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, ‘You are brilliant ,” I will feel jealous. Let us say that I am ‘A’ , he is ‘B’ and there is another entity ‘C’. Now ‘B’ tells ‘C’ that you too are brilliant. How will ‘A’ feel?
Listeners : Jealous.
AP : Now do you see what jealousy is?
L : Yes, Sir.
AP : Now let us take a different situation. I know that I am brilliant but my sense of the self is not coming from ‘B’, I just know that I am brilliant. It is not a borrowed idea. Now will it matter to me if ‘B’ says to ‘C’ that you are brilliant? Will I be jealous any more?
L : No, Sir.
AP : So, jealousy comes from dependency . The one who is not dependent cannot be jealous. The one who is his own master cannot be jealous. *T*o be jealous means that I have accepted somebody as my master and now I want this master to remain with me. If he goes to someone else, then I feel a certain pain, and this pain is called ‘jealousy’.
Do you get it?
L : Yes, Sir.
AP : Alright!
Excerpted from a ‘Shabd-Yog’ session. Edited for clarity.
