Question: Can an individual have a feeling of insecurity because of a feeling of separation from God?

Sri Chinmoy: We feel insecure in our outer life because we are not one with the rest of the world. When we feel our oneness with the rest of the world then we never feel insecure. Now what after all is this feeling of universal oneness, oneness with the rest of the world? It is the Consciousness of God, who is all-pervading and all-embracing.

An ordinary person may not think of God, but he immediately thinks of his brother, sister, friend, neighbour. Each human being appears to him as a stranger, someone alien and therefore unreal. He feels that only he exists. Others do not exist for him. The rest of the world is for someone else or for something else. But if he feels that the rest of the world is also for him and that there is no difference between his existence and the existence of others then his consciousness will immediately expand. There is only one existence. This One has become many, like a tree with many branches and many leaves, many flowers and many fruits. In the ordinary life, we immediately think of ourselves as individual entities. But if we can think of everyone as our very own, as part and parcel of our existence like the limbs of our body, then this problem of insecurity can be solved.

We feel insecure, we are bound to feel insecure as long as we do not feel the living Presence of God, as long as we feel that we are separated from our source, which is God. We feel insecure because we feel that our source is ignorance and that our ultimate destination is also ignorance. But if we can feel that we are not separated from God, but that God has sent us here to earth to be His instruments, then we shall not feel insecure. If we can feel that our source is Light and Delight, and that at the end of our soul’s journey we shall return to that source, then we will not feel insecure.

We can feel that our source is God only when we aspire, pray and meditate. When we do not aspire, when we do not pray and meditate, we are bound to feel that our source is something unknown and unknowable. And this unknown and unknowable to us is ignorance. But the seeker who has launched into the spiritual path will feel that what is unknown today will become known tomorrow. Today his God is unknown but knowable. Tomorrow his God will be something known. The day after tomorrow his God will be at once the Knower and the Known.

When we know who the source is and who is piloting us all the time, we cannot be insecure. When we feel that we are responsible, that we are doing and must do everything, then we are insecure. But if we feel that there is a higher force guiding our destiny, and we are mere instruments, then we shall not feel insecure. When we feel that it is God’s Will that we are cheerfully, soulfully and unconditionally executing, then how can there be any sense of insecurity?