I feel jealous when I see people who were at the same level as me earlier but are now much ahead of me. How to deal with it?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: Be friendly with those who are progressing and who are happy, and have compassion for those who are unhappy. Don't be friendly with people who are complaining and negative in their mindset because if you are friendly with them you also get into that mode. So, for people who are miserable, have compassion. If your friend is progressing why should you be jealous? Would you like your friends being jealous of your progress? Just ask this one question to yourself. I want to tell you an incident: once a boy was very unhappy and his parents brought him to me. This boy always used to get medals in sports but this time he lost to his friend. So I asked him this simple question, “Why are you unhappy?” He said, “I didn't get the prize”. I asked, “Who got it”, to which he said that his friend got it. I said, “That means you are unhappy that your friend got the prize", that suddenly woke him up. I said, “What do you want? You want your friends to be happy when you win or you want your friends to be unhappy when you win?” He said, “I want my friends to be happy if I win the race”. I said, “So, now that your friend has won the race why are you not happy?” There was a sudden shift in the mindset of that boy. This is what is happening in this world - we don't reflect on our self and that little awareness makes it all so different and changes the whole scenario.