In a series of matches, a team may have won a match yesterday, but that victory doesn’t guarantee victory today. True, the previous win can boost confidence and provide a winning momentum, but all that should inspire performance today – otherwise, it will amount to nothing.

Similarly when we strive to live spiritually, we enter into a battle against our lower desires. Sometimes, when such desires attack us fiercely, we by absorbing ourselves in Krishna ward off their attacks. Such a victory against temptation is laudable, but it is not decisive – yesterday’s victory doesn’t guarantee our protection today. The Bhagavad-gita (02.60) cautions us that even if we are discerning and endeavoring, still we can be dragged down by selfish desires at any time. Each day we begin a fresh battle against temptation, and each day we need to fight to keep ourselves absorbed in Krishna, which is the best way to gain the higher taste that makes resisting the lure of temptation easier.

The prospect of an unremitting lifelong war may seem daunting, but it can be uplifting if we shift our focus from the fighting to the strategy we need to adopt for winning: absorb ourselves in Krishna. After all, our purpose is not merely to defeat temptation but to become purely and perennially devoted to Krishna. So, whenever we are able to win over temptation by absorbing ourselves in Krishna, we can take that victory not as a premature proof that we have transcended temptation, but as tangible evidence that we do have the devotional firepower – remembrance of Krishna – necessary to transcend temptation.

And remembrance of Krishna is fulfilling – and it becomes increasingly fulfilling as our devotion for him progresses, thereby minimizing the labor necessary to fix our consciousness on him and maximizing our capacity to relish the sublime taste of remembering him.

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