We are living in a world of intense competition. Competition is all pervading from school admissions to promotions, train reservations to parliament seats etc. This entails that few win but many lose. One man’s food is many other’s poison.
When we define our success on the basis of failure of others, it is common to experience envy at times. Every one of us is forced to become envious.
When we act out our envy, we neither become happy ourselves nor make others happy. It is harmful for everyone. It is very unnatural emotion in our heart.
Envy distracts us from our natural course of fulfilment and success in life. It fills our consciousness with unnecessary fear. Fear compels us to act in a way to demean, defile others. We are compelled to direct our hard earned resources, time etc. to harm others. It starts with comparison, criticism and ends in crime.
Harming others in no way makes us happy. Rather it fills our consciousness with negativity. We lose focus, patience, ability to discriminate what is right and wrong. We are prone to take wrong decisions, incorrect and immoral actions.
In the current story, Gandhari was overcome by envy because she defined her success as being better than Kunti. As a result she was filled with negativity and lost patience leading to a miscarriage. A womb she carefully nurtured for two years was destroyed in a spur of moment.
Our happiness is in true love – i.e. making others happy without any selfish motive. In a way envy robs us of happiness that we already possess.
The root cause of envy is material conception. We define our happiness based on material acquisitions and achievements. The external material entities are subject to change and limitations. Since the material resources are limited there is cut throat competition for them. Materially every one of us need to cultivate satisfaction with whatever we get from this world and whatever we are gifted with at the time of our birth.
We are at core spiritual beings entrapped in a body of matter. Matter can never bring us lasting satisfaction. Our true happiness lies in reviving the divine love dormant in our heart through the practice of yoga.
Therefore envy can be conquered by cultivating material satisfaction and spiritual elevation, basing our happiness on a spiritual platform.