The God You Seek Is the Weight of Your Choices
I’m terrified to commit to this path—building my app, finishing my film, and applying for product management jobs—because I might fail and prove I’m not enough. I crave a divine voice to say my choices matter.
But Zarathustra, a Persian thinker from 3,500 years ago, looks me in the eye and says: there’s no god waiting. Only your choices. And they’re heavier than any deity.
Zoroastrianism, the ancient religion tied to his name, is often misread as worship of Ahura Mazda—a cosmic judge, a creator who demands your prayers. That’s a lie we tell ourselves because freedom is a cliff. Zarathustra didn’t give us a god. He gave us a mirror. And it shows what you’re too scared to face: the only god you’ll ever meet is the life you build—or break—with your choices.
The Lie We Cling To
We want Ahura Mazda to be a god because we’re cowards.
This isn’t a condemnation of faith. For many, belief in a loving God is a source of strength, justice, and courage. But this is a mirror for those of us who aren’t sure anymore—who still ache for meaning, but no longer know where to place it.
We need a divine parent to forgive our failures—every lie we’ve told, every dream we’ve buried, every war we’ve scrolled past. A world burning with chaos begs for a savior, so we invent one.
By the 6th century BCE, Persian emperors like Darius turned Mazda into a king to justify their thrones (Behistun Inscription, tr. King & Thompson, 1907), and priests spun myths to make it stick.
During the Babylonian Exile, Jewish contact with Persian thought may have further influenced the evolution of Mazda into a godlike figure. When existential structure was filtered through the lens of divine agency, story swallowed system.
We do the same when we pray for signs instead of facing our choices. Why? Because a universe that doesn’t care feels like falling forever.
I’ve done it too. I’ve begged for permission to risk everything—my work, my comfort, my illusions—because I’m scared no one’s watching. But Zarathustra’s hymns, the Gāthās, don’t offer comfort. They demand clarity. They ask: if there’s no god, what will you choose?
The Truth Zarathustra Built
Zarathustra wasn’t a prophet. He was a moral engineer.
His Gāthās don’t tell stories. They ask questions:
“Who made light and darkness? Who gave your mind its clarity?”
(Yasna 44.3–5, Insler, 1975)
No answer comes. That’s the answer.
Ahura Mazda—“Wise Lord” or more precisely “Wisdom Itself”—is not a being but the name given to the ordering principle of the cosmos. In its esoteric root, Mazda is daena, the shining awareness that mirrors back the world—not as it is, but as it could be, if seen rightly. Mazda is not a god who acts. It is the blueprint of coherence embedded in the moral geometry of the universe.
Asha is the architectonic pattern beneath all visible order. Theologically, it is not merely truth or righteousness, but the vibrational symmetry that sustains reality. It is the harmony between seen and unseen, motion and meaning. To violate Asha is not to break a rule, but to dislocate oneself from the music of existence.
Vohu Manah, the “Good Mind,” is not just reason. It is the instrument of attunement—the tuning fork of the soul. In esoteric terms, it is the inner Simurgh, the winged messenger who brings insight by clearing illusion. It’s the light within that echoes Mazda’s ordering principle back into the human frame.
Spenta Mainyu, the “Progressive Mentality,” is the sacred yes. It is the Spirit of Growth, but more precisely, it is the impulse to extend Asha into the realm of action. It is not static divinity. It is divinity-in-motion. In mystic allegory, it is the spark that turns truth into transformation, the fire that refines perception into deed.
Angra Mainyu is not a rival god. It is the contraction of potential. The entropic twin to Spenta Mainyu. It is not evil as an external force, but the consequence of disintegration. Theologically, it represents the inner shadow—the fraying of clarity into confusion, the unraveling of meaning through misalignment. It is your own mind, recoiling from the demands of coherence.
Zarathustra’s name, often rendered as “He who drives camels,” may more accurately be understood as “He who guides the burdensome through resistance.” The camel is the soul, weighted with the freight of choice. Zarathustra is not leading you to salvation. He is showing you how to carry yourself through the desert of autonomy without collapsing.
The Mirror You Can’t Escape
Zarathustra prays to Mazda:
“I realized you, as the first and the last.”
(Yasna 43.15, Insler, 1975)
But this is not a plea. It is recognition. Prayer in the Gāthic tradition is not supplication. It is reflection sharpened into commitment.
Mazda does not answer because Mazda is the answer. Not in voice, but in response. Not in mercy, but in math. Every act sends out its pattern. Every pattern finds its echo. Prayer is pattern alignment. Alignment is prayer.
Why are you reading this? To feel deep? Or to avoid the decision you already know will break you open?
I’m scared my app will flop and leave me irrelevant. I’m scared this film will never finish. I’m scared I’ll go back to comfort and call it “balance.”
But Zarathustra’s mirror doesn’t flatter. It reflects.
Ahura Mazda isn’t watching. But your alignment is.
Asha is the spiritual gravity that pulls you into resonance—or breaks you for refusing. Vohu Manah is the wind that clears the mirror. Spenta Mainyu is the footstep forward. Angra Mainyu is the freeze.
So what lie are you telling yourself about why you haven’t started—your dream, your apology, or the truth you’re too weak to face?
The sacred isn’t supernatural. It’s the moral weight of your next move.
The only god you’ll ever meet is your capacity to choose in full view of the structure.
The Dare You Can’t Ignore
This isn’t theology. It’s alchemy.
I’m melting down my fear: that if I commit, I’ll fail, and failure will mean I was never enough.
But Zarathustra doesn’t promise transcendence. He demands recursion. Try again. Align again. Face again.
Stop begging for destiny. Start curating consequence.
Asha is the compass. Spenta Mainyu is the will to follow it. Angra Mainyu is the whisper that says “not today.”
So what truth are you refusing? What meaning are you waiting to be handed, instead of forged?
The universe will not bless you. But it will echo.
Every act is a question. Every consequence is the answer.
Live like alignment is sacred. Because it is.
Sources
Insler, Stanley. The Gāthās of Zarathustra. Brill, 1975.
Boyce, Mary. Zoroastrians: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices. Routledge, 1979.
Shaked, Shaul. Dualism in Transformation: Varieties of Religion in Sasanian Iran. SOAS, 1994.
Hintze, Almut. A Zoroastrian Liturgy: The Worship in Seven Chapters (Yasna 35–41). Harrassowitz Verlag, 2007.
King, L.W., and R.C. Thompson. The Behistun Inscription. 1907. Translated and edited.