Suppose a warrior is being attacked by an enemy who is charging in with an upraised sword. But before the enemy comes close enough to bring the sword down, suppose the warrior shoots an arrow and cuts off the aggressor’s hand. With the enemy thus dismembered, the warrior can not only survive, but also win.

When we practice spiritual life, we enter into a war against illusion. The Bhagavad-gita (16.21) refers to the selfish drives of lust, anger and greed – the three primary forms of illusion – as destroyers of the soul. Illusion makes us forget our spiritual identity as souls, eternal parts of Krishna. It brings about that forgetfulness by riveting our vision to worldly pleasures. When illusion captivates us, we end up deprived of devotional happiness and spiritually wounded. Craving and slaving for fleeting pleasures, we stay suffering in material existence. Illusion attacks primarily by charging into our consciousness with the misconception that our longing for happiness can be fulfilled by worldly objects.

The best way to counter illusion is to absorb ourselves in Krishna. When we remember him, we dismember illusion. How? Remembrance of Krishna provides a higher happiness that makes lower pleasures unappealing or at least resistible. And since illusion’s attack centers on its promise of pleasure, when the pleasure is exposed as unpromising, that’s like cutting off the arm of illusion, the arm that was just about to attack our intelligence and integrity.

Initially, we may not find remembrance of Krishna relishable. But if we cultivate his remembrance as a discipline, the mind will slowly start realizing that such remembrance is far more fulfilling than whatever it may have been fantasizing as pleasurable. When the mind accepts this realization, it becomes peaceful in remembering Krishna, thereby enabling us to relish that remembrance as joyful, supremely joyful.

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