Man's duty is to work for the perfection of the world

Many in this life forget that they have a mission to fulfil and a duty to discharge. Idlers lounge on the lawn, the negligent spend their time in merry making and the epicures live for the chase of pleasure and amusement, before thou Ahura Mazda, dost give them a rude awakening to reality and rouse them to duty. Many there are who think the burden of duty that falls on them unbearable and are tempted to throw it off, when thou dost give them strength to bear it and zeal to carry it along.

Let me not look to my duty as an unpleasant burden. Let me not do duty grudgingly. Let me not lag, when I hear the call of duty. Let no power on earth force me to relinquish what is my duty. Let me not shirk my duty. Let me not rest half way. Let me never neglect the duty assigned to me.

Awaken me to my responsibility that I may be true to my vocation. Let me work out everything for myself. Let me do my work with my own hands and look not to others to do what is my duty to do. Guard me, O Guardian Divine, from neglecting little things, for creatures mountain high to the littleness of a mole all play their assigned parts in thy providence.

Show me my duty and I will consecrate my life to it. Endow me with the right sense of duty. Help me to discern my duty and I will do it with diligence. Quicken my sense of duty and I will faithfully and fearlessly tread its rugged path. Let thy guiding hand lead my life. Command what thou willeth and thou wilt ever find me ready to do thy bidding and to loyally perform my appointed task as a pleasant duty. I will do my duty, because it is my duty. Duty is its own reward.

To work for mankind is to work for thy glory, my God. Thou hast owned men as thy fellow-worker in the stupendous task of perfecting the world according to the plan laid out by thee at the beginning of creation. Help me to do my duty with alacrity and with dauntless courage in the face of difficulties, even though the heavens fall. Doing my duty is the ideal of my life. I will do my duty all the days of my life, that when I have lived my day and am old, I may peacefully sit down to collect and ponder over my doings of life at the close of my earthly career. Then when the time comes for thee to take me back in thy loving arms and when thou dost call me to render the account of my stewardship, I may come to thee as came those that diligently did their duties that their callings demanded and proved themselves to be thy Saoshyants, the perfectors of thy world, Ahura Mazda.

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