What is jealousy? || Acharya Prashant, with youth (2013)

Question : Sir, does jealousy arise from ego?

Acharya Prashant: It is simple. If we look at it, it is very simple.

What is Ego? It is your sense of yourself, which has been borrowed from the others.

So, I do not know myself directly. I am depending upon somebody else to tell me who I am. A fellow comes and says, ‘*You are brilliant*‘, and what do I start believing? ‘*I am brilliant!*‘

Now my sense of being brilliant, my idea about myself that I am brilliant depends totally upon this other person who told me that I was brilliant otherwise I am not brilliant. If too many of them come and say that I am stupid, then I have to believe that I am stupid because even my idea of brilliance comes from others. If he says that I am brilliant and I believe it, then I will also have to believe him when he says that I am stupid.

My brilliance is not coming out of my own understanding. My sense about myself is not coming from my own understanding but from his words.

I am dependent upon others and now I want them to keep saying, ‘You are brilliant,’ because my brilliance depends on his saying. The more they keep saying, the more special I feel. A direct result of this would be that the day I see them telling someone else, ‘