Yazata

Yazata is 'what is worshipped'. It is what we consider is worth paying attention to and seeking to support.

What we worship impacts how we behave, and how we behave impacts how the world progresses into the future.

As Agathists we choose Yazata based on how we think that will assist us in gaining better results for ourselves and for others.

Duality in worship

There is an important issue about worship which is often obfuscated in religions, especially monotheistic ones.This is that there are at least two kinds of worship. There is worship which is simply about paying attention to something, and there is worship which is about praising something and seeking to emulate it or bring it into existence.

This issue is a fundamental one and impacts such questions as: 'If God is in control of everything, and is all Good, then why do Bad things happen?'

It also has a psychological impact. Human minds may struggle to keep the two kinds of worship separate in their minds. If they spend time learning about evil, supposedly to avoid it, there is a risk they could come to see it as something to practice themselves.

We can see this struggle within Christianity, with some arguing for a singular focus on the figure of a wholly Good Christ, and others arguing that this leads to an innocence concerning evil.

What should our Yazata be?

If we have to pick one single thing, then we argue that what we should worship is Reality. We need to be aware of things as they actually are. If our beliefs lead us away from connection to Reality, then our attempts to act on those beliefs will inevitably produce bad results.

We argue that the Good and the Bad are intrinsic aspects of Reality, and so if we worship Reality in its fullness, then we will also learn about the Good and the Bad.

For a philosopher this might be enough of an answer, but humans don't have pure philosophical minds. When we start to take into account human nature then things become more complicated:
  • For a start humans have limited abilities, they can't understand everything about everything.
  • Secondly they have a psychological character, their emotions are aroused by particular kinds of beliefs in particular ways, and this impacts the energies and motivations they have to act.
  • Thirdly individuals are situated in particular circumstances. What matters is that they have beliefs that help them and others in those particular circumstances. For instance if they are living in a particular society then usually it is beneficial to collaborate with others in that society, and for this they need to have compatible beliefs as to how to go about things.

However Zartian Agathists argue that not everything is relative. Especially for the more philosophical mind there are things that we can say are worth paying attention to which have value across cultures.

We started with Reality as a single category. Now we break that down into three:
  • Firstly there is Reality which is the Ground of Being, the substrate within which everything happens.
  • Secondly there is Reality as a cause of the process of the world, the explanation for why things happen as they do.
  • Thirdly there is the Good side of Reality, as opposed to its Bad side. We want to move towards the Good, so we need to know it and how to get there.

Zartian Agathists have a particular Triad of runes (named concepts) which reflect this tripartite distinction - which are Zurvan, Vaius and Auramazda.

Further Yazata

In addition Zartian Agathists have a list of twelve Agathoi or 'Good Things'. These are things that we believe all naturally tend towards the Good.

We also have a list of four philosophers whose work has stood the test of time and is considered a solid foundation for our modern enquiries into the Good. These are Zoroaster, Gotama, Plato and Aristotle. The works of these four are of course supplemented by many others.

Beyond this Zartian Agathists understand that people need a more fully developed moral culture with a religious culture to support the moral culture. We don't have any single global prescription for this, but work to develop the individual moral cultures of particular communities that we are a part of.

January 4025 HE