Temptation can knock us down, but it can’t knock us out byChaitanya Charan Das Based on Bhagavad Gita Chapter 09
In a boxing match, a boxer may be knocked down, but only
when the fallen player fails to rise does the knock down become a knock out.
We are all engaged in a match with temptation, which
sometimes gains an upper hand and with a sudden sweeping punch knocks us down.
It devastates our intellectual defenses, decimates our determination and drags
us down to activities that go against our ethical and spiritual principles.
Such a knock down can be disheartening.
But we can take heart from the fact that it’s only a knock
down, not a knock out. No matter how badly we fall, we always have the power to
rise. Nothing can make us stay fallen unless we lose the will to rise. But once
we lose the will to fight, just a small push, that would otherwise have not
even shaken us, can knock us not only down, but also out. Thus the result of
our match against temptation is determined far more by the presence or absence
of our own will to fight than by the presence or absence of a formidable
temptation.
Just as a boxer when squaring up against a fearsome-looking
opponent needs the morale-boosting encouragement of a competent coach, we need
when dealing with irresistible-seeming temptation the encouragement of the
ultimate coach Krishna. He declares in the Bhagavad-gita (09.30) that even
those who slip into sin are to be seen as saintly because their heart is in the
right place; so, they will soon become virtuous (09.31). This declaration
assures us that no wrongdoing, however grievous, can ever stop Krishna from
loving us. Nothing that we do will make Krishna leave our heart and go away
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