When Kunti gave birth to Yudhishthira before Gandhari, Gandhari was so filled with envious fear that she struck her womb fiercely, shifting the blame on the baby for her failure. Born was a lump of flesh instead of a healthy child. Dhritarashtra was aghast and burned in jealousy when his brother Pandu got a son before he did. Not wanting to suffer alone and convinced that Gandhari was to be blamed for his failure to become a father before Pandu, Dhritarashtra decided to punish her.
Instead of supporting his wife in her emotional trauma, Dhritarashtra added to it by engaging in union with a maidservant and begetting a son with her. The son, Yuyutsu, remained an emblem of Gandhari’s failure throughout her life.
Gandhari hoped that her yet-to-be-born son would fill the void created by her husband by filling her life with joy and would not be self-centered like his father. When that did not happen, she hoped again that her son would procure her the respect of being the queen mother. When that did not happen and her sons died tragically, she began to seek someone to shift the blame of a lifetime of failures. Her lifetime of emotional needs burst out in the form of cursing Krishna.
The natural symptom of jealousy is fear. Even the most innocent events in a jealous person’s life could become trigger points of fear. Since their batteries are charged with high supply of negativity, they feel extremely nervous while witnessing the success of others as it triggers memories of their own failures. They grade their worthiness based on their failures.
One failure is enough to erupt in them the fear of inability to compete and fear of rejection by the world. In such times, their mind virtually simulates an environment where every friend is morphed to resemble an enemy. In fact, fearful living becomes so much a normal part of their life that absence of reason to be insecure becomes abnormal and they get paranoid. Jealous people love to remain all day under a shower of self-pity.
A jealous mind cannot be satisfied. It will always seek some reason to remain unsatisfied. Change can only happen when they accept the responsibility of having the disease of jealousy and wanting to get rid of it by consciously working on it.
More often than not, such people change not because they want to change, but because they are forced to. Someone has to pull them out forcefully.
At the culmination of their frustrating life, Vidura interfered in the life of Gandhari and Dhritarashtra to help them understand how rigid jealousy had actually made them. With his wisdom, he made them realise that they need not be perfect to be worthwhile. Real success lies in living a life in acceptance of your weakness and not in disturbance due to it. He made them realise that they wanted others to give them what they weren’t giving themselves. Contemplating and acting on Vidura’s insights at the fag end of their lives, both Gandhari and Dhritarashtra were at peace with themselves and thus peaceful with the world.
Real success is in accepting weakness and not getting thrown into a whirlwind of emotional turbulence.
Take note!
Although considered to be triggered by others’ success, jealousy is in fact triggered by our own failure.
Jealousy is accompanied by pain, fear and dissatisfaction.
Jealous people get extremely nervous while witnessing the success of others as it triggers memories of their own failures.
Nestled in self-pity, they are never keen on working on the jealous mindset.
The counter-balance for jealousy is self-acceptance. We cannot expect others to give us what we want.
(The writer is an author, Tedx speaker, story-teller, corporate trainer and visiting faculty in several premier management schools)
