Question: The problem is, when we have a weakness — say insecurity or anger or jealousy —- and we are experiencing it, to us, at that moment, it is our reality, it is part of us. To step outside that feeling and say, "This is something I can challenge," is so difficult.

Sri Chinmoy: You are saying that insecurity or some other hostile force has become a reality in your life and you cannot separate yourself from it.

Now you have to ask your fresh mind and your pure heart whether it is the first time you have ever been stung by the insecurity-bee. Is it the first time in this incarnation that you are suffering from insecurity? Perhaps you will find that from the age of two you have been suffering from insecurity-attacks. If it is the first time you have ever been attacked, then you are helpless. But if you have been attacked by your enemy many, many times, then by now it should be clear to you that this is something which is destroying you.

Think of your heart as a beautiful mirror for your own reflection. Right now, each time you suffer from an insecurity-attack, you take it as reality, you cannot get away from it. But what actually happens is that your beautiful heart-mirror drops and smashes into millions of pieces. To have that experience, to have your reality smashed into millions of pieces, is so destructive in your life.

Why then do we allow these negative forces, such as insecurity, impurity, doubt and fear, to attack us? The answer comes from our unwillingness. You can ask yourself if it is the first time that you are noticing some imperfection in your nature. If it is for the first time, then you are helpless because perhaps you do not have the medicine. But over the years, if you are sincere, you will have to admit how many times you have suffered from the same ailment. Do you think that God allowed us to have these ailments but He did not create any medicines or antidotes? God did create a medicine and that medicine is willingness, willingness. If you do not use this medicine, then all the negative forces will come to you in the form of unwillingness — unwillingness to change.

President Clinton uses the word ‘change’ frequently. In his Inaugural Address, he has used the word ten or eleven times. In the spiritual life, we use the term ‘transformation’. There is only one thing that God needs from us and that is willingness to change, willingness to transform ourselves. The medicine is available but we want to be cured without using the medicine. Is it a joke? Fear, doubt, anxiety — all the things that we are suffering from — let us take them as diseases. There is only one medicine for all of them and that is willingness. But that medicine we never take. We do not want it. Why? Is it something bitter or is it something we cannot get because it is so expensive? No, not true, not true. Willingness is not like earthly medicine. If we want it, it will come from the heart. It is Heavenly medicine, so it is already there. Our problem is that we have separated the disease from the medicine. Otherwise, we would see that right by the side of the disease is the medicine. But we do not take it.