Pranaam!! It generally happen that whenever We see the materialistic growth of somebody specially known one be it relative, close friend or even neighbour, the first feeling come to mind is of jealousy. If you are extremely kind and generous, then you might feel elated and happy else most of human being developed the emotion of jealousy. I used to feel very disturbed whenever I develop such negative emotions about others. I used to curse myself and used to think that my Sanskar is not good or I am not a good person. I am recalling a beautiful Chaupai ( चौपाई) on this emotion written by Tulsidas ji in Ram-charit-manas

             “जग बहु नर सर सरि सम भाई। जे निज बाढ़ि बढ़हि जल पाई॥
                सज्जन सकृत सिंधु सम कोई। देखि पूर बिधु बाढ़इ जोई॥”
         

        भावार्थ-
                हे भाई! जगत् में तालाबों और नदियों के समान मनुष्य ही अधिक हैं, जो जल पाकर अपनी ही बाढ़ से बढ़ते हैं (अर्थात्‌ अपनी ही उन्नति से प्रसन्न होते हैं)। समुद्र सा तो कोई एक बिरला ही सज्जन होता है, जो चन्द्रमा को पूर्ण देखकर (दूसरों का उत्कर्ष देखकर) उमड़ पड़ता है॥

This चौपाई in-fact summarise the whole thing. Tulsidas ji categorised human beings in two types : one who are like pond or river and others (which are very few in numbers) are like Ocean. The first type feel happy on the growth of self only and second type feel happiness on the growth of others. So, the target of every one should be to fall in the second category. However this task is not very easy. It needs courage, discipline and self discovery.

      I attended the ‘Self Purification” course available on os.me. This programme contains beautiful lessons by Swami ji and Vrinda Om ji.It has one lecture on Jealousy.It is a good course, one should attend if someone wants to go on journey of self purification. In some other lecture of Swami ji, I observed that Swami ji told that thoughts are as such not good or bad. Millions of thoughts come and go in a human mind very day. The problem starts when we start engaging with these random thoughts. So, I interpreted his message in a way that even if negative emotion of jealousy comes to your mind first, then you should not worry about it or must not feel bad about it. We should be mindful in such situation and we should immediately divert our attention from this negative emotion of jealousy and start thinking about good part of somebody against whom we developed a negative emotion just now or we can divert our attention to something else. Therefore, the easy way to fall in to the category of ”Ocean type” as per Tulsidas ji, We need to be mindful always. To become mindful, We must meditate everyday. With practice and sincerely attending self purification path, we may start feeling less of emotion of jealousy and more emotion of happiness in the achievement or growth of  others. This is my take on above Chaupai (चौपाई)….comments are welcome.

Image Source:- Open source google.com