Envy and compassion

The fundamental nature of jealousy or envy is that you feel inadequate. Envy is: somebody has something that you would like to have or somebody has something more than what you have. If you are very blissful you would not be envious of anybody. Right now, somebody seems to have or you assume that they have something more than you and you feel less than them.So, envy can exist only if somebody else is there who is better than you. If you are here by yourself, envy cannot happen. But compassion is not like that. Compassion can happen even if nobody is here.

Let us take away this understanding that compassion is some kind of sympathy or empathy or pity. Passion means total involvement with something. When we say passion, people are only thinking man-woman passion. No. When you are passionately involved with something, nothing else exists for you. Passion means unbridled involvement with something. It could be anything; you can sing passionately, you can dance passionately, you can do your gardening passionately, you can read a book passionately, or you can just walk passionately. So, it does not mean any specific activity as such nor does it mean any particular area of life. It is just that you have deep sense of involvement.

Compassion means it is an all-encompassing passion. That means your passion is no more discriminatory. Whatever is in touch with you right now, you are deeply passionate with that. Whatever it is, if you look at something you are not just casually looking at anything; there is nothing like casual in your life. Everything is with total passion. You breathe with passion, you walk with passion, you live with passion; your very existence is with absolute involvement with everything. This is compassion. This has got nothing to do with anybody. Even if nobody is here you can live in great compassion. But if nobody is here, you cannot live enviously. You need somebody to cause that for you – you need help. So, you are sympathetic with them when they have fallen down but when they stand up you do not like it. It is from this basis that all charity has come.

Do not try to handle sympathy and compassion and all these things. Just develop unbridled passion towards everything. Do not understand passion as this person. Understand passion as anything that is in touch with you right now. The very cloth that you wear, the very air that you breathe, the very food that you eat, the very earth that you walk upon, just practice some passion. Just be passionate about everything. When it is unbridled, it is notentangling any more.

(Sadhguru is a Yogi, mystic, and Padma Vibhushan awardee, also known for his New York Times bestselling books. He founded Conscious Planet–Save Soil, the world’s largest people’s movement, impacting over 4 billion people)