Anger Management
Seven Ways to
Tame Your Most
Destructive Emotion
By Satguru Bodhinatha Veylanswami
Two cars bang fenders at an intersection;
tempers flare and a fistfight
breaks out. In a store nearby, a man
stomps off in a fury, cursing the clerk
for declining his credit card. In an
apartment
up the street, a mother screams
at her daughter to clean up her room.
Down the block, a schoolgirl pouts
because her father won’t let her
date an older boy. Nearby, a
man slaps his eight-year-old
son because he won’t sit still
in the car. Anger is everywhere.
It is the most powerful and hurtful
emotion we possess. Yet, the average
person succumbs to it helplessly,
even willingly, lapsing into insane
episodes now and again without
thinking much about it. Many
defend it as
a tool they
would not
live without.
Anger is expressed in a wide range of ways.
Low-minded individuals take delight in being
angry with others and expressing that
anger in aggressive and violent ways—gang
wars, robbery, vandalism and more. They
deliberately
use anger and violence to get what
they want from life. Then there are the mass
of generally law-abiding people who live a
normal, working life but are seriously angry
on the inside about one thing or another and
express that anger regularly in their words
and actions. They are angry at life and have
neither the means nor the motivation to
eliminate
this hurtful force from their lives.
Anger and the Spiritual Path:
Finally, there are those who are
striving to live a life following spiritual
principles but are at times
unable to control their anger and as a result
end up hurting
others and breaching Hinduism’s core
principal of nonviolence,
ahimsa, as well as creating new negative karmas to
live through
in the future. It is to these individuals,
who are striving to control
anger, even eliminate it from their pattern
of behavior, that this
chapter is addressed.
To improve our understanding and control of
anger, it is
helpful to look at the concept of the
threefold nature of man:
1) superconscious or spiritual, 2) intellectual or mental and 3) instinctive
or physical-emotional. It is the instinctive
nature, the
animal-like nature, that contains the
tendencies to become angry
and harm others. The goal of living a
religious life is to learn to
control these animal instincts—as well as the
ramifications of the
intellect and the pride of the ego—and
thereby manifest one’s
spiritual nature. Spiritual striving produces
gradual improvement
in harnessing and transmuting our instincts,
intellect and ego,
with the entire process of soul evolution
spanning many lifetimes.
Anger is the instinctive behavior of
responding to challenging
situations by becoming frustrated, upset,
enraged to the point of
attacking others with words or fists. Webster compares the terms
for anger as follows: “Anger is broadly applicable to feelings of
resentful or revengeful displeasure; indignation implies righteous
anger aroused by what seems unjust, mean or
insulting; rage
suggests
a violent outburst of anger in which
self-control is lost; fury
implies a frenzied rage that borders on
madness; ire,
chiefly a
literary word, suggests a show of great anger
in acts, words, looks,
etc.; wrath implies deep indignation expressing itself in a desire
to punish or get revenge.”
Learning to control anger is such an important
part of harnessing
the instinctive nature that the 2,200-year-old, South Indian
scripture on ethics, the Tirukural, devotes an entire chapter to
the subject. It is, in fact, the chapter that
precedes “Avoidance
of Injuring Others”—the order of these
chapters itself suggesting
that to successfully practice nonviolence we
need to first control
anger. The Tirukural warns that anger gives rise to teeming troubles.
It kills the face’s smile and the heart’s
joy. Left uncontrolled,
it will annihilate you. It burns even friends
and family who try
to intervene, and easily leads to injuring
others.
A few years ago we had a perfect opportunity
to observe serious
anger. Two carpenters were building a house
next door to
the monastery. One carpenter, James, was more
prone to anger
than the other. Every few minutes, when
something didn’t work
out right, he would react by swearing loudly
and at length. About
once a week the two men would have a huge
argument and
James would drop his tools, stomp off the job
and drive away
with tires squealing in defiance. It was
definitely an interesting
study in anger and human nature, showing how
anger is simply
an accepted part of life for many people.
Swami Budhananda (1917-1983) of the Ramakrishna Mission
noted in a series of talks on anger
(published in Vedanta
Kesari,
www.sriramakrishnamath.org): “The evil effects of anger are
innumerable. The first thing that happens to
an angry person is
that he forgets the lessons of wisdom he has
learnt in life. After
that, he loses control over his thoughts and
emotions. He becomes
overactive, with his highly charged ego as
his only guide.
He loses his power of discrimination, sense
of proportion, and
becomes aggressive in manner, hostile to his
own welfare. When
anger becomes the second nature of a person,
physical health
and equanimity of mind suffer, and inner
peace vanishes in a
trice. Anger can destroy friendships,
families, business partnerships,
professional prospects. Communal and ethnic
riots, arsons,
wars, suicides, murder and many other forms
of crime are basically
products of anger. In fact, anger makes even
a handsome
person look ugly. I suggested to a friend,
who is remorseful about
his flashes of anger, that he keep a large
mirror facing his office
desk. In case the anger-prone person has a
lively sense of humor,
this mirror-therapy is likely to work.”
People’s natures are quite different in their
tendency to anger.
Some are usually calm, but occasionally flare
up. Others anger
quite easily. Many people are quite selective
about whom they
get angry with—perhaps just their spouse.
My Gurudeva, Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami,
observed
that anger is the most difficult fault to
overcome, because it manifests
in so many different forms: pouting, long
silences, shouting,
yelling, swearing and more. In Living with Siva, Gurudeva
lists the eight forms of anger from the book Angry All the Time
(see sidebar): 1)
sneaky anger; 2) the cold shoulder; 3) blaming
and shaming; 4) swearing and yelling; 5) demands and threats;
6) chasing and holding; 7) partly controlled violence; 8) blind
rage. These are called the eight rungs on the
ladder of violence,
an analogy that Gurudeva found quite helpful
in showing how
anger can easily snowball. For example, an
evening might start
with a mild expression of anger that seems
harmless enough but
soon escalates into shouting and swearing and
culminates in
physical violence.
Anger and the Chakras:
We gain useful insights into the nature
of anger and how to control it by relating it
to the Hindu system
of chakras, the subtle centers of
consciousness within each individual
(see sidebar). There are seven primary
chakras along the
spinal column and in the head. When our
awareness is flowing
through these chakras, consciousness is in
the higher nature.
The seven chakras, or talas, below the spine, down to the feet,
are all seats of instinctive consciousness,
the origin of fear, anger,
jealousy, confusion, selfishness, absence of
conscience and malice.
The eighth rung on the ladder of
violence—blind rage—corresponds
to the second lower chakra, called vitala. Gurudeva
explains, “Anger comes from despair or the
threatening of one’s
self-will. When people are in the
consciousness of this chakra,
they are even angry at God. With their wrath,
they often strike
out at those around them, leaving a trail of
hurt feelings behind
them. From sustained anger arises a
persistent, even burning,
sense of resentment.”
When someone goes into a blind rage, he has
dropped far
below the chakras of memory and reason—the muladhara and
svadhishthana. Therefore it is no wonder that afterwards
he
may not even remember what happened. His
consciousness was
totally in the vitala chakra, having given up its normal faculties
of memory and reason.
Many people think that sneaky anger and the
cold shoulder
are natural and harmless. Gurudeva warns
that, while they
are not as vicious as yelling and screaming
or throwing objects
against the wall, these practices stimulate
the lower chakras and
over time can easily lead to the more violent
expressions of anger,
as well as the experience of other
lower-chakra emotions, such
as fear and jealousy. For these reasons, it
is best not to indulge
in either sneaky anger or the cold shoulder.
Sarcasm and cynicism
can also be forms of anger. Gurudeva said,
“People who
are cynical are expressing their anger and
contempt with snide
remarks. They may seem to be joking, but
their sharp feelings
come across anyway, which stimulates that
lower chakra until
one day their cynicism will turn into really
good anger. Then
they build up new karmas they never had
before, which they
will live with until they are faced with
those karmas.”
Swearing is even more problematic, as it
stimulates the lower
chakras to a greater degree than sneaky
anger, the cold shoulder
or cynicism. Therefore, it is quite important
in managing anger
to break the habit of swearing.
Step One for Conquering Anger:
For those on the spiritual path
who are striving to control anger, there is
an important first step.
That is to acknowledge that anger is a serious
problem that easily
leads to violence and is a quality that
should be totally absent
from those dedicated to making progress in
their spiritual life.
I gave the following advice via e-mail to a
devotee who was
working to refrain from expressing occasional
anger toward a
parent: “Thank you for sharing the details
regarding your angry
encounters with your parent. I would suggest
you reflect on the
seriousness of disharmony in the home. It is
taking a few steps
backward in spiritual progress. When you do sadhana, you move
forward. But if you become angry regularly,
you step backward,
and as a result you could end up standing
still. It is like trying to
save money for a special purpose. You save
for a while, but then
become angry, which is like spending what you
saved for the last
month. It is difficult to make your financial
goal. By taking anger
more seriously, you are more motivated to
avoid it at all costs.”
The devotee recently e-mailed again saying
the advice had
helped her cope with the force of anger. She
had taken the first
step—acknowledging that it is a serious
problem, an unacceptable
mode of behavior for those on the spiritual
path.
Seven Remedies:
With this resolve firmly in mind, she was
ready to take the second step, which is to
apply remedies to
improve her behavior. On pages 274-277, in the illustrated sidebar,
we offer seven remedies. The first is to
affirm the Hindu
philosophy that everything in the universe is
perfect; the entire
physical, mental, emotional and spiritual
flow of events is moving
in perfect harmony and exquisite coordination
according to the
divine laws of karma and dharma. Each
happening is as perfect
as an ocean wave or a butterfly’s wing. Anger is an
instinctive-
emotional protest to what is happening at a particular
moment. “Things are just not right!” anger declares. The
source of peace and contentment is the opposite
sentiment—
a wholesome, intelligent acceptance of life’s conditions,
based on the understanding that God has given us
a perfect universe in which to grow and learn, and each
challenge or seeming imperfection we encounter is an
opportunity for spiritual advancement. Gurudeva wrote:
“We are all growing toward God, and experience is the
path. Through experience we mature out of fear into
fearlessness, out of anger into love, out of conflict
into
peace, out of darkness into light and union in God.”
The second remedy is a first-aid technique to apply
during angry outbursts. It is to visualize light blue
flooding
out from the center of your spine into your aura,
displacing the blackish reds that anger automatically
displays in the colorful field of subtle energy radiating
within and around your body. Mystically,
this has the effect of moving your awareness out
of the angry state of mind into a more peaceful
mood. The third remedy is to worship Lord Ganesha,
the elephant-faced Lord of Dharma, a
compassionate God, ever available to assist
embodied souls with immediate needs to
further their evolution. Remedy four is a
penance, setting aside a specified sum of
money every time you experience anger.
The fifth remedy is to skip the next meal
if you become angry. These two sacrifices are
designed to remold deep-seated subconscious
patterns, called vasanas, convincing your
subconscious
that you are serious about controlling
your anger, and gradually subduing any occurrence
of wrath. Remedy six, the flower penance, is
a way of letting go of angry feelings that you hold
toward another person. Offering flowers with
a loving heart has the effect of dissolving
the resentment and
awakening forgiveness—be it toward a parent,
spouse, employer,
sibling or friend. The seventh remedy is to
perform three kindly
acts toward someone who has disturbed you.
For a loved one or close acquaintance, the
acts can be performed openly. For others,
such
as business associates, employers or fellow
employees, your good deeds may be done
subtly, even without their knowledge. It may
be difficult to fulfill this, as it requires
you
to go against the instinctive compulsion to
hold on to hard feelings. But acting kindly
toward offenders releases you from the grip
of seething anger, as surely as the sun
dispels
a morning fog, dissolving it in the light
of higher consciousness. The seven remedies
are designed to help seekers objectify their
anger, to see it in a clear, detached manner,
as
a force that they have the power to harness
and transmute into higher forms of expression
and ultimately be free of it altogether.
Diet and Ayurveda:
What we eat influences
our state of consciousness and where we are
in
the chakras more than most people realize.
The Hindu ideal
of following a strict vegetarian diet has
many benefits, including
lessening the tendency to become angry.
Eating meat, fish,
fowl and eggs, on the other hand, opens the
door to lower consciousness
and makes it harder to stay out of the states
of fear,
anger, jealousy and the subsequent remorseful
emotions that
follow. Temperament is largely a matter of
diet. The Chandogya
Upanishad (7.26.2) teaches: “When the food is pure, mind
becomes pure. When the mind becomes pure,
memory becomes
firm. And when a man is in possession of a
firm memory, all the bonds which tie him down
to the world are loosened.” A vegetarian diet
helps put us in
touch with our higher consciousness and is
therefore quite helpful
in increasing our control over anger, as well
as the other lower
states of mind.
In the healthcare industry, anger is viewed
as an insidious malady
that, if not harnessed, leads to serious
illness, causing high
blood pressure, various diseases and even fatal
heart attacks.
It is addressed with prescription drugs,
aromatherapy, massage
and homeopathy. The Hindu medical science,
ayurveda, views
anger as a primary sign of imbalance of the
three bodily humors,
known as doshas. Dr. Virender Sodhi of Bellevue, Washington
(www.ayurvedicscience.com), explained, “Anger is under the control
of the pitta dosha. Pitta is intelligence, anger, digestion, fire,
sight and so on. At the mental level, we have
four drives: anger,
attachment, ego and desire for sex. Although
all these are normal
animal behaviors, imbalance in these leads to
imbalance of their
respective doshas. Just as attachment increases kapha, anger increases
pitta. Imbalance in pitta dosha can cause excessive anger
liver maladies, hypertension, etc. Balance is
achieved by calming
yoga, shitali pranayama, walks, mantra, self analysis and diverting
the anger into a different form. Ayurvedic
medicine also
advises cooling foods and environment.”
Dr. Vasant Lad, director of the Ayurvedic
Institute (www.ayur
veda.com) in Albuquerque, New Mexico, offers basic remedies for
anger in The Complete Book of Ayurvedic Home Remedies:
“Pitta is necessary for right understanding and
judgment, but
when it gets disturbed or out of balance, it
creates misunderstanding
and wrong judgment, leading to anger and
hostility.
Here are several simple home remedies to cool
down that hot
pitta and keep tempers under control.
“Diet: Perhaps most important, a person who becomes
angry
easily or often should follow the pitta-pacifying diet, especially
avoiding hot, spicy and fermented foods,
citrus fruit and sour
fruit. Favor simple, bland foods and cool
drinks, and avoid alcohol
and drinks with caffeine.
“Keep Cool: It’s also not recommended for people with a pitta
body type to take saunas or steam baths, to
get overheated from
exercise or sports, or to be in too much
direct sun.
“Oil Massage: Rub some bhringaraj oil or coconut oil on your
scalp and on the soles of the feet. That will
help to bring down
the excess pitta. You can do this every night before getting in bed
to regularly moderate pitta.
“Sandalwood Oil: Another simple and effective way to help
balance
your emotions is to place a drop of
sandalwood essential oil
on the third eye area between your eyebrows,
as well as on the
throat, breastbone, navel, temples and
wrists.
“Herbal Teas: Take ½ teaspoon of chamomile and 1 teaspoon
of fresh, finely chopped cilantro leaves and
steep them in 1
cup
hot water for about 10 minutes. Allow this tea to cool before you
drink it. You can drink it three times a day,
after each meal.
“Ghee Nasya: Dip your little finger into a jar of brahmi ghee (or
plain ghee) and lubricate the inside of your
nostrils with a small
amount. (Make sure your nails are trimmed so
you don’t scratch
yourself.) Then gently inhale the ghee
upward. This sends a
calming message to the brain.
“Shitali Pranayama: Make a tube of your tongue; breathe deeply
through your mouth down into your belly, hold
the breath for a
few seconds; exhale through your nose. Do
about 12 repetitions.
“Yoga Postures: Good yoga asanas for pitta include the camel,
cobra, cow, boat, goat and bridge poses.
Avoid the headstand or
other inverted poses, such as the plow and
shoulder stand.
“Meditate: There is an ancient method of meditation that
involves
watching your every emotion come and go,
without either
naming it or trying to tame it. As the
feelings arise, breathe
deeply and exhale the emotions out.”
Anger and Spiritual Striving: Anger is a natural emotion, a
protective function of the instinctive mind,
not to be vilified or
feared. It is a part of our nature, and it is
normal to express
it—that is, if we are content to live on the
instinctive level of our
being, which many people are. But each soul
inevitably reaches
a point where it seeks to harness the natural
instincts. Gurudeva
explained, “Anger is also, like fear, an
instinctive control, and
at one time served its purpose. The onrush of
anger served to
protect man’s private interests in critical
situations by injecting
adrenaline into his blood and thus preparing
him for defense.
But as man evolves closer to his real,
actinic being, he discovers
that actinic love, understanding, compassion
and wisdom are
higher qualities than anger.”
Managing anger is important for anyone who
seeks success at
sophisticated endeavors and stable, wholesome
relationships. For
aspirants seeking self-transformation on the
spiritual path, it is
absolutely essential, for only when the lower
nature is subdued
can the divine nature be fully expressed.
Daily spiritual efforts designed to bring
forth the divine nature
are known as sadhana, such as japa, meditation and yoga. As
Gurudeva wrote, sadhana, spiritual discipline, is “the mystical,
mental, physical and devotional exercise that
enables us to dance
with Siva by bringing inner advancement,
changes in perception
and improvements in character. Sadhana
allows us to live in the refined and cultured
soul nature,
rather
than in the outer, instinctive
or intellectual spheres.” But, Gurudeva
warned, every time
you become angry, you destroy one month’s
worth of spiritual
striving and practice, or sadhana. So, if you don’t control anger,
performing sadhana is a waste of time. Hence, the number-one
sadhana is anger management. Gurudeva is adamant that
seekers
refrain from any serious meditative practices
until anger and
other lower emotions have been harnessed.
“Those who remain
prone to anger should not do raja yoga or any form of intensive
mantra, japa, or pranayama amplification of the energies into
higher chakras—lest that collective energy
plummet into the
corresponding lower chakras and be vented
through fear, anger
and jealousy. Rather, they should perform the
always healing
vasana daha tantra [writing down and burning recollections of
the past] and confine themselves to karma
yoga, such as clean-
ing in and around the temple and picking flowers for the
pujas.
These simple acts of charya [humble
service] are recommended,
but should not be extended to intense worship. Then, and
only
then, their life will be in perspective with the
philosophy of
Sanatana Dharma and begin to become one with Siva’s
perfect
universe. Brahmadvara,
the door to the seven chakras below the
muladhara, will then be sealed off as their experiential patterns
settle into the traditional perspective of how life
should be and
each individual should behave within it.”
When working to harness the instinctive nature, what is
it that
tells us how well we are doing? It is the subtle
irritation, the seed
of wrath, that precedes every form of anger, from the cold
shoulder
to blind rage. Viewed in this way, the impulse to anger
is—at
the beginning of the path, the intermediate stages and
even subtly
at the upper reaches—our astute teacher, signaling to us
each
split-second opportunity to be more patient, more understanding,
more compassionate and to find a better way to cope with
tense
situations and keep closed the door to the lower chakras
Eight Rungs on the Ladder of Violence
1: Sneaky Anger
You shun another person and
make it clear you are mad
about something. However,
you absolutely refuse
to let him or her know
what it is. Example: A
wife is upset with her
husband for working
late and, rather than
talk the issue through,
gives him the silent, cold
shoulder for the entire
evening.
2: The Cold Shoulder
You fault others for something that
happened and then tell them
they are “no good” in order
to make them feel shame.
Example: an employee
makes a simple mistake
at work, and her boss is
upset. Rather than help
resolve the problem,
he points blame at her,
demeaning and intimidating
her with personal
criticisms.
3: Blaming and Shaming
You lose control over your speech
and scream and yell at others.
Those who have a habit of
swearing are most prone
to this form of anger.
Example: A teenage girl
has admitted to a minor
wrongdoing at school.
Her teacher, known for
his foul mouth, yells at
her harshly, using cruel,
out-of-control words to
punish her.
4: Swearing, Screaming, Yelling
You lose control over your speech
and scream and yell at others.
Those who have a habit of
swearing are most prone
to this form of anger.
Example: A teenage girl
has admitted to a minor
wrongdoing at school.
Her teacher, known for
his foul mouth, yells at
her harshly, using cruel,
out-of-control words to
punish her.
5: Demands and Threats
You demand that others behave
as you want them to or
threaten you will do something
drastic if they don’t,
such as hurt them or
yourself. Example: An
argument between
two business partners
gets out of hand and
reaches the point where
the younger threatens
to beat up his associ -
ate unless he gets his way.
6: Chasing and Holding
You approach or pursue others
and physically restrain them
against their will and prevent
them from leaving
your presence. Example:
A woman’s fiancee
has been accused
of seeing another
woman. Incensed, she
follows him to work,
grabs him desperately
and insists they talk about
the problem r ight now.
7: Partly Controlled Violence
You physically strike someone
for the purpose of forcing
him or her to do what you
want, but without losing
control. Example:
A young boy is caught
stealing at a neighbor’s
home. The owner, outraged,
confronts the
boy and swats him several
times with a stick,
wrongly thinking that this
will reform the errant youth.
8: Blind Rage
You physically attack a person
with total loss of control, to
the extent that when you
return to normal consciousness,
you may not
even remember the
incident. Example: A
sassy teenager deliberately
insults an overweight
stranger. Instead
of just scowling, the fiery
man flies into a blind rage
and beats him mercilessly.
Wheels of Consciousness
The fourteen chakras are centers of force
and consciousness
within the inner bodies of man—with
corresponding
nerve plexuses, ganglia and glands in the
physical body.
Where we reside in the range of chakras
deeply influences
our state of mind, our actions and
reactions. Anger is the
predominant consciousness of the vitala chakra,
second
among the seven lower chakras, all of which
are instinctive
realms of distress, darkness and confusion
1 SAhasrara… Illumination—crown of
head
2 Ajna… Divine
sight—third eye
3 Vishuddha… Divine love—throat
4 Anahata… Direct
cognition—heart
5 manipura… Willpower—solar plexus
6 Sva dishthana… Reason—below navel
7 Muladhara… Memory—base of spine
8 atala… Fear
& lust—hips
9 vitala… Raging
anger—thighs
10 sutala… Retaliatory
jealousy—knees
11 talatala… Prolonged confusion—calves
12 rasatala… Selfishness—ankles
13 mahatala… Consciencelessness—feet
14 patala Malice
& murder—soles of
feet
Anger’s Rousing Threat …
Anger: “I will
make the people
blind and deaf. I will overpower
them with wrath and suffocate
them with rage. I will catch
hold of even wise men. They
shall neither harken to what
concerns their own happiness,
nor reflect what they
had read in the scriptures. In
a moment I can destroy even
the learned, the famous, those
who are attentive to duties,
the charitable and the mighty
and Retorts from Patience,
Universal Love and Discrimination
potentates. I can infuse
fury, resentment, wrath,
indignation into the minds
of all in the twinkling of
an eye. I am very powerful.
I will disturb the tapas
of the aspirant and even
yogis and destroy serenity.
Atman, the
soul,
despaired, “Alas, who will
help me now?” Kshama,
the virtue of Patience,
spoke up: “I will! I will pull
out the venomous tooth
of this demon, Anger.”
Vishva Prema, Universal
Love, cried out, “I will! I
am the water to quench
the fire of anger.” Finally,
Viveka ,
Discrimination,
roared: “I will! When I rise,
anger dies.”
(Swami Sivananda
founder, Divine Life Society)
Sagely
Reflections
I will permit no man to narrow
and degrade my soul by
making me hate him.
- Booker T. Washington
If you are patient in one moment
of anger, you will escape a
hundred days of sorrow.
- Chinese proverb
Nor he who owns the least of things,
nor he whom anger chains, can
ever pass through maya’s gates.
So, give these up, sannyasin bold!
Say “Om Tat Sat, Om!”
- Swami Vivekananda
There is nobody who lives
happily with anger.
- Shantideva
When we speak with hatred and
anger, it leads to unhappiness
pain and misery. So one should
always be soft spoken.
- Yajur Veda 3, 54
If we could read the secret
histories of our enemies, we
should find sorrow and suffering
enough to disarm all hostility.
- Longfellow
Suppose you have a weakness of
getting angry easily. Now, what you
should do is this: Once you become
normal again, go and sit in the family
shrine room if you have one, or sit in
solitude; then regret and repent your
own anger and sincerely pray to your
beloved deity or to Mother Nature,
seeking help to get rid of it.
- Shri Mata Amritanandamayi Devi
To remove anger is not so difficult
as to decide to remove it and
to maintain that decision.
- Sri Aurobindo
There should be no yelling in the
home unless there is a fire.
- David O. McKay
A nagging sense of discontent, a
feeling of being dissatisfied, or of
something being not right, is the fuel
that gives rise to anger and hatred.
Generally, this discontent arises
in us when we feel that either we
ourselves, or someone we love, or
our close friends are being treated
unfairly or threatened: people are
being unjust toward us or our close
friends.... The idea is to stop it at
an early stage, rather than wait for
that anger or hatred to arise fully.
- The Dalai Lama
Resentment is like taking poison and
waiting for the other person to die.
- Malachy McCourt
Worshipers of Siva who are victim to
anger or hatred refrain from meditation,
japa and kundalini
yoga. They
confess sins, do penance and engage
in bhakti and karma yoga to raise
consciousness. Aum Namah Sivaya.
- Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami
The Perils
Of Anger
The Tirukural Chapter 32
By Saint Tiruvalluvar, 200 bce
1 It is restraint that restrains rage when it
can injure. If it cannot harm, what does
restraint really matter?
2 W rath is wrong even when it cannot
cause injury, but when it can, there is
nothing more evil.
5 If a man be his own guard, let him guard
himself against rage. Left unguarded,
his own wrath will annihilate him.
6Anger’s fire engulfs all who draw near
it, burning even friends and family who
risk rescue.
7 As a man trying to strike the ground with
his hand can hardly fail, just as surely will
one who treasures his temper be destroyed.
8 T hough others inflict wrongs as painful
as flaming torches, it is good if a man can
refrain from inflammatory tantrums.
9 If hostile thoughts do not invade
his mind, all his other thoughts
may swiftly manifest.
10As men who have died resemble
the dead, so men who have
renounced rage resemble renunciates
“When your subconscious has been cleared of
past reactionary patterns and reprogrammed thoroughly, you do not take
exception to things that
happen in the world. In understanding, you
love everyone and embrace every event. You intuitively sense just what they are
all going through, because
you have in your memory banks knowledge of
each happening acquired during all the lives you have ever lived.” Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami
Seven Remedies for the Habit of Anger
Have you ever suggested to someone who was furious at
you that he shouldn’t get so angry? Perhaps
you offered,
“It certainly doesn’t make me feel very good
when you
unleash that force on me! And it’s not good
for you either!” What
was the result? He just got madder, right?
“How dare you tell me
not to get angry, you #%*$¿ !” The point is,
no one can change a
person except that person himself. We only
change when we
want to change. Are you ready? Controlling
anger could well be
viewed as the very first exercise in
spiritual life, because it stands
so squarely between the soul and peace of
mind while living in
a physical body. Nothing is more fundamental
to conquer, and
doing so unleashes great energy and provides
emotional stability
for all other endeavors. The work is well
worth the effort.
So, here are some sharp tools—powerful enough
to make even
a nice person nicer. They are philosophical,
penitential, meta-
1: Affirm: Everything Is Perfect!
From a mountaintop perspective,
God is everywhere, in all things,
and everything is in a state of balance
and perfection at every point
in time. Affirm this Hindu wisdom
regularly to cultivate patience and
wise acceptance, even of situations
that tend to arouse anger. To do so,
be seated, close your eyes, breathe
deeply and affirm quietly to yourself,
“I’m all right right now, and
everything is as it should be from a
mountaintop point of view.”
2: Fill Your Aura with Light Blue
If you are overtaken by anger and
resentment—emotions which
fill your aura with blackish red,
streaked with yellow—sit in meditation,
breathe and visualize light blue
entering your aura and surrounding
your body. The light blue will neutralize
the fiery reds, and before
you know it the anger and resentment
will be gone. Simply relax and
visualize soothing blue radiating
out from the center of your spine
into your inner and outer aura.
3: Worship Lord Ganesha
The worship of Lord Ganesha is
helpful in overcoming all emotional
problems, including anger. As He is
seated on the muladhara
chakra,
tuning in to His shakti
helps raise us
up into the muladhara
chakra and
therefore out of anger and fear into
a calm, stable state of mind. In fact,
you can slowly seal off these lower
states of mind and keep awareness
permanently lifted above fear and
anger through the regular worship
of Lord Ganesha.
4: Pay for Each Burst
of Ire
An effective and practical financial
remedy is to put a sum of money,
such as five dollars, in a jar each
time you become angry, and later
donate that money to a favorite
orphanage or temple. Consistently
per formed, this penance soon
makes it too expensive to get
angry! This remedy impresses the
subconscious mind that expressions
of anger have karmic costs, and that
anger can be completely eliminated
by sincere efforts
to overcome it.
5: Don’t
Eat the Next Meal
For those who can easily afford to
put five dollars in a jar frequently,
an alternate penance is fasting.
Each time anger arises, simply skip
the next meal. Denying yourself a
meal has a potent impact, deeply
impressing your subconscious mind.
If you follow this without fail, the
instinctive nature soon catches on
that whenever it expresses anger it
will soon experience hunger, and in
this way is motivated to better control
this
destructive emotion.
6: Offer
Flowers
Put up a picture of the person you
are angry with and for 31 days
place a flower in front of the picture.
While doing so, sincerely forgive
the person in heart and mind.
When it becomes difficult to offer
the flower of forgiveness, because
hurtful memories come up from
the subconscious mind, write down
the memories and burn the paper
in a trash can. Say, “I forgive you, for
I know that you gave back to me
the
karma that I set in motion.”
7:
Perform Three Kindly Acts
If you have got ten upset with
another person, do three kindly
acts to make up for it. This releases
you from your anger and guilt even
if he or she is unaware of your good
deeds. Example: A husband shouts
abusively at his wife after returning
from work. After apologizing, he
takes her dining to a place of her
choosing, buys her an item that she
needs for the kitchen and gives her
some free time by taking care of the
younger
children for a half-day.
Om Tat Sat
(My
humble salutations to Sadguru Sri Sivaya
Subramuniyaswami
ji, Sri
Satguru Bodhinatha Veylanswami and Hinduism Today dot com for the collection)
(The
Blog is reverently for all the seekers of truth, lovers of wisdom
and to share
the Hindu Dharma with
others on the spiritual path and also this is purely a non-commercial)
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