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From: Bahman Noruziaan
Email:
Date: 10 Jul 2000
Time: 21:22:37
Dear Armeen:
I can not help you about the past. However, for present and future I may be able to offer you some advice.
But before that, reading your family name ; i.e. Irani, and based on what I have learned from my Parsi freinds here, I assume that either your father or your granparents were among the recent migrants from Iran to India. Parsis would have called such recent migrants from Iran, collectively Irani. This a bit about your father side identity.
We humans are all in search of the meaning of life, happiness, spiritual satisfaction and feeing of being supported in time of trouble.
Religions, including the Good Religion of Ashou Zarathushtra are offering answers to these meeds of us the humans.
The religion of Zarathushtra has its specific answers to these needs and questions. For example a Zarathushtrian believes that he/she is here in this world to bring perfection to the material world and cleanse the world of all imperfections. He/she believes that for any action there is a reaction and a consequence. A righteous person will find happiness in his life and will go towards the house of songs and light ( paradise if you like ) after his/her life where Mazda the wsie is residing. On the other hand an unrighteous will remain in a state of grief and unsatisfaction ( hell if you want to call it )until he/she is fit to join the divinity. Hell is not eternal in the Zarathushtian religion. All sould will finally join divinity sooner or later based on their level of purity.
This is the teachings of the Gathas. However, one can find more and more elaborations on such a spiriual definition for one's afterlife in other Zarathushtian literatures. The most extreme is the book of Arada Viraf, in which he defines heaven and hell in such details and explianing all the joys of paradise and horrible torments in the hell. Now which part of this wide spectrum one wants to stand is all depending on one's sense of satisfaction.
Gathas in its purity is enough for the wsie and intellectual peoples who are seeking answer to the the needs I mentioned earlier in my posting. Many of the Zarathushtian rituials are means of practicining those concepts in one's life. They are beautiful and full of meaning.
Regarding yur search for answer to your spritual needs, it is all up to you and just you to choose what satisfies your soul and your life. If you think that the Zarathushtian religion is answering your spritual needs, then you should take further steps to live with it. And I assure you that you can find many many Zaratshti fellows who will welcome you and your family among themselves and treat you as one of themselves. But first sit and be honest with yourself and see if you really feel living a Zartoshti life with its customs/rituals/prayers/ceremonies as well as its history and its people, helps you find what you are looking for. After that and after you have decided so, you certainly can find the Zarathishtis who will embrace you, your spouse and your lovely children among themselves.
Ushta_te Bahman Noruziaan
