Written by Wes Annac, The Culture of Awareness
Here, I’d like to talk about anger and the
manner in which it holds us back from our greater growth and
development. Anger, like a lot of other qualities, clearly hinders our
growth because it takes us out of a naturally loving frame of mind that
isn’t easy to get back into, and there are plenty of other reasons it
just isn’t good for us.
Anger holds us back from accessing and feeling a
greater, more wholesome part of ourselves, and it stops us from feeling
the sense of wellbeing that helps us thrive. Plenty has been said about
the manner in which anger hinders our spiritual development, and I’d
like to examine some of what’s been said here.
I think it’s essential that we surface and
transmute every bit of anger we hold within if we want to find
enlightenment or do anything spiritually helpful or significant, and
fortunately, we’ve been given a wealth of assistance with doing just
that.
First, Mahendranath Gupta tells us that anger
and various other lower qualities are temporarily necessary for our
lower-dimensional growth.
“God created anger, passion, and other troubles in order to mould great souls.” (1)
We’re here to learn and grow out of the lower
vibrations, but to excel from the darkness, we first have to experience
it in all of its forms so we can have a sense of what we’re growing away
from.
Evolution is probably a lot easier on other
planets whose civilizations don’t have to deal with the extreme
negativity of the earth, but even they have to experience and understand
darkness before they can move on from it. We can’t touch down into
darkness without experiencing it intensely, but now that we have, we can
start the journey back home.
Now that we have enough experience with
darkness to understand it, it’s time to move on from it by refusing to
continue feeding the lower qualities that keep us ensnared in it. Now’s
the time to find and act on a greater level of self-discipline, because
we’re ready to grow away from darkness and everything that keeps it in
place.
According to Ajahn Sumedo’s experience, after so long on the path, anger’s replaced with peace of mind.
“Over the years,
equanimity seemed to develop. One found that anger, annoyance and
aversion began to fade out. And when your mind no longer inclines
towards dwelling in aversion, you begin to have some joy and peace of
mind.” (2)
I think we could all use this joy and peace of
mind, and we’ll attain it when we learn to leave the tendency to be
angry behind and embrace constant, free-flowing love. Unlike anger, love
will support and nurture us as we grow out of lower mindsets and habit
patterns and expand like never before, and this expansion will naturally
entail a full-on release of anger.
As we embrace love, the lower qualities we
would’ve otherwise been susceptible to will have less and less influence
with each day that passes. The result will be an immensely expanded
perception, and by the time we find full-on enlightenment, we’ll have
long moved away from the restrictive qualities of the lower vibrations.
Paramahansa Ramakrishna tells us that “Anger arises when obstacles are placed in the way of desire.” (3)
If we’re rooted too deeply in the mind, mortal
desires become much more appealing than spirit or enlightenment. If our
mind perceives itself as being blocked from its goals or desires, it
naturally expresses the negative and angry emotions that lay underneath
the surface.
This is because the mind thinks it’s being
blocked from something that’s essential for its survival, and it’ll send
us plenty of angry signals and emotions that a lot of people choose to
embrace. A lot of people use anger as a crutch that seems to help them
cope in negative situations, and this is unfortunate given that we send a
constant signal to the rest of the universe.
Our every emotion is felt via the signals we
send out, but most of humanity doesn’t know we send these signals in our
best and worst times. As it stands, most people won’t believe that
there are numerous civilizations out there, waiting to be discovered,
much less that they’re picking up on the signals and impressions we send
out.
Sri Krishna tells us about the destructive process that results from an initial mortal desire.
“Thinking about
sense-objects Will attach you to sense-objects; Grow attached, and you
become addicted; Thwart your addiction, it turns to anger; Be angry, and
you confuse your mind; Confuse your mind, you forget the lesson of
experience; Forget experience, you lose discrimination; Lose
discrimination, and you miss life’s only purpose.” (4)
When we’re rooted too deeply in the mind to
listen to the intuitive voice that guides us, we lose track of the
purpose of our existence on this planet. We forget that we’re here to
bring a world of lost souls into the light, and if we dip too low, we
can lose ourselves.
We, like anyone else, have the potential to get
lost in the mucky unawareness of the lower vibrations, and I think it’s
essential that we root ourselves in a greater perception as much and as
often as possible. This can especially be said for those of us who want
to raise the consciousness of the planet, and if our own vibration is
too low, we can’t uplift anyone else.
Bodhidharma tells us that anger blocks our ability to remain on the path.
“To go from mortal
to buddha, you have to put an end to karma, nurture your awareness and
accept what life brings. If you’re always getting angry, you’ll turn
your nature against the Way. There’s no advantage in deceiving
yourself.” (5)
We don’t gain anything by expressing anger in
unfavorable situations, and as Bodhidharma suggests, it’s far easier to
take life as it comes and deal with everything in as detached and loving
of a way as we can. We’re honing our spiritual understanding, but we
can’t greet the higher realms until our vibration matches theirs.
Anger keeps us on a lower vibration and stops
us from feeling the purer energy making its way to our minds and hearts,
and if we want to walk the path ahead of us, we have to be willing to
lay our anger aside and embrace life in all of its beauty and
difficulty.
According to Paramahansa Ramakrishna, anger inhibits our judgment and clarity of mind.
“Through anger one loses one’s wits and cannot distinguish between right and wrong.” (6)
We lose our perception of what is and isn’t
okay or acceptable when we’re really angry, and even though most people
are able to show some self-control, others have a much harder time
controlling their impulses.
Anger takes away our inhibition and makes us forget what is and isn’t acceptable.
For the most part, this is because we feel like
our reality’s crumbling when we’re really angry, and nothing really
matters or makes sense. All we can understand is our anger and/or the
perceived unfairness of the situation we’re angry about, and other
important things don’t really click in.
Footnotes:- Swami Chetananda, They Lived with God. Life Stories of Some Devotees of Sri Ramakrishna. St. Louis: Vedanta Society of St. Louis, 1989, 205.
- Alan Cittaviveka Sumedho, Teachings from the Silent Mind. Great Gaddesden: Amaravati Publications, c1984; 1992, 63.
- Swami Nikhilananda, trans., The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna. New York: Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center, 1978; c1942, 247.
- Swami Prabhavananda and Christopher Isherwood, trans., Bhagavad-Gita. The Song of God. New York and Scarborough: New American Library, 1972; c1944, 41.
- Red Pine, trans., The Zen Teachings of Bodhidharma. Port Townsend, WA, Empty Bowl, 1987, 17.
- Swami Nikhilananda, trans., The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna. Ibid., 861.