Last Saturday afternoon, I was part of a group who visited one of the wealthiest churches in Hong Kong. It was organized by the United Universalist church, another very small religious group recently formed in Hong Kong. The church we visited was located at the Zoroastrian Building, 101 Leighton Building. in Causeway Bay. From the outside, it looked like just another glass and metal commercial building. On its ground floor, we see some Ferraris. It was their show room. But the 3rd to 6th floors housed separate parts of the Zoroastrian Church.
When we arrived we were asked to go to the third floor. When the lift door opened, I found a spacious hall with some 30 odd chairs arranged neatly into a rectangle a short distance from the lift entrance. At the front there was another long table covered with a white linen table cloth, remarkably like those one would find in former British army officers' mess. At the end of the long table, were some metal ornaments on a small tray. At each side of the long table, there were about 10 chairs. At the back of the hall, there was a huge portrait of a gentleman with a beard. He was wearing what looked like a cassock with a sash tied around his waist. He looked like a Russian Orthodox priest. To the left of the seats, there was another small table, also with a white linen cover. On top of it were a few plates of biscuits, sandwiches. We were told to make ourselves comfortable and to help ourselves with the snacks and tea and coffee placed on another small table opposite over another white tablecloth. I tried the sandwich. It tasted excellent. The cheese was soft but not too soft and there were tiny hair-like streaks of something green embedded within it. It was not Boursin. But it surely was delicious. Um, yummy.
Shortly before 3 p.m. we were asked to sit at the long table. A thin looking Indian with a long face, thick black eyebrows, deep set eyes, thin lips and dressed in Nehru style upper jacket and white trousers and wearing what looked like a white fez, introduced himself at the head of the table. He was Ervad Homyar Nasirabadwala, a Zoroastrian priest. He told us that he used to work in computer in Mombai and also doubled up as a part time priest but now he has decided to become a full time priest. I asked him if he had to undergo a formal training in the equivalent of the Christian seminary or the Buddhist monastery. He appeared a bit baffled. He said he did not have to go to any special school to be trained as a priest but he would get to learn about his religion from those who knew about it. He was extremely vague. I then asked him if they had regular worship service like the Christians, who would attend church on a Sunday. But again, it does not appear that they do so. He said that they would meet from time to time at the place but no fixed dates. So I suppose their worship is rather informal. They do not have any very elaborate or fixed ceremony or rituals of worship. They would merely say prayers in front of the burning fire, which to them is a symbol of purity. Ervad said that they can worship at any place, not necessarily at the church and all their faithful had a place for the holy fire at home, rather like the altar for their ancestors in some Chinese homes.
What is Zoroastrianism? According the handout given us, it is "the religion and philosophy based on the teachings ascribed to the prophet Zoroaster (Zarathustra) after whom the religion is named." It is sometimes called Mazdaism, ie, the worship of Ahura Mazda, exalted by Zarathustra as "the supreme divine authority." Ahura means "creator" and Mazda means "wisdom. According to their doctrine, you cannot see Ahura Mazda but he is still in every living thing: human beings and animals, plants and trees. To the Zoroastrians, perpetual fire is the thing closest to the spirit, to purity and the fire represents Ahura Mazda's purity, light and wisdom and life. Praying before the perpetual fire represents the adherent's commitment to live their life in purity. All Zoroastrian prayer halls centre on a table where the perpetual fire burns and all fire temples are undadorned rooms with no idols, just the ever burning fire and a photograph of Zarathustra! To them, religion is a feeling, a faith, belief or teaching. The prophets at different ages taught different things e.g Jesus Christ, Buddha, Mohammad, Zarathustra (meaning Golden Shining Star) Paigambar (Prophet or messenger of God) but all religions teach brotherhood amongst all men. The main teachings of Zarathustra are rather like the three teachings of the Buddha: good thoughts (humata), good words (hukhta) and good deeds (huvarashta). He teaches the "golden rule" that we should always be good to others for that is the path to happiness: life is incomplete when man lives for himself alone and is best lived if it is lived for others. They have a prayer book called "Khordeh-Avesta" (Avesta is the name of the language in which most of their prayers are written. Very few people know this ancient Persian language now).The Zoroastrians say two basic and simple prayers each day. The first is the Ashem Vohu : ashem vohu vaheshtem asti; ushta asti; ushta ahmai hyat ahsai vahishtai ashem meaning "puirty is the best policy and one should be pure in everything" and a second prayer called Yatha Ahu Vairyo: yatha ahu vairyo atha rathush, ashachit hacha, vangehush dazda manango shyaothnanam angeush mazdai; kshathremcha ahurai a yim dregubyo dadat vastarem meaning " everybody should have a good and clear mind. Everyone should help the poor and needy".
According to Zoroastrians, happiness is the result of following the holy trinity of good thoughts, good words and good deeds, which are considered unchanging truths and the basis of their religion and their ethics. To them, there are two types of evil in this world: external evils like natural disasters, diseases and other calamities over which we have no control and also 10 internal evils, which are subject to our control: selfishness, envy, greed, lust, vanity, wrath, hatred, grudge, deceit, ungratefulness. They resemble the list of 7 capital sins of the Catholics: pride, avarice, lust, envy, gluttony, anger and sloth. But they highlight selfishiness and ungratefulness as evils. We must give thanks to Ahura Mazda for our parents, our food, our health, for our house, the fact that we are still alive and have a job. Their deceit is the equivalent of the Christian command not to bear false witness against our neighbors. To them, God wants us to be happy and will reward us according to his timetable not ours, and he will reward us if we follow the righteous path ie. the holy clover of the three "goodnesses" and when something bad happens, we should still be thankful that something worse has not. They place a very high regard on honesty and integrity. To the Zoroastrian, every man must bear his burden alone: no one can lend the merits of his good works to others, neither the burden of his sins. No one can help save his soul except himself. They also believe that all men are born to work and prosper, not to rest and rust and that happiness is the lot of him who works for the good of others. God will not give us what we want without our working for it. He also wants us to love him in the same way he loves us. They urge their faithfuls to give all they can, help all they can and to befriend all men. As they have the highest regard for fire: Zoroastrians do not smoke: they regard smoking as a defiling of the holy fire.
Their symbol is the "Asho Farohar", the guardian angel, which is in the shape of an eagle with the head and body of human figure between the two wings.. The guardian angel is supposed to warn us when the faithful is in danger of doing something wrong. The body symbolizes the "spento manyu" which is the spirit of Ahura Mazda in man. The head of the man is called "vohu mano" ( the good mind) The human figure's right hand is lifted up: pointing to the path of righteousness: the asha vahistia (the highest truth). The huge ring he holds on his left hand symbolizes "khshathra varigyo" (spiritual strength) and the wings themselves symbolise moving quickly in the right path. The girdle symbolizes "spenta armanti" (devotion). The right tassle symbolizes the active principle whilst the left tassle the passive and the three tailed wings, good thoughts, good words and good deeds. The four layers of feathers in one wing symbolize the four classes of man, viz, the priests, the peasant, the warrior and the artisan whilst the four layers on the other wing symbolize that there will be 4 revivals of the religion of Mazda in this world.
According to Ervad, the priest's function is to teach the religion, to perform cermonies like the "navjote" or initiation into the religion at age 12, and also ceremonies relating to marriages and deaths and generally to administer and service the various temples and liaise with their faithfuls. But when they moved to India, they promised the king there that they would not convert any Indians into their faith. Like the Muslims, they worship their God 5 times a day. When they are initiated, they would be given a white skin tunic to be worn in such a way that it shall immediately touch the skin, a girdle called the kusti, made with 72 threads of wool, which they cannot remove except during a bath. They will have rose water sprinkled on them, oil and vermillion rubbed on their face and some dried fruit and also some sandal wood for the holy fire. Like the Jews, women during menstruation are considered unclean and will be forbidden to enter the fire temple.To them, there is no heaven and no hell! They believe that when a person dies, his body is corrupted and will be fed to the vultures in a sky burial. But now they also permit cremation because of lack of vultures..
Zoroastrianism orginated in Persia in about 6th century BC and is thus more ancient than Christianity. It is believed that the three magis who came to visit Jesus at his birth were Zoroastrians because according to their prophecies, the world will require "saviors from the nations". Some believe that the Christian concepts of the fight between good and evil, the angels and archcangel, God/Satan, the Judgement and the Resurrection of the Body came from the Zoroastrians, as also the association of God with light and fire. They were persecuted by the Muslims and moved to northern India in or about 7th century and quickly established themselves because they were hard working, honest and engaged in a lot of good works in helping the poor. They were known as Parsees ( perhaps the Indian name for Persians) and concentrated in Mombai area. But even now, there are still Zoroastrians in Persia but they cannot practise their faith in an open manner. Like the Hindus, they had a caste system too. Their priests can only come from the families of priest. And when they marry, they can only marry amongst themselves. The Parsees came to Hong Kong with the British in 1822 and engaged mainly in garment trade and finance and quickly became prominent citizens. We have Mody Road, Kotewall Road which are named after Zoroastrians, who also contributed generously to the Dhun Ruttonjee Hospital, HKU under the then Governor Lugard (who used to work as a bank clerk with Mody) the Kowloon Cricket Club and the Sailors and Soldiers Home in Wanchai. They also started the first brewery in Hong Kong which they later sold to San Miguel . They had a Zoroastrian Cemetery next to the Catholic Cemetery in Happy Valley which we visited after the introduction by Mr Ervad. On the entrance, we found two years: the first one is the year according to their calendar which counts from date they emigrated from Persia and the second is the normal Gregorian calendar year used by us. The year according to the Gregorian calendar is 1852. We found out that the Star Ferry was started in 1888 by a famous Parsee Sir Hormusjee Mody and that word "jee" added at the end of the word "Hormus" (or the name "Rutton") means such a gentleman is honoured with a title a bit like "the Great" or "the Noble..." At present the president of the Zoroastrian trust is Mr Jal Shroff. The Zoroastrian Building is now worth more than HK200 million and yet, there are only 213 Zoroastrians in Hong Kong!
A brief tour of the website leaves me with just one comment: WOW!!! No two! Very creative! No three! Very colourful! ...MTC. Wait till I got time to look at them with the care they deserve!
回覆刪除I was in southwest France. To be precise, in Bordeaux. But I went to Paris 14 times in two years. Love Paris, especially the Musée d'Art Moderne. When I first went there, knew nothing about Art. I still don't. But I at least I learned something about what could pass for Art. Art cannot be comprehensively defined. It is always seeking a voice and a face. To me, Art is not a subject. It is an attitude to various subjects. It represents one of the noblest desires of man: the desire to create some kind of order, some kind of beauty out of what would otherwise be chaotic. Perhaps it is trying to work on an unworkable subject, which by nature has an infinite number of faces, it partakes a little of the nature of that which it is working on. Hence its triumph, its success can only be momentary and partial. Hence the transient joy one finds in good art. But we soon tire of what is there. Who wants to look at the same piece of art foreever, no matter how good? Human desire is insatiable. Hence our desire for art is insatiable too. This insatiability is one of the fascination of art for me. It is the highest ( one always hope, can't one?) expression of man's freedom.: the freedom to create. To create is in a way to be a species of god. We become a god when we create: we become a law unto ourselves. We cannot admit any intrusion when we create: in perhaps the same way that a foetus will not allow any foreign intrusion during the period of its gestation. We lay bare our soul: what trembles within it, what moves it. How can we move others if we do not feel moved ourselves.
回覆刪除I was cut again because I exceeded the permitted length again. But I'll continue now. To me, to create is to be a kind of god because it is the prerogative of a god to create something from nothing. But strictly speaking, an artist's creation is not creation ex nihilo. The artist merely refashions something she finds in this world, a bit here, a bit there and makes something meaningful out of it. Nonetheless, that is something valuable in itself. But some say that it is hubris. But to me, it is impossible not to commit the sin of hubris if one wants to create. Otherwise, where is the artist to get the strength, the will, the determination to continue along this often lonely and excruciatingly painful path. We got to believe in ourselves, in our ability to create something worthwhile, something having value in and of itself, not conferred upon it by anybody else, however illusory such a belief may later prove to be. Of course, after its creation. we may actually find that some other people like it too or at least find it interesting. That is an enormous source of satisfaction and may fuel further creative efforts. If we don't have such a conviction, it will often be impossible to carry on. No one can afford to live without hope. Why should the artist be excluded from this common from having this privilege? That is why I had to encourage Peter to write his blog. And it appears to be thriving and growing from strength to strength. The internet is wonderful. It enables practicably anybody with anything to say to publish although unfortunately, the majority of the stuff published there are not the kind of stuff one would want to spend time on. But so what? We can't throw the baby out with the bathwater! I'm rambling again, as usual. I must stop now, before I have a murder on my hands!
回覆刪除"How can we move others if we do not feel moved ourselves." and how can we convince others if we ourselves are not geared with the quality of love, honesty, understanding and openmindedness.
回覆刪除Yes, love, honesty, openness, understanding. Easier said than done. It's very strange. We are most ourselves when we are most distant from ourselves. We must somehow be able to look at ourselves as if we were somebody else. Then we must immerse ourselves in or get into the object we wish to portray, to imagine how it would feel to be that object, person, to reach at its "soul", so to speak. Otherwise, it will not have that kind of "life" we wish to capture. It would feel "dry", "lifeless" or somehow "untrue". We must show, never tell: let the thing/object/situation speak for itself. Again, it's so difficult. I am impatient and write the first thought which comes into my mind. I must learn to be less impatient and allow time to work its magic. To my surprise, many people seem to like the way I write. Perhaps they like the spantaneity. I don't really know why. They never tell me why they enjoy reading the rubbish I churn out from my keyboard. I like the way you can bring out the feeling with maybe 1/100 less words than I do. Maybe that's because you just concentrate on the absolutely essential whereas in my fear that if I do not reproduce every detail, somehow, it will not be "real". Perhaps that may actually leave no room for the reader's ability to "re-create" the piece in her own heart/mind according to the "magic" of her own psyche.
回覆刪除Yes, openness, honesty, understanding and love. Easier said than done. But I suppose that if you have the last, you will have the rest of the quartet. To love nothing is impossible. But love is so difficult. Often, we do not know how to love. How many marriages and relationship are broken because of ignorance of how love works!!! I handle the havoc of marital breakdowns at my office, almost every week! We all want to love ourselves. But the trick is to love well is to do the opposite. Jesus taught us that a long time ago. So did Buddha. But as Jesus said, we have eyes that do not see. We have ears that do not hear. It's the same in art.
回覆刪除Again got cut. Here's the continuation: We must forget our "selves". Otherwise, there is no distance! There is no objectivity. It may be the objectivity that bridges the abyss between the artist and his spectator or audience or reader. The objectivity creates a space. Imagination or re-creation (in the consumer of the relevant art work) needs that space to stretch its arms and legs and feel comfortable. That space is the stage where "art" may perform its magic, according to the laws of the psyche of that consumer, which in the ideal case, will resemble that which prompted the artist to create hers in the first place. But always, we must allow "room" and "a breathing space" for the development of the latter's own imagination. Therefore the artist who is most able to distance herself from herself will be closest to the "consumer" of her art. That way, the latter will have maximum elbow room for the use of his own unique imagination, which works to the rhythms of his own psychic laws. Art is the fusion of two imaginations, that of the artist and that of the "consumer" of that art. It can seldom succeed when either is missing. That's why the artist must lose herself in the object/subject/situation of her art so that she can feel it/them as if she "were" it/them. Only then will she stand a chance of moving others. This is what I think. I don't know if I am right.
回覆刪除Fluent piece of writing! In addition, your philosophy of life and love is unique and genuine. Wanna hear my P.O.V., although I'm not a winner in love games, I still got some experiences to share. First of all, LIFE is something which every one of us now actually living , touching, scratching, smelling and hearing ...everyday. Thus, every one can talk about life and share their experiences.
回覆刪除But LOVE is a different issue here. It's abstract, depending upon how each person respond to it. Even enemies can LOVE each other till death... isn't that amazing? Like BATMAN and the JOKER. When JOKER said to BATMAN: "You COMPLETE me", that completion is another form of LOVE.
And hence, LOVE is nothing people can simply talk about, it's the FEELINGs and PASSIONs and MISSING LINKS of REGRETS which ties one person to another.
LOVE doesn't simply mean the bound between man and woman, or the promises between husband and wife, or any affection and fascinations... It's a thing which triggers our human nervous sensation psychologically but physically. I may not understand LOVE and perhaps unable to grasp love, BUT how about just sharing my experience with friends here...?
[版主回覆05/16/2010 09:09:00]Your POV on love is interesting. But I cannot entirely agree with you. I hope you won't take this as a criticism. Thi is what I think:
1. love is not just an emotion. There's a lot of "need" in love too. Since love is a relationship, you need an object for your love. That object may be a person of the opposite or even the same sex. We need the object of love to as you cited in your example of the Joker and the Batman, to "complete" each other. To complete implies a certain lack. The other must be different. It cannot be otherwise. We love the differences. This is the tricky part. Many think that with love, we can "reduce" the differences so that the other will be more like our "self".Women especially are particularly prone to this. They have been misled into thinking that love is everything and with their all consuming love for their lover/mate, they actually "can" change the inveterate habits of their lover/mate, something which has been built up over maybe 15 to 25 years, and rather quickly too! Remember Rex Harrison singing in "My Fair Lady":, "why can't women be more like men (meaning me)?" Many marriages flounder precisely on this point. People "are" different. In fact, that might very well be the reason why we love the other in the first place. We first love the difference and then do the opposite: to try to eliminate that difference. I better stop here before I got cut.
2. Why does trouble brew between lovers? To me, it's a problem of maladjustment from stage one of the love relationship and stage 2. At stage one, the lovers are "madly" in love. They find the differences they see in their lover so novel, so unusual, so different from themselves and for that reason, so very exciting, exhilarating, and therefore so attractive! Practically everything their lover do is put under a microscope! And to their surprise, so attractive, so alluring, so beautiful! And their partner probably think the same of him/her. They therefore do their very best to adjust their own habits to fit in with those of their lover.Or maybe they are so heads over heels for the other that they literally are prepared to do practically anything for their lover. This is typically the stage when they promise heaven to the other and would "swear" to go through hell fire if necessary for the other and "declar" their "everlasting" "eternal" "undying" love for their lover. These are kind of stuffs we hear ad nauseum in the greatest love songs, pop or classical. This is precisely its charm, its magic!
回覆刪除At this stage, each is behaving as a child. The kind of things that lovers do in bed or out of bed are notoriously "child-like" or from an "outsider's ( if somehow it is visible to the other) point of view, plain "silly" or "childish".. Childish thinking is characterized by a kind of "narcissistic omnipotence". A baby just has to let out a bawl or even just wrinkle his nose, curl up his lips before his guilt-ridden mother will come rushing to his side to feed it, clothe it and change its diaper or whatever else that is required to satisfy its "needs"! That's magic! A lover "expects" magic from his/her partner! But they conveniently "forget" that this kind of mutual "make-belief" is at heart just a game, a game which they "irrationally expects" will continue forever. But they know, but refuse to accept that, no "game" can last forever.
回覆刪除But when one of the love-sick pair finds the" game" a little less attractive than he/she previously thought at the start, the other will instantly and "righteously" feel "betrayed"! Didn't the other promise heaven? Isn't the kinds of cries and whispers exchanged between lovers not called "sweet nothingness" for nothing? If not handled properly, a tiny quarrel or the slightest inattention may flare into a huge quarrel which they may regret for the rest of their lives. Women in particular will have little hesitation in describing in the most excrucitatingly vivid details how one shouldn't have looked at her, with what "excessively cruel" voice, over some trivial details of a quarrel which one would have long forgotten years after the marriage! Their brain is geared by evolution to remember past hurts! After all, as "potential" child-bearer and home maker, she has a "right" to prohibit any behavior with the slightest chance of sabotaging her "sacred" job of preserving "harmony" in the "home" of which she is initally princess and later queen. If such stage 1/stage 2 transition is not "handled" with care, it may in a serious case result in a divorce! What may have started out as "douceur a deux" may end up as a "solitude a deux", which may not be an inappropriate description of some of the marriages I have seen, much to my regret, amongst some of my friends
回覆刪除Now I'll come to your second point about love being abstract. It has taken me an eternity to reach it, haven't I? I plead time. I need to go to church and have lunch in the meantime. Now back to the point. I don't think that love is abtract at all. In fact I cannot think of a subject which can be more concrete than love. People sing about it, people dream about it, they pine for it, and some commit suicide because they think they haven't got it and for for those lucky to be in love, they wallow in it: there is not a moment that love is not on their mind, or their heart, or within their arms or some other more private parts of their bodies. And some even think that the entire universe is created for it (e.g Christians think that the only reason why God create the universe is to show us how much he loves man and he sent his one and only begotten son to this earth to undergo a cruel crucifixion just so that he can teach man to love other man in the same way he loves man. ). How much more concrete will you like it to be before you agree not to call it "abstract"? Love is our very life itself! But I do agree with you that love is "ineffable": it cannot not be fully expressed in words. One of the reasons,to me, why it is ineffable is that love is not a closed book nor a closed word. It is a word in process. There is as much love in this world as there are people who want it, who cherish it, who engage in it, who live for it, who die for it and each in their own way! And for me, I would'nt want it ever to be closed. Once it is closed, that to me, is the end of life itself. It becomes a fossil. A word in the past tense. You should rejoice in the fact that love is "ineffable"! At least , I do!
回覆刪除There are still others points in your "sharing" which I can go into if you want me to. I can easily rattle off another ten pages on it if you really wish me to. But I don't think I'd do that. I don't think there has ever been a word about which more has been written, sung about, disquisitioned on already than the word "love". I think I have done more than my share of "blogger's pollution" for the day. Have a nice day. Look out of the window! See, there is a blue sky up there. One which we haven't had for a very long time. And cool breezes too! From the photos, I believe you probably live somewhere out there in Sai Kung area, the most beautiful part of Hong Kong. Look at the flowers, how bright and beautiful and the leaves, how green! Live instead of thinking about how you might have lived or loved. Carpe diem!
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