When people fall to vice, they often explain it as “just a moment of weakness.” 

Let’s evaluate this explanation. We all are finite and fallible beings with moral flaws — so, we can certainly have moments of weakness. And if we are unfortunate enough to confront some temptation in those moments, we may be overcome. Still, moments of weakness are just that: weak. This means that though such moments may undermine our defenses, the damage they can cause is limited; they can’t make us unlearn all that we had learnt about defending ourselves from vice. 

For example, if a person is normally sober and responsible, they may drink excessively during a moment of weakness. But such drinking during a moment of weakness won’t make them an alcoholic. If they end up becoming one, that will be because of many, many moments of weakness: moments that didn’t just come circumstantially upon them, but moments that they allowed, welcomed, even sought — till the resulting momentum went out of their control.

Let’s see how. After a few moments of weakness and the indulgence therein, they would have become aware of where their actions were taking them. But they foolishly neglected those warning signs, imagining that they could and would stop themselves before they went too far. Or they deceptively hid those signs from others so that they wouldn’t be chided or held accountable. Over time, such foolishness and deceptiveness acquired a momentum of its own — a momentum that drags them to the level of drinking compulsively. Being propelled by that momentum, they end up drinking compulsively, as if against their will — they become addicts. Pertinently, the Bhagavad-gita warns about such self-deception and deception, indicating that it leads one eventually to self-destruction (03.06).

One-sentence summary: 

Vice traps us not because of a moment of weakness, but because we let many moments of weakness accumulate into a momentum of foolishness and deceptiveness.

Think it over: 

  • How are moments of weakness weak?
  • What entraps us in vice? 
  • Are you letting moments of weakness accumulate into something worse? How can you put a stop to that? 

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03.36: Arjuna said: O descendant of Vrishni, by what is one impelled to sinful acts, even unwillingly, as if engaged by force?

What moments of weakness can do — and what they can’t do

To know more about this verse, please click on the image