Avoiding The Source Of Envy Is A Sign Of Weakness?

Dear Rihana.

I think it is ok and normal to feel envy, we all are humans, but what is not ok is to have hatred and spreading negativity.

I always go by this thing, The grass on the other side is always lush and shiny green', i may not know the other person's struggles or situation.

As a child i was envious about this boy who used to give return gifts to the entire class, a brand new pencil box with everything intact.

Now, i am practicing gratitude for every second of my life, so even though envy and jealous is normal it doesn't stay for a long time, neither does it affect.

Sometimes, i feel life is fragile, unpredictable and next moment is unknown, so i dont want to hold anything that makes me feel heavy, bad or sad.

Love
Nandu

 

In my humble opinion, there is no 1 right way to do things. What seems a good thing to do in 1 situation may backfire in another. I will iterate my thoughts here in points...
1) Avoiding anything that makes one feel uncomfortable or vulnerable in any way is a step towards self preservation. Every living being with a mind and power of thought has a right to it.

2) Love & gratitude especially the latter is almost always the answer. However, we are not yet totally enlightened. We are on our pathway to knowledge constantly and so being grateful and experiencing thankfulness especially in situations when we don't see light at the end of the tunnel is easier said than done.

3) The very fact that we are intelligent enough to (a) identify our thoughts, (b) classify them as good and bad and (c) nurture the intention to work on amplifying the good and annihilate the bad is a sure sign that we are fighting the right battle and will conquer it all soon.

4) Envy may stem from not just insecurity, it may also crop up as a direct result of the fire in one's belly to "do" things. To prove oneself. Else, we would have been complacent, docile, subservient mortals who cannot imagine beyond eat-sleep-repeat routines.

 

Very good topic.

It’s easy to avoid when these kind of things happen with friends but within family and that too in-laws side,it’s tricky to handle it.

while I am not jealous of them,I feel bad at times whenever I see them..They gave me horrible mental torture and they still give me,and yet I see life goes in the way they want..I work so hard and look at the life with so much positive stuff,and manage kids,gets a good pay also compared to them,takes good care of every aspect and infact better than them(infact that’s one reason why they don’t like me)..even with all that,it’s so tough for me to get a small thing..be it a small saree from india to a big house..Thanks to my DH in making sure I don’t get it(it’s love marriage btw)

On there otherwise my brothers..One is ok but other one is very much show off type..Whenever I goto their house,the show off or bragging is in a way that I am emotionally hurt and when I turn towards my DH for any support,he is no where..

So both sides and that too within family,I get into those situations..Sometimes I feel I deserve better but again,nothing can be changed.

I try to limit my visits to both side to avoids all this nonsense but not sure whether it’s good or bad..I am not envy or jealous of them,it’s just that my luck is like that.,So I feel bad for couple of days and move on.

whenever I try not to think much about it,then DH make sure to bring up thay conversations and again I am down and Saga goes..

have not found a solution to get over these fully but slowly coming to the reality and accept that,”this is all I got in this life” and look at that “all” from other people who does not even have that,so that makes me going further in life..

 

When we were abroad we never bought a house or car.we liked the apartments in the heart of the city and 10 mins distance to work.whenever we visit our friends in the outskirts who lives in huge bunglows only spoke about real estate and having second, third car.showing off the expensive porcelain or a the extra big tv in the basement and so on.my happiness was lying else where and never felt jealous of these things.and now back to home country and having maid,cook ,door deliveries for everything those friends are jealous of my life style Herre.. LOL.if we are content with what we have we will not even look at the things others have.BTW I still don't own a car.I have uber and ola taking me everywhere

 

Yep,totally agree with you.I am saying it gets tricky when we have more people in the house..Like,for ex,I always wanted a better life style and as long as we can afford it why not..But I am against going for loans etc for that life style.

Problem usually comes,1) when we can come afford and still not able to do it and 2) we can afford it but I don’t want to do it but my spouse or kids wants that and 3) no matter we want it,so let’s go for it

Ofcourse all these 3 applies only if the things that we are looking for is in our control.

3 is a big no for me and (1)/(2) are usually leaves some dissatisfaction and if the mind is not ready to accept that,it becomes tough.

India is different style as we have all kind of people’s there..This thing comes mainly with “living in abroad”.

Again,I am not pinpointing anyone’s life style..It’s just that we need to find a better way to handle it.At the end of the day,we are human and I feel it’s almost a lie to say each one is content completely 100%,unless that person is extremely mature..It’s more like trying to make up our mind that way..Again not pinpointing anyone,my two cents.

 

@Rihana

Thanks to @iyerviji akka, I came to know about this thread. I am so happy that you bring up such a topic to the forefront, give your own solution and ask opinions from others as well.

Frankly, my knowledge about jealousy and even understanding whether I have jealousy or not was limited until I began teaching the children about the moral values and in the process I learned a lot about rootcause of jealousy, types of jealousy, and how to overcome jealousy.

First let us talk about types of jealousy. There are sibling jealousy, workplace jealousy, relationship rivalry and platonic jealousy(a type thar arises in friendship due to the insecurities found in relationships such as feeling of comparison, a fear of being replaced, and feeling of competition.

Harmful effects of jealousy includes a) harming others and oneself (even if it is verbal), promoting negative feelings & lower mood, sapping of mental & physical strength, sense of deprivation and smallness, resentfulness, hinderance to the success of others and oneself, claiming credit for the success and hard work of others, loss of balanced outlook, sometimes leads to unethical ways, shortening one's life span, and lastly bad karma.

Two epics we all knew growing up covers this extensively. One in Ramayana, how Kaikeyi listening to the advice of Manthara feeling jealous of Rama's coronation instead of Keikeyi's son Bharata to the crown. However, Keikeyi repented for her action after the fact even though Rama Himself explained all of that happened to fulfill His mission of Avatar. It is jealousy of Duryodhana that prevented Yudishtra from claiming the kingdom of Hastinapura. But this jealousy never stopped until all of 100 Kauvara's were killed.

One needs to understand the difference between healthy competition and jealousy. In Healthy competition, one learns new skills, get motivated by his/her own success, sets the mind towards the goal, compete to achieve success, learn from the mistakes, celebrate others' success, and accept success with humility. When one encounters jealousy, one ends up putting down the skills of others, get depressed by others' success, keeping the mind on others mostly, compete only to defeat others, curse oneself for failure, hates success of others and celebrate success excessively.

The ancient Indian tradition has the following steps:

1) Pratipaksa Bhavana - Understanding one's negative feelings and then making deliberate attempt to replace them with positive feelings. What you suggested in your post will fall under this category.
2) Karma Gati Vichara - Recognizing that all of one's gains are direct results of one's own actions.
3) Pancha Karmavoni Jnana - Understanding that laws known and unknown, that operate to give one results o actions and are uniform and unbiased
4) Dhrti - Fortitude or pereseverance to not lose heart but continue to work hard for what one desires
5) Prasada Buddhi - Appreciate the grace of the Lord in whatever is given as a result of one's actions
6) Maitri - Friendship towards all realizing oneness of all
7) Mudita - Delighting in the success of others making conscious attempt to check any feelings of resentment, unhappiness, hatred or jealousy that crops of in the mind when seeing the success of others.

I feel some of the above are hard to achieve especially 6 and 7. I have a simple formula for life.

Happiness in life = Ability to increase capabilities through life long learning/constant reduction of expectations.

Whenever, I face significant stress, I remember this formula and feel relieved.

Lastly, the audio-visual I shared with the children in the class.



Verdict: Even though the wiseman is doing his best to help you, I feel you know the best how to get out of it. How you get out of it is immaterial and it is important that it does not affect your mental and physical well-being. If it involves reducing the interaction with a friend, so be it.