Weaknesses must be put to work; they have to make themselves useful. Probably you are puzzled when I say that; you have always thought that they had to be trampled underfoot and exterminated. Well, just try doing that, and you’ll soon see that it is not easy, you are the one who is likely to be trampled underfoot! The problem is the same for every form of vice and every failing, whether it is greed, sensuality, violence, envy or vanity, you have to know how to harness their energies so that they will work for you towards your chosen goal.
If you work alone you will never succeed. If you banish all your enemies, everything that stands against you, who is going to work for you? Who will serve you?
By dint of great patience humans have tamed and domesticated several different kinds of wild animal, which are now very useful to them. Horses used to be wild and dogs were as savage as wolves, and if humans were able to domesticate them it was because they had developed certain qualities in themselves. They are certainly capable of taming and domesticating other wild beasts, but in order to do so they need to develop other qualities.
So be glad, you’re all very wealthy since you all have weaknesses! But it is essential that you learn how to handle them and put them to work. I took the example of animals just now, but you could take the example of natural forces such as lightning, electricity, fire and flood. Now that humans know how to control them, they use these things for their own enrichment, and yet, to begin with, they were hostile forces. People find it normal to use the forces of nature, but if you suggest that they might learn to use the gales, storms, waterfalls and thunderbolts that rage within themselves they are very astonished. And yet nothing is more natural, and once you know the rules of spiritual alchemy, you will learn how to transform and use even the poisons that are in you. Yes, for hatred, anger, jealousy and so on are poisons, but in the Universal White Brotherhood you learn how to use these poisons. In fact you will be given the methods you need to make use of all those negative forces in you. So, be glad, for there is a bright future ahead of you!
….It is not a question of launching recklessly into combat against infernal forces, for they would simply destroy you. You have to know how to set about it. This is why you must continue to work with the forces from above, using the weapons of prayer, harmony and love and, from time to time, when some creature emerges from your inner depths and attacks you with tooth and nail and claw in an effort to get you to do something really stupid, catch it, study it closely in your laboratory and force it to give up its venom so that you can use it. If you do this, you will find that evil can give you just that element you needed for fulfilment.
Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov
True Alchemy or The Quest for Perfection