Along the spiritual journey the four biggest and heaviest boulders that obstruct a seeker’s progress are jealousy, envy, greed and selfishness. Let’s call them siblings and the father of these four siblings is EGO. For today we shall talk about one of the sibling – JEALOUSY.
You may wonder why are we born with such a despicable trait? As we have always stated, life is a learning journey in which you face your negative traits and have to make a serious attempt to change. We all have our good side and our bad side. From the good side in us we work on it to make it stronger and for the weak or negative side, if you wish to call it, is to recognize and replace it. We cannot just remove it from us as it does not work that way. A negative has to be replaced with a positive. This requires you to be aware of this trait and when it surfaces, react quickly to nip it and then change it to something positive.
What is jealousy? Easily mistaken for envy but they are two separate siblings. Jealousy is when the attention you have been receiving is taken away from you and directed at someone else. This is very common in a relationship between spouses, teens in love, rivalry between siblings.
So jealousy is a feeling that starts up from within you – from the heart, the seat of emotion and if not kept in check it manifests itself in verbal abuse or quarrels. If harboured for too long, the mind takes over and plays havoc. How, by playing a movie in the mind an imaginary one for you. Once that happens the vicious seed of jealousy that you have planted begins to germinate and when it sprout roots it is going to take a tremendous effort to uproot it.
Take action even before the seed can germinate or when it starts to germinate do not allow it to take root. So what do we do – firstly know that nothing is permanent and that everything you see is going to fall apart one day. Enjoy the relationship while it lasts. Value them and appreciate them. But do not hold on to it for when you hold to anything, the tighter you hold on to it the more you begin to lose it.
For some parent they hold on too tightly to their children and mothers especially can become jealous of their daughter-in-law for they see it as the love that their son has been showering on them, is suddenly taken away. The attention the son gives is now to his wife and lesser to his mother. This leads to the classic scenario of why mother-in-laws usually do not get along with their daughter-in-laws.
It requires a change of mind-set to be able to erase all notions of any relationship and any demands placed on the relationship that you have or acquired from your growing up years. You brought your children into this world, they did not ask to be born and you are just a custodian for as long as you are responsible for them. One day they have to leave you and make their own lives with their own children. So treasure the fond moments you have with them and be prepared to let them go just like the bird that takes care of its young only to let them fly off once they are able to do so. You see nature is the best teacher if we choose to sit, be quiet, observe and reflect on what we see. There are so many lessons to learn yet when things are given free very few appreciate it but when it comes to having to pay to learn that is when you sit up and pay attention.
Recognise jealousy as a cancer that spreads if left unchecked. Be thankful for the attention you get from anyone for as long as it is there. Do not crave for attention and worst of all do not start demanding for it by adopting the “poor me syndrome”. This is a situation where a person plays out that hurt feeling, to whoever he or she sees to gain sympathy. Do not do this as it only eats at your very self esteem. It may feel good initially but you become a victim to this evil need to have someone say good things to you to feel good.
When you have this feeling, be in a position to give rather than to receive. This will take the attention away from you onto others. By regularly practicing this, the mind will take on a different perspective from one of “me” to “you”. The needs of others become more important than your own needs. Do not look for rewards when you apply this technique.
This allows the unconditional love in you to surface where you do for the sake of just doing and expect nothing in return- not even a word of thanks. Because your focus is on the Divine – You mind set is you are doing everything for your Father who is the Supreme giver of all for He knows when to reward and when not to. So leave it to Him.
Comments are closed