Ridding Ourselves of Anger, One Pause at a Time
By Baba Shuddhaanandaa Brahmachari
One of the most uncontrollable negative emotions that rules human life and causes many a downfall and failure is the instinct of anger. We all want to get rid of it, knowing full well how it robs the peace of our hearts. Yet we are the victims of this negative instinct. It is very hard to tame. And at a deeper level, suppressed anger or frustration can create yet another very hostile enemy within us, resentment.
The negative influence of anger is painful not just for the person to whom the anger is directed. Indeed, it is the angry person who suffers the most. The aftermath of anger is always unpleasant; it hurts and it is difficult to heal, like an open wound that is repeatedly aggravated.
Over time, as we have become more mindful of the pain that anger causes to ourselves and others, we have tried to rid ourselves of it, to tame it. But it keeps coming back, sometimes more powerfully and uncontrollably than before. Why do you think this happens? It happens because the first time you tried to rid yourself of anger, you took it easy and did not dive deep into the cause of your anger and its remedy. As a result the next time it appeared you did not have much control over it.
Again, you were unhappy for a while but you still did not try to find a permanent solution.
In your unawareness, repeated bouts of anger lodge themselves in your subconscious mind and eventually take up permanent residence. You know very well that throughout the day you are being driven by the habitual patterns of your subconscious mind. Your subconscious is the master, you are only the servant. But let us not forget the fact that the subconscious is our own creation, springing out of our repetitive unconscious thoughts and acts.
In the Bhagavad Gita Lord Krishna tells us that anger is born in the mind that is full of desires. This wisdom shows that if your desires go unfulfilled, if your expectations are violated, if someone does not give you what you want, anger erupts, cluttering the mind. Your intellect is deluded and you become self-destructive.
When anger is suppressed and chewed inside, it enhances your stress levels. Over a period of time this leads to resentments. Resentment is your worst enemy, breeding deep anguish and frustration in the ground of your unconscious mind. There are people who are angry and they burst, and it is all out and over. But resentment pollutes the inner atmosphere of the mind, and can cause severe damage to the body. Many medical practitioners and healers believe that at times even terminal and life threatening diseases are caused by resentments.
