The seeingly blind and the hearingly deaf

The Kavis and the Karapans, the seeingly blind and the hearingly deaf, who worked as exorcists and cast out demons and with charlatanism prospered among the ignorant and superstitious, thwarted Zarathushtra's prophetic work and incited people to oppose him. They refused to see the new light that would dispel darkness and closed their ears to the wise counsels of the prophet.

There are Kavis and Karapans to be found always and everywhere, who from conceit and vanity do not see and do not hear. They pass as learned men with their vacant brains. They deceive credulous people with ostentation of learning. They play the pedant and parade their little learning. Lacking substance, they live by show. They fondly believe they have what in fact they have not. Puffed up by pride, they fancy themselves wiser than all. They give themselves airs of importance, which they do not possess. They hold others in slight estimation. They play on the emotions of the mob and gratify their ears by popular applause. They cannot shake themselves free of the obsession of self-conceit and self-delusion.

None is so blind as the person who has eyes to see and yet will not see. None is so deaf as the person who has ears to hear and will not hear. Let me not be inflamed and infatuated by the vain idea of my intellectual greatness. Let me not overrate my worth. Let me find out my own deficiencies and remedy them. Let not my mind feed upon conceit and delusion. Let me not deceive myself. Let not perverseness take root in my nature. Let me humble myself before the learned and the wise.

Thou, Ahura Mazda, hast given me eyes to see and ears to hear. Let me see and let me hear with all humility and enlighten my mind. Help me to develop the gifts with which thou hast endowed me at birth. Let them not be wasted. Let me meekly seek knowledge and let my knowledge deepen into wisdom.

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