Question: Sir, I asked you a question during Samvaad that how can I get rid of my anger. You said that we feel pleasure while getting angry. You said I need to think before getting angry that to whom am I showing anger. I need to think of relation with him or her. I need to think that I am myself getting harm from it.

I tried to do the same. Now the anger does not come out , but it is gets accumulated inside and leaves behind questions, frustrations, deep thinking and heavy heartedness which I think is harming me more. Maybe I am following something wrong. What should be done?

Answer: Brijesh,

‘Awareness of anger’ and ‘suppression of anger’ are not the same.

This much is alright. Yes, anger pleases the ego. It is the ego’s way of asserting itself.

Brijesh, with a little change in the language, the meaning goes totally topsy-turvy. ‘Seeing’ or ‘realising’ is not the same as ‘thinking’. Very different.

Thinking about anger is not the same as realizing the process and effect of anger. Thinking is always done by the ‘thinker’ and is motivated to protect the ‘thinker’. If the ‘thinker’ is ‘anger’, all thinking will only protect the anger.

Please remember: Anger does not arise in isolation. It is a net result of the life we live, and the kind of mind we have. We try to get rid of anger without changing our entire lifestyle, the entire substance of our mind. This is like a fat man trying to reduce fat accumulated in one arm alone. Can you reduce the fat accumulated in one arm without reducing the fat accumulated in your chest, tummy, thighs, everywhere?

Anger arises from a sense of wanting and not getting. It is an incompleteness. The more strongly you want, the more frustrated you are on not getting it, the more is your anger.

See what you want. Ask why you must want it so desperately. See how you have been taught to feel incomplete without getting.

In this calm realization, anger has no way to arise.

-Based on Question and Answer sessions with me on various e-forums.

Dated: 13th May,’14

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