Asha Is the Truth You Must Become

The lecture does not begin by defining a religion. It begins by reconstructing the world that religion tries to name. The universe is conscious and vibrating. Matter is the slower edge of vibration, while mind belongs to the spiritual universe. Source trail 0:00 So, we've done the Greeks, and we've done the Israelites, and today we discuss the Persians. And today I introduce to you the most influential person who has ever lived, and his name is Zoroastrian. And Zoroastrian will... Human beings therefore live in two worlds at once: the body belongs to matter, but consciousness is in dialogue with the universe and eventually returns to it.

The Monad is perfect, but perfection has a problem: it lacks imagination. Source trail 1:24 Okay? So we're in constant dialogue with the universe. Now, this is hard to understand, so we've used metaphors or stories to explain this system. All right? So let's go over how we've explained the system using metapho... Humans are made of bodies, pain, mistakes, disobedience, and fallibility, and that is precisely why they can be creative. God and human beings are not frozen substances. They are becoming together. Source trail 2:41 And as a result, both God and we are in the process of becoming, okay? We are becoming into perfection. We are becoming into eternity and infinity. And so we are co -creators with God. Okay? Now, there are certain chara... Free will matters because creativity cannot exist under total control; individuality matters because the creative encounter with the Monad happens inside the person.

The candle image gives the metaphysics its shape. The Monad is the candle; human beings are mirrors around it. Source trail 4:03 Okay? Candle. This is a candle. And we are all mirrors surrounding this candle. And we are all, the candle is reflected in us. Okay? So the monad is in us, and we are all part of the monad together. So what happens is w... Each person reflects the same divine light, but each reflection is individual. Reincarnation then becomes moral education. Death is not disappearance; consciousness returns to the spirit world to see the pain or goodness it produced, then rises closer to the Monad or remains farther down.

The fall begins when growing populations produce war. War needs incentives, so patriarchy and property appear with it Source trail 5:066:07 And if you did a lot of bad things, then you stay in the lower realm. Okay? And this is the idea of heaven and hell. Why? Because if you did a lot of good, first of all, you can appreciate all that you've done. You can...Okay? You'll be the master of the household and whatever you win, whether it's gold or whatever, it will be yours forever. Okay? And so these three things, war, patriarchy, and property are all interlinked together. Oka... : a wife, a household, gold, ownership, and permanent possession. These become capital. The Bronze Age, in this telling, is the height of capital because it is the height of war, slavery, corruption, and violence.

Prophets appear when a whole civilization forgets what it is for. Zarathustra is placed beside Homer and Yahweh as a poor prophet, a poetic figure who tells people that they are not here to destroy life but to celebrate it. His task is not to add a new god to a polytheistic market. His task is to reimagine the hierarchy of the world so people can return to wisdom. Source trail 6:077:178:18 Okay? You'll be the master of the household and whatever you win, whether it's gold or whatever, it will be yours forever. Okay? And so these three things, war, patriarchy, and property are all interlinked together. Oka...And he is a port prophet, just like Homer and the Yahwehs, and he's dealing with a situation. Okay? We've entered a system where war, patriarchy, and property are prevalent, and we can't imagine a world without these th...

The historical Zarathustra remains uncertain, but the lecture suspects a late Bronze Age frontier. Source trail 20:2721:46 Okay? All right. So Zarathustra, we don't know when he lived. Okay? But we estimate anywhere between the year 2000 BCE to about 1000 BCE. That's the Bronze Age. All right? I suspect he lived towards the end of the Bronz...Okay? Now, what's important to understand is that we don't know where Zarathustra worked specifically, but we suspect northern Iran. Okay? Why is this important? Because during the Bronze Age, the main centers of wealth... Northern Iran is imagined near mining, slavery, debt, and imperial margins, where the violence of the tin economy is felt most directly. A priest disgusted by corrupt priests begins wandering with a new message: not sacrifice, bribery, or immortality-for-sale, but Asha.

Asha is introduced as truth, but the lecture immediately raises the stakes. Persians may be famous for telling the truth, but factual truth is only the surface. Asha is virtue. Source trail 9:33 They're good at horse riding, they're good at archery, and they're good at telling the truth. The Persians find it abhorrent, hateful, to lie. So they're always telling the truth. Okay? But that's a very simplistic unde... To do good is to become closer to Ahura Mazda, to become the divine representative on earth. Drush is not simply a lie told with words. It is the force that moves the person away from that truth.

Kant becomes the bridge. The categorical imperative is used to explain Asha through three principles: act as if every action echoes through the universe Source trail 10:4611:55 And what I will show you is that it's very similar to the concept of Asha. So there are three principles of the Catechol Imperative. The first, the most important, is the law of universality. And what this idea states i...Or, do unto others as others would do unto you. But actually, no, it's a much higher concept. The higher concept is that, imagine that you are God yourself. Okay? And everything you do will be reflected throughout the u... ; act from free will rather than coercion; and never turn a human being into a means. The last point is brutal in its simplicity. No future perfect world justifies sacrificing a person, because every human life is as valuable as all human life together. Source trail 13:01 Okay? Now last is the idea of humans as the end. Now you have heard, maybe heard the phrase, the means to an end, right? So maybe I'm a king and I need to build a better world. So I need to start wars, conquer the world...

This is why Asha creates monotheism's moral structure. Source trail 14:0315:08 Okay? Because now Asha presents to us three new concepts that will revolutionize human history. They are the individual. What matters is what matters inside of you. Okay? Everyone's doing bad. That's their problem. Don'...Okay? Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Okay? And this together is two to three point billion people on earth. And that's why I say Zoroastria is the most important religion. Because it will create the structure for Mon... The individual matters. Free choice matters. Inner truth matters more than family, community, nation, or priest. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam inherit this structure because Zarathustra turns divinity inward: the Monad will know, Ahura Mazda will know, and you will know.

Plato's cave makes the moral demand visible. The freed prisoner finds the sun, truth, Asha, Ahura Mazda, and beauty. But private escape is incomplete. Source trail 17:24 Okay? We see the birds flying in the sky. We see the trees around us. We see the animals. And we're like, this is beautiful. Okay? I found heaven. I found the truth. I found Asha. I found Ahura Masta. This is what life... The person who has seen must go back down for friends and family still chained in the shadow world. Asha is therefore not self-help. It is responsibility. Lens point free-will-burden Free will makes truth something a person must become: Asha is not information or inherited doctrine, but the chosen practice of burning away falsehood, becoming virtuous, and returning responsibility to others. Source trail 17:24 Okay? We see the birds flying in the sky. We see the trees around us. We see the animals. And we're like, this is beautiful. Okay? I found heaven. I found the truth. I found Asha. I found Ahura Masta. This is what life...

The Gathas are treated as poetry rather than system. They say: listen with your own ears, choose truth from false creed, and stand before final judgment as yourself. Asha is happiness because virtue is not imposed from outside; it is felt as the right path. The divided person must become unified through good thoughts, good words, and good actions. Source trail 24:5525:53 Okay? But the problem, of course, is that you lose all your friends. You lose all your family. Okay? That's why people don't do this. Not because they don't know the truth. It's because they fear the truth. All right. S...You can't speak the truth but then do bad things. Okay? You have to think good thoughts, speak good thoughts, and do good works. And that's what Zoroastrianism. Okay? And when these twin spirits came together in the beg...

Rumi is brought in as another poor prophet of the same current. His poems dissolve labels: Christian, Jew, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Sufi, Zen. The point is not that traditions are identical as institutions. The point is that before the institution, the soul belongs to the beloved. Source trail 32:00 I don't exist. I'm not an entity in this world or in the next. Do not descend from Adam and Eve or any origin story. My place is placeless. A trace of the traceless. Neither body or soul. I belong to the beloved. Have s... It is a bird from another continent, trapped in an aviary Source trail 33:50 I don't remember. I can't remember. I don't know where I came from. But I know that I must have come from somewhere. Okay? This jokingness began in some other realm. Some other tavern. When I get back around to that pla... , waiting for whoever brought it here to take it home.

The joke gives the institutional diagnosis in miniature. God says humans have discovered religion; Satan says he will organize it. Source trail 32:00 I don't exist. I'm not an entity in this world or in the next. Do not descend from Adam and Eve or any origin story. My place is placeless. A trace of the traceless. Neither body or soul. I belong to the beloved. Have s... Religion as direct connection is good. Organized religion becomes priestly control, differentiation, and exploitation. It turns the living fire into a managed system Source trail 33:00 Okay? So the idea is that religion is great. Okay? I'm a big supporter of religion. But organized religion is problematic. Because organized religion serves the interests of the priests who control the religion. Okay? A... and teaches people that labels matter more than the divine spark.

Nietzsche is read not as a break from Zarathustra but as his modern return. He walks in the mountains, is seized by a force, and speaks in the old prophet's voice. The prologue repeats the cave: Zarathustra has gathered too much honey in solitude Source trail 36:36 Though great star, what would thy happiness be if thou hadst not those for whom thou shyest? For ten years hast thou climbed hither unto my cave, though would have weather of thy light and of the journey, had it not bee... , so he must descend like the sun and give light to the netherworld. Wisdom that stays alone is not yet Asha. Source trail 37:21 Okay? So, Zoroastria has hid himself in the cave. And inside the cave, there is nothing. In the cave, in solitude, he has discovered Asha. He has discovered the secrets of the universe, and he has discovered that this i...

The hardest reversal is the problem of evil. If Ahura Mazda is wisdom, why live in hate, evil, and sin? Because virtue must come from vice. Good can only come from evil. Source trail 38:18 So, here's what's happening, Zoroastria. Yeah. Let's say that's your story. Let's go step by step. the sweet milk of her udder, and nothing evil grow in thee any longer, unless it be the evil that grow out of the confli... To live in good forever would be ignorance. We are born in Drush so that we may discover Asha Source trail 38:18 So, here's what's happening, Zoroastria. Yeah. Let's say that's your story. Let's go step by step. the sweet milk of her udder, and nothing evil grow in thee any longer, unless it be the evil that grow out of the confli... , and the person full of sin can become a star by transforming the evil within into light for others.

The dancing God is the answer to priestly gravity. Source trail 41:2642:10 But it doesn't affect to be so delicate. We are all of us fine sumter asses and she asses. Okay? What we have in common with a rosebud which trembles because a drop of dew has formed upon it. It is true that we love lif...He was a spirit of gravity. For him, all things fail. Okay. So what Nietzsche hates is organized religion. Because organized religion, it is very serious, very somber. It basically wants to enslave us, right? It's like,... Organized religion is too serious, too somber, too invested in fear of sin and hell. Asha is not that. Asha is recognizing that the world is beautiful and that Ahura Mazda is mercy, forgiveness, love, and compassion. The response to evil is not to become solemn. It is to dance, sing, make love, laugh, smile Source trail 42:10 He was a spirit of gravity. For him, all things fail. Okay. So what Nietzsche hates is organized religion. Because organized religion, it is very serious, very somber. It basically wants to enslave us, right? It's like,... , and celebrate the beauty that evil could not erase.

But celebration is not comfort. Wisdom requires self-destruction. Whatever seems true should be suspected, negated, and rebuilt. The student should be able to leave a semester of teaching and say: everything I learned is wrong, now I will learn for myself. To become new, one must first become ashes. Source trail 45:12 I'm going to get, I'm going to negate everything I've learned and believe everything I've learned is deceitful so that I can rebuild my own knowledge. And through that process, will you actually achieve enlightenment? O... Asha is not a doctrine to hold. It is the daily fight to burn false knowledge away. Lens point free-will-burden Free will makes truth something a person must become: Asha is not information or inherited doctrine, but the chosen practice of burning away falsehood, becoming virtuous, and returning responsibility to others. Source trail 44:1845:12 What's really important is to act. Okay. To seek self -destruction. So another way of saying this is always assume that whatever you know, no matter how true or untruthful, it's probably wrong and to go and negate yours...I'm going to get, I'm going to negate everything I've learned and believe everything I've learned is deceitful so that I can rebuild my own knowledge. And through that process, will you actually achieve enlightenment? O...

The knowledge seeker must eventually leave the teacher. Nietzsche's line is turned into an educational rule: learn from the teacher, then become ashamed of him, treat him as an enemy, and destroy him as authority Source trail 46:5647:45 when Zoroastrian had spoken these words he pointed out that hate and love are not the same thing as hate and love are not the same thing as pause like one who had not said his last word and long did he balance the staff...need to destroy my teachers in order to discover my true self okay and as you can imagine most people don't want to do this most people just want to cling to their mother when I cling to the teacher but you can never ac... if you want to discover yourself. Clinging to the mother or teacher feels safe, but it blocks Asha because it lets another person's truth replace your own becoming.

Virtue is what remains when the body decomposes. Source trail 48:33 work is done be forgotten and dead still its ray of light live and travel okay so we die our bodies that decompose what's still left is our virtue okay that's who we are our virtue all that good we've done in the world... Knowledge, enlightenment, emotion, and the good produced in the world keep traveling like light. Against that, the university appears as a temple for comfortable priests Source trail 49:2450:13 ox skins than on their honors and dignities I am too hot and scorched with thine own thought often is it ready to take away my breath then have I go then I then I have I to go into the open air and away from all dusty r...of comfort of ease of pleasure and as a result they can't know anything true knowledge is can only be found in the everyday in the mundane with ordinary people that's where God is okay universities are constructed to be... , a place where people sit in the shade and gape at the thoughts of others. True knowledge is found in the everyday, the mundane, ordinary people, and suffering.

This is why the lecture corrects itself in public. Asha is always changing. Jiang notes a Bible-lecture correction about Jacob, Rachel, and Leah, then says he also now recognizes that Christianity was not the first monotheistic religion; Zoroastrianism was. The point is not embarrassment. It is method. A real class is not about answers. Source trail 52:3153:23 correcting the error in fact i probably made a lot of small errors um in my uh talk last class and i obviously made make a lot of mistakes every class okay so i apologize for that but the thing about this class is reall...about Zoroastrianism and i made a lot of mistakes so for example i said that Christianity was the first monotheistic religion last um semester and now i recognize that's wrong it's actually Zoroastrianism okay so i'm co... It is about hard questions, speculation, dialogue, debate, and the willingness to change your mind a year or two later. Source trail 53:23 about Zoroastrianism and i made a lot of mistakes so for example i said that Christianity was the first monotheistic religion last um semester and now i recognize that's wrong it's actually Zoroastrianism okay so i'm co...

The first student question forces the hardest case: if someone like Hitler thinks his hatred is truth, does that count as Asha? The answer refuses easy moral bookkeeping. Asha means letting go of hatred and judgment because Ahura Mazda is complete forgiveness, compassion, and love. The provocation is deliberate and painful: everyone will be forgiven; there is no hell outside us; hell is what we create in our hearts. Lens point free-will-burden Asha has no endpoint in Jiang's free-will model: truth is a changing process of becoming that requires solitude from social fear, release from hatred, and renewed responsibility to help others move closer rather than private possession of a final answer. Source trail 58:18 rejecting everything that you know in the past so you can rebuild yourself once you make that once you make that decision asha will come to you naturally okay but first and foremost what you need to do is let go of thes...

The practical enemy is ego and fear. Lens point free-will-burden Asha has no endpoint in Jiang's free-will model: truth is a changing process of becoming that requires solitude from social fear, release from hatred, and renewed responsibility to help others move closer rather than private possession of a final answer. Source trail 56:25 they must burn in hell because all the evil date even They've done in this world but if we want to appreciate Asha if we really want To discover the truth okay we need to let go this hatred we need to let go of this jud... Approval, status, teacher recommendations, money, social standing, and fear of offense train people to care about what others think. Asha requires solitude because the person has to reject what was planted from outside and rebuild. That is why Jiang says he knows he will be cursed for saying even Hitler will be forgiven. The point is not politeness. It is the risk demanded by an individual pursuit of truth.

The next questions ask whether Asha changes and whether anyone ever reaches it. The answer is no destination, no final perfection, only becoming. Lens point free-will-burden Asha has no endpoint in Jiang's free-will model: truth is a changing process of becoming that requires solitude from social fear, release from hatred, and renewed responsibility to help others move closer rather than private possession of a final answer. Source trail 1:01:24 yeah so again there's no end point okay there's no destination here okay it's becoming okay it's a possible constant process of becoming and it's not possible to seek asha in one lifetime right that's why we are reincar... Priesthood may say Asha is virtue and God is virtue; Nietzsche sharpens it into God as creativity Source trail 59:31 change um okay so like i i'm not a zoroastrian priest and i don't insult the religion okay because what they will tell you is that um at the end of the day asha is virtue and god is virtue okay so so when you do asha yo... . Each person lives a different life, so Asha becomes different for each person. Reincarnation exists because one lifetime cannot exhaust the search. Moving closer to Asha only gives you a new duty: help others move closer too.

The closing rejects the comforting ending. There is no simple final judgment, heaven, and happily-ever-after. The truth is a constant process of becoming, struggle, pain, and tragedy, and from that people build hope, virtue, and good. Source trail 1:02:19 process of becoming right does that make sense okay so look i mean i know people want simple answers i know that oh there'll be there'll be a final judgment we're gonna go to heaven and we'll live every happy happily ev... The lecture ends by naming the three civilizations now on the table: Greeks, Israelites, Persians. The next task is to see how their fires interact.