Yog of Knowledge and Action
Chapter 4, Verse 22
yadṛcchālābha santuṣṭo
dvandvātito vimatsaraḥ
samaḥ siddhāvasiddhau ca
kṛtvāpi na nibadhyate
He who is satisfied with whatever gain comes to him, who has passed beyond the dualities, is jealous of none, and is equal in failure and success, is not bound even when he acts.
In every action, the one who is free doesn’t create any karma. He’s “beyond the dualities”, he doesn’t have any jealousy. Jealousy is something terrible. It’s through the evil of jealousy that one criticises, one aims to harm others, one starts to compare oneself with others, one goes into deep judgement and becomes miserable. But the evil of jealousy doesn’t affect the one who is beyond the duality. In that state, there’s no jealousy and one becomes “equal in failure and success.” A wise one, a yogi, doesn’t give way to this entertainment of the mind. Whereas other people, even if they think that they have known the scriptures and understood them, if they are still attached to the objects of the senses, jealousy stays hidden in them and their knowledge is corrupted.
For those who have not yet risen above the duality, whatever they know about the scriptures is useless, because in everything that they do, there is always comparison with others. That’s why Krishna says that a wise one, someone who is on the spiritual path, should not judge or criticise others; one should not even compare one’s own spiritual practice with others. Be free from that! Because in the state of jealousy, one may appear to love, one may appear to respect, but it will just be out of cunningness. For example, very often friends love each other, no? But there is also jealousy in it. If one of them gets something, the other one automatically, feels a small dislike inside and thinks, “Ah, why him and not me?”
Jealousy is considered to be a vice. The karma yogi who is doing his duty and has gone beyond duality, has overcome jealousy; “he is not bound even when he acts.” Lord Krishna says that even in one’s action, when one is free from this bondage of jealousy and is surrendered to the Supreme in every action, in whatever one does, there will be no comparison and one is free from karma.
Bhagavad Gita
