Life is based on the law of polarity
Spenta Mainyu, the Good Spirit, and Angra Mainyu, the Evil Spirit, are inveterate foes. With the advent of man upon earth, the warfare between them has begun. It will end in the defeat of the Evil Spirit, when human life upon earth will end. The Evil Spirit deranges what the Good Spirit has arranged, frustrates what he has willed, levels down what he has raised, breaks what he has constructed and destroys what he has created.
Human nature, likewise is based on the law of contrast and conflict. Irreconcilable opposites exist side by side in human nature. Vohu Manah, the Good Mind, and Aka Manah, the Evil Mind, are the two principles poised against each other in man. Vohu Manah with his good thoughts and Aka Manah with his evil thoughts are wrestling within man. The clinging creeper of evil has wound itself around the tree of goodness and chokes its life. Struggle is the fundamental fact of man's life. Man is a human being and an animal, a civilized man and a savage, an angel and a demon in one. Every human being carries his Angra Mainyu in his heart. Life is a long battle. Man has to fight evil within himself and in the world without. He has to seek the enemy, shake his fist at him, wage war with him, bravely face his attacks, intrepidly risk his all and subdue the evil in his nature.
Life is neither all gaiety, nor all gloom. The world is not heaven, nor is it hell. The rose has its thorns and prickles. The fairest of flowers has its canker. The orchard produces sweet and sour, wholesome and poisonous fruit. Splendor and squalor, fragrance and filth, beauty and ugliness, sumptuousness and want, health and sickness, happiness and misery, exist side by side in this world of contrasts.
Life is not easy living. It is very hard indeed. Life does not always glide on cheerful wings. It glides not smoothly like a stream. Often has man to steer the vessel of life over angry seas. The nut cannot be had without breaking the hard shell. Life is a ceaseless fight. All have to fight. Victory sometimes comes easily. At other times it eludes man's grasp and he has to fight more strenuously.
The world is not a resort of pleasure for man to disport. Man is lost in the labyrinth of life. Hard and harsh are the ways of life. Crushing are the cares and anxieties of life. Providence has given man a resourceful mind and strong arms and strong shoulders and strong feet that, ungrudgingly and bravely and patiently, he may bear the burden of his life himself and stand firm without falling.
Thou Spenta Mainyu, art the author of my life. Thou hast breathed into me the breath of life. Tempestuous is the sea of life. Unflinchingly will I fight the stormy billows of Aka Manah's evil thoughts and with unerring rudder of Vohu Manah's good thoughts, will I steer the ship of my life to the port of safety.
With a purpose higher and nobler than my own self-interest, will I live my life upon earth. Daily will I fight to weaken the power of the Evil Spirit and to hasten his defeat. I will live the life of good thoughts and good words and good deeds. I will strive to convert Zarathushtra's ideal of life into the practical. I will successfully struggle to realize the sublime ideal of my beloved prophet. I will live pure life-Zoroastrian life, that thy life may pervade my inner life-Spenta Mainyu, thou Good Spirit of Ahura Mazda.
This page was last updated on Tuesday, August 01, 2000.