Anger can short-circuit our intelligence and impel us to do regrettable things. Pointing to the dangerousness of anger, the Bhagavad-gita mentions that anger can make our life hellish (16.21). Hearing such warnings, we may think, “My life would be so much better if I could be fully free of all anger.”
However, absence of anger is not always a healthy state. Why not? Because anger itself is not entirely undesirable; it can serve a functional purpose. It is like a meter for our emotions — it indicates when our emotions are going wild, when something is seriously wrong with something that is important for us..
If we never feel any anger at all, that doesn’t necessarily mean that we have controlled our emotions; it could mean that we are so apathetic as to not care for anything at all. For example, if we don’t feel angry on hearing about terrible wrongs such as rape, terrorism or brutal exploitation, we may well have lost our humanity. In fact, most of the world’s wrongs have been fixed or at least minimized only by people who were emotionally invested enough to find those wrongs intolerable.
To grow in our humanity, we need to care for things, specifically things that are bigger than ourselves. And when we care for the biggest cause — the all-pure Divine who is everyone’s greatest well-wisher — we grow in not just our humanity but also our spirituality. And our commitment to the Divine gives us the inner strength to not get carried away by our anger, but to calmly use our intelligence to do whatever is in our power for improving the things we care for.
One-sentence summary:
Absence of anger doesn’t necessarily mean that we have mastered our emotions; it may mean we have not invested our emotions in anything worthwhile.
Think it over:
- How can anger serve a constructive functional purpose?
- Absence of anger may indicate we have lost our humanity. Explain.
- How do we grow in our humanity and spirituality?
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16.21: There are three gates leading to this hell – lust, anger and greed. Every sane man should give these up, for they lead to the degradation of the soul.
To know more about this verse, please click on the image
Nice, please keep it up.
How can anger serve a constructive functional purpose?
Anger helps us to recognise and become aware of what is important to us. It is like a meter for our emotions — it indicates when our emotions are going wild, when something is seriously wrong with something that is important for us..
Absence of anger may indicate we have lost our humanity. Explain.
Absence of anger even when things are wrong doesn’t mean person has control over his anger. It means he or she doesn’t care about it or have become numb to human emotions of anger, shame, pain. If we don’t feel angry upon hearing terible things like injustice, cheating, exploitation it doesn’t mean we are calm persons. It only means we have lost our human side.
How do we grow in our humanity and spirituality?
We need to care for things specifically bigger than ourselves.
By commiting ourselves to pleasure of divine who is everyone’s greatest well wisher. And our commitment to the Divine gives us the inner strength to not get carried away by our anger, but to calmly use our intelligence to do whatever is in our power for improving the things we care for.
Thank you for sharing your reflections on the “Think it over” questions.
Thank you very much prabhu for Anger management series. I was very badly looking for more understanding of my Anger in detail and ways to control and regulate it. I also reflected on moments when I felt angry in past week. And then I journaled about it from this perspective in this article. I journaled what was important to me in that angry moment which I wanted to preserve or value.
Thanks for sharing your experience – it’s clear that your active engagement helped you get maximum benefit from the articles. Grateful to be of service.