٩(•̮̮̃•̃)۶ The De-Evilisers: ENVY...!!

Envy (also called invidiousness) is best defined as a resentful emotion that "occurs when a person lacks another's superior quality, achievement, or possession and either desires it or wishes that the other lacked it."
Envy can also derive from a sense of low self-esteem that results from an upward social comparison threatening a person's self image: another person has something that the envier considers to be important to have. If the other person is perceived to be similar to the envier, the aroused envy will be particularly intense, because it signals to the envier that it just as well could have been he or she who had the desired object.
Bertrand Russell said envy was one of the most potent causes of unhappiness. Not only is the envious person rendered unhappy by his envy, but they also wish to inflict misfortune on others. Although envy is generally seen as something negative, Russell also believed that envy was a driving force behind the movement towards democracy and must be endured to achieve a more just social system. However, psychologists have recently suggested that there may be two types of envy: malicious envy and benign envy - benign envy being proposed as a type of positive motivational force.

In Hinduism

One who does not envy but is a compassionate friend to all ... such a devotee is very dear to Me. - Lord Krishna in Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 12, Verse 15.
The eternal soul falls into the material sphere and undergoes repeated birth and death in a cycle of ignorance because of envying Krishna (the Supreme Personality of Godhead). Envy is thus the root source of all subsequent sins and the cause of continued "maya", or suffering in illusion. The conditioned soul gives up envy by regulated activities under the direction of the guru, or spiritual master.
In Hinduism, envy is a disastrous emotion. Hinduism maintains that anything which causes the mind to lose balance with itself leads to misery. This was displayed in the epic Mahabharata wherein the chief villain, Duryodhana launches the Kurukshetra war because of the prosperity of his cousins. He is known to have remarked "Father! The prosperity of the Pandavas (cousins) is burning me deeply! I cannot eat, sleep or live in the knowledge that they are better off than me!" Hinduism debates that envy can be handled by understanding that he/she is enjoying the fruits of their past karmic actions and that one should not allow such devious emotions to take control of the mind or else one would end up in the situation as the antagonist of the Mahabharata.

In Christianity

In the Bible

Envy is one of the Seven deadly sins of the Catholic Church. In the Book of Genesis envy is said to be the motivation behind Cain murdering his brother, Abel, as Cain envied Abel because God favored Abel's sacrifice over Cain's.

A ruining flesh sin

Envy is a sin of flesh. Envy (evil eye) is among the things that come from the heart, defiling a person. The whole body is full of darkness when the eye, the lamp of body, is bad. Envy ruins the body health because it makes the bone rot and excludes us from inheriting the kingdom of God. Sometimes, as a punishment, God leaves some people in their sins, falling prey to envy and other heavy sins.

Universal and profound sin

The basis of all toil and all skill of the people (we always choose our job because we want the wealthy, fame and pleasures we see at the others's job around us), envy is, therefore, a sin deeply engraved in human nature. It appears (comes into being) when man lacks certain things, circumstance that exist when either he does not ask it from God or asks to spend it on his passions (pleasures).

Genesis and causes

Envy may be cause by wealth (Isaac, envied of Philistines), by the brightness of wealth, power and beauty (Assyria kingdom envied of other kingdoms by political and military rising ( Saul eyed David from the moment he heard the women song of joy), fertility (Leah, envied of Rachel), social ascent (Joseph whom his brothers were jealous of), countless miracles and healings (the apostles envied of high priest and the Sadducees), popularity (Paul and Barnabas, envied of unfaithful Jewish from Antioch), the success of Christianization of many Thessalonians (Paul and Silas , envied of unfaithful Jews from Thessalonica), virtues and true power to heal, to make miracles and to teach people (Jesus envied of the chief priests)

God will reward each according to his deeds

Christians must not fall into the trap of envying of the wicked who seem to have a happy and untroubled life, but always be aware that God will reward each according to his deeds. The true Christian will be sure, as the psalmist the moment he enters the temple of God, that those bloated, with ,,pride as necklace’’ and ,,violence as garment’’ (clothing), which are stumbling block to the faith of ordinary people, will fade like greens, will be cut down quickly like the grass ", being thrown away and ruined the right time.

Happy for anyone saved

Also, the Christians must not look with evil eye at the last converts to avoid therefore becoming the last ones, missing the kingdom of God. They should be happy for anyone saved, like Christ, who came to save the lost, as the shepherd seeking the lost sheep. Zacchaeus, the chief tax collector, was among the lost ones and he succeeded in bringing salvation to him and to his house.

No good eating the envier’s bread

It is no good eating the envier’s bread, nor desiring his delicacies, because he is like one who is inwardly calculating”, his heart is not with you” and so ,,you will vomit up the morsels that you have eaten, and waste your pleasant words”.

Envy and wisdom

Sometimes arisen out of sophistry, envy cannot coexist with true and spiritual wisdom, but with false, earthly, unspiritual, demonic wisdom.

Struggle against envy

Throwing away envy is a crucial condition in our path to salvation. Envy was seen by the Apostle Paul as a real danger even within the first Christian communities. Envy should remain a sin of the past, defeated by God teaching, which, as in the tenth commandment, forbids us from coveting our neighbour’s things, woman, and servants, and urges us to rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep, as Apostle Paul said, and to love our neighbours as ourselves. Because brotherly, Christian love banishes definitively envy from our hearts.

In Islam

In Islam, envy (Hassad in Arabic) can destroy one's good deeds. Therefore, one must be content with what God has given to them by saying Maashallah (God has willed it).
Muhammad said, “Do not envy each other, do not hate each other, do not oppose each other, and do not cut relations, rather be servants of Allah as brothers. It is not permissible for a Muslim to disassociate from his brother for more than three days such that they meet and one ignores the other, and the best of them is the one who initiates the salaam.” Saheeh al-Bukhaaree [Eng. Trans. 8/58 no. 91], Saheeh Muslim [Eng. Trans. 4/1360 no. 6205, 6210]
Where he wishes for himself a blessing like that which someone else has, without wanting it to be taken away from the other person. This is permissible and is not called hasad. Rather, it is called ghibtah.
"There is to be no envy except in two cases: (towards) a person to whom Allah has granted wisdom, and who rules by this and teaches it to the people, and (towards) a person to whom Allah has granted wealth and property along with the power to spend it in the cause of the Truth." [Al-Bukhaari & Muslim]