Let me hearken to the promptings of my conscience

The gentle voice of my Daena, conscience, tells me what is good and what is evil. Let me listen to it and discern between right and wrong. Let me hold fast that which my unerring conscience tells me is good and right.

Thou, Ahura Mazda; hast set thy vigilant watch in my heart. The shepherd dog smells the wolf that is sneaking about the yard in the stillness of the night. He barks and wakes the master of the flocks. So does my ever wakeful and ever watchful conscience warn me in time of the guile and mischievous machinations of the Evil Spirit.

Let me not do what my conscience tells me is wrong. Let me not be deaf to the voice of my conscience. Let me not temper with my conscience. Let me beware when conscience lifts a warning finger and sounds the alarm.

My conscience rebukes me for my backslidings, when I go astray from the one path thou, my Divine Lawgiver, hast prescribed for me. Deeply, then, do the pangs of my conscience cut. Tortured by the qualms of conscience, I know not inner peace by day and by night. The bitings of my conscience hound me to living hell.

Name and fame, greatness and glory, riches and power are nought, for they last not. When all will be dust at death, my Daena, character alone, moulded and made good or evil by good thoughts, good words and good deeds or evil thoughts, evil words and evil deeds will accompany my soul to the world beyond and good or evil fate will greet it accordingly. If my soul has won the approbation of my Daena during life, she will plead for it at the seat of judgement. If my soul has not listened to her voice, she will bear witness against it before the divine judges Mehr, Sarosh and Rashna that it heeded not her warnings and wandered from the path of Righteousness.

Always will I do what my conscience tells me to be right. So faithfully will I behave that my Daena, conscience, will bear me witness that I have been true to thee, Ahura Mazda.

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