Ravan and I

I have often tried to read Ramayana as a metaphor for internal conflict. What saddens me is that the evil I keep fighting against within me has more faces than ten, and that the virtue that rises to fight them does not always have the will and the energy that the protagonist in the epic had. I can not celebrate Dussehra so long as I am not able to put my hand across my heart and declare: "I have conquered evil in me." Isn't it enough of a disgrace that I should have vices worse than those the villain in that epic had, and none of his great virtues. Why am I so keen to see the evil in others torched in full public view and yet refuse to acknowledge its obvious presence in me- - even in private - ? If the Ramayana does not happen within me, it never happened.