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Let me rise with the dawn. Let me cleanse my body with the purifying waters of Ardvi Sura and purify my spirit with prayer and be ready for my daily tasks before the rising sun calls me to duty. Let me not waste my precious early hours in drowsiness. I turn in my bed a dozen times. Each time I try to leave it, each time, with renewed fondness, I hug it again. In vain then later in the day, I run to overtake the time that is lost. Defeated I return from the chase.
Every morning and evening I pray for long life. But I forget that I have it in my power to win longevity of life for me, if I but rise early instead of sleeping away my priceless early morning hours. Thus can I easily gain a couple of hours a day and live full five and seventy years and more in my life of three scores and ten.
Most splendid are the glories of nature at dawn. And at no hour of the day or night, is nature so charming and sweet, fragrant and refreshing, invigorating and inspiring, as when the shining Ushah, borne in her brilliant chariot drawn by four ruddy steeds comes upon the earth and awakens all.
Let me not shorten the short span of my life by sleeping longer than my physical nature demands. Let me not be in bed when the vigilant watchman of the night is out to put out the dying night’s flickering candles hanging’ in the sky above. Let me not shame my manhood by lolling and lounging in bed, when the cocks in the neighbourhood are crowing to one another, when the wide awake cattle, eager to be let out from their stalls, are lowing, and the birds are filling the air with their sweet carols to proclaim the dawning of the day.
At dawn when the mind is fresh and receptive and troubled not by distractions that the day’s diverse duties bring, I shall spend an hour in quiet, alone with Thee, and commune with Thee and lay out the plan of my work of the day that is dawning, under Thy guidance and inspiration, Ahura Mazda!