Jealousy is comparison. And we have been taught to compare, we have been conditioned to compare, always compare. Somebody else has a better house, somebody else has a more beautiful body, somebody else has more money, somebody else has a more charismatic personality. Compare, go on comparing yourself with everybody else you pass by, and great jealousy will be the outcome; it is the by-product of the conditioning for comparison.
Comparison is a very foolish attitude, because each person is unique and incomparable. Once this understanding settles in you, jealousy disappears.
Whenever you have a sexual urge in your mind, a sexual happening in your being, whenever you feel sexually attracted and related to somebody, jealousy enters because you are not in love. If you are in love, jealousy never enters.
Sex creates jealousy but it is a secondary thing. So it is not a question of how to drop jealousy; you cannot drop it because you cannot drop sex. The question is how to transform sex into love, then jealousy disappears.
If jealousy is there, know well there is no love.
If you go on condemning, your condemnation shows that somewhere there is a wound, and you are feeling jealous — because without jealousy there can be no condemnation. You condemn people because somehow, somewhere, unconsciously you feel they are enjoying themselves and you have missed.
Heaven and hell are not realities but ways of living. You can live in jealousy — that’s how people live. You can live in competition, you can live in conflict, you can live in ambition. That’s how you have been brought up to live. This is the way to hell!
Awareness is the fire; love is the gold; jealousy, possessiveness, hatred, anger, lust, are the impurities.
What is envy? It is nothing but passive jealousy. Maybe jealousy is too strong a phenomenon; envy is a little passive. The difference may be of degrees, but it is not of quality, it is only of quantity. Envy can become jealousy at any moment; envy is just jealousy in progress. Mind has to drop all envies and jealousies.
Just think: you cannot find a single misery for which you are not responsible. It may be jealousy, it may be anger, it may be greed — but something in you must be the reason that is creating the misery.
When jealousy disappears, there is a deep friendliness towards all.
In pure awareness the mind cannot drag you down into the mud, into the gutter. In anger, in hatred, in jealousy, the mind is absolutely impotent in the face of awareness. And because the mind is absolutely impotent, your whole being is in a profound silence — the peace that passeth understanding.
You know your inside, and you know the others’ outside: that creates jealousy. They know your outside, and they know their inside: that creates jealousy. Nobody else knows your inside. There you know you are nothing, worthless. And the others on the outside look so smiling. Their smiles may be phony, but how can you know that they are phony? Maybe their hearts are also smiling. You know your smile is phony, because your heart is not smiling at all, it may be crying and weeping. You know your interiority, and only you know it, nobody else. And you know everybody’s exterior, and their exterior people have made beautiful. Exteriors are showpieces and they are very deceptive.
Because of jealousy you are in constant suffering; you become mean to others. And because of jealousy you start becoming phony, because you start pretending. You start pretending things that you don’t have, you start pretending things which you CAN’T have, which are not natural to you. You become more and more artificial. Imitating others, competing with others, what else can you do? If somebody has something and you don’t have it, and you don’t have a natural possibility of having it, the only way is to have some cheap substitute for it.
The jealous man lives in hell. Drop comparing and jealousy disappears, meanness disappears, phoniness disappears. But you can drop it only if you start growing your inner treasures; there is no other way.
