Bhagavad Gita 7.13

tribhir guṇamayair bhāvair

ebhiḥ sarvam idaṁ jagat

mohitaṁ nābhijānāti

mām ebhyaḥ param avyayam

 

By nature’s modes, the world is bound.

In countless illusions, all are drowned.

Thus deluded, they just cannot see

That I stand beyond—forever free.

 

Please make me immune to the illusion that I am immune to illusion.

The illusion of this world is pervasive, aggressive and destructive. So many times, my Lord, I have fallen to temptation—helplessly, shamefully, disastrously.

Despite having first-hand experience of how deadly illusion can be, I haven’t learned my lesson about its dangerousness.
O merciful Lord, I remain vulnerable to illusion—
because of its most fearsome power: it makes me forget how fearsome it truly is.

If I am able to resist a temptation for a short while, I foolishly start believing that I have become immune to it, that I have developed so much self-control that I will not fall again.
This, O Lord, makes me complacent.
Even if not brazenly reckless, I become subtly reckless—
not defiant, but nonchalant.
Be it due to defiance or nonchalance, I end up succumbing to temptation. Yet again.

Bless me, my Lord, so that I stay forever humble, knowing my vulnerability. May this humility direct my heart toward you, who alone are forever free from the power of illusion, being its source and controller. Let me thus stay firm in holding on to you—who are my only ultimate saviour from illusion.

***

07.13 Deluded by the three modes [goodness, passion and ignorance], the whole world does not know Me, who am above the modes and inexhaustible.