Jealousy - Society's Device to Divide and Rule
A short 10 min videoText:
Osho,
What is jealousy? Does our jealousy show that we are very far from
aloneness?
Society
has exploited the individual in so many ways that it is almost
impossible to believe. It has created devices so clever and cunning
that it is almost impossible even to detect that they are devices.
These devices are to exploit the individual, to destroy his
integrity, to take away from him all that he has got - without even
creating a suspicion in him, even a doubt about what is being done
to him.
Jealousy is one of those tremendously powerful devices. From the
very childhood every society, every culture, every religion teaches
everybody comparison.
And the child is bound to learn it. He is just a tabula rasa, a
blank paper without any writing; so whatsoever the parents, the
teachers, the priests write on him, he starts believing that is his
destiny, it is his fate.
Man comes into existence with all the doors open, all directions
available; all the dimensions are for him to choose. But before he
can choose, before he can be, before he can even feel his being, he
is spoiled.
Jealousy is one of the greatest devices.
Look at it very closely: what does it mean?
Jealousy means to live in comparison.
Somebody is higher than you, somebody is lower than you. You are
always somewhere on a middle rung of the ladder. Perhaps the ladder
is a circle because nobody finds the end of the ladder. Everybody is
stuck somewhere in the middle, everybody is in the middle. The
ladder seems to be a round wheel.
Somebody is above you - that hurts. That keeps you fighting,
struggling, moving by any means possible, because if you succeed
nobody cares whether you have succeeded rightly or wrongly. Success
proves you are right; failure proves that you are wrong. All that
matters is success, so any means will do. The end proves the means
right. So you need not bother about means - and nobody does bother.
The whole question is how to climb on up the ladder. But you never
come to the end of it. And whosoever is above you is creating
jealousy in you, that he has succeeded and you have failed.
One would think that spending your whole life passing from one
ladder to another ladder, always finding that somebody is still
ahead of you - can't you simply jump off the ladder? No, you cannot
jump. The society is very cunning, very clever. It has polished,
refined its methods over thousands of years. Why can't you get out
of the circle? - because somebody is below you and that gives you
tremendous satisfaction.
Certainly, if you go on in this way - being jealous and competitive
of everybody around you - how can you come to yourself? The world is
too big, and there are so many people and you are in competition
with everybody... and you are. Somebody has a beautiful face,
somebody has beautiful hair, somebody has a beautiful, proportionate
body, somebody has a great intellect, somebody is a painter,
somebody is a poet.... How are you going to manage? All this, and
you alone to compete? You will drive yourself nuts - and that is
what all of humanity has done.
Drop competition, drop jealousy.
It is absolutely pointless.
It is absolutely a cunning device created by the priests so that you
can never be yourself - because that is the only thing all the old
religions are afraid of.
If you are yourself you have found contentment, fulfillment,
ecstasy.