The Zarathushtrian Assembly is a non-profit, non-political religious corporation incorporated in California in 1990. It was established with the aim of studying and disseminating information on the Divine Message of Zarathushtra and promoting the Zarathushtrian Fellowship.
The founding of the Assembly is not a protestant, sectarian, or denominational movement, a separatist move to split apart from an existing body. The Assembly has been formed as an organization, an authority which does not identify itself with Zoroastrianism as an �ethnic entity�. It lies outside the closed communal religious fold of the people generally known as traditionalist or orthodox Zoroastrians.
Nevertheless, the Assembly is a Zarathushtrian organization, simply because it precisely follows Zarathushtra. It has, in theory and practice, restored the religion of Good Conscience to its Gathic purity and Zarathushtrian universality. It reserves the religious, constitutional, and legal rights to call itself and its members by the name �Zarathushtrian� and any of its variants - Zarathushti, Zartoshti, Zoroastrian, Mazdayasni, and Behdin.
The Gathas are the only guide in life for the members of the Assembly. Other Gathic texts are of explanatory importance. Its ceremonies, led by its own officiants, are based on the Gathic texts. All other parts of the Avesta and Pahlavi have their ethical, historical, geographical, and anthropological values and there is an accepted place for them outside the doctrinal scripture: the Gathic texts.
The Assembly teaches, preaches, and practices the religion of Good Conscience. It delivers the Divine Message of Zarathushtra to all who wish to listen to it. It does not �convert� people. The Good Religion is a religion of personal choice. Membership of the �Zarathushtrian Assembly is open to all who, of their own individual accord and after full consideration and conviction, choose the religion of Good Conscience and wish to belong to its World Fellowship.
Any
person who has, after due consideration, chosen to adhere to the divine doctrine
proclaimed by Zarathushtra in his guiding songs, the Gathas,
who understands and practices the Primal Principles of Life aimed at promoting
and advancing the living world, and who calls himself or herself a
Zarathushtrian, is a Zarathushtrian in his or her individual
capacity�individual because it is an individual choice. But once the choice is
made, then he or she is advised to join the fellowship of the people of the same
choice who form a community.
To
join the
Zarathushtrian Assembly as a community member and enjoy all the
rights provided by the Constitution and
Bylaws of the Assembly, such a person will have to perform the
�Initiation� ceremony in which he or she declares his or her choice of the
religion, and then apply and become a member. The Zarathushtrian Assembly
recognizes the initiation (navjote or sadreh pooshi)
ceremony
of a person who is a Zarathushtrian,
either by free choice or birth and upbringing and who had it
performed earlier, as valid.
The Zarathushtrian Assembly belongs to the knowledgeable persons who are sincerely committed to the good, Gathic religion of the M��thran, the thought-provoker, Righteous Zarathushtra. All are welcome to participate in or witness its activities.
The Assembly respects all other religious organizations, Zoroastrian or otherwise. It recognizes, as a part of its conviction, that all religions of past and present are great, good, and beautiful. It extends its hand of friendship to all.
The Zarathushtrian Assembly invites the desirous to join it as it seeks to live the Teachings of Zarathushtra as actually taught by the Master himself. Inspired by the world-transformative message of the Gathas, Assembly members are putting into practice the teachings, ideals and aspirations of Zarathushtra.
As Zarathushtrians, they live fully in accord with the genuine teachings of Zarathushtra as recorded solely in the Gathas. Towards this goal, they pledge themselves, theirs all.* * * * * *