathering [called] to celebrate a spring festival, went at dawn to a river to fetch water.

He waded in to draw [the water] from midstream; and when he returned to the bank ... he had a vision. He saw on the bank a shining Being, who revealed himself as Vohu Manah ‘Good [Mind]’; and this Being led Zoroaster into the presence of Ahura Mazda and five other radiant figures, before whom ‘he did not see his own shadow upon the earth, owing to their great light’. And it was then, from this great heptad [or group of seven beings], that he received his revelation.”

We can conjecture that the seven beings of this great heptad were none other than the Seven Holy Kumaras.

Ahura Mazda means “Wise Lord.” Zarathustra recognized Ahura Mazda as the one true God, the Creator of the universe.

The significance of this cannot be overstated. Zarathustra may have been the first monotheist in recorded history. Zaehner points out, “The great achievement of the Iranian Prophet [was] that he eliminated all the ancient gods of the Iranian pantheon, leaving only Ahura Mazdah, the ‘Wise Lord’, as the One True God.”

Some scholars assert that Zarathustra was not a strict monotheist but a henotheist, that is, one who worships one God but does not deny the existence of others. This is a technical distinction. As David Bradley, author of A Guide to the World’s Religions, notes, “[Zarathustra] was a practicing monotheist in the same way that Moses was.” Bradley thinks that Moses knew of the existence of lesser gods but insisted on the necessity of siding with the true God against all other gods.

Shortly after his first vision, Zarathustra became a spokesman for Ahura Mazda and began to proclaim his message. He instituted a religious reform that was far-reaching. His main objective was to stamp out evil, and he preached against the daevas (demons) of the old religion.

At first Zarathustra had little success in spreading his message. He was persecuted by the priests and followers of the daevas, and according to tradition, they tried to kill him a number of times. It took ten years for Zarathustra to make his first convert, his cousin. He was then divinely led to the court of King Vishtaspa and Queen Hutaosa.

Vishtaspa was an honest, simple monarch but was surrounded by the Karpans, a group of self-seeking, manipulative priests. They convened a council to challenge the revelations of the new prophet and successfully conspired to have him thrown in jail. As the story goes, Zarathustra won his freedom by miraculously curing the king’s favorite black horse. Vishtaspa granted him permission to teach the new faith to his consort, Queen Hutaosa. The beautiful Hutaosa became one of Zarathustra’s greatest supporters and assisted him in converting Vishtaspa.

After two long years, the monarch was finally converted. But Vishtaspa required one final sign before he would totally embrace the faith. He asked to be shown what role he would play in the heaven-world. In response, Ahura Mazda sent three archangels to the court of Vishtaspa and Hutaosa. They appeared as effulgent knights in full armour, riding on horseback. According to one text, they arrived in such glory that “their radiance in that lofty residence seemed ... a heaven of complete light, owing to their great power and triumph;... when he thus looked upon [them], the exalted king Vishtaspa trembled, all his courtiers trembled, all his chieftains were confused.”

Radiating a blinding light and the sound of thunder, they announced that they had come on behalf of Ahura Mazda in order that the king might receive the fullness of the message of Zarathustra. They promised Vishtaspa a life span of 150 years and that he and Hutaosa would have an immortal son. The archangels warned, however, that if Vishtaspa should decide not to take up the religion, his end would not be far away. The king embraced the faith, and the entire court followed suit. The scriptures record that the archangels then took up their abode with Vishtaspa.

Messenger of Sanat Kumara

In a dictation given January 1, 1981, the ascended master Zarathustra spoke of King Vishtaspa and Queen Hutaosa:

I AM come to deliver the sacred fire of the Sun behind the sun to raise you up and to establish in you the original teaching of Ahura Mazda, Sanat Kumara, delivered long ago in the land of ancient Persia unto me and unto the king and queen who received the conversion of archangels and of the sacred fire and of holy angels by the descent of light. Thus, by their lifestreams’ acceptance of my prophecy, there came to pass the multiplication of the bread of life from the heart of Sanat Kumara, whose messenger I was, whose messenger I remain....

The teaching of the hosts of the LORD and the coming of the great avatar of light, the teaching of betrayal and the consequent warfare of his hosts against the evil ones, was understood and propagated. The law of karma, the law of reincarnation, and even the vision of the last days when evil and the Evil One would be vanquished—all of this went forth by the conversion of the king and the queen and the reaching out of the faith to all of the subjects of the land. Thus, the tests were given by the archangels through my office unto these two chosen ones. Thereby passing the tests, they became blessed as secondary emissaries of Sanat Kumara. And therefore, I the prophet and they holding the balance in the earth manifested a trinity of light and the figure-eight flow.

Realize the necessary ingredients for the propagation of the faith throughout the earth. The archangels send their messenger with a gift of prophecy that is the Word of Sanat Kumara to every culture and in every age. Thus, the prophet comes forth with the vision, with the anointing and with the sacred fire. But unless the prophet find the fertile field of hearts aflame and receptive, the authority of the Word does not pass unto the people.

Legacy

According to tradition, when Zarathustra was seventy-seven, he was assassinated by a priest of the old Iranian religion. Some accounts say that he perished by lightning, or a flame from heaven. Much of what happened after Zarathustra’s death is shrouded in mystery. Scholars say that his successors reintroduced back into the system the old gods that he had dethroned.

By the time the Medes came to power in the seventh century B.C., Zoroastrianism was a major force in Persia. When Alexander the Great conquered Persia in 331 B.C., he killed the priests and burned down the royal palace, destroying whatever may have been recorded of Zoroastrian tradition.

About A.D. 225, Zoroastrianism reemerged in Persia and was the state religion until around 651, when the Muslims conquered Persia. Although Zoroastrianism was officially tolerated, the Arab conquerors encouraged conversion to Islam through societal pressures, economic incentives or force. Many Zoroastrians converted or went into exile. Loyal Zoroastrians who remained in Persia were taxed for the privilege of practicing their faith. In later centuries, persecution of Zoroastrians escalated. As of 1976, there were only 129,000 Zoroastrians in the world. However, much of what Zarathustra taught lives on in Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

His service as an ascended master

Today Zarathustra is an ascended master whose consciousness bears as an auric emanation of fire that is an all-consuming love, a piercing light that goes to the core of whatever is unreal. We call him a Buddha because he has the attainment of the expansion of the threefold flame and of the Christ mind at the level of initiation that we call the buddhic level.

Being in the presence of Zarathustra is like being in the presence of the physical sun itself. The mastery he has of spiritual fire and physical fire is, if not the highest, among the highest of any adept ascended from this planet. If you want to keep the flame of Zarathustra, visualize him keeping the flame, the divine spark, in your own heart. He is the greatest ‘fire-tender’ of them all, if you will. And when you call to him, remember that when you are engaged in the battle of Light and Darkness and you give your call for the binding of the forces of Antichrist, there is no greater devourer of the dark forces than Zarathustra himself. He is an ascended master with buddhic attainment whose auric emanation is one of an all-consuming love.

Retreat

► Main article: Zarathustra's retreat

Zarathustra’s retreat is patterned after the secret chamber of the heart, which is the place where the threefold flame burns on the altar of being. Your high priest, who is your Holy Christ Self, retires to that secret chamber to keep that flame. He and other ascended masters can and do visit you there and tutor your soul. Zarathustra has said that we may be welcomed in his retreat when you have the necessary development of the heart. He has not revealed its location.

Sources

Mark L. Prophet and Elizabeth Clare Prophet, The Masters and Their Retreats, s.v. “Zarathustra.”