'Comparison is a very foolish attitude," said Indian mystic Chandra Mohan Jain, popularly known as Osho (1931-90), "because each person is unique and incomparable. Once this understanding settles in you, jealousy disappears."
It may be true, but the fact seems to be that "this understanding settles" in very few of us, and jealousy, as a shaper of character and social relations, is here to stay, barring a mass movement toward mysticism — nowhere on the horizon at present.
Everyone knows the biblical stories of the jealous God and the first murder — by Cain, jealous of the favor God showed his brother, Abel. One of the biblical Ten Commandments forbids "covetousness," which in Buddhism is one of the "three evils," together with anger and delusion.