Managing Anger By Swami Ananda Saraswati

Anger is not an action but it is a reaction. Being a reaction you do not have any control over it. It comes without your knowledge and finally takes over you. When you realize it becomes too late.

There is no one who does not get angry. All of us get angry. It depends, how we express.

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I remember a story which is worth quoting at this moment.

There was a person who claimed that he never gets angry. I happened to meet him. I was talking to him and he was saying that I never get angry. I said, no, I can not believe that you never get angry.

He said, “No, I really never get angry”.

I said, “your face says that you get angry”.

“No, I say that I never get angry”.

I said, “As I know your family history and especially your father, I am sure that you get angry”.

He said, “what are you talking. I say that I never angry”.

I said, “see now you are getting angry”.

“No, I am not”.

Yes, you are now angry.

“No, I am not angry”.

Getting angry is not bad but victimizing others is very bad. I request all of you to get angry but never victimize anybody or any object nor yourself. Try. It is almost impossible. Now let us see why do we get angry and how do we experience?

There are basically two ways of experiencing anger. One is Internal and other one is External. The internal anger is directed at yourself for something that you have done or not done and external anger is the result of an interaction with another person or situation.

For example, you can stub your toe walking over a carpet and be angry with that, or you can feel angry with yourself over not taking proper class for the students that you had hoped. There are many examples of external anger. Such as your immediate boss….

In Bhagavad Gita it is nicely explained,

The person who dwells upon sense objects, an attachment is born with reference to them. From attachment desire is born (and) from desire, anger is born.

From anger comes delusion. From delusion comes the loss of memory. Because of the loss of memory, the person is incapable of discriminating (and) when one is not able to discriminate, gets destroyed.