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Shri Datta Swami

 26 Oct 2008

 

How to get rid of ego and jealousy in spiritual path?

[Reply to Dr. Sheshadri Thiruvenkadam (Balaji).] All bad qualities are created by God with a positive sense alone. When we misplace these qualities, they become negative. In spiritual path, feeling egotistic or proud that you are the devotee of God develops faith and confidence in yourself. Becoming jealous by seeing a good devotee will provoke the development of devotion in you. Thus, ego and jealousy are good with positive values. There is nothing negative in the creation because everything is created by God with a positive sense only. But the same become negative by misplacement. Suppose you harm others due to ego and jealousy, they become negative. Even in worldly matters, the positive value is realized. It is said that a student grows in knowledge by the spirit of competition, which is nothing but positive jealousy (spardhaya vardhate vidya). The spiritual knowledge leads to realization of experiences in life and this is the best way to eradicate both. If you realize that God is responsible for any achievement of any human being, both are destroyed. To help the realization of this concept, God gives us practical experiences in life. Often, God disposes many things proposed by man. Generally, your plans fail and your achievements are unplanned. By this, God preaches us that we are not responsible for our achievements and that He is actually responsible. When you do not realize this even after several experiences, God condemns you and then several parameters of nature start working for failure or success. If you have realized that you are not responsible for achievement, ego is eradicated. Since you are realized that achievements of others are also due to God, there is no place for jealousy and it is also dried like a tree after cutting its root. Therefore, the acquirement of spiritual knowledge leading to the realization of God given experiences in the life is the best way to eradicate ego and jealousy.

 
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