Jealous !

Jealousy is one of the greatest devices.
Look at it very closely: what does it mean?
Jealousy means to live in comparison.

Somebody is higher than you, somebody is lower than you. You are always somewhere on a middle rung of the ladder. Perhaps the ladder is a circle because nobody finds the end of the ladder.

Everybody is stuck somewhere in the middle, everybody is in the middle. The ladder seems to be a round wheel. Somebody is above you – that hurts.

That keeps you fighting, struggling, moving by any means possible, because if you succeed nobody cares whether you have succeeded rightly or wrongly.

Success proves you are right;
failure proves that you are wrong.

All that matters is success, so any means will do. The end proves the means right.

So you need not bother about means – and nobody does bother.

The whole question is how to climb on up the ladder. But you never come to the end of it. And whosoever is above you is creating jealousy in you, that he has succeeded and you have failed.

One would think that spending your whole life passing from one ladder to another ladder, always finding that somebody is still ahead of you – can’t you simply jump off the ladder?

No, you cannot jump.

The society is very cunning, very clever. It has polished, refined its methods over thousands of years. Why can’t you get out of the circle? – because somebody is below you and that gives you tremendous satisfaction.

You see the strategy? Somebody is above you; that creates jealousy, misery, suffering, humiliation,a feeling of worthlessness, that you have not been able to prove your mettle, that you are not man enough.

While others go on moving, you are stuck. It makes you feel just worthless, meaningless,useless, a burden on the earth and nothing more.

OshO 
CHAPTER 4. JEALOUSY: SOCIETY’S DEVICE TO DIVIDE AND RULE
From Personality to Individuality

— with Devi Keerthi.