Mysteries of the soul week 8: Conveying the eightfold path
Spiritual text: The Gatha’s of Zarathustra, Yasna 50
On whom can I count for help?
On whom can I depend to protect my possessions?
On whom but on your truth, and on yourself, o Lord,
when invoked with the enlightened mind!
Tell me, o Lord, how should they act and work who care for this joy-giving world with its pastures? Living upright lives under the recurring splendour of the sun, apart from the repudiators, living ordered lives in harmony with the law of truth, these shall reap the blessed reward!
The resolute one who moved by the principles of your faith, extends the prosperity of order to his neighbours, and works the land the evil now hold desolate, earns through righteousness, the blessed recompense your good mind has promised in your kingdom of heaven.
With truth moving my heart, with best thought inspiring my mind, with all the might of spiritual force within me, I venerate you, o Lord, with songs of your praise! And at the last, when I shall stand at your gate, I shall hear the echo of my prayers from your abode of songs.
To your prophet inspired by your truth, o Lord, to your prophet revealing your message in hymns. You come with your grace, o Lord! You give him your hand of manifest help, that he may bring enlightenment and bliss. As I lift my voice in songs of your veneration, actuated by truth to direct my speech to the right path of wisdom; give to me, o Lord, the inspiration of the good mind to enunciate your ordinance.
Yoked are the ardent steeds of your veneration, as we approach your realm, o Lord, come, great power, unto me with your spirit of truth and your good mind. Hasten thus unto my help! Singing hymns of your praise, o Lord, and with hands outstretched I shall approach you. In adoration, with enlightenment from truth and the good mind I shall verily reach your presence, o Lord!
With these hymns shall I come to you, o Lord! To your truth, aided by the deeds of the good mind, seeking earnestly the reward of the beneficent, and receiving it, I shall be master of my own destiny. The good deeds that we shall perform as those we have performed, the things that are precious to the eye illumined by the good-mind,
The radiance of the sun shimmering down which heralds the day, They all, in accord with truth, testify to your glory, o Lord! The poet of your praise, I call myself, o Lord! And so shall I remain, o truth, as long as my power lasts. Let the world-creator help me through the good mind, through his grace. Let that be done which shall most promote the great cause!