This chakra is locked by comparison and jealousy and it can be made to flower when we exhibit our individuality without worrying about others, and express fully our capacity, uniqueness and creativity. (Meditation Technique: Shakti Sagar Meditation - a technique from Zen Buddhism.) Comparison - the culprit We always compare ourselves with others, and more often than not we feel what others have or what they have achieved is more than what we have, and we start feeling jealous. When we are not able to bear others excellence, we get jealous. Comparison is the seed and jealousy is the fruit! Comparison and jealousy are both actually non-existent! We create them ourselves and talk endlessly on how to overcome them. This concept can be clearly understood by looking into the very name of this chakra that is Vishuddhi.

Shuddhi means pure. Ashuddhi means impure. Vishuddhi means beyond both pure and impure. The name therefore means that this chakra can never get impure and hence never needs to be cleansed. That is why comparison, which locks this chakra, is like a shadow without an object. There is no basis for the concept of comparison. It is purely a figment of our imagination. A small story: One man was part of a music group that gave live shows all over the world. In one particular stage performance, he decided to wear a black wig for a few songs and a red wig for other songs. He alternated the wigs and finished the first half of the program. During the intermission, the show director came up to him in the dressing room and told him, 'sir, you will have to wear only the red wig for the remaining part of the show.

The man was surprised and asked him why. The director replied, The people like the red haired one's voice a lot better than the black haired one's! We are so busy comparing all the time that we never see things as they are! Our mind is so caught up in comparison that it misses the actual quality of what it sees. We need to drop the comparing attitude to be able to see things as they are. What is comparison? Can someone tell me, what are the major areas where you normally compare? Beauty Swamiji. Wealth. Name and fame Power, prestige Knowledge Health Alright, these are all areas of comparison where we normally compare ourselves with others, are they not? We can categorize these under four major categories: money, knowledge, beauty which includes health, and status.

All your problems, all your complexes are nothing but these four things, am I right? Nowlet us say that you queue up all the people in the world in ascending order of money. You are also part of that queue. Where would you think you would be? Somewhere in the middle Swamiji Exactly! You would be somewhere in the middle, would you not? You would not even be able to count the number of people on either side of you in the queue. The people in front of you would be so many in number and the people behind you would also be so many in number. And the people might have to keep shifting their places also because the amount of money that they have keeps changing every minute! Now, with your thoughts, you have to decide if you are going to look at the length of queue in front of you and feel jealous or look at the length of queue behind you and feel relaxed and grateful to God! It is in your hands.

You very well know that nothing can be told about where you are in the queue, but the thought disturbs you all the time! We are haunted by a phenomenon that does not really exist! It has a negative existence! Let me explain to you what I mean by negative existence. Take this bell here that is beside me. If I want to remove this bell, I can simply take it and leave it outside the room and it will not be here any more, am I right? This bell has a positive existence and so it is possible for me to do this. Now, let us say there is darkness in this room. Is it possible for you to take the darkness and keep it out? No.

But if I bring light into this room, the darkness will disappear on its own, right? This is because darkness does not have a positive existence; it has a negative existence. Because it has a negative existence, we cannot simply remove it. In the same way, comparison does not have a positive existence. It exists only in our minds; it happens only when we exercise a certain thought in our mind. Because comparison does not exist in reality, you cannot overcome it by simply asking it to go away. You can overcome it by bringing in an understanding about it in your mind, just like when you bring in light, the darkness disappears. In Sanskrit, the word illusion is translated as Maya. We say, ya ma iti Maya, which means that which does not exist is Maya! That which does not exist, but which continuously disturbs! That is the property of Maya! You simply give life to it, that's all.

Comparison is pure illusion. Borrowed desires are the problem Question: Swamiji, it is better that we dont look at either side of the line! Why do you say that? And anyway, why should you fear to look? The fact that you are afraid to look itself shows that you are running away from your own mind. If you can look, but not be affected by what you see then you have found the right way. When you are able to look at everything, what you have and what others have and feel fulfillment all the time, then this chakra will be in an energized condition. Be very clear that I am deliberately not using the word contentment. People often say, Learn to be contented. You can never learn to be contented.

Contentment has to flower as a result of an experiential understanding of the negative existence of comparison and jealousy. It has to flower out of a deep feeling of gratitude for whatever has been given to you. This cannot be imposed from outside. It has to flower from within. Just try to understand clearly whatever is being told to you. By repeatedly listening to the truth, you can open up a space within you where it can be experienced. Every problem has the solution in it if you are willing to look into it deeply and with a sincere mind. If you just look into comparison and jealousy deeply and consciously, you will be able to see that it is a mere play of your mind, and nothing more than that.

When you are on your own at home, you will think that it is enough if you have a home and car for yourself. You will feel relaxed at this thought. You will feel moments of gratitude and fulfillment. After some time, when you step out of your house in your car, and stop by at a traffic light, what happens? A Mercedes Benz pulls up beside your carand your mind simply switches its thinking. You start thinking that your car is just no good. You start thinking that it is high time that you bought a new car, if not a Mercedes Benz. Just a few minutes earlier you were happy with your own things, but now what has happened? You are starting to work out a new desire, a borrowed desire.

Be very clear that this is not your own desire. It is a borrowed desire belonging to someone else. It is the desire of the owner of the Benz car. This is how you start working out others desires in your mind as a result of comparison and jealousy. You may never have felt the need for a refrigerator in your house, but if your neighbor buys a refrigerator, immediately you will feel that you cannot do without it! Immediately you will find all the reasons in the world why you need a refrigerator. All these days you were managing without a refrigerator! Nothing has changed, but what has happened? Your mind has stepped in with comparison. Of course, you will never own up to borrowed desires.

It happens so subtly in your mind, that the exact source of the borrowed desire goes unsaid. It is a cunning and subtle game of the mind. And we will always say that we are not bothered about others. A small story: One man returned to his neighborhood after almost 10 years. He went around the neighborhood with his friend. He was surprised to see the many changes in the place. He commented to this friend, Prosperity has changed the face of this whole neighborhood! The friend replied, No, not prosperity, just plain jealousy. We are all the time trying to beat the other. When you are after borrowed desires, you will never stop, because when you are on the verge of realizing any one of them, another borrowed desire will come up from somewhere and you will be on track once more! You will keep running because you are not centered within yourself.

Your center keeps changing. Your center is on other people, not inside yourself! And their center is elsewhere, not inside themselves! Imagine how much you have to run, how much you have to pull and push according to the mass sway of off-centric thoughts and emotions! You become a puppet. I tell you: every time you want something, sit by yourself and think if you really want it or you want it because someone else had it. Do an honest analysis of each of your desires when they surface. Drop all your prestige problems and do a self-analysis. If you cant drop your prestige when you are alone, how will you drop it when you are with people? If you are able to live out only your desires, you will die a peaceful death, full of satisfaction even if it is on the platform.

If you live your whole life with borrowed desires, you will never see real fulfillment and even if you are living in a marble house, you will have a prolonged death, pulling and pushing, unable to get liberated from your unfulfilled borrowed desires. In Jainism, there is a belief that when you are born, the entire quantity of food and energy that you will need during your lifetime is sent along with you. This is a way of saying that whatever your true requirements in this birth are, Existence equips you with the energy to fulfill them before sending you to planet Earth. But when you start using this energy to realize borrowed desires, you start feeling that nothing has been given to you; that nothing is enough.

You feel tired, exhausted and frustrated that nothing is happening. This is how the problem starts. There is a difference between needs and wants. Your needs are already taken care of in some way. It is possible to satisfy your needs, but it becomes impossible to satisfy your wants because they are changing and unclear all the time. Every time one want or desire is fulfilled, a hundred more come up. It is our nature to desire endlessly, because continuously we are seeing what others are having and wanting all that for ourselves. You may not own up to this fact at the outset, but if you deeply analyze yourself, you will see that this is true. Your mind plays so cunningly and passively that you will not own up to this at the first instance.

For example: you go to the shop to buy a fan for your house. But on the way you meet some friends on the road, who tell you that they are going to buy some other things in other shops. Immediately, you are tempted to buy them and so you change your track and go and buy along with them. Then you find that you dont have enough money to buy your fan! If you start comparing and living out others desires, you will land yourself in deep trouble because you will not know where you stand. Always measure yourself with your own meter, never with others meters. It is the most foolish and dangerous thing to do. In some places in India there will be monkey trainers who make a living out of training monkeys.

They will carry a stick with them and use it to prod the monkey to do whatever they want it to do. They will wave the stick and shout, Dance Rama! Dance! and the monkey will dance! Then they will say, Turn cart wheels Rama! Turn cartwheels! and the monkey will turn cartwheels. The monkey will simply dance to the tunes of the stick.