How to overcome envy?

From Srila Prabhupada's purport to SB 9.11.23:


Here in this material world, everyone is envious of someone else. Even in religious life, it is sometimes found that if one devotee has advanced in spiritual activities, other devotees are envious of him. Such envious devotees are not completely freed from the bondage of birth and death. As long as one is not completely free from the cause of birth and death, one cannot enter the sanātana-dhāma or the eternal pastimes of the Lord. One becomes envious because of being influenced by the designations of the body, but the liberated devotee has nothing to do with the body, and therefore he is completely on the transcendental platform. A devotee is never envious of anyone, even his enemy. Because the devotee knows that the Lord is his supreme protector, he thinks, "What harm can the so-called enemy do?" Thus a devotee is confident about his protection. The Lord says, ye yathā māḿ prapadyante tāḿs tathaiva bhajāmy aham: [Bg. 4.11] "According to the proportion of one's surrender unto Me, I respond accordingly." A devotee must therefore be completely free from envy, especially of other devotees. To envy other devotees is a great offense, a vaiṣṇava-aparādha. A devotee who constantly engages in hearing and chanting (śravaṇa-kīrtana) is certainly freed from the disease of envy, and thus he becomes eligible to go back home, back to Godhead.

One who worships the deity must be non-envious

7.14.40:
Sometimes a neophyte devotee offers all the paraphernalia for worshiping the Lord, and he factually worships the Lord as the Deity, but because he is envious of the authorized devotees of Lord Viṣṇu, the Lord is never satisfied with his devotional service.

From the purport:
Deity worship is especially meant for purifying the neophyte devotees. Actually, however, preaching is more important. In Bhagavad-gītā (18.69) it is said, na ca tasmān manuṣyeṣu kaścin me priya-kṛttamaḥ: if one wants to be recognized by the Supreme Personality of Godhead, he must preach the glories of the Lord. One who worships the Deity must therefore be extremely respectful to preachers; otherwise simply worshiping the Deity will keep one in the lower stage of devotion.

Results of Envy

Lord Indra becomes envious of the horse sacrifices performed by Prthu Maharaj as Prthu Maharaj was performing his 100th horse sacrifice and would get the same fame as him for performing 100 horse sacrifices.

Reacting on the platform of envy Lord Indra then performs various activities to disrupt the 100th sacrifice.

Envy is the inability to tolerate another person's success:

1. Essence of the material experience.
2. Essence of all bad qualities that our present in our heart.

Envy causes the jiva to perform various activities in a bid to stop someone's success.Depending on the level of material contamination it will manifest either as thoughts or thoughts and words or thoughts, words and actions.

Following is a synopsis of the ill effects of envy based on the example of Lord Indra's attempts to stop the 100th sacrifice. SB 4.19

Envy:

1. Leads to Pain :Pain that someones possess something we lack
2. Leads to Fear:Someone may possess something more than what we have and surpass us.Lord Indra feared that Prthu Maharaj's piety would exceed his own and thus he felt threatened
3. Bewilderment of intelligence(vinash kale viprit buddhi) :One performs actions against injunctions of Guru and Shastra. e.g Indra stole the horse, decieved everyone as a sanyasi, ran from the battlefield out of cowardice
4. Repeatedly perform the same mistakes: To relieve his envy Lord Indra repeatedly kept stealing the horse
5. Deepening of bad qualities: Owing to his envy Lord Indra's bad qualities started magnifying
6. Perform irreligious acts: Lord Indra started different pseudo sanyasa orders. Out of envy we may hurt someone through our words, we may criticise them openly, degrade their reputation, one may also kill or one may start parallel lines of authority.
7. Purity reduces: One's purity and potency to perform devotional service reduces.Lord Indra's powers and credibility both reduced.
8. Reflects badly on Krishna: An envious devotee's activities reflect badly on our dearmost Lord Sri Krsna.