However spiritual one might be there will be subtle jealousy comparing ourselves with others in certain areas, even in spiritual activities. When this topic came, in response I told a flock story from Ramayana. Part of it was old one, but as usual I cooked a bit more to present my view:
After bringing Sita from Sri Lanka, when Rama and Sita were returning back to Ayodhya in the Pushpaka Vimana, Rama was showing her various places where he was searching her. When they came over Kishkinda, Rama told how he met Hanuman and with the help of Sugreev and his army of monkeys managed to free her from Ravana’s captivity. Then Sita in order to thank them personally requested Rama to stop for a brief visit to them. Agreeing with her Rama, they went there.
When the female monkeys saw the beauty of Sita, some of them began to envy her for her beauty. They began to compare her beauty with them and felt very sad, by saying, ‘how soft is her skin, how shining is her face, how gentle is her voice and how beautiful is her walk’. Seeing their jealousy, one old woman, in order to teach them a lesson said, ‘what is the use of having all the beauty. But she does not have a beautiful tail like us and she cannot jump from tree to tree like this’. (from here I cooked the following story)On hearing this, most of them began to clap and began to jump with joy and even started to jump from tree to tree, even hanging downwards hooking their tails on the branch and began to mock Sita in order to tease her.
On seeing this, as Sita was really amused, she began to laugh wholeheartedly. Seeing Sita laughing deep from heart after a long time, Rama was so happy and he too started to laugh. On seeing this Lakshmana also joined them and seeing them Sugreevan, Hanuman and others also started to clap and laughed.
Then seeing this the monkeys stopped their mocking and sat with much more sadness wondering what was going on. Then they went again to the old monkey and started to complain, ‘as you pointed out what we have that Sita does not have, we started to rejoice and were happy about it. But instead of being irritated by our mocking at her, she and others began to enjoy it as if we were entertaining them with much happiness. Seeing this added to our jealousy now we become sad more than before.’
After listening to them, with a smile the old woman monkey said, ‘I wanted to do two things by saying this. First, I don’t want you to put an evil eye on Sita and in order to protect her from your evil eye I said like that. Then I also wanted to teach you one lesson. There is no point in comparing what others have with what you don’t have and what you have that others didn’t have. The only way to overcome jealousy is to appreciate what others have and also should become their fan. Once you become their fan, you will rejoice in seeing what are the good things that they have begun to appreciate.’
Agreeing with her they asked her what remedy they have to do now to show their repentance. Then she said, ‘Sita was in captivity and she never had time to take a proper bath or decorate again to make her husband to rejoice. So go and bring fresh flowers and fruits from the forest and let us decorate her beautifully and send her with lots of forest products that might not available at Ayodhya’
Immediately they all began to rush to the forest to bring flowers and fruits and other products and even some started to perform solo and group dance really to entertain both Rama and Sita. All ended well and they sent Sita with those gifts back to Ayodhya, learning a good lesson from Rama-Sita’s visit.
DB, Gurukulam
20-6-2023
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