Help: talking back to maya

Haribol devotees, PAMHO

 

Perhaps some of you could help me with this... I wrote a little scenario to illustrate the problem. Perhaps some of you can relate to this ;-):

 

Maya: "Hey look! I have this great opportunity for you. This is the opportunity you've always been waiting for to satisfy that desire you always had. Why don't you take advantage of it?"

Devotee: "No thank you, I'm doing really good in my bhakti and I don't want to lose momentum."

 

Maya: "yes, but this opportunity might not come again, and anyways, this time is different. This time it's really going to be amazing! You need to take advantage of this opportunity. You can always pick up with your bhakti where you left off later ;-)"

 

Devotee: "I can't think about this ..please, leave me alone."

 

Maya: "Okay I'll make you a deal:  you try it this one last time, and then I will leave you alone. Just try it this one last time and then you can forget about the whole thing and be "clean and sober" the rest of your life! Promise. This will be the indulgence to end all indulgences.  Really.  Just see how hard it is for you to take your mind off of this thing.  You won't be able to think of anything else even if you try.  I mean really, how can you be expected to be abstinent ALL the time?  It's impossible, it's unreasonable, it's unfair!  So come on, just enjoy yourself for a little bit. You've been working so hard and you deserve to relax and have some fun once in a while. :-) "

 

Devotee: "argh... I ... shouldn't .... this is so wrong. .. *sigh*  well....okay, maybe I'll just kind of do it a little bit....  I mean at least I TRIED not to .... that's got to count for something right?"

 

[afterwards]:

 

Devotee: ".... that's it?  That's what I was getting all excited about? argh, I feel so gross. I swear I'm never doing this again. *sigh* I guess I'll just have to try to get back on the bhakti train...again. "

....

[Go back to beginning and read again...... ad infinitum] 

 

So my question is: how would you talk back to maya in this scenario? Where is the flaw in the devotee's thinking and how should this devotee interupt this cycle so that they don't keep reinforcing bad habits?

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