Why do we do what we do not want to do?
Most people know this experience: you decide, you resolve, and then you do the opposite. Arjuna puts the question to the Lord in the third chapter: by what is a person impelled to commit wrong, even unwillingly, as if engaged by force? (Gita 3.36)
अथ केन प्रयुक्तोऽयं पापं चरति पूरुषः ।
अनिच्छन्नपि वार्ष्णेय बलादिव नियोजितः ॥ ३.३६ ॥
Arjuna said: By what is a person impelled to commit sin, even unwillingly, O descendant of Vrishni, as if engaged by force?
The answer takes seven verses. In short: the force is desire, with its twin anger, born of passion. It covers knowledge, it is never satisfied, it sits in the senses, mind and intellect, and it is met in order, from the senses up to knowledge of the Self.
We will follow one person through the verses. Dev is a project manager. He knows he should not answer a difficult email in the heat of the moment, and he does. He knows he should not eat at midnight, and he does. A simple reading of the same verses is there for anyone who wants less detail, and From Thought to Ruin shows how the push grows out of what the mind keeps dwelling on.
Why Arjuna asks this now
The question does not come out of nowhere. Just before it, the Lord has said that attraction and aversion lie in the objects of every sense, and that a person should not come under their control, for they are enemies on the path (Gita 3.34). He has also taught that one's own duty, even imperfectly done, is better than another's duty done well (Gita 3.35).
Arjuna hears this and raises the natural objection. If the teaching is so plain, why do people fail to follow it? Everyone who has resolved to do his own work well and not be ruled by likes and dislikes has met the same gap. The eight verses are the Lord's answer to that gap. One's Own Duty studies the teaching on duty that comes just before.
Desire and anger, born of passion
The Lord says that it is desire, it is anger, born of the quality of passion; it is all-devouring and greatly sinful, and one should know it as the enemy here (Gita 3.37).
काम एष क्रोध एष रजोगुणसमुद्भवः ।
महाशनो महापाप्मा विद्ध्येनमिह वैरिणम् ॥ ३.३७ ॥
The Supreme Lord said: It is desire, it is anger, born of the mode of passion, all-devouring and greatly sinful. Know this to be the enemy in this world.
Four points are worth noticing.
First, the Lord says "this". He points at the very thing Arjuna asked about, as if to say, the force you feel is nothing mysterious: it is this wanting, which becomes anger when blocked.
Second, desire and anger are named together. The tradition of the Gita sees them as two faces of one thing, the wanting that asks and the wanting that is refused. The chain from dwelling on an object to ruin (Gita 2.62, Gita 2.63) shows how one turns into the other. The three gates of lust, anger and greed (Gita 16.21) name them again. Both are taken up in the hub on the chain.
Third, the source is passion. The Gita elsewhere says that passion is born of craving and attachment and binds the person through attachment to action (Gita 14.7). So the enemy is not a demon from outside. It is a quality of the person's own nature, and it can change.
Fourth, "all-devouring". This enemy eats whatever it is given. The more it is fed, the more it asks.
Dev's heated email, and his midnight snack, are the same thing in two forms: a wanting that has begun to rule.
Knowledge covered, not destroyed
The Lord then says how the enemy works. As fire is covered by smoke, as a mirror by dust, and as an embryo by the womb, so is knowledge covered by this desire (Gita 3.38).
यथोल्बेनावृतो गर्भस्तथा तेनेदमावृतम् ॥ ३.३८ ॥
As fire is covered by smoke, as a mirror is covered by dust, and as an embryo is covered by the womb, so is this knowledge covered by that desire.
Each picture gives a different degree of covering.
- Fire and smoke. The cover is light. A breeze clears it, and the fire was burning all along.
- Mirror and dust. The cover needs to be wiped away. Time alone will not clear it, but a hand will.
- Embryo and womb. The cover is complete for a time and is removed only when the time is ripe.
In all three, what is covered is still there. Dev knows that a calm reply is better, and the knowledge is not lost. It is under the smoke at the very moment he writes. This agrees with another verse, which says that knowledge is covered by ignorance and, because of that, living beings are deluded (Gita 5.15). The cure is not to acquire knowledge from outside but to uncover what is there.
The fire that is never full
Next the Lord says that this covering of knowledge is by the constant enemy of the wise, in the form of desire, which cannot be filled, like fire (Gita 3.39).
The enemy of the wise, not of the foolish. The wise feel it most, because they know the most and so are covered the most. A person who does not know any better does not feel the gap between what he knows and what he does.
| What desire asks | What feeding it does |
|---|---|
| One more look, one more sip | The next one is asked for sooner |
| A reason | The intellect provides one |
| Relief | The relief lasts shorter each time |
Dev's midnight snack is not for hunger. It is for the relief of the wanting, and the relief is brief. This is the sense of "never full": the fire is not put out by fuel.
Senses, mind and intellect: the three seats
Where does it live? The senses, the mind and the intellect are said to be its seat, and through them it deludes the embodied person by covering his knowledge (Gita 3.40).
Those three are in the place of the commander, the staff and the clerk. Desire sits at each of them, in a different way.
| Seat | How desire works there | In Dev's day |
|---|---|---|
| The senses | They are drawn to what pleases | The email notification; the smell from the kitchen |
| The mind | It replays and plans | He rehearses the sharp reply on the way home |
| The intellect | It argues for the wish | "People who work as hard as I do deserve a snack." |
The third seat explains why willpower and reasoning alone often fail. The intellect is the very faculty we hope will rescue us, and desire has a seat there too. It lends its arguments to the wish.
First the senses, then the rest
Now comes the method. Therefore, first bring the senses under control, then slay this sinful destroyer of knowledge and of realisation (Gita 3.41). Both knowledge and experience are named: the enemy takes away what we know and what we have lived.
The ladder follows. The senses are said to be higher than the body, the mind higher than the senses, the intellect higher than the mind, and the Self higher than the intellect (Gita 3.42). Last, the Lord draws the conclusion. Knowing the Self that stands beyond the intellect, steady the mind by the intellect and slay this enemy that has the form of desire (Gita 3.43).
जहि शत्रुं महाबाहो कामरूपं दुरासदम् ॥ ३.४३ ॥
Thus, knowing the Self to be superior to the intellect, and steadying the lower self by the higher Self, O mighty-armed, slay this formidable enemy in the form of desire.
The ladder works in two directions. In authority, the higher governs the lower, and the Self governs all. In practice, one begins from the bottom, because that is where change is easiest.
| Level | What it needs | What Dev can do |
|---|---|---|
| Body and senses | A different surrounding | Take the mail off his phone at night; keep no snack in the house |
| Mind | A different occupation | A short walk when the reply is written but not sent |
| Intellect | A different question | Ask, "Will I be glad of this tomorrow?" |
| The Self | A remembered identity | A line at night: "I am not this wanting" |
Notice what the order protects. The senses are the easiest level to change by arrangement, and that arrangement is not a defeat. It is the Gita's own first step.
What the enemy takes away: knowledge and experience
The verse names two things that the enemy destroys: knowledge and realisation, that is, what we have learned and what we have lived through (Gita 3.41). The second is worth a pause. The enemy does not only hide a rule that we have read. It makes us forget what we have already felt.
Dev has felt the headache after a late night, and the regret after a sharp email, many times. He has the experience. Yet at the moment of the push the memory of the regret does not come up, or comes up and does not weigh. That is the second loss. It is why a person can repeat a mistake that has hurt him again and again: the lesson is there, covered.
The same mind can be a friend
The word "enemy" can mislead. In another place the Lord says that a person should lift himself by himself and not let himself sink, for the mind is the friend of the one who has mastered it and the enemy of the one who has not (Gita 6.5, Gita 6.6). So the enemy is a state of the inner life and not a creature. The same mind, with practice, becomes a friend. Arjuna himself says that it is hard to hold, and the Lord's reply is that it can be held, by practice and detachment (Gita 6.35).
This is why the fight is not a war against oneself. The enemy is the wanting that rules. The self is what will rule when the wanting is put in its place.
Is all desire to be killed?
The word "slay" in the verse raises a fair question. If the Lord says that He is the desire that is not contrary to righteousness (Gita 7.11), then not all desire is the enemy. And if the person who gives up all desires, free from longing, possession and ego, attains peace (Gita 2.71), then desire does end in the end.
Both are true. The enemy is the desire born of passion that covers knowledge and rules the person. The desire to learn, to serve, to do one's own work well belongs to dharma, and it does not cover anything. In the end the wanting that rules falls away, and what remains is what the Lord calls peace. The teaching on one's own duty (Gita 3.35) is where desire and duty meet; One's Own Duty takes it up.
Even the taste remains until the Self is seen
There is a last point on the limits of restraint. Sense objects turn away from the person who abstains from them, but the taste for them remains; even the taste ceases on seeing the Supreme (Gita 2.59). Control of the senses is the first step and a sure one, yet it does not by itself end the wanting. What ends it is the last step of the order, knowing the Self that stands beyond the intellect (Gita 3.43). That is why the Lord does not stop at the senses. A person who only abstains is still hungry; a person who knows the Self is no longer driven by the hunger.
Dev's day, level by level
Here is how the order of the fight might look across a day. Each push works on a different level, and each can be met at that level.
| Time | The push | The level it works on | One change |
|---|---|---|---|
| 7 am | The inbox, before breakfast | Senses: the notification | Turn off the preview, open the mail after breakfast |
| 11 am | A colleague's remark | Mind: the replay | A short walk, then reply once the replay has cooled |
| 3 pm | A deadline and a bad mood | Intellect: "I can skip this check" | Ask, "What would I say if a friend did this?" |
| 9 pm | Television and a snack | Senses and mind together | Keep the snack out of the house; decide the viewing before sitting down |
| Midnight | The email that angers him | All three | Write it, do not send it, and read it again in the morning |
The point of the table is not the details. It is that the enemy has a different face at each hour, and a fight in order means meeting each face where it is.
A month of practice
| Week | Level | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Senses | Change one thing around you that triggers the habit |
| 2 | Mind | When the push comes, name it and wait ten minutes |
| 3 | Intellect | Write down the arguments it gives you; read them the next day |
| 4 | The Self | Each night, a line: "I am more than this wanting" |
Three misreadings of the enemy
"The Gita says all desire is bad." The Lord says that He is the desire that is not contrary to righteousness (Gita 7.11).
"The enemy is outside." The verses place it in the senses, mind and intellect (Gita 3.40), and in another place the mind itself is called enemy or friend (Gita 6.6). The work is inside.
"Willpower alone is the cure." The intellect is one of the seats (Gita 3.40). The cure the Lord gives is knowledge of the Self beyond the intellect (Gita 3.43), together with the order of the fight.
Questions readers ask
Why does knowing the right thing not stop me?
Because knowledge is covered at the moment it is needed (Gita 3.38). The covering is lighter early in the push, so the work is to act early, and not after the smoke has thickened.
Is anger a separate enemy?
The Lord names desire and anger together (Gita 3.37). Anger is desire that has been blocked. Because they are one enemy, the same order of the fight serves both. From Thought to Ruin shows how one becomes the other.
Why control the senses first?
Because the lowest level is the easiest to change, and changes there help every level above. A person who has put the snack out of the house has given his intellect nothing to argue about (Gita 3.41).
What does it mean to know the Self beyond the intellect?
It means seeing oneself as the witness of the wish and not as the wish (Gita 3.42, Gita 3.43). The teaching on the Self is in The Imperishable Self. A person who knows this can watch a strong push come and go without being carried by it.
Does the fight ever end?
The Lord says that the person who can bear, here and before leaving the body, the surge that comes from desire and anger is a yogi and a truly happy person (Gita 5.23). It does end in the sense that the surge no longer rules. Until then, the order of the fight is the guide.
Where to read next
The simple reading tells the same teaching through one evening, and the deeper reading weighs the commentators and the objections. From Thought to Ruin comes before this hub on the path Anger and Desire, and Buddhi Yoga: The Resolute Intellect studies the faculty that stands between the senses and the Self.