I compare myself to everyone and it's eating me alive with envy
Envying another is your right hand resenting your left — you are limbs of one body.
You open a screen and within seconds you are measuring: their job, their relationship, their progress, their luck. The measuring never resolves into peace — it only finds the next person who has more. And underneath the comparing sits something sourer than sadness: envy, the quiet wish that the other person had a little less so that you could feel like a little more. It is exhausting, and it is lonely, because it turns every other person into a rival.
Tukaram does not meet this with a scolding to "be content." He answers it structurally — he shows you that the very setup is built on a mistake. His most-quoted line says the world is Vishnu-filled and so all souls are एका देहाचे अवयव — "limbs of one body." If that is true, then envying another person is your right hand resenting your left. The envy doesn't just feel bad; it doesn't even make sense once you see what you actually are to each other. Elsewhere he quietly lifts the measuring-stick itself: the people you envy aren't the truly fortunate, the grace you think was unfairly handed out is in fact handed out evenly, and the habit of constantly checking how you rank against others is a verdict you never had to accept.
The thread through all of it is the same: comparison runs on a frame — me versus them — and Tukaram keeps dissolving that frame rather than helping you win inside it.
Abhang 46 — Limbs of one body
कोणा ही जिवाचा न घडो मत्सर । वर्म सर्वेश्वरपूजनाचें ॥२॥ तुका म्हणे एका देहाचे अवयव । सुख दुःख जीव भोग पावे ॥३॥
This is the verse written for the exact moment you are envying someone — their position, their luck, their progress. Tukaram's cure isn't willpower against the feeling; it's seeing what is structurally true: we are limbs of one body, so मत्सर (jealousy) of another soul is your right hand resenting your left. He goes further and calls letting "no jealousy of any soul arise" the very secret of worship — meaning envy isn't a small flaw, it's the thing that keeps you split off from everyone. Re-remember the one-body frame and the envy doesn't get defeated; it stops making sense.
Abhang 6 — Not like anyone else
तुका म्हणे नव्हे आणिकांसारिखा । तो चि माझा सखा पांडुरंग ॥५॥
After years of comparison-shopping — is this one good enough? could there be better? — Tukaram names the moment the whole exercise goes quiet: नव्हे आणिकांसारिखा, "not like anyone else." Notice his point: the sign you've arrived isn't that you weighed every alternative and this one won; it's that the "alternatives column" goes blank and the comparing simply stops mattering. That is the antidote to a comparing mind — not a better score, but stepping outside the comparison frame altogether, into the plain intimacy of a सखा (friend). When the question "are they enough?" no longer arises, you've found where envy can't reach.
Abhang 68 — The fortune you can't see on them
ज्यांचा आवडता देव । अखंडित प्रेमभाव ॥ध्रु.॥ तीं च भाग्यवंतें । सरतीं पुरतीं धनवित्तें ॥२॥
Comparison runs on a metric — wealth, status, security — and Tukaram swaps the metric out. The truly भाग्यवंत (fortunate) aren't the rich or the famous; they're the rare ones whose love for something does not break: अखंडित प्रेमभाव, "unbroken love-feeling." This lands directly on envy because the file's own situation names it: when you look closely, the people you envy do not look unbroken — you've been measuring fortune by exactly the wrong thing. Recalibrate to what actually counts and most of the things you covet turn out not to be the wealth at all.
Abhang 166 — I won't let one have more or less
तुम्ही व्हारे दोहींकडे । मुख पसरूनि गडे ॥ध्रु.॥ तुका म्हणे हातीं टोका । अधिक उणें नेदी एका ॥३॥
Envy whispers a specific accusation: they got more, I got less. Here Tukaram speaks as Krishna pouring stolen milk into his comrades' open mouths and answers it flatly — अधिक उणें नेदी एका, "I will not let one have more or another less." The distributor enforces equity; the gift is not first-come-first-served. But the abhang adds a sharp, honest condition — मुख पसरूनि, "mouth spread open." Before you complain that someone else got the stream, check your own receiving-posture: are you standing where it flows, with your mouth open, or too busy watching the others to receive?
Abhang 48 — Separate from both
निंदी कोणी मारी । वंदी कोणी पूजा करी ॥१॥ मज हें ही नाहीं तें ही नाहीं । वेगळा दोहीं पासुनी ॥ध्रु.॥
Comparison is fueled by constantly tracking what others think of you — calibrating to praise, contracting from blame. Tukaram offers one response to both poles: वेगळा दोहीं पासुनी, "separate from both." This isn't fake detachment; it's seeing that praise and blame both pass through the body, but the verdict on the self is in neither. When you stop receiving others' opinions — and your own ranking against them — as a verdict, the engine that converts every encounter into a comparison loses its fuel. You can let what comes, come, without reading it as a score.
In one breath
Stop trying to win the comparison and step out of it: you and the person you envy are limbs of one body, so the envy is your right hand resenting your left. The real fortune was never on the scoreboard you were checking, the grace is handed out evenly to whoever shows up with an open mouth, and no one's verdict — not even your own ranking — is the truth about you. Today, when the measuring starts, name it as one-body and let it fall quiet.