Suppose a person has a treasure kept in a high-security area. But if a thief sneaks in and if the owner is not vigilant, the treasure will soon be plundered. 

Our consciousness is like a high-security area wherein lies the treasure of our spiritual potential: our capacity to enquire about life’s spiritual side and to ultimately relish life and love eternal. But within our consciousness, impurity often sneaks in to strip us of our spiritual potential by drowning us in materialistic consciousness. 

Alerting us to the danger in our consciousness, the Bhagavad-gita (03.37) stresses that our greatest enemy lies not outside, but inside us — in the self-destructive desires within our heart. To deal with this deadly enemy, we need three layers of vigilance. 

Impurity needs to be feared before it can be found: When we understand how deadly our enemy is, how much suffering we may be subjected to if we get caught by it, then we start having a healthy fear for it. Only with that fear will we check for it constantly and eventually detect it. 

Impurity needs to be found before it can be fought: Only when we find the modus operandi of impurity can we make effective strategies for countering it. Even if we are armed, if we don’t know where an enemy is, we can’t attack them. 

Impurity needs to be fought before it can be finished: Just because we are fighting doesn’t guarantee we will be winning. But if we are not fighting against an enemy that is advancing against us, our defeat is guaranteed. Once we start fighting against impurity by connecting with the all-pure divinity indwelling within us, we can gradually progress toward the inner purity that bestows unshakeable peace and unending pleasure 

 

Think it over:

  • How can impurity be feared?
  • How can impurity be found?
  • How can impurity be fought?

 

***

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.

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