Jealous of Someone? Let Your Jealousy Nourish You

“You feel you are not sufficient simply because you are not well within yourself. Anybody who is not feeling blissful is actually ill.”

—Sadhguru

Q: How do I free myself from the jealousy that arises within me?

Sadhguru: As long as you feel you are insufficient the way you are, the moment you see someone whom you think has more than you, you feel jealous. When you are very joyful, are you jealous? No. Only when you are unhappy, you are jealous. Do not worry about jealousy. If every moment of your life, your energies are bubbling with ecstasy, how will jealousy be there? Instead of trying to battle jealousy, it is better to work towards making your experience of life complete.

Jealousy is not Your Nature

Freedom will not happen by giving up anything because what is there to give up? Right now, there is no jealousy in you. Jealousy is not a part of your nature. Now and then you create it. If you had created it because you wanted it, then it is your joy. If you are happy in anger, fear and jealousy, create them. But that is not so, they are not happy experiences for you. So, why have you created them? You create them because you do not have the necessary awareness within yourself.

If you really want to be free, first and foremost, you should understand where your bondage is – what you are identified with. The moment you are identified, you are in confrontation with existence. The whole spiritual process is to dis-identify you, so that you are no longer in conflict with existence. You are just experiencing everything the way it is, not trying to label it this way or that way, or trying to make a divine or devil out of it.

Turning Filth into Fragrance

If you use the horror of who you are as manure, the beauty of who you could be, could flower. What is this “horror,” and what does it mean? When you find a person horribly prejudiced and jealous, angry, hateful and fearful, that is the horror of what a human being can be.

These days people talk a lot about organic vegetables. What it means is that you like vegetables nourished by shit, not by fertilizer coming from a bag! Somewhere, you understand that this is what produces the best kind of flowers, fruits or vegetables – it is the best manure.

This is the logic of life. This is something you need to understand, as symbolism and a psychological tool, and also spiritually. The simple logic of your mind says that if you want to produce good flowers in the garden, put a lot of flowers into the soil, and more beautiful flowers will come out of it. That is not how existence works. That is logical, but existence is not logical. The soil demands stinking waste, not fragrant flowers. Stinking filth is not just okay, that is what the soil demands. If you put it to the root, wonderfully fragrant flowers will come out of it. This is the way the existence is working.

In Tune With Your Own Nature

All these horrors which make you into a horror – your anger, hatred, jealousy, prejudices – please see with how much intensity they happen within you. If only meditation happened with that much intensity, wouldn’t it be wonderful? Wouldn’t you be going places? Definitely you would.

All the things which make a human being into a horror travel on the basic vehicle of intensity. If your anger, fear or jealousy were weak, it would not mean anything. When they burn within you, that is when they are something. And they always burn within you with great intensity.

One element of spirituality is there with you, the only question is to learn how to make use of it. If you use the filth and apply it to the root, it is good. If you smear it on your face, it is not good. If you do not have this awareness, you will try to apply fragrance to the roots and may kill the plant. You need to apply filth, not fragrance. That is how the whole world works, and that is how you should also work.

Fire, not Smoke

Do not try to work on the byproducts. You feel you are not sufficient simply because you are not well within yourself. Anybody who is not feeling blissful is actually ill. Maybe you are in a state of socially accepted wellbeing – because the majority of people are with you, and this is a democracy – but you are ill in terms of life. No attempt has been made to look at yourself carefully and understand that the seat of your experience is within you. If the seat of your experience is within you, and you have to decide and manage how well you live here, the first thing is to turn inward and look at the nature of who you are.

If that does not happen, your wellbeing is accidental. When your wellbeing is accidental, jealousy, hatred, and insecurity are a natural part of your life. It is like we are burning something and there is smoke. Do not battle with the smoke. You have to battle with the fire.

Editor’s Note: This is an excerpt from Sadhguru’s 2-in-1 book “Emotion: The Juice of Life & Relationships: Bond or Bondage”, available on Flipkart and Amazon.