Śrīla Bhakti Rakṣak Śrīdhar Dev-Goswāmī Mahārāj advises how we can avoid our six enemies.
Śrīla Mādhavendra Purī perhaps said,
kāmādināṁ kati na katidhā pālitā durnideśās
teṣāṁ jātā mayi na karuṇā na trapā nopaśāntiḥ
utsṛjyaitān atha yadu-pate sāmprataṁ labdha-buddhis
tvām āyātaḥ śaraṇam abhayaṁ māṁ niyuṅkṣvātma-dāsye
(Śrī Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu: Paśchima-vibhāga, 2.35)
“O Lord of the Yadu dynasty, Kṛṣṇa, I have come to Your feet to explain my position. Please consider it.”
What is that position? “Kāmādināṁ kati na katidhā pālitā durnideśās: for so long I have left no stone unturned to satisfy my masters: kāma, krodha, lobha, moha, mada, and mātsarya. These inner six enemies have very cruelly and harshly exacted such a great amount of service from me. But I have not received any remuneration from them, not a drop of peace. I have not been paid anything. From time immemorial, I have been rendering service to these enemies, but up till now, I have not seen any satisfaction in their faces. They are as hard as before.
“Pālitā durnideśās: and what have I not done? Whatever they have ordered, instantaneously I have obeyed that. In the middle of night, my lord said, ‘Oh, you must go there and steal something, some fruit from there.’ ‘You must charge your enemy with a bomb.’ Krodha, anger, roused me at midnight to kill someone, and I obeyed. So what have I not done to carry out the order of these enemies living within me?
“Now I am disgusted, my Lord. I am now fully disgusted.
kāmādināṁ kati na katidhā pālitā durnideśās
teṣāṁ jātā mayi na karuṇā
“I could not satisfy or propitiate them. Na trapā nopaśāntiḥ: and in my own self, I also find that no reaction has yet come in me for that. Na trapā: I am not ashamed. Nopaśāntiḥ: I have not made any reactionary or temporary truce: ‘I will stop. I can’t do this for the time being. Give me some rest.’
“But somehow, I don’t know why, or how, I have run to You. I have run to You! Utsṛjyaitān, somehow I have avoided their vigilant eyes and run to You.
utsṛjyaitān atha yadu-pate sāmprataṁ labdha-buddhis
tvām āyātaḥ
“I have approached You. Śaraṇam abhayaṁ māṁ niyuṅkṣvātma-dāsye: You are the real shelter who can save me from these enemies. I have felt this dictation from inside. Māṁ niyuṅkṣvātma-dāsye: please give me some engagement. If You engage me, then they will all fly away in fear. If only they hear that You have given me shelter and engagement, then, whatever their account book may say, they will fly away.”
If we can make any contact with that plane, with the nirguṇa bhūmi [land of dedication], then other plenary influences will withdraw at once.
nehābhikrama-nāśo ’sti pratyavāyo na vidyate
svalpam apy asya dharmasya trāyate mahato bhayāt
(Śrīmad Bhagavad-gītā: 2.40)
And we will be saved from great disaster.
“Please, grant me some shelter.”
That is the advice, instruction, of our Guru Mādhavendra Purī: “Anyhow, run. When they are a little unmindful of you, at that moment run, take shelter.”