“Let my awareness of inner danger drive me toward you, my ultimate protector.”

By Caitanya Carana Dasa

Bhagavad-gita 3.36

arjuna uvaca

atha kena prayukto ’yam

papam carati purushah

anicchann api varshneya

balad iva niyojitah

Arjuna said: “What is this force that drives us so,

Compelling us toward sin and woe?

Even unwilling, we’re drawn astray,

As if seized by power, beyond our sway.”

My merciful Lord, many are the moments in my life when I am forced to acknowledge that there is some force beyond me—mighty and malevolent—that takes control of my life. It impels me to act in ways that are not just different from, but also often utterly contradictory to, the values that I hold sacred.

There are times when I act as if I don’t care for you—for your existence, your will, your pleasure.

Even if I deny the existence and prominence of your divinity, I cannot deny the existence and malevolence of this destructive force. Indeed, almost every day, and sometimes many times within a single day, my own actions serve as evidence of the presence and power of this mighty enemy.

Please, O Lord, bless me so that I can become more conscious of this invisible danger. Let me be driven, out of necessity for survival and self-protection, to become ever more conscious of you—who alone are my ultimate protector from this inner danger.

Protect me from the desire that makes me reject the boundaries that protect me.

Bhagavad-gita 3.37

sri-bhagavan uvaca

kama esha krodha esha

rajo-guna-samudbhavah

mahasano maha-papma

viddhy enam iha vairinam

“It is desire that turns into a relentless rage,

Born of passion, it sees dharma’s boundaries as a cage.

All-devouring, shamelessly sinful, a fearsome foe to beware,

Know it as the enemy lurking everywhere.”

My dear Lord, there exists inside me an enemy that wants to destroy me from within. Identifying this enemy correctly is essential if I am to survive and thrive.

Sometimes, I mistake this inner enemy to be desire itself and attempt to annihilate all desire. That is like trying to destroy every single citizen of a country just because some terrorists have come from that country. At other times, I blindly follow every desire inside me, thinking that they are all my desires. That is like embracing everyone in a hostile country as if they were my closest friends.

You, my Lord, help me discern what exactly is my enemy. It is not desire per se, but desire that rages against the boundaries of dharma. It is desire that resents and rejects the boundaries of basic morality, human decency, and spiritually informed rationality.

I may not always be able to free myself from this destructive desire inside me. But bless me, O Lord, so that I can at least recognize it as destructive. Bless me with intelligence so that I can see as a warning sign any desire that pushes against or breaks down the boundaries that are meant to protect me.

By studying your message and living in the community of those who respect the boundaries you recommend, bless me, O Lord, with the strength to uphold the boundaries that will protect me from my inner destroyer.

Help me to stay on guard, O Lord, whatever be the enemy’s garb

Bhagavad-gita 3.38

dhumenavriyate vahnir

yathadarso malena ca

yatholbenavrito garbhas

tatha tenedam avritam

“As fire is covered by rising smoke,

As dust on a mirror acts like a cloak,

As the womb keeps unknown the life that is within,

So is wisdom lost to the desire that drives us to sin.”

My dear Lord, what makes the inner enemy of destructive desire so difficult to deal with is that it comes in different garbs and seems threatening to different degrees at different times.

When my craving is just like smoke around the fire, I can notice its presence, and I feel that I can deal with it.

When it is like a layer of dust covering a mirror, I don’t even realize that it has obscured me because I tend to forget, at least temporarily, that there is a “me” that is different from the superficial and carnal desires driving me.

And when desire becomes like a womb covering the life within, I am so lost—buried deep under layers of desires—that it takes a long time for me to even remember that there is a spiritual essence to me, let alone recover that essence.

Please, O Lord, let me stay alert, let me not lower my guard ever. By remembering that, at any moment, I can get so caught that I may not even realize I am caught. Bless me, O Lord, to remember your words of warning and, more importantly, your words of the spiritual joy that awaits me if I can be free from this morbid desire.

I beg you, O Lord, let your words stay alive within me, for that is what will keep me alive, even while this deadly enemy is still alive within me.

Help me, O Lord, to remember how temptation is treacherous.

Bhagavad-gita 3.39

avritam jïanam etena

jïanino nitya-vairina

kama-rupena kaunteya

dushpurenanalena ca

“Covered is wisdom by this eternal foe,

Desire which tends to endlessly grow.

Like a ferocious fire, unhinged and untamed,

It burns insatiable, never ready to be restrained.”

My dear Lord, please help me understand that the things that tempt me away from you are not just an illusion or even a dangerous delusion. They are a dangerous and treacherous illusion.

The craving for such things burns within my heart like a fire, but it is unlike any other fire. Normally, when a fire burns severely, I reflexively move away from it. But this is a fire that draws me closer to it the more it burns. And I go closer, not as a firefighter to extinguish it, but as a deluded arsonist—setting my own life on fire.

Indulgence seems to temporarily extinguish the fire, but the relief from the craving lasts only for a brief while. And then, the craving returns, with indulgence being the fuel that feeds it. I have experienced how insignificant cravings, because of indiscriminate indulgence, end up becoming irresistible.

This craving is so fearfully insane that it makes me disbelieve not just the words of wisdom I hear from you and those devoted to you, but also my own past experiences. It blinds me to the numerous times I have personally realized the futility and folly of such indulgence.

I beg you, O Lord, help me remember the deceptiveness of worldly desire. And more importantly, let me remember the mercifulness of your heart. Only by these two remembrances can I stay safe in this temptation-filled world.

Make me, my Lord, sufficiently self-aware and strong to combat the inner enemy.

Bhagavad-gita 3.40

indriyani mano buddhir

asyadhishthanam ucyate

etair vimohayaty esha

jïanam avritya dehinam

“The senses, the mind, the intelligence—

These all are lust’s potential residence.

From there, it deludes, casting wisdom aside,

Throws the soul into ignorance, deep and wide.”

My dear Lord, a standard deceptive trick in war is misdirection—misleading the enemy into concentrating forces on one front while the main attack happens on another. Similarly, my Lord, the forces of illusion mislead me by making me believe that the enemy lies outside, in the form of sense objects that trigger sensual desire within me.

Please, O Lord, help me develop the humility to look inward and understand that the enemy has made hideouts and possibly even strongholds within my senses, my mind, and my intelligence. I can detect the presence of the enemy in my senses when they are physically activated by desire. I can detect the presence of the enemy in my mind when it starts playing and replaying fantasies of indulgence. And I can detect the presence of the enemy in my intelligence when it starts coming up with rationalizations to make acceptable indulgences that violate the standards I have chosen as sacred and non-negotiable.

Please, O Lord, help me become more self-aware so that I can detect the activation of the enemy within me—whether in my senses, mind, or intelligence. More importantly, bless me to be conscious of you, so that by the devotional strength of remembering you and your purpose for my life, I can reject the propositions made by the enemy inside me.

Help me, my Lord, to see boundaries as valuable aids in the war against self-destructive desire.

Bhagavad-gita 3.41

tasmat tvam indriyany adau

niyamya bharatarshabha

papmanam prajahi hy enam

jïana-vijïana-nasanam

“Therefore, right in the beginning,

It is the senses that need disciplining.

Only then can you bring about the destruction,

Of the vicious enemy that devours knowledge and realization.”

My dear Lord, in the war against self-destructive desire, please give me the strength to enforce boundaries on my physical indulgence. Without such boundaries, trying to protect my consciousness is like trying to protect a country that has no clearly defined borders.

Regulating the senses according to a carefully contemplated standard—be it scriptural, cultural, legal, or personal—gives me an objective parameter to understand how I am faring in this war—just as knowing where the border is enables the defending army to understand whether they are winning or losing the war.

Help me, my Lord, to approach standards for self-discipline positively. Let me not dread them as things that make me feel guilty for not being able to live up to them; let me instead cherish them as valuable visible markers in what is largely an invisible war against an invisible enemy.

Please, my Lord, bless me so that even when I feel agitated internally, I can still restrain myself from succumbing physically. Every physical indulgence creates a deeper mental impression, which is akin to a severe wound in a warrior. And each time physical indulgence is avoided, let me see that as a gain, akin to a warrior dodging a deadly attack from a fierce enemy.

Help me, my Lord, to become resourceful in defending my boundaries and grateful to you for every successful defense of my boundaries.

Help me, my Lord, to escalate appropriately my defence strategy in the war against temptation.

Bhagavad-gita 3.42

indriyani parany ahur

indriyebhyah param manah

manasas tu para buddhir

yo buddheh paratas tu sah

“The senses are powerful, the scriptures say,

Beyond them, the mind holds greater sway.

Higher than mind is reason’s might,

Yet beyond them all shines the soul’s true light.”

My dear Lord, in my war against temptation, please let me be on guard to ensure that the inner enemy doesn’t penetrate to the top levels of my inner defence establishment and destroy me with an inside-out top-down sabotage.

My mind is higher than my senses in my defence establishment because it can fabricate graphic sensual fantasies that can impel me to violate my sensory boundaries from within. That is like a person inside the defending territory opening the gates for the enemy to come in. Bless me, O Lord, to keep my mind absorbed in you, leaving it no idle time for sensual fantasizing.

Higher in my inner defence establishment than the mind is the intelligence because its rationalizations can end up perverting my sense perceptions. That is like the top military commander convincing the boundary guards that the invaders are friends. Bless me, O Lord, so that my intelligence is guided and guarded by your words of wisdom.

Beyond intelligence is the soul itself, which is the source of my consciousness and free will. Bless me, O Lord, to activate my soul with spiritual desires—to realize its divinity as a part of you and to relish spiritual happiness in connection with you. And bless me, my Lord, to ensure that all subordinate faculties—intelligence, mind, and senses—align harmoniously with the soul’s healthy intention.

Bless me, my Lord, so that I reclaim the power of desire and direct it spiritually instead sensually.

Bhagavad-gita 3.43

evam buddheh param buddhva

samstabhyatmanam atmana

jahi satrum maha-baho

kama-rupam durasadam

“Thus, knowing with your intelligence that the soul is transcendental,

Situate your consciousness steadily on the level that is spiritual.

Conquer, O mighty-armed one, this fearsome foe,

In the form of desire, so deadly, so difficult to overthrow.”

My dear Lord, desire is a formidable force within me that can be used for both good and bad. Presently, this force has largely been conscripted by materialism and is being used in ways that take me away from my spiritual nature—even from the awareness of my spiritual nature. Bless me, my Lord, so that I can regain control of this foundational resource and use it to come closer to you, not go further away from you.

O Lord, help me to realize that you are supremely desirable and that desiring you is my supremely desirable desire. I beg you, my Lord, let these twin understandings empower my intelligence in consciously choosing and cultivating the desires that draw me toward you, so that they become fueled and fortified.

This understanding, my Lord, can change my entire vision of the inner war. Rather than feeling that I have to give up desire and pleasure to win this war, I will realize that what I truly need to give up is only the desire that takes me away from pleasure.

This conviction—that fighting the war against temptation is not about depriving myself, but about ending the control of the things that are depriving me—is the transformational game-changer. It can infuse me with immense energy to persevere until victory comes by your merciful grace, my Lord.

Caitanya Carana Dasa is the associate-editor of Back to Godhead (US and Indian editions). To read his daily Bhagavad-gita reflections, please subscribe to Gitadaily on his website, thespiritualscientist.com.