A Serious Warning Bell This Time - The Monster of Jealousy!

Dear Sridhar,
I was of the notion that envy and jealousy are much different. Envy as you said as very light green and jealousy a dark green. I also thought that envy is good natured feeling where as J is a very bad feeling. From your post, it seems that they are very near to each other and I should not harbour both.
Both the posts were very nice.

Dear Sridhar,
Your write up on jealousy is thought provoking. simply superb analysis..(I am happy for you..not jealous) .
We come across this feeling on a day to day basis. In fact jealousy is more discussed about than LOVE. We are all victims of this monster at some point of time.
However, your argument on Kann Dhrishti is not fully acceptable to me. I have come across a family, where one brother was cool as a cucumber and her brother's family bathes in jealousy. Needless to say, they hardly met. Once in a while, the cool brother, along with his young daughter would meet the jealous brother's family. Upon return, the young girl will develop some problem..a boil in the eye, hurt in the leg and so on...This cannot be a co-incidence..The young girl is too young to display arrogance..
My argument is Envy/ jealousy is an independent emotion, based on the nature of each individual.
Awaiting your feedback.
Regards
USHA

Dear Varalotti,

This was yet another wonderful post, triggering the thought-process in us..! Nowadays, all your post gives me the feel of reading a fable, with a good moral to be learnt at the end of each and every lesson. Earlier it was about listening and its virtues...now its about Jealousy...True...how this evil thought could corrupt a person to any extent ??

Jealousy is the biggest block on the path of happy living. If we nuture the seeds of jealousy in us and allow it to grow like a tree, the roots of jealousy is sure to ensconce itself firmly within the core of our 'good' thinking and slowly start corrupting our thoughts, mind and finally our personality as a whole. Sometimes even the biggest noble acts/services that one does, is overshadowed by the mere thought of jealousy that shows up in them. I have seen many characters not getting their due recognition/respect due to their jealousy nature, inspite of having other good qualities.

Yah, I admit that, I too succumb to Jealousy occassionally. But when I am victimised, I immediately take all consicous effort to destroy the thought of jealousy within minutes after its born in my mind...I don't let it grow, though I haven't successfully learnt the tactics of preventing its evolution. Because am a staunch believer of Positive Energy, I believe this Jealousy in me, is capable of ruining my positive energy, which helps me to raise and nuture many positive thoughts, which gives way to many positive actions.

As you have said enough and more about jealousy , which I fully comply , I have nothing much to add. However, I have only one thing to say. I feel the quality of Acceptance is detoriating in us, which gives rise to these kind of negative feelings..Accepting what we have (rather what god has given us) with full-heart, in itself, is a best solution to combat Jealousy. Contentment in life also plays a pivotal role in controlling jealousy. With contentment, jealousy has no space to enter our minds. To have that contentment, it needs lot of mental maturity and processing of mind, which is a very big mental exercise. Mastering our mind is no easy thing ! But once we do that, we become the enlightened souls and the concept of envy, jealousy is sure to become alien to us.

Varalotti, I don't agree with what you have to say for kan-drishthi, other's casting an evil eye on us, definitely has an impact on us, regardless of whether we are arrogant or not. It's habitual in our house-hold to do this "Dhristhi sutharthu" during the nite of the day when we hear so many comments passed about our well-to-do living from peers (though some of them are very genuine comments, one cannot miss out that jealous tone in few who merely praise us outside, but full of other feelings about us inside). Me and my husband never believed in kan-dhiristhi before marriage, but after seeing some personal repercussions of that, we started to believe in it and follow this procedure of Dhristhi Suthi Podharthu once in a while.

Love,
Preethi

Dear Varalotti sir

This is a very strong warning bell indeed. Your write up was superb and made me to look into myself. A few years back I would have said I am not a jealousy type at all. Why should I feel jealousy? That was my thinking. But after marriage the roles of a wife, daughter-in-law, sister-in-law, mother all changed my thinking. I liked your evil eye example. Yes there were so many situations in my life where this arrogance has crept in. Most of the time when you play these roles we will not be aware of the arrogance at all. We think it is very much normal. But sometime back when I was forced to analyse my life I found out the connectivity between this jealousy and the ups and downs of my life. I understood how our thoughts can change our life.

When we point our finger to the other person and blame them we most often neglect the other fingers that is pointing towards us. So now in most of the situations I give much importance to the fingers that is pointing me and try to learn from that. I am happy to say that Indusladies has also helped me to an extent in this matter. But still I am in the starting point.

regards
vidhi

Dear Usha and Preethi!

I am happy to see your response to my article. Regarding Kan Drishti I stopped with one level of analysis and had planned to go further only when somebody comes up with their views on that. I am happy that you two have picked up that point making me release a little more from the four left out pages. (Sriranjani, please note that 4 pages is not just a dangling carrot, but a solid reality)

I did some incidental research on Kan Drishti when I researched for my novel The Haunted House. That is one problem which has been puzzling me me from my childhood days. I still remember the custom in house in those days. Every saturday in the evening time, particularly at dusk (sandhya kaalam) all the children of the house will be rounded up for an elaborate drishti sutthi poduthal ceremony.

In the first level of analysis I gave tips to the adults who use this site a major precaution against kan drishti. And I have seen it work. Now for children and adoloscents, the situation is totally different. If you had noticed many times, children, especially babies become victims of kan drishti. Babies do not have the werewithal to be arrogant or proud. Then why this happens?
That is at the next level. You see Kan Drishti is basically a fight for power between two minds. On the one side is the jealous mind sending vibes of evil to the object envied. On the other side is the victim's mind. If the victim is an adult, then arrogance is the trap door through which the virus of evil vibes will enter. If the victim is a child or a young person, then his or her mind is weak, or the level of awareness is not that high. And if the mind of the jealous person is powerful then he can do anything to the victim. That is why a baby gets sick the moment a jealous person or an evil person sets eye on her.
Casting an evil spell (sei-vinai vaithal) is only a cousin of a jealous look or an evil glance.
For jealousy to have effect on the victim the jealous person should have a highly focussed thought. So we do our best to distract the focus. For instance we apply a small black dot on the baby's cheeks. That dot distracts the jealous person. We have the picture of a donkey in the house so that the focus is disturbed. Even our ritual of drishti-kazhithal is intended to strengthen our minds. The victim is made strongly to believe that the ritual destroys the effect of evil eye. If done properly by an elderly person with a strong and loving mind, it does have an effect as it induces powerful thoughts in the minds of possible victims.


That is why I said earlier that jealousy cannot be dismissed as just an emotion. It can and does have an effect in the outside world. And so is the case with any extreme emotion.

I read about the case of a young woman whose husband had died suddenly. She went to see her husband's body in the morgue and was returning home. It was evening when she got down from the bus. (I think it happened in London) The street lights had been swithced on just then. This lady had so much grief in her. She had not cried so far. Pent-up grief like compressed air acquires lethal power. When this lady glanced at one of the street-lights, the bulb burst. And when she saw the second one it also burst.
Well, that was a digression. But how do we protect the young and the innocent, like the daughter of the :"cool as a cucumber" man? We just have to plant strong thoughts in them if they are of sufficient age. A powerful prayer is invariably effective. And it is all the more important for the elders not to showcase their children as enviable objects.
But I dont want to tread more on this parapsychological area and distract the others from the main discussion on one of the important qualities of human mind.
Thanks a lot for the provocation, Usha and Preethi.
regards,
sridhar

Hello varalotti sir,
I am really surprised to see all the looooong posts you submit here. First day, I received a note 'make ur posts short and sweet'....Read that u have heard of 'vetti arattai' when you were young.I have heard of 'Kathai alakkarathu also ....If you canot take criticism sportively, please do not respond to this.I cannot be a chamchagiri.Anyway, I try hard to read all that you post.

sunayana

Sridhar, this is for your knowledge. We believe in evil eye and whenever we see some thing that attracts us we say "May God bless it(or him or her)". I write some of our beliefs regarding evil eye here.

Everyone who puts the evil eye on another is envious, but not every envier puts the evil eye on another. The word envier is more general in meaning than the word one who puts the evil eye on another, so seeking refuge with God from the one who envies includes seeking refuge with Him from the one who puts the evil eye on another. The evil eye is like an arrow which comes from the soul of the one who envies and the one who puts the evil eye on another towards the one who is envied and on whom the evil eye is put; sometimes it hits him and sometimes it misses. If the target is exposed and unprotected, it will affect him, but if the target is cautious and armed, the arrow will have no effect and may even come back on the one who launched it.

If a person looks at something he has with admiration and he does not pray for blessing for it, by saying “may God bless it” and the like, and this thing is then affected in some way, then it is possible to know that he has inflicted envy on himself.

Prophet said “Whoever among you sees something in himself or in his possessions or in his brother that he likes, let him pray for blessing for it, because the evil eye is real.” This sayings explains that a person may harm himself or his wealth – and no one feels jealous of himself – but he may harm himself with the evil eye by admiring himself.

Dear Sunayana,

I am pleased to welcome you on board in this great thread. But I find that you are prone to air-sickness and a thread like this makes you dizzy as it takes you to great heights. Take care, Sunayana. Dont take the trouble of reading Varalotti's post.

Well, to a new comer to this site, the first advice that is given is to make ones post short and sweet. Which in essence means, that if you are wishing someone on her birthday, dont write five pages.

But we cannot apply that rule to a syndicated columnist like Varalotti who sculpts bi-weekly posts for all of us. The words "long" and "short", have relative significance, sunayana. For example a joke that fills up half a page is very long. But a novel that fills up only 20 pages is very short. We cant complain to a novelist, "Your novel is 100 pages long. Very very long. Vetti arattai. Kathai Alakkarathu." etc. And that too to make that kind of a complaint without reading it,... May God save us!

If you were to judge the immortal works of Tamil Authors like Kalki (Ponniyin Selvan) or even Kambar (Kamba Ramayanam) or English Authors Irwing Wallace (HIs novel The Man runs into thousands of pages) or Vikram Seth or even Leo Tolstoy, you will complain about the length and may not enjoy the contents. I am not saying Varalottis posts are to be compared with such great works. But the subject he deals with requires this kind of length.


I have some tips to you to make best use of this site. Dont come to Varalotti's threads first. Go to snippets, Forwarded Messages and Jokes, wishes etc. and then once you are attuned to the culture of this site, you can venture into Varalotti's forums.

Another suggestion is that if you cant read Varalottis post, at least read others posts here to have a grasp of the subject matter discussed here.

Whether varalotti is going to take your criticism sportingly or not, I do not know. But Sunayana, I for one, honestly do not feel it is a criticism, because you have not even read the thread fully.

Criticising without reading is worse than being a chamchagiri. Have your pick, Madam! Because while doing chumcha you praise without reading. And what you have done now is criticising without reading.

Hope you will take my criticism of your criticism sportingly.
regards,
Sriranjani

Varalotti,

I have been reading your leader and three supp posts with much interest. What a subject- one can meaningfully write pages on it. Not surprising that our own Indian epics not to mention Homers classics, were based to an extent on the leit motif of jealousy.

I liked the first supp post very much. U have delved deep into the subtle differences between envy and jealousy. I always thought that in jealousy we guarded what we have out of possesiveness. And in envy, we longed for what the other had better than us. But on closer analysis, as you say, they are both just shades of the same emotion. I think both these stem from our basic insecuriy and self-pity. Mixed with basic human ego/arrogance,the combination becomes lethal and boomerangs. As u have cited in kan drishti.

In yr second supp post, u have given a cure for jealousy. Recognising it and destroying the beeja. But honestly, how many of us have the awareness and wisdom to recognise jealousy and curb the feeling? Very often, we do not even know that we are jealous. Let me give you an example. A loving wife with a loving husband who came up with much hardship since his mother harassed him. Everytime the wife sees another man of her husband's age being pampered/supported/loved by his mother, she feels that her husband got a curve ball. Neither sets of relationships affect her directly, still there is a pang of a negative emotion. Maybe she now recognises it as jealousy. But in her mind, she is entitled to this emotion. My point being, jealousy often arises from self-pity. And self-pity is rooted in arrogance, why can't I have what the next one has?

In the third post (u have marked it as 4, kanakku--?)
You have spoken abt kandrishti. I usually dismiss it as an unscientific concept. But I have seen that most cultures round the world believe in some form of the 'evil eye'. Even the glacial, tech smart Norwegians, believe in its malfice and tie sage,horseshoe etc to prevent the evil eye. There is so much to exhort abt positive vibes and energy.

One small story before I wind up. An uncle here spoke of jealousy just last night. His father served in Netaji's INA and was reported dead. The family returned to Kerala where for five years,they suffered immense hardship and poverty. the uncle, as a boy would walk barefoot for five miles with a ball of rice to school, drinking river water to quench hunger.After many years, the father returned.The family was relieved and back to riches since the father was an ace journalist. Years later, when the boy became a father, his little son would ask the driver to tie his shoelaces and carry his bag to the car. And uncle remarked,'the boy in me walking barefoot with a treasured ball of stale rice would feel jealous of the little boy who asked the driver to do his chores'. The father-son relation faded for one wee moment under the potent force of jealousy.

In all, a very challening topic has been analysed thoroughly by you. And I have learnt a lot abt myself thru introspection and yr insight. Thanks.

Cheers Varalotti,way to go.

Dear sridhar!

(Butting in)...
Does not matter how small and insignificant you think your name should be signed, greatness is what greatness does! Your name will Never assume the obscurity you intend if you dish out such magnanimous thoughts in post after post. Sriranjani is right, we all are getting flustered and restless with all this introspection. We need a solution too:) Whether you 'can' give it or not is another matter, we can ask, right?!!:)
This problem of jealousy that we feel and experience at the hands of others is one of the most prevalent and unfortunate social behaviour of us humans.
Jealousy sometimes creeps into my psyche, especially when I think someone I know gets something or experiences something which is not deserved by that person at all. The jealousy may be the feeling, its root is buried in the unfairness of the situation. But then, who am I to judge. Maybe things happen for a reason. I generally never succumb to this feeling of jealousy and wish everyone their right to their lives and do not compare. It has given me an inner peace. But what I more often feel is, envy. Like you have already explained, it is a relative to jeaolousy, but its roots are buried in a feeling of admiration. You would like to be in that someone's place, but cannot due to lack of your own abilities. For eg, I envy you for your writing and expression abilities!
I am sure all of us can write reams about our experiences caused by someone else's jealousy and how it has taken its toll on our lives. I can. There is nothing one can do about it. There are people who feel jealous just because you can laugh wholeheartedly. Best thing is to leave them to their own fate, which cannot be very pleasant if they smoulder everytime they see others happy.
Your one story in 'Vetriyin Vidhaigal' says never to compare your fate with any other's. Maybe you think the other person has a great time now, but maybe he will be suffering with gout years later when you yourself are holidaying at a riviera!
About 'kan drishti'...this is an ingrained feeling we Indians are subjected to since the time of our birth. Every time we returned home from a function or gathering, my mom did a 'drishti' to remove the 'evil eye' on us and so did my grandmom, mil, etc. Although I was and am convinced that this is an old woman's tale, I was and am tempted to do this where my children are concerned and now for my sweetypie grandkids! I know it is only a self glorification. It automatically brings a smile on all our faces and that is worth it, drishti or no drishti. As a matter of fact, I dont even know what words to utter when doing this action...all I do is take some salt and go round with my arm and down the sink goes the salt!!!
But, one simply cannot undermine the vicious actions of people who are jealous of you. It can cause a lot of heartache, headache...ache...on the whole.
How can we wipe it off...wish you really had an answer to that:)

L, Kamla