You Are The Best, Why Compare?🔗

Emotions of fear, desire and guilt are subjective emotions. What I mean by this is that you do not need another person or even an object to create these emotions. Imagine that you are in a sound proofed room with your eyes closed and with nothing to touch, taste or smell. You can still feel the emotions of fear or desire. But to compare yourself with another person and to feel jealous of him, you need the presence of another person. Jealousy is therefore an objective emotion. It needs an object to be activated.

A small story: One evening a man was sitting with his wife on a park bench. Without noticing them, a young man and life girlfriend sat down next to them. The young man started talking to his girlfriend in a very loving manner.

Hearing this, the wife whispered to husband, "I think he is going to propose to her. Maybe you should cough or do something to warn him!"

The husband replied, "Why should I warn him? Nobody ever warned me!"

Jealousy starts from comparison. We always compare ourselves with others in various fields — looks, wealth, knowledge, name and fame and friends to name a few. When we compare ourselves with others we feel that somebody else has something more than what we have and, we get caught in jealousy.

Comparison is the seed and jealousy is the fruit!

Why exactly do we compare ourselves with others? First, we compare ourselves because we have never understood ourselves. We are not aware of who we are and what we have.

Second, society has conditioned us from our birth to evaluate ourselves based upon others. From childhood the comparison starts. In school, the grading system introduces a child to competition and comparison with others.

There are standard benchmarks to measure a child’s qualities such as mathematical ability, scientific aptitude, artistic skill, athletic ability, musical talent and so on. But, what we don’t realize is that when we try to measure a quality using a standardized benchmark, it is nothing but using comparison as the scale to measure the child himself. We are literally punishing all children with the reward systems we use in schools. The child gets used to judging and knowing himself by looking at others and comparing himself with them. He has no understanding of himself based on what he is. He knows himself only based on others.

A small story:

Once a man was testifying in court about a road accident. Suddenly, the man noticed that the court reporter was writing while he spoke. As the man started speaking faster and faster he noticed that the reporter was writing faster and faster. Suddenly the man said to the court reporter, "Please don't write so fast. I am not able to keep up with you!"

Every judgment you make about yourself is based on some comparison. But why does the idea of the other enter into your mind? It is because you have not looked in and realized who you are. You have not experienced the bliss and tremendous potential you have inside you. You feel incomplete because you have not been able to express yourself as you are. So, the emptiness and lack of fulfillment inside makes you feel inferior to others.

Buddha says, ‘Nothing exists except in relationship.’ Suppose you were the only person on a new planet, how could you compare yourself with anyone? Could you call yourself tall or short, ugly or beautiful, rich or poor, intelligent or dumb? No! When there is no one with whom to compare ourselves, we just are! Understand, even now, there is no scale to compare you with anybody. Each individual is unique.

Can you compare a lion and a horse? Do we ever compare ourselves with flowers or birds or mountains? Then why do we have to compare ourselves with other human beings! A beautiful Zen story:

A king once went to a master to ask for a technique to become more powerful than his neighboring kings. He sat in front of the master and started telling him the purpose of his visit. The master listened patiently to the king.

He then told him to go into the royal garden where a rose plant and a cypress plant were growing side by side. He told the king, "They are your teachers. They can teach you what you need to learn."

The king went into the garden, saw the two plants but could not understand what he was meant to learn from them. He went back to the master and asked, What do you mean, master? I am not able to understand what and how these plants will teach me."

The master took the king to the plants and explained, "This cypress plant has been next to the rose plant for so many years. Never once has it even aspired to become a rose plant. Similarly, the rose plant has never ever aspired to become a cypress plant. If man had been the cypress plant, he would have compared himself with the rose and felt jealous at the attention that the rose plant was getting from people. Or if man were the rose plant, he would have looked at the cypress plant enviously thinking how peaceful the plant was without the torture of getting plucked by people all day!"

The two plants prospered because they used all of their energy for their own growth instead of using it to compare themselves with the other. The moment you stop comparing, all jealousy disappears. Instead, you will start feeling contented in yourself and grateful to Existence for having given you so much and for making you unique. Instead, if you feel jealous of others, you will suffer. You will constantly fight with others openly or inside yourself. If somebody laughs, you think he is laughing at you. If somebody is friendly towards another person you feel lonely and jealous of that person. Actually, you are just waiting for someone to hurt you. The jealousy you allow inside you is like a raw wound. Any action done with no intention to hurt you also touches the wound and hurts.

So when you feel hurt, understand that you have a wound. Don’t throw the responsibility of the suffering on the other person. The wound needs to be healed and the jealousy has to be dissolved. Then nobody can hurt you. Be very clear, nobody can hurt you without your silent permission.

You compare yourself to each other because you feel that you are somehow lacking. Honestly, you have no idea of your true, unique potential! If you did, you wouldn't spend one second looking outside yourself for answers about how to live a creative, fulfilling life. All of the confidence, intelligence, and vibrant energy that you need already exist inside you. You have the potential to live like god on earth. Don't believe the limiting things that you have been made to believe about yourself. Just look in! Experiment, explore and discover the truth for yourself. Then you will simply radiate all of these qualities effortlessly.

Suppose there was a huge ladder and everybody in the world was asked to stand on it in ascending order of success in any field such as beauty or intelligence. You would probably position yourself somewhere in the middle of the ladder. There are many people above you but there are also many people below you. Seeing the people above you causes you to feel jealous. So, you constantly try to become better than them in order to move further up the ladder.

Now, at some point in your life, you may realize the uselessness of this never-ending game. Then you want to jump off the ladder. And you look down. Now what do you see? There are so many people below you. Suddenly you start feeling happy to see so many people below you and you feel hopeful because you are not as inferior as you thought you were when you were looking at the people above you.

This is where the fight starts. When you look up, you feel miserable, but when you look down, you feel happy. Now even though you begin to realize the futility of spending your life just climbing the ladder, still you are not able to jump off the ladder because if you jump off, you will be left alone. There will be nobody above you or below you.

We all function around these three axes of doing, having and being . Doing for having, without enjoying being, IS the sole cause of all our misery. Doing never catches up with having! Every time you work hard and fulfill one desire, suddenly that desire loses its pull over you.

As enlightened master, Ramana Maharishi', says beautifully, 'The mind is such that it shows a tiny mustard seed to be a huge mountain until it is attained. As soon as it has been attained, even a mountain appears as insignificant as a mustard seed!'

As soon as a desire is fulfilled, another one starts pulling at you. You don't even have time to enjoy it and feel satisfied. You may think, 'Let me get this one more thing also. Then I can relax and enjoy what I have.' Be very clear, your mind will never let it happen.

The only way to really live and enjoy life is to enjoy the very doing itself. Then automatically the doing, having and being, will be integrated and will happen.

Nature has its own unique way of growth for each of us. Take the Chinese bamboo for example. When it sprouts, it doesn't show much growth for the first four years. Then in the fifth year, the bamboo grows ninety feet in six weeks! It was not that the tree was not growing in the first four years.

Though the growth was not visible, the roots were being strengthened to make it possible for the plant to grow fast and safely into a huge tree! Like the bamboo’s growth, there is no scale to measure yourself with anyone other than your own self. If you spend all your energy looking in and competing with yourself, you will progress in leaps and bounds.

First of all, understand that god is an artist, not an engineer. If He was an engineer, He would have made one perfect man and one perfect woman and then made millions of copies from that mould! No. God has made each one of us unique in every way. It does not matter whether you are a rose or a lily or a wild flower. The important thing is that the wild flower should realize its ultimate potential as a wild flower just as the rose should actualize its inherent potential. The fragrance of you realizing your unique potential is what radiates and, without effort, touches everyone around you.

Whether it is beauty or intelligence, you are unique. It is only when you don’t respect your uniqueness that you start comparing yourself with others. Even if your favorite cinema star or model is very beautiful, can you enjoy drinking even a cup of water from that body? No! You can only enjoy using your own body your best friend. Accept and welcome it.

There is a beautiful verse in the ancient scriptures that says the power of maya‘’, the energy which runs the universe, uses jealousy as a tool to make you do whatever it wants you to do.

In India, there are people who do circus shows with monkeys in the street. They will have a small stick. Once they pick up the stick, the monkey will do whatever they say. If they just gesture to the monkey, it won’t listen. Even though it knows that the man can pick up the stick at any time, unless he picks up the stick, the monkey won’t listen. If he picks up the stick and tells the monkey to walk straight, it will walk straight. If the man tells the monkey to jump three times, it will jump three times.

The man will use the stick like the ringmaster uses it in the circus. In the same way, the power of maya,, uses peer pressure and jealousy as a stick to make you do whatever it wants. Understand, peer pressure is just a big ego game. Actually, it is not at all necessary for you to grow. There is enough food, shelter, medical care and clothing in the world to satisfy all of our basic needs. There is no need to compete!

Jealousy is closely related to many negative emotions such as anger, greed, possessiveness and depression. All of these emotions will dissolve when we break this cycle of jealousy.

Jealousy cannot be overcome either by escaping from it or hating the object of jealousy. All you need to do is just be fully aware when the feeling of jealousy arises. You will be surprised that it simply disappears.

The enlightened master, Buddha says, ‘Destroy those envying roots and enjoy lasting peace.’ Just be aware and destroy the jealousy, competition, envy and comparison that have robbed you of your very nature which is bliss. Use the light of awareness to reveal the shadow nature of these negative emotions. Otherwise, you are just caught in the rat race. I always tell people, even if you win the rat race, you are still just a rat! Understand, the way out of jealousy is not by suppressing it or denying its existence. Expressing and encouraging it is also not the way because then you are not ready to face the jealousy with awareness.

Just watch how jealousy arises in you, how it develops into hatred for the object of jealousy, how it creates restlessness and frustration inside you and makes you lose all your peace and calm.

Be aware of the jealousy instead of hating it or the object of your jealousy. Just watch, as if you have nothing to do with it. Look at it with a scientific attitude. What do I mean by a scientific attitude?

When a scientist is experimenting, he simply experiments without any judgment, without any pre-determined conclusion. If he has a conclusion already in his mind, that means he is not a scientist because his conclusion may influence the experiment. Now, you are the scientist in the laboratory of the inner world science. Be a scientist in your inner world and let your mind be your laboratory. Just be aware and witness without any prejudice.

Don’t condemn the emotion saying it is bad because that is what you have been taught. It has not become your experience. If it is your experience that jealousy is a negative emotion you will drop it automatically. It has not become your own experience. It IS only something that you have picked up from others.

Unless it becomes an experiential understanding in you that jealousy and comparison are negative, it will not become a part of you.

Don’t condemn the object of jealousy. The object has not generated the emotion from outside. The jealousy is happening inside you.

Once you see your jealousy with awareness, you will realize that it does not have a basis for existence at all. When this happens, jealousy will drop automatically.

You won’t have to drop it.

A small story: A woman once hired a professional artist to paint her portrait. The artist carefully made a large portrait and then presented it to her saying, "How do you like it?" The lady looked at it and said, "Yes, very nice. But can you add a few things? I want you to add a glittering diamond necklace, a gold watch and bracelet, em erald earrings and beautiful pearl rings on the fingers. The artist was surprised and said, "But madam, the portrait looks simple and beautiful as it is. Why do you want to add all the jewelry and clutter it?" The woman re plied, "I want my rich neighbors to see the painting and go crazy when they see all the jewelry that they will think I have."

The fire of jealousy can just consume you completely if you don't control it with the fire extinguisher of your awareness.

Jealousy does not allow you to experience your true nature of love and bliss. It arises out of misunderstanding life and yourself. You misunderstand love to be something outside of you that has to be acquired. Not only that, you think love is a quantity that needs to be shared. That is why you are afraid, thinking that if you share your love, your share will be reduced.

Love is a quality inside you. It is not a limited quantity. It is an unending happening overflowing from within you. It cannot be blocked by anything or anybody except you because it is your very nature.

Once love starts flowing, jealousy and possessiveness and all that simply become non-existent. If you accept yourself just as you are, you can accept others also as they are.