How to Deal with Jealousy: 3 ways to kill this evil

[Guest guest]

What is good and what is bad? Fools cannot see at allWith a garment tied to its

tailCan the rat enter its hole? ~ Sant Kabir (1398-1448) Sant Kabir says that

foolish people cannot discriminate between good and evil.

Such men cannot be happy because the load of evil gets too heavy for them.

Jealousy is one of those unnecessary evils we burden ourselves with. None of us

could honestly say that we have not ever been jealous of more fortunate ones.

Ironically, however, jealousy is generally found among equals or near equals

like friends of equal social status, colleagues in the office and relatives. We

are not jealous of someone who is either too highly placed or too distantly

connected with us. How many of us care who becomes the president of USA or

prime minister of India?

Jealousy keeps us under a sense of discouraging frustration and disappointment.

It makes us gloomy. It is such a depressing feeling that we cannot tell about

it to even our best friends nor can we contain it within ourselves.

Consequently, it leaves us with an inconvenience of a peculiar misery and if

allowed to grow unchecked beyond a limit, it works like a slow poison to our

healthy nature.

The question is how to annihilate this undesirable evil? The following three

suggestions may help: 1 Stop comparing yourself with others. Comparisons are

always harmful. If they are in your favor, they bring false pride in you; if

against you, they depress you. Pride can make you overconfident and eventually

can be the cause of your downfall. Conversely, with jealousy you lose

self-reliance, seek unjust methods of putting down your friend, colleague or

relative, and ultimately end up in frustration. So to bring jealousy under your

control, avoid comparing yourself with others as much as possible. Think that

you are unique because that is how God wanted you to be. Pursue in all

seriousness your own ideal, whatever it is. Do not waste your precious time in

idle and miserable envy.

2 Have patience and wait. No one is lucky or unlucky every time in life. Work

hard and wait for your lucky days when fortune will take you up and others will

look up to you in envy. This may sound like a defensive strategy, and a doubtful

method. But use this waiting period in driving jealousy out of your mind. Thus,

you can turn a mere defensive strategy of biding your time into a positive

blessing. And…

3 Believe in, “May all people be happy”. You have said it numerous times in

temples and other places of prayers. It is about time you practiced it. It is a

golden principle that you must adopt if you wish to rise above petty jealousy.

Think that you and others, being fragments of the Universal Soul, are the

fingers of the same palm. Among whom no jealousy can exist in spite of

differences in their lengths. If one of your children is more intelligent than

you, you are not jealous of him or her. Are you? Why? Think, can’t you love

others the same way. If your friend or your colleague or your relative is

enjoying some advantages over you now, be happy for him or her. Surely your

turn will also come. Full justice is meted out to all individual souls in the

long run. This is the divine law. Have faith and adopt this spirit in action.

May the Merciful Sri Sai Baba always shower His grace on us and our families and

remove our problems and

anxieties by giving us all - strength , goodluck, success and happiness with

peace of mind.Sai bhakt,Deepa Hdebu7366