Knowledge Illumines My Understanding

It is wise for me to confess my ignorance. Successful struggle with ignorance gives me knowledge. Let me close my mind to all outside hinderance and interruption. Let me read to think. Let me be a thinker and a serious thinker. Let me never be content with what I know. Let me never rest. Let me ever be on the march on the path of knowledge. Let me ever be a seeker of knowledge. Let my heart ache to know.

Let me cast away the heavy clouds of doubt. Let me doubt, but doubt to inquire and ascertain and to acquire subsequent certitude. Unlimited is the capacity for the growth of my mental faculties. Let me digest and assimilate the subjects of my study. Let me not cram books. Let me think out everything for myself. Let me find out everything for myself. Let me see everything for myself.

Receptive and retentative memory that gathers information and mechanically retails it when required is not knowledge. Let nothing paralyse and deaden my mental faculties. Let nothing blight my mental growth, but foster it and develop it.

Let not my imagination run away with me. Help me to differentiate fiction from facts. Help me to distinguish dreams from realities. Let not my intellect be led astray by credulous reasoning. Let me think out the end before I begin. Let me have the vision of the completed whole. Help me to dress my thoughts and to give expression to them in as perfect and inspiring language as possible, Ahura Mazda!