Whenever we resolve to discipline ourselves for some worthwhile purpose, we will, sooner or later, feel tempted. To deal with such temptation, we need to know the scope of its power.  

What temptation can do: It can coax us. It is like the voice of someone other than us who wants something different from us. But the key difference is that this voice is inside us; it speaks in a voice that sounds like our voice; and it makes us believe that what it wants is what we want. For example, suppose we have resolved to regulate our food intake and avoid untimely snacks. Temptation will whisper from inside us, prompting us to eat something — and eat it immediately. Once we start listening to it, it will prompt us to eat something that is tasty even if it is fatty and unhealthy. 

When temptation can’t do: It can’t coerce us. It can raise its coaxing voice from a seductive whisper to a shrill scream, but it can’t replace us at the driver’s wheel in our decision-making. For example, it can’t take over our body and move our hands, legs and mouth so that we consume some fatty food. Unfortunately, because it is such an insidious inner impersonator, we often don’t even realize that its voice is not our voice, leave alone realize that its proposition doesn’t have to become our intention or our decision. 

Gita wisdom helps us better recognize the difference between temptation’s voice and our voice. How? By reminding us that we are at our core spiritual beings who long for lasting nonmaterial fulfillment, whereas temptation speaks through our mind, which craves for worldly pleasures. When we become situated in self-understanding with spiritual knowledge and spiritual practices, we can detect and resist the voice of temptation, as the Bhagavad-gita recommends (05.23). 

One-sentence summary: 

Temptation can coax, but it can’t coerce — when we understand the limits of its power, especially by cultivating spiritual self-understanding, we can become empowered to say no to it. 

Think it over: 

  • What can temptation do?
  • What can temptation not do?
  • How can we better know and use this difference? 

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05.23: Before giving up this present body, if one is able to tolerate the urges of the material senses and check the force of desire and anger, he is well situated and is happy in this world.

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