How can we experience emotions such as anger and still react reasonably?
We get angry when we’re not present. When we are deeply present, we don’t lose ourselves in emotions.
Anger always comes out of unconsciousness. You cannot be consciously angry. If I say to you, ‘On the count of three, you have to become furious. One, two, three, go!’ Can you do it? Just try it. Try to become furious. You can’t. This is actually really interesting, because how many of us lose our temper? All of us! It’s part of the human condition. How many of us lose our temper more frequently than we’d like to? And yet, we can’t do it on command. This is because our anger comes when we are not conscious in that moment. That’s why being present is such a good antidote to it.
When I say that we can’t be angry and present at the same time, I’m not saying that we approve of everything that’s happening in the world. Most of us disapprove of the violence and terrorism in the world, of the injustice to our sisters and brothers starving or dying of thirst. But that’s not the stuff we lose our temper over. That’s not the anger we’re looking to overcome. That anger doesn’t usually lead us to behave in ways that require us later to patch up what we’ve done or said. The anger that ruins our life stems from unconsciousness. This is why being present is the greatest solution.
There’s another way to address the issue. Typically, when we feel anger, it is accompanied by a tape that plays on a loop in our mind, reminding us of the person, situation, acts and words that made us angry. As we keep thinking about it, we help the wave of anger to grow. This harms us in two ways. First, it keeps us out of the present, because we are thinking back to ten minutes, an hour or ten years ago to the moment that made us angry. So we are not here. That’s always a dangerous place to be—not here. Also, it puts our brain on autopilot. It is simply a tape repeating the story. For all that plagues us—whether it’s anger, depression, addiction, general angst—the bottom line is to let go of our attachment to the record of the betrayal or hurt that plays over and over in our mind, keeping us trapped in anger. Anger, like any other emotion, surfaces, builds, peaks and dissipates, like a wave in the ocean. The reason it grabs hold of us and doesn’t let go is because of our attachment to the story of what/who made us angry. To let go of it, we must stop holding on to the story.
Every bit of the pain rooted in a story becomes all about us. We’re a victim of it all. The people, that situation, that God, these stars—whomever and whatever we blame—are worse to me than to everyone else in the universe. Whether we get furious about it or depressed, or become an alcoholic or drug addict, it’s all based on my drama, my story.
So, as the wave of anger grows, you need to pull yourselves out of the story. When your pulse starts to race, your heart beats fast, your palms get kind of sweaty—the minute your attention focuses on that person or that situation, shift your attention on to the anger itself. This is very subtle change but it’s very important. Focus and stare at the emotion itself.
That makes it dissipate because it brings you into the present moment, where there’s no story, only the wave of emotion. If you can face that wave, then it’s just about your emotions and not about you, or the other guy. What you’ll find is that as you stare down that wave, it just starts to fall apart right before your eyes.
Most of these emotions are secondary emotions. If you focus on the anger, you will find that beneath the wave, beneath the ‘how dare you’, is fear and pain. So, we look at the fear and pain then, and make them dissipate too. This practice brings us into awareness.
Anyone who has ever swum in the ocean knows that you can’t outrun a wave. It’s just going to crash on you. With anger, it crashes on those around you as well. Rather than trying to outrun it, just watch it, and as it comes, dive deeply into that awareness, without acting on it and without getting caught up in the drama. The wave will peak and then recede, and you will emerge safely on the other side.
The last piece of the puzzle is to connect with your breath. The breath is your greatest ally. It brings you into the present and immediately pulls you out of whatever emotion has hijacked your mindfulness, presence and peace. Let the awareness be low in the abdomen, below the belly-button. Let it be slow, let it be mindful. The minute you bring your awareness there, it automatically grounds you.
But what if the people around us are doing things that are inconsiderate? For example, I have not been able to sleep because my neighbours create so much noise, and because of other unpleasant circumstances that were thrust upon me. How do I free myself from my natural reaction to that?
The first aspect is simply to have the awareness that there’s a difference between pain and suffering.
Sleep deprivation is an objective state, like wintertime or summertime or rain or sun or heat or cold. It’s a state. There’s no subjective quality to it making it a good thing or a bad thing. If it were Maha Shivaratri, and you had made the decision to stay up all night chanting mantras, you’d be exuberant at 4 a.m.! If you had a 2 a.m. flight to catch to visit the one you love across the world, you wouldn’t be angry, you’d be thrilled to see your beloved! It’s not the actual state of sleep deprivation that creates the anger. It’s the lack of control. It’s the voice inside that says, ‘I didn’t choose this, it’s not the way I wanted it to be.’
The fastest way out of that is to realize that nothing is how we want it to be.
Nothing is as we choose. The problem with the world today is that it has given us ATMs, online shopping and all manner of convenience, giving us the idea that somehow everything is at our fingertips. It is a mirage of a world where you get exactly what you want—order today, refund tomorrow! We have this impression that the world functions according to what buttons we push on a keyboard or on a vending machine.
That’s not how it works. We are happy when we are in alignment with what the world has offered but tend to get angry when what we want is denied. The quickest way out of that anger is to broaden our perspective, because the truth of the matter is, nothing is in our hands. Your neighbours were being loud at 4 a.m.; it’s not what you wanted. Some of us like summer and don’t like winter, but that doesn’t stop winter from coming. Nobody wants to grow old, but that doesn’t stop it from happening. Nobody wants their kids to grow up, but that doesn’t stop it from happening. Nothing is in our control. The sooner we realize that, the sooner we are free not only of the anger in this particular situation, but in every situation. The only thing in the entire universe you have control over is your response to the universe. The faster you can take a deep breath and realize, ‘All right, I guess I’m going to be sleep-deprived’, and get up to meditate and watch the sun rise, the quicker the suffering in your mind will end.
People may make you irate, but you have to realize that no amount of your being irate is going to make those people stop! Our only choice is to be miserable or not to be miserable. Today it’s this noise, tomorrow it’ll be something else. You must realize the only objectiveness of good and bad is in your response.
In Chapter 3 of the Bhagavad Gita, Shri Krishna says that anger and hatred are the greatest enemies of man. How do we control anger in a situation where there is a question of justice? For example, when Draupadi was humiliated in front of the Pandavas in the Mahabharata, how would we control anger towards the sin and the sinner?
This is an example of a situation where there is an evil, unjust act, an act predicated upon nothing other than malice and meanness. Draupadi, the wife of the Pandavas, simply due to Duryodhana’s anger, rage and ego, was nearly disrobed in the court in front of everyone. How do we deal with anger and hatred towards the sin and towards the sinner?
Anger is not an evil. It can be a great catalyst. There is this common perception of spirituality that it somehow dulls you, that spiritual people should just be really mellow and unaffected by the world. That’s not the highest experience or manifestation of spirituality. That is repression, pushing life away.
What most of us do is react. You say something, it makes me angry, I react, I slap you. If I am a different sort of person, I punch my hand through a wall, injuring myself instead of you. Or, I go home and beat my kid because you’re my boss and so I couldn’t talk back to you. It’s all a reaction. The purpose of life is to act, not to react.
These days, our social media and digital world make us busier than ever, and our lives have become mostly only reaction. From the time we wake up to the time we go to sleep, how many of us make lists of things that we’re going to do that day? And when the day’s over, we realize we’ve been super busy non-stop but nothing on our list got done. We sit there and scratch our heads and think, ‘But I haven’t stopped! I haven’t been wasting my time. I haven’t been idle, then what’s happened? Why did nothing on my list get done!’
The reason is all these other things that life gives us—emails, phone calls, SMSes—we react to it. So, we’re reacting instead of acting . That’s where the problem arises, that’s where we’ve lost our freedom. I had made a decision today that I’m going to do x, y and z, but the day ran away from me because this email, this phone call, this message came. So I’ve spent the day just reacting to the various beeps, buzzes and rings.
Anger can be a catalyst for either reaction or action. Injustice can make you angry. So can violence. Not in a reactive way, nor in a way that makes you slap me or beat your kid, but in a way that you find there’s an energy in you that says—do something , serve , respond .
If your response to injustice is a catalyst for action, that’s great. There is nothing wrong with emotion, passion, desire, as long as we are able to experience them in freedom rather than being slaves to them.
In anger, when I don’t have a choice, I’m the first victim. Then that anger, instead of being an energy that ignites positive action, is a fire that burns me. Getting riled up when somebody hurts me is like saying they’ve made a mistake and so I’m going to punish myself for it. Duryodhana did something evil, so now I am going to punish myself by burning with anger inside. That doesn’t solve the situation, doesn’t impact Duryodhana, doesn’t protect Draupadi, doesn’t ensure that that situation never happens again. All it does is burn me. It’s useless. But anger that’s a catalyst for positive action is a very powerful force.
There are a lot of things going on in the world today that we really should be angry about. Yet, our losing control and burning up doesn’t serve anyone. It doesn’t help our world, it doesn’t help us. Instead, we need to acknowledge the anger and realize it’s there because something is not in alignment with truth. Then we recognize that, through our actions, we can be a vehicle for change. The energy in the universe that wants to set it right is powerful and motivating.
This is what Lord Krishna tells us, ‘Whenever there is darkness in the world, I incarnate to bring back the light. Whenever there is adharma , I incarnate to bring back the dharma.’
Maybe God is trying to incarnate through every single one of us, maybe the situation is such today that every one of us gets to be a vehicle, to be that being through whom the energy flows.
If I can acknowledge that experience of anger and not push it away, not eat it or drink it or gamble or shop it away, but experience it, and then see what it wants me to do, then I can be a vehicle and that energy can bring about movement towards righteousness through me.
The last aspect to consider here is hatred. Hatred comes when we identify the sin with the sinner, the act with the being. It burns us in a much more lasting way than anger. Anger tends to come and go, whereas hatred tends to sizzle and fester.
The antidote to hatred is to understand that just as you are not your fears, your confusion, your upbringing, your desires and your ego, neither is that person. Even though this horrible act flowed through that person, it’s because that’s all they’ve got. Based on their upbringing, experience and karmic package, what they’ve got is fear, anger, jealousy, competition. So that’s what they give.
Most people don’t wake up in the morning deciding that they’re going to commit vile sins to bring about great suffering. Even those who are doing things that we look at as terrorism, as heinous crimes, if you bring them in and ask them why they are doing it, they’re going to have very righteous explanations for what they are doing—to restore justice, to restore this, to restore that. Charles Manson had a whole rationale for why he did what he did. People whom we label as evil, horrible, crazy people—they all think they’re doing the right thing. It’s all they’ve got.
It doesn’t condone the act, doesn’t mean what they did is OK, but it means that you don’t allow hatred to ruin your life, or convince yourself that hating is somehow the right thing to do. Because that just kills you; it doesn’t change the other person.