If we don’t take a hard look at ourselves, we will soon get a hard knock from ourselves.

We often worry about people who are competitors or even enemies. We know that such people might try to drag us down, maybe even knock us out, and so we remain cautious. But while we may sometimes be overly worried about external enemies, we’re often not worried at all—or worryingly less worried—about the inner enemies that are out to get us.

The Bhagavad Gita (3.39) declares that self-destructive desire (referred to as kama) is an unrelenting enemy, described with the scary epithet mahapapa, meaning “great sinner.” This enemy is always lurking within, waiting to trap or even trample on us. Most of us probably have experience with this enemy sabotaging us—maybe even slaughtering our fondest hopes or holiest values by pushing us into indulgences that later make us hang our heads in shame or shudder in shock.

If we look hard at our regrettable actions, we may find that our inner enemy has misled us before. If we haven’t experienced this yet, we are fortunate, but this does not make us immune. We might still be caught napping and ambushed sometime in the future. Understanding how deadly this inner enemy can be, we can learn to be cautious. Unfortunately, this inner enemy often diverts us and somehow stops us from taking a hard look at ourselves.

Whenever memories of our less-than-praiseworthy actions arise, whether due to external reminders or situational recollections, our inner enemy, situated even in our intelligence as indicated in the very next verse (3.40), quickly minimizes the magnitude of our wrong by generating justifications or trivializations for our misdeeds.

Failure to take a hard look at ourselves sets us up for far greater failures, even disasters. Just as failing to notice the damage caused by an enemy’s past attack allows that enemy to prepare for a similar attack, our inner enemy prepares to trap us again while we remain unprepared or underprepared.

If we don’t take a hard look at ourselves, we end up getting hit by a hard knock—a knock from our own self-destructive impulses, leading to losses in dignity, morality, spirituality, financial security, health, relationships, or whatever we might value.

Introspection—taking a hard look at ourselves—may be challenging because it requires resisting the inner force that distracts our attention. But resisting this inner distractor in the moment is far easier and far cheaper than picking up the pieces after this distractor has acted as a destroyer and wrecked our lives.

Just as we protect ourselves from attacks by outer rivals or enemies, we need to protect ourselves from attacks by inner enemies—the self-destructive cravings and drives within. Though we may have already been targeted and victimized by this enemy in the past, which has led us to embarrassing or even mortifying actions, this same inner force becomes an inner distractor that stops us from taking a hard look at ourselves. As a result, we forget how dangerous this inner enemy has been and can be in the future.

If we don’t resist this inner distractor and take a hard look at ourselves, it will become an inner destroyer and deliver a hard knock from within, which can destroy the things we hold sacred and may even ruin our lives.

Summary:

  • The Bhagavad Gita (3.39) warns that self-destructive desire is an ever-present inner enemy that not only drives us toward harmful actions but also distracts us from honestly examining those actions through rationalization and trivialization.
  • By taking a hard look at ourselves through regular introspection, we can recognize this enemy’s tactics and prepare ourselves against future attacks.
  • If we refuse such self-examination, the inner distractor eventually becomes an inner destroyer, delivering a hard knock that can damage or even ruin the things we value most.

Think it over:

  • Recollect any incident when you did something embarrassing or self-defeating, and notice the rationalizations or trivializations that popped up to downplay or deny the gravity of what you did.
  • Recollect an incident when you observed someone refusing to take a hard look at themselves, and notice how that refusal set them up for a much harder fall later.
  • Make a plan to regularly, say every week, take a hard look at yourself with regard to any self-destructive tendency you know from your past is active within you.

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03.39 Thus the wise living entity’s pure consciousness becomes covered by his eternal enemy in the form of lust, which is never satisfied and which burns like fire.