envy.... this word reminds me of that onida advertisement that used to be telecast when i was young...neighbours envy owners pride...
now the first question that comes to my mind is....why envy our neighbours???...or rather why envy anyone????
last week i was discussing this with a friend... and i thought why not ask all of you???... who do you envy ????
the first person that would come to our minds will be someone who we feel is better than us....but if you give this a thought you'll realise that the person concerned is also not perfect... if you ask him he'll give you a name of another person who he envies....
now the next question i put forth is why envy such a person... why envy anyone who isnt the best???....thats why i say if you want to envy someone.... be envious of GOD....
thats because He is the best.... nothing compares to Him... He is perfect... compare yourself to Him not mere mortals who we think are superior to us... i really wouldnt want to compare myself with someone who is imperfect... someone who isnt the best....
now one more question for you...do you know whats the opposite of envy???... ever heard of an english reference to it??... well i got this information from a friend... its called MUDITA...
MUDITA is a pali word which means 'happiness at anothers success in life'...theres no english word for this... but its meaning is so beautiful... its got a little to do with pride... but then its not actually pride.... its more like being happy at another persons success... as such its an antidote to envy...
"Envy is a propensity to view the well-being of others with distress, even though it does not detract from one's own. [It is] a reluctance to see our own well-being overshadowed by another's because the standard we use to see how well off we are is not the intrinsic worth of our own well-being but how it compares with that of others. [Envy] aims, at least in terms of one's wishes, at destroying others' good fortune." (Kant, The Metaphysics of Morals 6:459)
15 comments:
plz delete this post...or else i'll need to change my nick :)
loll
lol nv!
great post eyezz...loved every bit of it!
I'm human therefore I must have some 'envy' in me, no matter how hard I try to say I dont envy anyone...deep inside I will feel th epangs of envy every now and then...cant help it, I'm made that way.
But I understand that no one's perfect here on Earth and we should not be envious of each other...I'm nearly there and as years pass by I know I will be devoid of envy to near-perfection :) But I dont envy God at all...because envy is associated with a bit of jealousy, resentment and greed. And I consider God as our parents and we cant have envy on the one who created us. I can only love Him.
Keshi.
lol rohit... its ok theres no need to change your nick...
keshi good to hear that you r trying to get there...
i just got some information for you guys..i edited my post..do read it again..
wow Muditha...I know that word. It means the same thing in Sinhalese and Sinhalese has Pali words.
opposite of envy? hmm I checked too and couldnt find it. I guess you can say it's close to 'goodwill' but not quite there. Let us know if u find the right word...
Keshi.
well said marginal... too much envy isnt good for nyone.. its fatal sometimes..
keshi mudita is one of the four 'brahma viharas' in buddhism..u can refer to www.zader.com
u are soooooooooo good.
nice write mus! but pls dont push yourself so hard to get sentimental over the petty issue. :)
marginal_ u are awwsome!
but who am i to judge ...
.rahul_
envy need not be viewed so negatively. envy might urge one to do better-strive more to outdo the one who is being envied. yeah! no end to this outdoing business but then i suppose thtz. how the things go.
and envying GOD? i really don't see how can anyone envy HIM? how can envy one who has to listen to woes of so many ppl. 24X7. Sometimes I feel HE not so perfect in HIS creation after all.It sounds like too senti and emotional stuff but the first time I doubted the perfection of HIS creation was when I visited Rajiv Gandhi Cancer Hospital last year to visit my aunt. In the lobby I came across two kids-bro. was 10 years old, sis was 6 or 7 yrs. old. their father had gone inside to see their mother admitted in the hospital. Hospital rules did not allow children inside so there they were in the lobby. the brother told me " roj to nani bhi saath aathi thin to papa aur woh baari baari se mummy ko dekhne andar jate thein. lekin aaj naani ko bukhaar aa gaya to woh aayi nahin.papa thodi thodi der baad aa kar humse baat ker lete hain. " and they say HE loves the kids most!
oops! i kinda deviated. muse wrote abt. the green eyed monster... these lines not entirely mine but still ... na khush hai apni khushi pe, na dukhi hai apne dukh pe, ajeeb hai insaan-dukhi hai to apne padosi ki khushi pe, khush hai to apne padosi ke dukh pe,
lol rahul...sure i wont deviate.. thanx word..i aint sooooooo good...just some of my thoughts... n sometimes things that i talk with my muse...
aeolus... this is so touching.. i m sure if i were in ur place there would be tears in my eyes... it hurts the most when u see kids in such a position... but then again who are we to question HIM of the things that happens around us.. but id still envy HIM for all the knowledge that HEs got... i guess we could call that positively envious...
Yeah i do envy God..but know what if i had the strings of all of ya'll in MY hands,i'd have been a better God.He just failed to live upto the prmoise He showed when he created nature.Human beings which He created are soo..
ashes thanx for visiting my blog... yup sometimes we feel that we'd be better in HIS place..but imagine the responsibilities HEs got..how many people HEs got to look after..
Envy is a v basic emotion ..inculcated in 2 us frm v begining..its a viscious cycle..we envy smbdy..and he envy smbdy else...and thn cycle is endless...
its a curse we humans r blessed with have to suffer...we cant get it out we can only curb it...
and GOD we cant b envious of him u can b envious 2 ppl of ur own specie or race..and HE is above it
hey sebz thanx for visiting... u r rite we cant actually stop being envious.. but we can atleast try to curb it..
I am late here. Hope you notice the comments I make. muditaa is derived from the verb mud in Sanskrit. The actual Sanskrit word is moditaa, (you know modaka, modanaM, etc.). I disagree that this is a plain pali word. It is a Sanskrit-derived Pali word^.
Muditaa, as far as I know, means "who pleases others". This is quite different from not envying others. (for example devamoditaaM can be used as an adjective for Parvati, saying "You pleased devtaas (in the past by winning over the demons)"
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B
^ Why this sanskrit-derivation matters -- The buddhists in India consistently try to show they are smart. Out of this smartness attitude, they borrow stuff from sanskrit (hell yeah) and say it was their's. Worse than that they have politically used force and modified some parts of our purana and other treatises.
hey bhaaluu never knew this... i guess happens with all old religions...
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