Bhagavad Gita 16.22

etair vimuktaḥ kaunteya

tamo-dvārais tribhir naraḥ

ācaraty ātmanaḥ śreyas

tato yāti parāṁ gatim

 

Freed from these three gates dark and dire,

Desire, anger, greed—the triple fire;

One acts for the soul’s elevation,

And reaches the supreme destination.

 

My dear Lord, my inner demons of lust, anger, and greed delude me into using my own energies and resources to feed and fatten themselves, even when that destroys my soul—my capacity and tendency for spiritual awareness.

O all-seeing Lord, help me see how those inner demons hijack all three of my key weapons in my inner war: my experience and whatever I have learned from it; my intelligence and whatever I can learn with it; and my transcendence, which is the source of my capacity to learn and the destination about which I most need to learn.

O omnipotent Lord, please educate me so I can analyze my experience, activate my intelligence, and become aware of my transcendence as your pure and precious part. Through such analysis of experience, activation of intelligence, and awareness of transcendence, may I become determined to fight off the spells of my inner demons. Help me to absorb myself in remembering you and serving you, for that is the best nourishment for my soul and the strongest protection from the insidious and vicious spells of my inner demons.

O merciful Lord, let my experience, intelligence, and transcendence all prompt and propel me to your shelter. May that foundational good choice enable me to make other good choices for navigating both my inner world and my outer world, so I may ultimately reach you—steadily, smoothly, and swiftly.

***

16.22 The man who has escaped these three gates of hell, O son of Kuntī, performs acts conducive to self-realization and thus gradually attains the supreme destination.