Invidia
Invidia is envy, jealousy or grudge.
It is amazing, that Western psychiatrics do not consider it as an illness.
There is only a consideration in the Freudian based psychoanalysis, that envy is a kind of insecurity, which leads us into patterns of wrong behaviour. In Vedic understanding, the desire (iccha), leads us to envy (irsya). We want to be the dominator and the owner of everything. Out of this attitude many problems of life develop.
It is very clearly said in the Bhagavad Gita 10.8 (aham sarvasya prabhavo mattah sarvam pravartate iti matva bhajante man budha bhava samanvitah): “I am the source of all spiritual and material worlds. Everything emanates from Me. The wise who perfectly know this engage in My devotional service and worship Me with all their heart.”
Wise people know perfectly that God is the origin of everything. Only they experience peace. They can understand what peace is, because they accept that they are not the controller, the enjoyer nor the proprietor of the things in this world. How does envy manifest? There are desires which we have, but which we cannot satisfy. If we see someone else getting the things we want or reaching achievements which we desire . then we become very nasty and angry. Out of envy we are ready to tell lies, to become brutal and do any other inappropriate action. In this way, envy is a very strong influence and it does not come alone. Influenced by envy, we will totally deviate from a healthy and progressive path of life.
Then we will become old and grumpy. Nobody likes an angry old man or woman. They live in solitude. They live alone, because they are just angry about life. They cannot be full of love. They don’t understand their own mistakes. They are always thinking: “I’m good and you are bad. I know what is right, you do not know.”
Whenever they start talking they complain about everything. Sometimes old people fall into this trap. But it is much worse when young people completely adopt this mentality.
There is a nice saying in South America: ”You start becoming old when you stop learning new things.” This means, if we are unable to change anymore, if we do not try to recognize our weakness and correct it, then we immediately become old and angry. We become the type of a person, whom everybody tries to escape from.
We can see that envy and all the other weaknesses lead us into a diseased condition.
To eliminate problems or to prevent even bigger problems, we have to change our life very radically. In other words, we have to uproot the causes of our degradation. OIDA-therapy offers a systematic study of the problems of life and provides proposals for the changes that need to be effectuated.