The Green Eyed Monster

Jealousy, or simply J as one would prefer to call it, is integral to human nature. I hate feeling jealous but I must confess that I have been on more than one occasion afflicted by J. Let me share one such incident.

When I was in love I always had this nagging doubt about losing my lover to my competitors. I had this great sense of inadequacy inside me, that I was not full and fit for the girl I loved. She was too beautiful to have fallen in love with me, I thought. This feeling of inadequacy stemmed from the fact that I was not handsome in the traditional sense of the term. I was not a tall, fair and ‘macho’ kind of person for ladies to be swooning over me. 

I was not sure what my lady-love saw in me that attracted her affections for me. She was the extravert and I the opposite. She had gay abandon, the spirit of a free bird in her; I was caged by my own contradictions. She was open and I was closed, too afraid of letting people inside me. I could barely make friends whereas the entire world wanted to be friends with her. I hated to see her this way, yet desired her with all my heart. “You are a lucky guy Ravi” people close to us would tell me. “We cannot see why she fell for you!”

I was a keen observer of people and even dabbled in psychology and psychoanalysis. I wrote whatever I saw and heard around me in my diaries. I used to put myself under the scanner and question my every feeling. I tried to get answers for every doubt that arose in my mind. I told myself that looks are only skin-deep and it was my real self, my sincerity and maturity that attracted her. Some other part in me would laugh at me and ask “What maturity?”

I was too ashamed to expose my feeling of J for her, and hence I disguised it in many clever ways. I would sometimes sweet-talk her into not doing something that I felt bad about. She would not understand my reasoning but agree with me. At times, I found myself asserting my rights over her before my friends as if warning them to stay off her. I wanted her to pay more attention to me, sit by my side always, not to laugh frivolously for the fear of being misunderstood. Oh, the so many devious ways I would invent to express my J for her!

My jealousy led to one thing-forget my feelings for my love and instead cultivate possessiveness. The more possessive I became, my love for her was reduced. I soon found myself getting anxious, depressed and angry when I was with her. And I carried these feelings wherever I went. My personality was changing and changing fast. It was as if I had changed from being a sensitive lover to a possessive maniac. It was like I was treating her like some property over which only I had the title and ownership because I had bought it!

My dialogues with my diaries grew furiously and there were now more angry voices inside me than ever before. They were all protesting against the change in me that was happening. They questioned my love for her and shouted out at me that I was torturing her rather than loving her. If I let my jealousy get the better of me, they said, I am sure to lose her affections permanently. They warned me to stop, think and take charge of myself before I lose it all.

I did not know what to do to resolve the conflict within, and I was getting more and more boorish and brutish externally. If I did not resolve this soon, I would go mad; I will no longer be the human I was, sensitive and sensible. I struggled, unable to handle the internal and external turmoils. I badly needed help.

There was a branch of the Ramakrishna Mission nearby, where I used to visit to borrow books from their excellent library. During my visits, I would watch people gather in the large hall for meditation and prayers. I never believed in joining them. When I was waging this war with myself, I used to feel very disturbed and upset with my life. I could not sleep properly, I lost my appetite and at work, I could barely focus. People around me noticed something wrong and asked me whether I was ok. 

One evening, during my visit to the Mission, I felt the urge to walk into the hall and sit for meditation and prayers. For half an hour I sat there, and I could observe myself. I could see my tormented mind, scampering in different directions like a panicked rat. Random thoughts came and went like straws in the winds. There was pin-drop silence in the hall, but within me, in my tormented mind, thoughts were noisy. 

When the meditation ended, I do not know. I must have fallen into some kind of slumber. I woke up with a start and saw that there was no one in the hall except me and a saffron-robed missionary who was standing and staring at me.

As I awoke to the reality of the hall, the missionary put his hand out for me. I took it and got up. I was cramped and pins and needles were poking in my legs painfully.

“Sir”, the missionary said. “You seem troubled. Would you like a cup of tea?” I nodded.

He took me to the canteen and we sat down to have tea.

“I am not going to ask you about your problems”, he assured me. “However, there is a way you can resolve any problem. Would you like to know?” I nodded again.

“Just let go. That’s the way to resolve any problem.”

I was expecting some profound solution. ‘Just let go’ seemed too simplistic. 

“Just let go?” I asked, “ How do you do that!”

“Just as you embraced your problem. You created the problem and made it big. All you have to do now is to stop being a part of the problem unless you are in love with your problem. Are you?”

“ No, I am not. It’s killing me, killing everything I have in my life. How can I be in love with my problem.”

“Good, then it is very easy for you to disassociate yourself from the problem.”

“ Disassociate myself? What if I am the problem? How do I disassociate myself from myself?”

“ You have given the answer yourself. You asked me ‘how do I disassociate myself from myself. Do you see? You are not oneself within you, only on the outside, physically, are we one entity. Inside we are many. Today you are tormented because one part of you is a war with the other. You have to decide, and when I say you, it's the dominant YOU. Make a choice which part of the warring you you want to retain and which one you will let go.”

“If I decide to let go, will it go away?”

“Of course it will. Try it and see for yourself. You have done it before and you will keep doing it all the time. That’s how we all function. That’s how we all change over different periods of time. You know how to do it, but you don’t understand the process consciously. All you have to do now is to make a conscious effort.”

He left me wondering how all this was going to happen. Actually, it was not very difficult, once I put in motion. First, I decided to take stock of myself, what kind of man I was and what I wanted to be. I asked myself if I truly loved the girl and concluded that I did. Next, I asked myself whether I want to be possessive about her, and the answer a big NO. I wanted my love to free and flowing, not stagnant and putrid. I would not like to be in love with a person who demands love from me, wants a monopoly over me; then how can I expect someone to like me when I am possessive myself? What I was doing to my true love was wrong.

Once it was clear that my behaviour with my lady was wrong, it became easy for me to make amends. The moment I started consciously changing my behaviour, my problem lost it's weight and began loosening its grip on me. I felt lighter, relieved and discovered my ability to laugh and mingle freely. 

I no more felt inadequate, no more feared that she would leave me for someone else because I was not full and fit to be loved. I was now free, both from within and from without.

I like this quote very much:

Jealousy is simply and clearly the fear that you do not have value. Jealousy scans for evidence to prove the point - that others will be preferred and rewarded more than you. There is only one alternative - self-value. If you cannot love yourself, you will not believe that you are loved. You will always think it's a mistake or luck. Take your eyes off others and turn the scanner within. Find the seeds of your jealousy, clear the old voices and experiences. Put all the energy into building your personal and emotional security. Then you will be the one others envy, and you can remember the pain and reach out to them.”

Jennifer James