Since there are several interpreters of Zoroastrianism, I ask erudite scholars for help in answering a few questions.
Death is the separation of body and soul. With that, all body functions (including thought, cognitive-analytical skills and memory) cease. If one has no memory or cognition how can one conceptualize what the final journey or heaven or hell is?
If mortality is related to just the baser body functions of life then is immortality achieved only through good thoughts, words and deeds, as contained in our earthly, social and communal responsibilities? Like chords in music, the musician may be dead but the music prevails? Can immortality be confined to just our lifetime since we have no powers of cerebration after death?
Is religion a matter of the mind? Is faith a matter of acquired sentimentality? Is Ashem Vohu considered a prayer or code of good conduct? In my opinion it embodies the true essence of heaven and hell. One can turn hell into heaven and vice versa. At death, the final chapter ends and so does life’s story for that individual. Finito! What import does that have on our sudreh and kusti?
Is fravashi a component of the soul or is it the manifestation (some sort of product) of the soul? What is the purpose of the charum (fourth day after death) if the soul is totally divorced from the body? Does it return during the muktads? And for how long in universal (not cosmic) time? How does one define/distinguish the soul from the fravashi?
PARVEZ S. DASTOOR
Farmington, Missouri, USA
parsi2@sbcglobal.net