Bhagavad Gita 18.59

yad ahaṅkāram āśritya

na yotsya iti manyase

mithyaiṣa vyavasāyas te

prakṛtis tvāṁ niyokṣyati

If, clinging to ego, you think, “I won’t fight,”

That resolution of yours is bereft of sight;

For your own nature will summon you still,

And press you onward against your will.

My dear Lord, perhaps the most sinister way the forces of illusion keep me in their clutches is by making me believe that I am exercising my freedom when I am merely acting according to their inducements.

O omnipotent Lord, as long as I exist in this material world, I remain within the gravitational pull of those forces. When I fall for some illusion, especially a subtle one, my external actions may not degrade or even deviate significantly in moral terms, but my mental conceptions start becoming distorted—slowly, yet significantly.

O omniscient Lord, help me become prescient enough to recognize that whenever I seek to do my own will—especially in negligence of, or worse, in defiance of your words—I am being impelled by my material conditioning, through which the forces of illusion seduce and sedate me. The seduction by rajas pulls me down, and the sedation by tamas pulls down the curtain on my awareness that I have been pulled down.

O merciful Lord, please protect me from such seduction by rajas and sedation by tamas. Grant me the firm conviction that you want nothing but my ultimate welfare. Please empower me to use my individuality and initiative in a way that leads to my flourishing now and forever in your service, rather than my perishing for the sake of some perishable pleasure independent of you.

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18.59 If you do not act according to My direction and do not fight, then you will be falsely directed. By your nature, you will have to be engaged in warfare.