"Re-imagining of faith must not be falsely characterized or considered to be the altering of traditions and the discarding of beliefs. Re-imagining is more the active projection of how one’s faith manifests in very real, relevant and lived experiences,” observed Dr Neville Panthaki (pictured), creator, director and conference chair, in his report of the Asha Vahishta Initiative (AVI) conferences over nine days from May 5 to November 10, 2018.
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Forty-two international speakers (the majority interfaith), 11 local community members and Panthaki explored the theme, re-imagining of faith and reclaiming of fellowship among ethnocultural diasporic communities over 48 sessions. The majority of speakers, allotted 15-20 minutes to deliver their preliminary statements, participated virtually via the Skype platform to minimize overhead costs.
Maximum par-ticipation from mem-bers of the local Ontario Zoroastrian Community Foun-dation (OZCF) was seen at the last session. Of the 11 Zoroastrian panelists, five were mobeds/mobedyars: Dr Jehan Bagli, Mehbad Dastur, Kamran Panthaki, Armaan Panthaki, Gool Austin. The others in addition to Neville Panthaki were Cyrus Gazdar, OZCF president for 2016-18, Khushnuma Doctor, OZCF director, Phil Sidhwa, active on the OZCF atash kadeh project, Mahiyar Panthaki, OZCF member and Armaity Homavazir, educator.
"I believe that all too often a disconnect between anjuman concerns/desires, education providers and leadership elements are responsible for the extremely well intentioned efforts not succeeding,” observed Neville Panthaki who had earlier been asked to bolster the OZCF Lecture Sub-Committee.
The conferences highlighted that "while history is an important factor in considering the origins of one’s faith and fellowship, history is not to be equated with religion… The ethos and basis of religion has generally been revolutionary, critical of the sociocultural and political status quo… It is high time we decide whether Zoroastrianism is a truly universal message or an ethnocultural preserve,” he added.
At the earlier sessions that had seen participation from global theologists, anthropologists, psychologists, educationists, historians, writers, were Zoroastrians well connected with the community like: Zerbanoo Gifford, founder of Asha Centre in London, Farrukh Dhondy, novelist and social critic, Homi Gandhi, president of the Federation of Zoroastrian Associations of North America (FEZANA), Astad Clubwala, president of the Zoroastrian Association of Greater New York, Shahin Bekhradnia, joint honorary secretary, World Zoroastrian Organisation, Dr Dolly Dastoor, past president of FEZANA, Ariana Vafadari, mezzo soprano from France, Ervad Farhan Panthaki, mobed from California and Dr Rastin Mehri from the Department of Asian Studies at the University of British Columbia.
The premise of AVI founded over two years ago is that "the anjuman is a legitimate change agent and that only through it becoming conscious of its role can faith and fellowship be rejuvenated and sustained… Leadership must provide the opportunities for attitudinal change to become actionable.” As Neville Panthaki further elaborated, "The goal of education is not communicating information for the individual to passively accumulate. In our age there are vaults of information that the individual can access at will. Education from AVI perspective is more about communicating inspiration and making knowledge actionable by concretizing participation.”
Denouncing book learning and a dogmatic version of religion in favor of developing wisdom and a dynamic expression of lived faith and fellowship, Phase I and II of the AVI through its seminar series sought to focus on educative-informative sessions and resolution building features. Having now formulated its vision statement as "101 Inspirations,” Phase III of AVI proposes an AVI working committee to coordinate and direct activities of leadership and anjuman outreach in a manner that is meaningful.