Let me hunger and thirst for goodness, Ahura Mazda

Let me, all along my life, see with my eyes what is good. Let me hear with my ears what is good. Let me love with my heart what is good. Let me do with my spirit what is good. Let me work and further all that is good. Let me never be ungrateful. Let me repay my neighbor's goodness with greater goodness.

Let not evil thoughts and vulgar feelings and mean inclinations that mar goodness, lodge in my heart. Let me forget the wrong anyone has done to me. Let me brood not envy against him. Let emulation swallow up envy. Ere I valiantly wrestle and fight evil without, let me fight it and drive it out from within my heart and foster goodness instead.

Man has an inborn capacity to grow in goodness. The creator has given him power to bend nature to his will. So has he endowed him with strength to subdue and conquer evil.

Angra Mainyu, the father of evil, lies ambushed to fall upon me, to force me to leave the path of goodness. I will stand not for surrender and defeat, but for struggle and fight and win my victory over him. I will meet the enemy of my goodness with steadfast face and fight him down with all my might.

Greatness of man fades to a shadow. Goodness never dies. When the mortal body lies cold in death, as if it had never been alive, goodness lives with man till his life upon earth ends and survives his bodily death. When the spirit hovers between life and death, the heavenly hosts, drawn by the goodness of his life, come flying to welcome him to the abode of the good.

As the shepherd leads his flock to pasture, thou Ahura Mazda, dost guide me on the field of my life where goodness grows. I will plant the seeds of goodness in the depth of furrows that I will dig in the soil of my heart, that the tree of my life may blossom into fragrant flowers of goodness.

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