Ridding Ourselves of Anger, One Pause at a Time
You can only be angry if you are asleep, if you are unaware. It is almost as if you are not there, anger is there instead of you! Practice mindfulness, practice being aware of what you are doing, what you are thinking. This brings a tremendous change to your thoughts and acts. Once you wake up, once you bask in the Light of the Divine, your heart dominates, not the deluded negative thoughts that live in your unconscious mind, weaving conspiracy after conspiracy. When heart dominates, you are forgiving, loving, understanding, and accepting. Meditation gives you this mindfulness, awareness and freedom from anger.
Anger and resentments thus are stumbling blocks, impediments to our eternal search for peace and bliss. Buddha says, “Those who are free of resentful thoughts surely find peace”. Buddha’s words point toward the contents of our thoughts. I believe if we can consciously follow the content of our thoughts and rephrase the negative thoughts with powerful positive thoughts, then over a period of time the power of the Mind overshadows the age-old negative stuff and dominates the mind plane with joyful, creative, happy thoughts and emotions.
We need to declutter our mind from time to time, emptying the unwanted memories of the past which do not have any fresh and life-giving energy to offer us anymore. It is good to learn from the past but it is a bad idea to carry that dead corpse on our shoulder.
I often share the idea of releasing painful thoughts from our minds as a regular routine, just as we in India empty the bin in our kitchen every day. Otherwise it stinks. Cleaned bins never stink. So also, a cleaned mind, scrubbed clear of negative thoughts, never feels unhappy.
When you get into bed at night, relax your body consciously and then breathe deep breaths with awareness, consciously inhaling Divine energy and Light. Bring the image of the person who has been the cause of your resentment into your mental screen. Welcome him/her with a smile and then tell him/her that you no longer have any anger and that you are happily releasing all the painful memories and that all is well. Hug the person and release him/her to the Light. Feel a deep sense of joy, as if a heavy burden is removed from your shoulders. Feel lightened. Repeat this technique regularly, but do it with more and more trust and love happening to you, thereby converting Divine Grace and Light into your own positive emotional energy needed for the miracle to happen. Don’t forget undoing takes more time than doing!! But once you are undone, you are free of a karmic debt and you will not be asked to pay this debt again.
