Acharya Prashant explains that whenever anger has arisen, it has been preceded by an unfulfilled expectation. Something happened that was contrary to one's hopes. Anger is the surge of energy from within to fulfill what you wanted. For instance, you wanted things to proceed in a certain way, but they started going in the opposite direction. In response, energy rises from within to push things back to how you wanted them. To make the world run according to your wishes, you need power, and in anger, you see how much power rises—the face turns red, muscles twitch, and arms suddenly gain strength. This happens so that you can shape the world according to your expectations, to change it because it is not running as you expected. Therefore, behind anger lies expectation. Expectation arises from a sense of incompleteness. There is a superficial expectation that leads to superficial anger, which is a part of normal behavior and not very harmful. It is like the punishment of birth, as Kabir Saheb says, coming and going like the wind or clouds. However, there is another kind of expectation that is not mundane or superficial but spiritual. It is the expectation that the hole in one's heart, the hole in one's soul, will be filled. When you set out to fill it and your hope is not fulfilled, you become enraged. This anger eats away at your life like a termite. When it is expressed, it is what it is, but when it is unexpressed, it eats you from the inside. Cold anger is more harmful than hot anger. If your anger is momentary, like a tide that rises and falls, then it is a play of energy, the divine play of Shiva, who is described as 'angry in a moment, pleased in a moment.' This is a childlike innocence. But our anger is usually not such a game; it is an expression of our inner pain, the pain of feeling small, fragmented, and limited. This is why you erupt over small things, because the cold anger was already sitting inside, waiting for an opportunity. We are all walking around with this cold anger, which manifests in a thousand ways. We are like bombs, and the slightest spark makes us explode. The reason for the explosion is not the matchstick; the reason was inside. The cause is spiritual incompleteness, the education and conditioning that have instilled in us the feeling that something is wrong with us. To the question of how to control anger, Acharya Prashant says that the very urge to control it prevents one from understanding it. If you understand it, it will be controlled on its own. Anger exists because it has never been understood. The urge to control it will stop you from understanding. The only remedy is understanding. If understanding is the root, self-control is one of its many fruits. There are two types of anger: one is superficial, a part of life's ups and downs, involving no existential pain. The other, which he calls cold anger, is the one that eats you from within like a termite. It arises from the feeling, 'I am not right.' We are hurt beings, which is why we get hurt by small things. It's not a new wound; it's a wound being struck again. We have made our very being a wound, which is why we are always in agony.