According to Osho, jealousy is learned comparison; it wounds because you measure your unfulfilled, known inside against others’ polished, visible outsides, and because comparison denies your unique originality. Conditioned to look “next door,” you feel empty and bitter. Drop comparison, nourish your own bliss, and recognize your incomparable nature—then jealousy dissolves.
Jealousy comes from comparing your insides to other people’s shiny outsides instead of growing your own joy.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
What is jealousy and why does it hurt so much?
You know your interiority, and only you know it, nobody else. And you know everybody's exterior, and their exterior people have made beautiful. Exteriors are showpieces and they are very deceptive. There is an ancient Sufi story: A man was very much burdened by his suffering. He used to pray every day to God, "Why me? Everybody seems to be so happy, why am only I in such suffering?" One day, out of great desperation, he prayed to God, "You can give me anybody else's suffering and I am ready to accept it. But take mine, I cannot bear it any more." That night he had a beautiful dream -- beautiful and very revealing. He had a dream that night that God appeared in the sky and he said to everybody, "Bring all your sufferings into the temple." Everybody was tired of his suffering -- in fact everybody has prayed…
Osho, what is jealousy? Does our jealousy show that we are very far from aloneness?
This was my routine, that I would always go to the examination fifteen minutes late. This I followed my whole career in school, in college, at university; I would go fifteen minutes late. It was well known. The examiner knew that my seat had to be kept empty; I would be coming, but exactly fifteen minutes late. And I would leave the examination hall fifteen minutes before everybody else, before the end. The time allowed was three hours and I could see that the examination could be managed in two and a half hours; there was no need to waste half an hour more there. The teacher, who was there looking after the students to see that they were not copying and not doing some mischief, that somebody was not concealing a book, would say, "There is no hurry; there are fifteen minutes left. Why are you finishing?" I would…
Our beloved Osho,
WHENEVER YOU SPEAK OF OUR FAILINGS, YOU USUALLY MENTION ANGER, SEX AND JEALOUSY. ANGER AND SEX SEEM FAIRLY STRAIGHTFORWARD, BUT THERE'S SOME CONFUSION ABOUT EXACTLY WHAT JEALOUSY IS, AND IT'S HARDER TO GET TO THE CORE. WOULD YOU TELL US ABOUT JEALOUSY? I have heard that once it happened that Winston Churchill was invited to speak in a small club of friends. Everybody knew that Churchill was a drunkard and loved alcohol very much, and the man who introduced him, the president of the club, said, "Sir Winston has drunk so much wine up to now, that if we pour all the wine into this hall the level will come up to my head." It was a big hall, and he was just joking. Winston Churchill stood, looked at the imaginary line, looked at the ceiling -- the ceiling was high -- became very sad, and he said, "So much…
Question: BELOVED OSHO, IS JEALOUSY YET ANOTHER FORM OF COWARDICE? The reality is that most of the poets have never loved. They are in love with the idea of love, so they make beautiful poems, beautiful novels. Or perhaps they have loved, but failed so utterly that just to console themselves they create the polar opposite in their poetry. For example, Leo Tolstoy was tortured by his wife for his whole life, even to the very end. The last day, she harassed him so much that he left the house at night and went to the station and died there on a bench. He was a count, and he had immense property and immense land and everything -- but he lived like a poor man. The wife had control of everything. She would not allow him even to have a friend, a male friend.
Osho, how can I take sannyas? I cannot get jealousy, ego, anger—anything at all—out of my mind. And you keep appearing before me day and night in dreams! What should I do?
Why does jealousy arise? Because someone seems to be getting ahead of you. Someone has bought a better sari, more beautiful jewelry, built a new house, gathered more money in a safe. Jealousy is born because your ego is bruised. A fire flares up inside, smoke begins to rise. You climb onto your own funeral pyre. Anxiety is born inside you. Anger means someone blocks your ego. You set out on a journey of conquest and someone stands in your way, a stone falls in your path because of someone, someone shoves you aside—someone becomes an obstacle. Anger erupts. Anger and jealousy are not very different—two sides of the same coin. Anger is a bit crude; jealousy a bit more civilized. I have heard a Rajasthani tale. A proud Rajput, full of swagger, would twirl his moustache all day long. His arrogance was such that he never allowed anyone else…