Bhaktisandesam / Jealousy , the unnecessary Evil

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How to Deal with Jealousy

from Gyan Rajhans

 

3 ways to kill this evil

 

What is good and what is bad?

Fools cannot see at all

With a garment tied to its tail

Can 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.

 

 

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Jai Shree Krishna !