Endurance is the prime sustaining virtue

 

 

Zarathushtra beseeches Ahura Mazda to bless him with the virtues of endurance and durability. Equipped with these formidable weapons, he confronted all opposition and silently and heroically bore persecution. He shirked not his stupendous responsibility and abandoned not his sublime mission. He remained cheerful and optimistic and with unwavering confidence in the success of his work, held on and held fast and pressed on and struggled and wrestled with hardships and worked his way through a thousand obstacles. He retraced not his steps, but with undying hope in his final victory, he bravely endured a life of sore trials. He suffered, yet he strove and he struggled, until he became invulnerable in his power of endurance and durability and emerged triumphant in the end.

Unavoidable are hardships and misfortunes, trials and tribulations, sorrows and sufferings in life. To endure and to bear them patiently and bravely is to conquer them and to come out the victor from the struggle. Endurance with patience and fortitude is all-acquisitive. Unassailable is the power of endurance. Victory belongs to him that endures the most and lasts the longest. Endurance and durability are the best and most formidable weapons in the armory of the battle of life. They are mightier than armed strength and triumph in the end by disbanding and disarming and dislodging all misfortune.

Give me, thou my Most Enduring Ahura, the sustaining power that enables me patiently to suffer and endure the woes of life. Let my power of endurance be inexhaustible. Let me never lose heart. Let me never bend nor break nor ever know retreat. Let me steel myself and harden myself to fight the battles of life. Let me inure myself to sorrows and sufferings and let me not bend beneath the blasts of misfortune. Let me fight them to the finish, never counting the cost, never dreaming of failure, always and ever with unshakable conviction of success.

The Pipal tree whose roots go deep in the ground, defies the blasts of the wind. Like unto it, give me staying power, rooted to the position in my life. Sturdy and stalwart, let me stand firm as an impregnable rock. Let me stand unperturbed and immovable and dauntlessly defy the fury of the storms of life. Let me endure the most and hold out the longest to brave the buffetings of life, even as my holy prophet Zarathushtra did.

 


This page was last updated on Tuesday, August 01, 2000.