How can one control envy?

From: Birendra

Many times I am envious of others’ physical beauty, wealth, prestige, knowledge and other opulences. How to control these things?

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Question by Birendra Many times I am envious of others’ physical beauty, wealth, prestige, knowledge and other opulences. How to control these things? Answer Two main ways. First is that we can philosophically analyze and understand how no material ability or possession can make the soul happy.
The soul in and of itself can be happy only with spiritual nourishment, that comes spiritual love for Krishna. So, even if other people have a lot of qualities, they may have fabulous wealth, they may have remarkable prestige, they may have phenomenal knowledge or whatever, these things don’t make them happy. It may give them some glamour, it may give them some prestige, it may give them some fame rather, but these things like glamour and fame, they never satisfy the heart.
Because the more we have, the more we will need them. They are just like lust. And if a person is very famous, then he is always concerned that somebody else may not, somebody may not know how famous I am.
And his whole sense of self-worth and security comes from having others praise him. If he doesn’t get that praise, he feels something is missing in his life. One of the celebrities who was attracted to Shri Prabhupada was George Harrison.
And George Harrison was so phenomenally famous that he had millions and millions of people all over the world mad for him because of his musical talents. And even one of the moon that was discovered around Jupiter was named after him. It was called George Harrison 8084 or something like that.
And he was so famous. But in his personal life, that fame gave him no happiness. And he felt that the constant pressure of being in the public eye was just an unending torture.
And he used to say that actually it is only when I am in the association of devotees, I am chanting Hare Krishna, I am doing something spiritual, do I really feel peaceful and joyful. And he may be among the few celebrities who have expressed that. But there are many others who suffer the same thing but don’t express it or they never realize it.
One of India’s greatest cricketers, Sachin Tendulkar, he is called by some people as the God of cricket. And during one time of his career, when he had a back injury and couldn’t play, so he mentions that anybody who would see him anywhere, the first thing that they would ask him is, how is your back? And he said, I got so fed up at that time that people were not even saying hello to me, people were not even greeting me, they were just asking about my back. So he realized at that time, to some extent, indirectly, of course that didn’t last for long, he said that actually people are not concerned about me.
People are concerned about my body because my body can be used to give them sense of gratification. And if my body is injured, then my body cannot give them sense of gratification. He mentions in one of his biographies that he felt so fed up.
He said, I felt as if I don’t want to see anyone and just be all alone. Because to some extent in this world, when somebody becomes famous or opulent, other people use that fame, that wealth, that knowledge for their own purposes. When people are opulent in this world, other people are surely attracted to them, but people are attracted to the wealthy for their wealth, not for their own personalities.
A beautiful heroine may make thousands of men swoon, but men are not attracted to her, they are attracted to her body. When the bodily beauty fades, then there is no happiness left for her. So in this way, if we analyze, we will see that material qualities don’t bring any happiness.
Material abilities, material resources, material talents, they don’t bring any satisfaction to the heart. What brings satisfaction to the heart is the reciprocation of love. And once we understand this, even if somebody has a lot of opulence, and even if that person is making a pretense of being happy, that person is actually not happy.
So on one side, the more one gets fame, the more one wants fame, and the more one becomes insecure when one will lose that fame. So one really is not loved by others, and one doesn’t feel loved for one’s own sake, one feels used for one’s talents or one’s qualities, one’s abilities, whatever. So, we need to philosophically be convinced that material opulences themselves don’t lead to happiness.
What will bring happiness is the reciprocation of love. So once we understand this, then we will not go, we will not lament about not having gone on a road, which is ultimately a dead end. Now, we may be a practicing devotee, and we may see some qualities, abilities, talents, opulences in other devotees.
And these other devotees, when we see these qualities, we may feel envious of them. So now, even among devotees, if a devotee can sing very nicely, if a devotee has a lot of knowledge about scripture, then it is not that his singing ability or his knowledge of scripture that is going to make him happy. That may give him some fame, that may give him some position and recognition, even within a devotee society.
But again, this fame and recognition, in and of itself, is also going to burn in the heart, making one crave for more and more. What will give that devotee happiness is his remembrance of Krishna, and his utilization of his talents in Krishna’s service. So, if somebody is singing very nicely, while that person is thinking that, oh, how many people are appreciating my singing, then he will be very insecure and very dissatisfied till somebody comes and appreciates.
On the other hand, if somebody can’t sing nicely, but that person tries to sing according to his capacity, and is prayerfully trying to remember Krishna, that person will be happy and absorbed in the remembrance of Krishna at that time, and will also get purified by which he will become happier afterwards. So, in this way, even in the devotional circle, whatever qualities we have, abilities we have, they in themselves are not the source of happiness. What is the source of happiness is our loving connection with Krishna.
And ultimately, what we want in life, we want our hearts to be satisfied. So, in that sense, the lack of qualities, the lack of abilities, the lack of opulences is not a disqualification on the path of happiness. We can remember Krishna whether we know a lot of shlokas or not, whether we have a melodious voice or not.
This doesn’t stop us from remembering Krishna. Therefore, our happiness does not depend on our mundane opulences. It depends only on the sincerity of our heart.
And our longing in our heart for remembering and loving Krishna. So, once we understand that that which matters to me is not dependent on what others have or what others lack, then we can become peaceful. That’s the first step to become free from envy.
The second step is to recognize that whatever qualities other people have, they are all coming from Krishna. Lord Krishna says in the 10th chapter of the Bhagavad Gita, the 41st verse, So, if somebody has beauty, somebody has wealth, ultimately that opulence is a spark of Krishna’s splendor. And if we see others are being attracted to that, we should think that this is the attractive potency of one spark of Krishna’s potency.
How much more will be the potency of the complete whole of Krishna himself? And how much more will be the immense happiness when that attraction is revealed in my heart? When Krishna’s beauty is revealed in my heart and that attraction is reawakened? So, and even if we feel envious, at one level we know that envy is just distorted appreciation. Envy is distorted or perverted attraction. So, rather than feeling envious of somebody, we can think that, yes, this quality is attracting me and I am feeling I don’t have it, but actually my Lord has this quality in far greater quantity.
And how much more I will be happy when I get attracted to that Lord and love that Lord? And in this way, if we try to connect the qualities that others have with Krishna, then that will enhance our Krishna consciousness and that will enhance our eagerness to develop our love for Krishna and experience the ultimate happiness thereof. So, this way, by remembering that all qualities come from Krishna, we can not gravitate on the particular person exhibiting that quality, but take that person as a take-off point for directing our thoughts towards Krishna and think about Krishna’s beauty and majesty and intelligence and His other opulences and increase our attraction for Krishna or at least increase our desire for that attraction of Krishna. Now, we may still feel that, but what about me? I don’t have these qualities.
Yes, we may or may not have these qualities right now, but if we sincerely try to serve Krishna, Krishna may give us these opulences in the future so that we can use them in His service. But, the important thing that Krishna wants to see is do we want to serve Him? So, if we show Krishna our intention of serving Him, then Krishna doesn’t want all the wealth of this material world to be with materialists. The wealth is Lakshmidevi and Krishna wants Lakshmidevi to be used by devotees for the good of the world and for His own glorification.
So, Krishna would like to give all the wealth, all the beauty, all the intelligence of the world to His devotees. But, Krishna doesn’t want His devotees to become infatuated by those opulences and forget Him and think that those opulences themselves will make Him happy. So, I don’t need Krishna at all.
Therefore, if we show Krishna that we do want to serve Him and we are convinced or we are trying to be convinced that material opulences in and of themselves can’t make us happy, what will make us happy is our loving devotional service to Krishna. If we express this in our actions, then Krishna doesn’t have any hesitation about giving opulences to us because He knows that opulences won’t mislead us away from Him. So, in this way, the first step was recognizing that opulences, no matter how impressive or attractive they may be, they cannot make a person happy.
And secondly, opulences are a spark of Krishna’s splendor. And therefore, if we deepen our devotional service to Krishna, then Krishna can use opulences and we can render wonderful things in Krishna’s service.