As humans, we must never claim that we have totally conquered evil temptations and surmounted the peak of our base desires. We may be able to conquer evil most of the time, but never can we conquer evil all the time. The most pious of people succumb to the most ignominious of desires and to the most immoral of wishes. The victor may turn into the vanquished in no time and wonder what went wrong after being such a ‘blessed’ and ‘favorite’ creature of God. Fighting evil regardless of the extent of one’s faith is a continuous process – a relentless incessant struggle. Only death will bring an end to this tussle. We must strive throughout our lives to overcome adverse currents.
We must be bold enough to concede that we are after all ‘humans’ and persistent enough to get up and start again – and again if despite the resistance put up evil overcomes us. One of the greatest weapons of Satan is to overwhelm a person with so much frustration and disappointment that he is left with little or no desire to repent and start over again.
Experience shows that one great factor in resisting evil is deep attachment to one’s goal. An idle mind is prone to all sorts of onslaughts from evil. The more a person is devoted to some cause, the lesser are the chances of his deviation. A target-oriented life is thus what we must aim for and pray that all targets that we set before us contribute positively to this world and that to come.