Bhagavad Gita 3.37

śrī-bhagavān uvāca

kāma eṣa krodha eṣa

rajo-guṇa-samudbhavaḥ

mahāśano mahā-pāpmā

viddhy enam iha vairiṇam

 

“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.

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03.37 The Supreme Personality of Godhead said: It is lust only, Arjuna, which is born of contact with the material mode of passion and later transformed into wrath, and which is the all-devouring sinful enemy of this world.