Give Me Bodily Health, I Pray

[otw_shortcode_info_box border_style=”bordered” css_class=”boxed”]Start your weekend with positive vibes with inspirational excerpts from the acclaimed book,  ‘Homage Unto Ahura Mazda’ by Dasturji Dr. Maneckji Naserwanji Dhalla of Karachi.[/otw_shortcode_info_box]

Health is happiness. It is the greatest blessing of life. With health, life has everything, without it, it has nothing. Health is the richest possession of man upon Earth. Blank and empty is life when it is bereft of health. Dead is the joy in life, where health is lacking. Nor birth, nor wealth, nor rank, nor power, aught avails, if Thy Airyaman withholds health from man, Ahura Mazda. Everything is naught, where health is not.

Man appreciates not things that providence showers upon him unsought and in plenty. He values it at its proper worth, when he loses it awhile. When health fails man, and the body fails to do his bidding, life becomes tasteless and tedious to him and depression of spirit hangs over him. Then on his bed of sickness, he curses his existence and yearns for health.

Keep me healthy and sound and strong in body to the day of my death, Ahura Mazda. When old age creeps on me and health begins to fail, I will hourly pray unto Thee to give me the soundness and strength of the body that once were mine, even as Rustom, the rider of matchless Rakhsh, prayed unto Thee in the hour of his need to give him back the strength, from the surfeit of which he had suffered in his youth and from which Thou hadst relieved him at his prayerful request.

Health gives liveliness and cheerfulness, super-abundant energy and exuberant optimism. Give me soundness and vigour and agility of body to work strenuously for the furtherance of good and to carry on a vigorous warfare against evil. Give me, I beseech Thee, O Giver of health, a healthy body to nurture a healthy mind to enable me to lead an active and industrious Zoroastrian life in the discharge of my life’s duties.