Envy throws the mind off balance and gets in the way of meditation. Four practices from Patanjali's Yoga Sutras (maitri, karuna, mudita and upeksha) help replace negative thinking with positive thinking.
Negative inner feelings keep a person from succeeding in the outer world. One of them is envy. The mind loses its balance, and this prevents a fitting response to what is happening.
Envy pushes us into conflict with others, develops the psychology of a loser, and keeps us from learning from other people and taking on their positive experience.
Instead of actively moving forward, a person sinks into stagnation, and the idea "everyone around me is bad, I alone am good" begins to dominate the mind.
The feeling of envy interferes with meditation, because even if there is no obvious envy at the moment of meditation, a negative wave remains deep in the mind, and because of it it is very hard to touch the subtle. Envy and negative thinking depend closely on each other.
In the "Yoga Sutras," Patanjali described four methods; practicing them regularly teaches us how to get rid of envy by replacing negative thinking with positive thinking. By practicing them, a person's mind will gradually become pure and radiant.
The first method: maitri
It means that we should cultivate friendliness toward happy, joyful people.
It sometimes happens that another person's cheerfulness, energy, success and happiness stir negative emotions in someone and irritate them very much. A good practice is to uplift the mind and create a positive wave in it with the thoughts: "This is my friend. I am glad things are going well for them. I am glad they are happy and that everything is going smoothly for them. They are my friend, they are my friend, they are my friend." A friend means "a part of you." This will calm the mind, and the irritating person will stop "getting to" you.
There is a whole system of affirmation practices: cultivating a friendly attitude, striving to embrace all the beings of this world with a feeling of care, love and sympathy. For example: "I want everyone to be happy, I want everything to be well for everyone."
So if another's happiness and joy stir up negativity, we need to cultivate maitri.
The second practice: karuna
It means compassion. Say someone has run into trouble, and you catch yourself thinking: "I told you so! God sees everything! Serves them right! They created their own problems." That is, instead of compassion you have shown gloating. It is a caustic, unpleasant quality that destroys, among other things, the ability to concentrate on the idea of meditation.
Compassion is fellow feeling, and it can be grown within. It is worth asking yourself: "Would I want to find myself in such an unpleasant situation? Could I wish it on anyone? No. I do not want anything like this to happen to anyone."
A good practice for expressing compassion can be the idea of the ancient A sound or set of sounds that, repeated with its meaning in mind, carries the mind toward the Infinite. with which the Guru blessed disciples:
Let everyone be happy. Let everyone be healthy in body and mind. Let everyone see the bright side in everything. And let no one have to go through any trouble under the pressure of circumstances.
So to neutralize the feeling of "malicious joy" at other people's problems, we need to cultivate karuna, compassion.
The third practice: mudita
This is all-embracing joy, the ability to rejoice sincerely at the good deeds, happiness and good fortune of other people, those who are successful, who have outstanding qualities and a special ability to achieve good results.
Thoughts often arise about such people: "Of course, they were just lucky; they don't deserve it." Instead of rejoicing at a person's abilities, we want to put it all down to their great luck. Sometimes people really are lucky. And it cannot be said that if a person is good at something, they are perfect in everything. But the point here is the habit of ignoring a person's merits and stressing their faults.
Here it is very important to remember in time: what we think about, we become. We ourselves choose what to focus our attention on. Anger, sin, hatred, all the faults we are fixed on in another person, can become our own essence. But if we see success, balance, diligence and perseverance in a person, these qualities settle in our own mind.
We need to practice mudita when there is a choice: to rejoice for a successful person or to dwell on their mistakes. The moment we manage to rejoice, envy "lets go." The mind finds its balance.
And the last, the fourth practice: upeksha nam apunya
If some people do something bad, we must not indulge them; we need to oppose their antisocial actions. Yet inside there should be a feeling of not being caught up in the situation.
Whatever evil a person has done, hatred and a constant stream of thoughts about it throw the mind off balance and plunge it into negativity.
The affirmation here is: "Inwardly I am calm about what this person has done, but outwardly I will oppose their antisocial behavior and put a stop to it."
Remember these practices; they purify the mind. With such a mind it is easy to meditate and truly achieve success in social life.