Don’t give your enemies weapons to beat you with Gita 03.36

Weapons to beat you with we all are in an inner war and many of the dynamics of this inner war are similar to an outer war somebody may be on the right side but if they don't have the right weapons if the evil side has the better weapons then the the morality alone does not determine the result the weaponry also does so if the if the evil side has better weapons then no matter what the right side does still they will be overcome so similarly say one side has got simple rifles the other side has got machine guns then they will be the right side no matter whatever they do they'll get overcome they'll be wounded they'll be slaughtered they'll be overpowered so normally soldiers when a war field they hold on to their weapons as much as they hold on to their life because they know that the moment we lose our weapons we lose our life now what soldier would actually give their own weapons to their enemy if they give weapons to the enemy that would be over that would be literally like committing suicide and it would not only be stupidity it would be it would be a tragedy of monstrous proportions so practically no soldier would do that unless that soldier were a were a traitor who had been bribed by the enemy and sometimes the soldier is promised that you know you give your weapon to us or you you hand over the key of your army's weaponry to us and then we will make you when we win the war we'll make you a general but when they win the war instead of making that soldier or that particular warrior the general or the king or the head whatever they slaughter him also because often war is not fought on moral grounds it's not fought using moral votes that the that's the sad reality now in our inner war the forces of illusion they attack us through our mind our senses and even our intelligence so krishna speaks over here that these are situated the senses the mind and the intelligence so then what how do we translate kama how do we what how do we deal with it so i see the desire that is present within us this selfish desire kama kama is not is this selfish desire is uh is uh it is not just lust it can be anger it can be greed they all grow they are all variants of the same the variant expressions of the same force of illusion and now when these desires come and they start overcome when we need to resist them we have our intelligence we have our intelligence can be overcome by illusion but our intelligence can also be the the pathway to illumination we are conscious our sense of right and wrong and as we move on we start thinking deeper and deeper about higher realities in life so the more we in fact guess we study gita wisdom say the more our consciousness gets a vision of the higher realms of existence and the higher possibilities for ascent of consciousness for finding deeper meaning for finding greater fulfillment but the forces of illusion they they hold us down they fight they want to not only keep us down they want to push us down further to degrade us now when we are fighting against the forces of illusion um the force within they they have their weapons by which they attack and actually temptation is the primary weapon with which they attack temptation is here in this case means the promise of pleasure and so when we see some food object it promises us some pleasure and now when we get caught in the promise of the pleasure then we can't move forward because because we are all innately pleasure seeking and we want pleasure somewhere or the other if we don't get it in one place we look for it in some other place now where we look for pleasure is determined by the state of our by this by the default state of our consciousness we could say the impressions in our consciousness and the say if person is alcoholic they've indulged in alcohol repeatedly there are many impressions of alcoholism within them then the default state of consciousness is that whenever they need pleasure they will immediately think about alcohol so in this way so we all have certain impressions which impel us towards seeking pleasure in particular ways and that is something which we cannot change we cannot change means that we need to know that at our level of consciousness that at our level of reality it's almost impossible to automatically perceive any other pleasure apart from what is default at our level of consciousness that's why if we don't if we have to fight so the default moment of our consciousness towards particular objects of attachment towards seeking pleasure through those objects and the strength of those impressions will determine their the strength of that moment the rapidity of the moment the ferocity of that moment the frequency of that moment of consciousness it's like when Krishna says waves can carry away a boat now how how rapidly the waves come how ferociously the waves come rapidities in the same affairs where speed ferocities in terms of force the rapidity ferocity and frequency of the waves all that is going to determine whether we get elevated or we get degrade whether we can resist or we can't resist and how much to what extent can we resist so when so when we are fighting against temptation if we if we strengthen those impressions further that means that we can do the things that make the impression stronger say either by recollecting those impressions again and again and again or by indulging in them again and again and again either way we end up either way either way we end up creating illusion for ourselves either way we end up disrupting we make a we make it much more difficult for ourselves to resist the waves of temptations that are going to come in our consciousness so in a sense whenever we strengthen the impressions either by recollecting the past impressions of indulgence or by exposing ourselves to new objects of indulgence in either way we are actually strengthening those strengthening those impressions and that means that is like giving weapons to our enemies and once we give weapons to our enemies they are going to attack us they are going to butcher us they are really going to make our life miserable if at all they allow us to live so if we understand this that in this world selfish desires Krishna says is our enemy Kameshwa Krodheshwa Rajoguda Samudbhava Mahashanomahapatma Vidyanamihavairinam so once we understand that these weapons are our enemies and that we need to be extra careful that we don't succumb to those weapons then we will do what it takes to protect ourselves we'll do what it takes to raise our consciousness upwards and to move towards Krishna and to ultimately attain Krishna to instead of letting those mundane impressions get these sensual impressions getting stronger we will try to make a devotional impression stronger because if the devotional impressions are stronger stronger they become the devotional thoughts and the devotional direction of our consciousness will become stronger and stronger and when that happens then marching towards Krishna will become easier and easier because then the waves will rise which will push us towards Krishna so by meditating on the reality and the gravity of inner war we can can become more conscientious in the in selecting the kind of impressions that we that we expose ourselves to and that we activate within ourselves exposed by perception or activate by recollection we make both these impressions as spiritual as possible as devotional as possible then we are instead of giving our enemies weapons to beat us with we are giving ourselves better weapons to beat the enemy with thank you.