Handling Jealousy

To make this post really effective and help you in your life, think of something or someone who instills a feeling of jealousy in you. Once you have done that, proceed with reading.

One of the common negative feelings that affect humanity is jealousy. After raising my spiritual awareness, the perspective with which I viewed negative emotions underwent a radical change.

Jealousy, in my opinion, is one of the most misunderstood and negatively rated emotions. I have always wanted to explore the positive side of everything. After all, jealousy is not something we create consciously. It is present in the design and we can’t eliminate it, whether we like it or not.

If there was a positive side of jealousy, what could that be? If we can find out, we can be at peace with it instead of fighting it. On contemplation, I discovered more about this misinterpreted emotion and how it can be used to one’s advantage.

First, we need to understand what jealousy is. The dictionary definition of the word jealous is – “ feeling or showing an envious resentment of someone or their achievements, possessions, or perceived advantages” . We become jealous of somebody when they have something we do not have. To harness the positive power of jealousy, before doing anything, we need to accept and integrate certain fundamental truths and principles.

1.       Our life is in our hands and we have the power to create anything we want.
2.     We shall always have the energy, motivation and drive to accomplish those things that are true to our calling.

The key here is to make sure, what ‘we want to create’ and ‘our calling’ are similar in some ways and specifically figure out exactly how what we want supports our calling. But many a time a person with an average level of consciousness is disconnected from his/her true calling. When we are not aware of our inner calling, that’s when we get trapped by traditional goal setting and get into a monotonous life totally out of sync with who we really are. Here is where jealousy comes to the rescue! Keep reading to find out how..

No matter who we are or what we have accomplished, there are always people who are better than us in any field, even if it is a field of our expertise. In fact, every person we meet is in some way better than us in at least one aspect, no matter who that person is. But the reality is that we are not jealous of everybody. The feeling of jealousy only crops up against specific people, not everybody. Ever wondered why? Pay more attention to what comes next.

The aspect of whomever we are jealous about is actually something which is similar to what we really want in life. It may not exactly be the same, but close to it. Or sometimes it may be an indication of the direction we need to take to live our true calling. But here is the twist. There are major obstacles in our path to get there and those obstacles are self-created. Allow the previous sentence to really sink in. If you really understand the truth in it, it would seem like a ton of bricks falling over your head and would feel as though you have awakened from a deep slumber.

In other words, what you are jealous about is what you really want in your life, but you are your own obstacle. This realization would make jealously disappear just like water evaporates on exposure to the sun. 

Then when you start exploring how you are your own obstacle, you may discover some negative beliefs or you may not find anything at all. If you discover your negative beliefs, find ways to eliminate or change them. Or, there is an easy shortcut. Start admiring the very same person you were jealous about for what they have accomplished (It is much easier now after the realization).




Over a short period of time, magically you would come across ways to eliminate those blocks or they will disappear on their own. Wish you all success!

Why do we instinctively disobey?

One of my great passions has been studying the great incarnates in Indian mythology. I am specifically attracted to Lord Ram and have always wondered how a person can have all these brilliant qualities of playing the role of a perfect son in every way making them (parents) extremely proud and blessed. People will simply say that he is an avatar of Vishnu (One of the principle God of the Hindus) and so he could do it. It may not be possible for ordinary mortals like us. But I disagree. God does not incarnate into the world to show that He could do it because He is God. My firm belief or rather my unshakable faith is that God incarnates as man to show people that - Man can do it. We only have to find a way to hack into his attitude….but how to do that? I just focused on the being with the vibration of Lord Ram and allowed my intuition to find the answer for me.

I conduct Midbrain activation workshops for children, and I was speaking about how one of the benefits of the course apart from improved intelligence and intuition is that the children become far more responsible and start obeying their parents after the workshop. Although the scientific reason for the same has not been established, it has been reported multiple times by grateful parents. So with this feedback in mind, I was promoting this workshop highlighting this aspect to parents who were hoping that their wards would start taking the initiative in their school work.

I came across one particular child who was doing very poorly at school, addicted to TV, not focusing on studies and disobeys parents when they ask him to stop watching TV. 

On the first interaction, I discovered that the child had very low self-esteem. I did my best to improve his confidence after giving him the assurance that he wouldn’t be judged or underestimated if he goes wrong. He participated in workshop well and developed blindfolded reading abilities as a result of it. But even after a few sessions, the complaint from the parent that he is addicted to watching TV all day long and disobeys when asked to do otherwise continued. I had assured improvement, but at that moment I didn’t know how to respond.

Few more days passed and one day I was busy working on my computer. I was almost done with my work when my mom wanted me to do a simple household work which is actually my duty. I somehow wanted to ignore and continue doing something with the computer. There was an unexplainable pleasure I was experiencing out of disobeying her. 

I wondered why.  

It was then that I remembered one of the games the EGO plays – Refusing to be dominated.  And then I questioned further – Why would the EGO do that? It is then I realised that it is a way the EGO seeks importance and significance. It is trying to communicate the message – “I am powerful enough to say a NO!”. But is that really a state of power? 

The only way it can establish its importance is by refusing to obey. This is an act of seeking significance in a destructive way. The EGO does that when one has a very low self-esteem. 

So whenever the disobeying instinct is active within you, it is a clear indication of low self-importance. You can either keep seeking importance from others forever, or you can give importance and love to yourself. Just meditating and affirming - “I give importance to myself” does the trick and the EGO will stop seeking significance through disempowering means. 

Watch the EGO and whenever it plays domination, refusal to be dominated, “I am right”, “You are wrong” games – It is a reminder to give yourself self-love and self-importance. 

How much importance would you give yourself if you were a part of GOD?  Give this magnitude of self-importance to yourself consistently and watch the difference in your behaviour, you are in for a pleasant surprise!

Intellect Vs Heart

There are plenty of theories that speak about the wisdom of the basis of taking any action. One theory suggests developing a strong intellect so that one would not get swayed by emotional reactions to situations and so adopts a well-thought response to a situation.

A strong intellect enables an individual to respond instead of reacting, and this approach seems a bit one sided as emotions are given very less importance.

Another theory speaks about following the heart to perform an action. If the heart says – “do this”, then it should be done. If the heart says – “Don’t help that person”, it means that the right action is not offering our support to that person. Here the intellect is given much less importance compared to the spontaneous emotions of the heart.

I believe that it is better to combine both of these aspects together. Heart & the Intellect. Both are bosses. The intellect should be robust enough to listen to the heart and commit to action after the intellect completely understands the various possibilities of the real positive intention of the heart and the corresponding benefits of following the heart.

 

A well evolved and involved intellect is better equipped to differentiate between true inspirations from the heart in contrast to the dense thought forms borrowed from the collective unconscious as well as negative imprints of our own subconscious mind. 

It is important to be aware of the difference between the message from the spirit vs. the thoughts absorbed from the environment and our own lower vibration based thoughts. A well-developed intellect clearly knows the difference. A strong intellect is a positive side effect of consistent spiritual practices like meditation, yoga, even regular nature walks.

What I mean by the term intellect is not the judgmental, labelling aspect of our mind. The judgmental, labelling aspect is actually the protective mechanism of the EGO that stems out of the good/bad experiences of our past. 

Intellect truly means the witnessing, discriminative faculty within a human being which is capable of identifying whether something is beneficial or non-beneficial in the particular context rather than labelling or generalising it as right or wrong.

The heart is always right, but take action after the intellect is convinced of the message given by the heart and confirms the source as the heart. Only if the intellect shoulders full responsibility for the decision adopted by the heart, an individual will have the courage to face any challenge or obstacle on the path of following the heart.

 

Another tip to find the source of the message is questioning about the same, after connecting to god or universe or source (different people have different methods to do the same). One may ask something like this – Is this message coming from my spirit or my EGO?

If we are patient enough to listen, the answer is sure to come.

Positive Questioning

I have been exploring the concept of positive thinking for almost three years now. After having seen a wide variety of situation, I have found out when exactly positive thinking works and when it does not. 

During tough times of life when everything that happens supports negative thinking, it becomes almost impossible to think positively. But all the self-help authors and speakers promote positive thinking as the most important thing to do at such times. When I force myself to think positively, I apparently seem to know that I am cheating myself and only see little progress.

More than ‘positive thinking’, ‘positive questioning’ is a better way of dealing with our negativity. Let me explain. The way positive thinking is taught to us, we pick out affirmations as framed by others and we keep repeating those to ourselves. Initially, there is significant resistance from the negative reality. The magnitude of resistance depends on the issue and the situation a person is in. Smaller problems can be dealt with ease by ‘Positive thinking’. Here ‘positive thinking’ gives rise to positive vibrations and gives us the power to face problems/challenges. But for bigger chronic issues, a different approach becomes necessary.

Questioning the Positive

The technique of ‘positive questioning’ is something I personally feel extremely effective. It involves paying attention or noticing one good thing that has happened to us and questioning the universe or God on why this good thing happened or sent to us. 

A good thing might have happened without any effort on our part, and we have to question that. Usually, when something bad happens without we deserving such ill-treatment or misfortune, we question the bad from a state of disappointment and victimhood. This would not make us feel any better. Rather we would further get more depressed or disappointed.

Instead, if we question the positive things that happen to us on why we were blessed with it, one would realise that we are loved unconditionally. That would immediately put us in a higher state of vibration and will give us enough strength to deal with the situation from a state of trust & faith.

An example that I would like to use here is that of a baby. Although the baby does not think much, just imagine that it could. If the baby questions why everything is provided to it, why it is cared for, hugged, kissed without doing anything or giving back anything, the truth will come to its awareness. – that it is loved and cared unconditionally, just for being whatever it is. 

 
Once this truth that it is loved, cared and taken care of at all times is completely integrated and digested, even the negative situation will be accepted as an act of love. Eg. A baby has to be given some medicines or injections, which may not be a pleasant experience. There are two ways the baby might perceive them. It can feel threatened, or it accepts the bad experience as discomfort but ultimately TRUSTS.

The same thing is valid for us too. We may view the negative situation as a threat, or we may deep down trust that we are loved a lot, and even the perceived negative is only for our long term good. It is important to realise that we are loved, whether love is expressed to us or not. The understanding would soon dawn upon us that we are expressed just enough love to enable and ensure our steady progress.