Meherangan Celebrated with a Great Gusto by the ZAC Community

Date

March 5, 2019

Post by

arZan

Category

Festivities

On Thursday, 28th February in the evening the Zoroastrian Association of California celebrated the Meherangan festival, sponsored by Hootoxi and Ervad Dr. Ardaeviraf Minocherhomji, and well attended by over fifty people.

The evening started with a Jashan performed by Ervads Zarrir and Zerkxis Bhandara along with present NAMC president Dr. Ardaeviraf Minocherhomji and the past NAMC president Jal Birdy.

Mehrangan Jashan 2

After the Jashan a brief talk was given by Er. Bhandara explaining the importance of celebrating Mehrangan, as this festival celebrates the victory of good and light over evil and darkness. On this day Shah Faridun imprisoned the evil king Zohak in the holy Mount Demavand. Meher Davar, which literally means judge, who along with Rashne yazad judges our soul on the day of  Chahrum. Meher, the divine light is synonymous with innate wisdom. NAMC president, Ervad Dr. Minocherhomji added that there are two types of intellect mentioned in Dooa Namsetayashne “Ashne kheradi and the Gaosho Sruthe Kheradi” the innate wisdom and the acquired knowledge. Bhandara further urged the congregation to perform at least a Kushti in all 5 different watches/(gehs) of a day, if not the obligatory prayers. Comparing the Kushti ritual to taking a bath for the physical body, performing a Kusti similarly cleanses our astral body. Making it possible to absorb the divine energy from the spirit world which is akin to running an antivirus program in our hard drives to clean up and then download the (spiritual) software.

Instead of focussing only on the literal translations and trying to rationalize with our rational/limited thinking, he suggested balancing our rational thinking with the knowledge of heart to learn from the fountain of spiritual knowledge and guidance offered by our scriptures. Comparing the Avestan/Pahlavi and Pazand prayers to the HTML language, for which one would need knowledge of coding. Translations without in-depth scholarly and spiritual knowledge diminish the true essence of scriptures, and they will frankly not seem to make sense.

The celebration concluded with scrumptious and delicious potato pulav, dal, lagan nu stew, saria prepared by Ervad Zerkxis Bhandara, along with kachumber and bread pudding prepared by Hootoxi Minochehomji.