While we were on our way to the gym this morning, a peculiar conversation between me and my friend ensued. She was sharing some of her deepest fears and apprehensions in terms of her own life in comparison to the much more ‘materially’ accomplished life of her elder sister. As she was pouring her heart out to me I could sense that she is going through a bunch of tumultuous emotions, which perennially overpower her thoughts and cloud her judgement, leaving her frustrated and emotionally drained. If we look around us and closely observe, we would be able to apprehend that each and every individual possess a certain degree of this devious quality commonly known as ‘envy’.
Envy is the inability to tolerate another person's success. It is the essence of our material conditioning and pride. It is the essence of all bad qualities or ‘anarthas’ that our present in our heart.
We must remember that the person who is envious of another harms noone but his own self. Envy can also be termed as a subtle form of lusty desire. Lust for name, fame, acknowledgement, success.
.One should strive to control this envy which is similar to an object of sense gratification. By being envious one satisfies his senses and performs various kinds of destructive activities in a bid to stop someone else's success. Depending on the level of material contamination in the heart, it will manifest either as -
Thoughts or
Thoughts and words or
Thoughts, words and actions.
While contemplating the objects of the senses, a person develops attachment for them, and from such attachment lust develops, and from lust anger arises. From anger, complete delusion arises, and from delusion bewilderment of memory. When memory is bewildered, intelligence is lost, and when intelligence is lost one falls down again into the material pool.
Following are the prominent Ill-effects of the vicious quality of 'envy'-
Leads to Pain: Pain that someone possess something we lack
Leads to Fear: Someone may possess something more than what we have and surpass us.
Bewilderment of intelligence “vinash kale viparit buddhi”: One performs actions against injunctions of Guru and Shastra.
Repeatedly perform the same mistakes: Due to the covering of illusion, one repeatedly fans the fire of jealousy resulting in repeated envious actions.
Escalation of bad qualities: Owing to envy one’s bad qualities started magnifying
Perform irreligious acts: Out of envy we may hurt someone through our words, one may criticise them openly, degrade their reputation, one may also kill or one may start parallel lines of authority.
Purity reduces: One's purity and potency to perform devotional service reduces.
The senses cannot be forcibly curbed, but they can be given proper engagement. Purified senses, therefore, are always engaged in the transcendental service of the Lord. This perfectional stage of sense engagement is called bhakti-yoga. So those who are attached to the means of bhakti-yoga are factually self-controlled and can all of a sudden give up their homely or bodily attachment for the service of the Lord. This is called the paramaha?sa stage. Ha?sas, or swans, accept only milk out of a mixture of milk and water. Similarly, those who accept the service of the Lord instead of maya's service are called the paramaha?sas. They are naturally qualified with all the good attributes, such as pridelessness, freedom from vanity, nonviolence, tolerance, simplicity, respectability, worship, devotion and sincerity. All these godly qualities exist in the devotee of the Lord spontaneously. Such paramaha?sas, who are completely given up to the service of the Lord, are very rare. They are very rare even amongst the liberated souls. Real nonviolence means freedom from envy. In this world everyone is envious of his fellow being. But a perfect paramaha?sa, being completely given up to the service of the Lord, is perfectly nonenvious. He loves every living being in relation with the Supreme Lord.
The history of Prahlada Maharaja, the great devotee of Lord N?si?hadeva, is narrated in the Seventh Canto of Srimad-Bhagavatam. Prahlada Maharaja, a small child of only five years, became the object of envy for his great father, Hira?yakasipu, only because of his becoming a pure devotee of the Lord. The demon father employed all his weapons to kill the devotee son, Prahlada, but by the grace of the Lord he was saved from all sorts of dangerous actions by his father. He was thrown in a fire, in boiling oil, from the top of a hill, underneath the legs of an elephant, and he was administered poison. At last the father himself took up a chopper to kill his son, and thus N?si?hadeva appeared and killed the demoniac father in the presence of the son. Thus no one can kill the devotee of the Lord. Similarly, Arjuna was also saved by the Lord, although all dangerous weapons were employed by his great opponents like Bhi?ma.
Here in this material world, everyone is envious of someone else. Even in religious life, it is sometimes found that if one devotee has advanced in spiritual activities, other devotees are envious of him. Such envious devotees are not completely freed from the bondage of birth and death. As long as one is not completely free from the cause of birth and death, one cannot enter the sanatana-dhama or the eternal pastimes of the Lord. One becomes envious because of being influenced by the designations of the body, but the liberated devotee has nothing to do with the body, and therefore he is completely on the transcendental platform. A pure devotee is never envious of anyone, even his enemy. Because the devotee knows that the Lord is his supreme protector, he thinks, “What harm can the so-called enemy do?” Thus a devotee is confident about his protection.
To overcome this feeling of discontent or covetousness with regard to another's advantages, success, possessions, etc. we must constantly engage our senses in hearing and chanting (sravana-kirtana) the glories of the Supreme Lord, utilize our time and energy in rendering devotional service unto His Lotus Feet. Thus, we would certainly be freed from the disease of envy.
If we have the strong desire to steer the car of our life smoothly and escape this royal road to destruction, we must uproot the seeds of envy engrained deep within our hearts, stop watering the creepers of jealousy and thereby save ourselves from getting lost in the dangerous dark alleys of the mode of ignorance. Only by strict control over our senses and by purifying our consciousness, would we become eligible to go back home, back to Godhead.
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