On Jealousy, Etc.

By Reza Ganjavi

“O, beware, my lord of jealousy; / It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock / The meat it feeds on." Shakespeare (Othello, Act III, Scene 3).

I was "inspired" to write this after finding out how jealous someone was.

Jealousy is a very powerful psychosomatic phenomenon that can totally block one's perception of facts. It is probably a product of possessiveness and gives birth to hatred, and once thought is caught in that mode one can end up completely out of touch with facts. That can lead to irrational, illogical behavior. Jealousy can hide under many pretenses such as fanaticism. If jealousy is not seen in its totality, any attempt to be free from it only strengthens it - exactly as when one is caught in a trap. One of the best escapes is the idea of "Spiritual growth". To a fanatic, to kill can be a spiritual thing. And to sing and dance can be sins. They accumulate hatred and their cunning thinking builds cases for others to rationalize their jealousy. They do not resolve a problem as it arises instead build up on it by interpreting what-is according to their expectation. It does not matter to them if they have to lie as long as they can shed their misery on their subject. If you tell them that you love them they see it as a pretense. No wonder, they know not what love is, for love requires emptiness but they are full of accumulated content of consciousness (stuff) which makes the consciousness. Maintaining stuff in consciousness requires energy. Far more energy is wasted in that than a dance of joy which they may condemn as irreligious. Being caught in content, they take no action - they can only judge and complain. An old wise grandmother once said: you take away jealousy from people and they are nothing (pointing out what large role jealousy plays in people's lives). Jealousy is rooted in comparison which is a strong human conditioning. Comparison goes along with self-insufficiency. The self is in fact nothing; it is put together by thought - it is a "bundle of memories". But to be nothing means the ending of the self which is unbearable for an inattentive mind...

But the happy man, whose happiness is due to living "religiously", not in the sense of following a belief system - but the religiousness of intelligence - is unaffected by darkness, which is a product of inattention - rather - light is (a product of) attention. Dirt gathers where a corner of room is not cleaned - not attended to. Similarly, if one does not pay attention to what one is, what one thinks and says and feels about other people and ideas and things - in daily life - not on a mountain for a week or on a chair for 15 minutes (though it is good to sit quietly) - then that area of the psyche remains in so called darkness. And inattention is misery and misery wants company - an opposite to give it strength - so jealousy, hatred, gossip, and sarcasm begin. The seeing itself is an art which needs to be explored - seeing without the seer - as the seer is the seen.

A happy person, who feels good in his body and mind, whose mind has learned/is learning the art of ending fear, conflict, pain, jealousy and so on, who can share this freedom in a creative, beautiful way with others, poses a challenge to those who have not ended their problems and their hearts are burdened by many traps of thought.

The doors of heaven - of happiness - not in the future or after physical death - but now - are open to a mind which has seen, which sees, the limitations of thinking. The key to happiness, aside from taking good care of the body with right food, exercise, rest, lies in thought itself seeing its limitation and therefore not entering where it doesn't belong. Most of our thinking is based on past experience and therefore is limited. The right place of thought is mostly for practical aspects of life. It usually doesn't belong in relationship or many psychological matters - but it enters there because of our education and culture over-emphasizing of thought, and various other reasons and conditionings such as the habit of having a problem and a false search for security. Thought divides and makes itself confused and creates stress and ultimately isolation, when it enters where it doesn't belong - it fragments relationship. Simplicity is a key to all this. When there is order in one's life, in one's room and relationship, thought naturally, voluntarily, not by force nor out of desire to achieve, becomes quiet. And the doors of heaven are open. Change is inherent in life. What is can change. Conditioning can change. Understanding what-is is the key to change - we can almost call that a natural law.

One can search the world over for spiritual growth and transcendence but the answer lies within - and without - for in and out are not separate. One cannot be understood without the other - in isolation. The moon is full and smiling in its vitality - and a single star - all alone but never lonely is nearby. The city below is booming with the sound of party, and on these hills, the night insects have begun their song. In simplicity of quietude the self is nothing, and nothing is one with everything.

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Years ago I was traveling through Andalucía and I met a busker, I think an Italian father, then living in Australia. he was extremely talented. He had done very beautiful arrangements of major themes often not played by guitarists, and he was making a lot of money, even in a southern region with a weaker economy than several northern countries where buskers often go to. He'd regularly send his income home to his son. Once a jealous musician punched a hole through Antonio's guitar. Such a cruel and vulgar act. Amazing how far jealousy can go. Jealousy can lead to hatred and all kinds of neurotic acts.

Anyway, a lost track of them -- those days I was still not so computerized.

Peter, anybody else who might have a clue, I'd appreciate hearing it.

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Her 6 year boyfriend was so jealous – even when she went jogging he’d think she’d meet a man. He lied to her friends about her and lied to her about her friends in order to make her isolated – and he succeeded. “He killed my social net… he made a golden prison for me”.