In a war, fighters need to be alert and equipped, for one false move can spell disaster. Those who are casual on a battlefield are unwittingly being suicidal.

When we strive to grow spiritually by leading a principle-centered life, we enter into a war against the forces of illusion that attack us in the form of our lower desires. In this war, the Bhagavad-gita (03.39) cautions that our lower desires are enemies who cover our knowledge of who we are and what is beneficial for us. Being thus stupefied, we forget that we are fighting a war and get attracted to alluring sense objects thinking that they will give us pleasure. In pursuing those pleasures, we soon abandon our dignity, our rationality, our morality, our humanity and our spirituality. To be alert to this danger means to remember that sensual desires that allure us with promises of pleasure are our enemies.

However, just the alertness to live purely is not enough for us, just as the alertness to fight and win is not enough for warriors; they need to be equipped too. Similarly, we too need to be equipped with the weapon of remembrance of Krishna, for that remembrance grants us higher intelligence and higher taste.

To be casual means to not be alert or to not be equipped. When we stay alert, we monitor the desires rising in our consciousness. When we stay equipped, we see remembrance of Krishna not as a cultural obligation or a social preference, but as a spiritual survival necessity.

If we thus practice bhakti alertly and resourcefully, using our intelligence to situate ourselves in Krishna, we will not just stay safe in our spiritual war; we will also beat back our lower desires and march towards the victory of eternal ecstatic absorption in Krishna.

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