Written by Wes Annac, The Culture of AwarenessConcluded from Part 1
Paul Ferrini tells us that “You cannot be in the heart if you are worried or angry.” (1)
It’s much harder to attain a heart-centered flow if we’re in a negative frame of mind, and opening ourselves to spirit is far, far easier when we’re already willing to feel an immense amount of love. Anger turns us cold; takes us away from the warmth of the heart space and the divine gifts it offers.
We have no reason to keep letting this quality distort our growing spiritual perception, but if we do, we’ll continue to hold ourselves back from the perceptual gifts the divine offers. If we can maintain a constant, loving frequency by using self-discipline to refrain from anger, our spiritual connections will be much more enjoyable and free-flowing.
Proverbs 16:32 tells us that “He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city.” (2)
‘He that is slow to anger’ is likely the same as ‘he that ruleth his spirit’, because refraining from anger requires self-mastery and control over the woes of the mind. We’ll find that our efforts to refrain were very worth it, however, because in the higher realms, we’ll see, feel, and know everything we did on earth.
We’ll look back on our experiences from the blissful higher dimensions, and some of us might wish we held our anger back a few times and chose love and joy over the destructive, lower qualities. The more we choose love, the more the planetary vibration will grow and the happier we’ll be when we look back on our experiences.
We’ll know that we did everything we could to raise our vibration and that of the world around us, and we’ll feel satisfied enough with our efforts that, hopefully, we won’t choose to do something as foolhardy as incarnating on another extremely lower-vibrational planet again.
Some of us are pretty headstrong, though, and we might do it all again if we’re given the choice. Oh, how I pray I won’t be this headstrong again!
In Proverbs 15:1, we’re told that “A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger.” (3)
I think this quote refers to the importance of our every word and expression, as well as the vibration they carry. Like I said earlier, we emit a constant frequency, and this is especially true for the words we speak.
Our vibration’s very pure and potent when we emit a loving and peaceful frequency, but when we feel so low that we’re comfortable expressing anger or similar emotions, our vibration’s very dense and we keep ourselves from the greater love we can otherwise feel.
We don’t have to keep ourselves from it any longer, and anything that’d try to convince us otherwise is pure illusion. We’re the masters of our expressions, and we can use them for a higher purpose that’ll raise the vibration of everyone who’s been too rooted in darkness to understand the importance of the things they think, say, and do.
According to Bodhidharma, letting go of our dualistic perceptions of anger andjoy will free us from karma.
“Once you know that the nature of anger and joy is empty, and you let them go, you free yourself from karma.” (4)
I recommend embracing joy and a greater, more loving perception, but I
recognize that my viewpoint is a little dualistic. Our goal is to
liberate ourselves from duality, after all, and we won’t do much good by
fleeing one side of the dualistic pole in favor of another.Balance, then, becomes a favorable route to take. I haven’t examined a lot of material about balance, but due to some of the things I’ve experienced, I’m increasingly convinced that it’s an important and helpful quality for anyone who wants to leave the lower vibrations and the karma associated with them behind.
Paramahansa Ramakrishna tells us that people who’ve realized Source are capable of anger, but their anger’s temporary and fleeting.
“The anger and lust of a man who has
realized God are only appearances. They are like a burnt string. It
looks like a string, but a mere puff blows it away.” (5)
Realizing Source doesn’t automatically liberate us from anger – it’s
up to us to act on our newfound understanding and liberate ourselves
from it. We aren’t automatically infallible because we realize or
believe certain things, and what we do with our beliefs is more
important than anything else.I don’t think the things we believe and advocate are as important as we think. It’s how we use our perspective that counts, and if we believe in positive, spiritual things but still routinely express negativity, we’ll hold ourselves and everyone else back from the qualities we want to see the rest of the world adopt.
It’s up to us to show the way by transcending any and every lower quality that holds us back, and even though most of us aren’t there yet, we’ll get there if we make an effort.
Like Bodhidharma, Adyashanti transcends our dualistic perception of anger and joy, telling us that it’s impossible for a seeker not to get angry.
“There’s no such thing as never getting
angry. Enlightenment can and does use all the available emotions.
Otherwise, we would have to discount Jesus for getting pissed off in the
temple and kicking over the table. The idea that enlightenment means
sitting around with a beatific smile on our faces is just an illusion.”
(6)
Even though I advocate choosing joy over anger if/when we have the
choice, Adyashanti’s advice makes sense. We can’t deny any aspect of our
lower and higher-dimensional existence, and to do so is to deny an
aspect of ourselves.Anger lives within, no matter how often its expressed at the surface, and if we turn away from our anger, we’ll only bury it within and leave it to sit, negatively affecting our physical, emotional, and spiritual health. We certainly shouldn’t take our attention away from anger, but instead, surface and heal it.
We can’t deny anger or anything else that stews within, but we don’t have to accept its presence either.
We can heal it if we really want to, and I recognize that going out of our way to choose joy over anger doesn’t help the situation. We don’t want to avoid or deny anything, and like we’ve already learned, acceptance is a big part of successfully traversing the path.
Adyashanti continues, telling us that when our vibration’s high enough, anger will never tempt us again.
“At a human level, enlightenment means
that you are no longer divided within yourself, and that you no longer
experience a division between yourself and others. Without any inner
division, you stop experiencing most of the usual forms of reactivity.”
(7)
We’ll lose the desire to be angry when we reach a higher state of
consciousness, and we’ll start contributing to the pure vibrations being
sent out from the higher realms and everyone who resides in them.We won’t have to avoid anger, because we won’t have any more left to transmute and heal. We’ll have long stopped letting the woes and stresses of the mind keep us down, and we’ll be far too absorbed in our growing spiritual perception to want to toil in the lower vibrations again.
It’ll feel great to say the least, and I look forward to the time when nobody’s tempted by stress or anger anymore. We have to strive a little if we want to reach a pure state of consciousness where anger doesn’t exist, and once we’re there, it’ll be our duty to help billions of others get there too.
Anger, like plenty of other lower qualities, blocks our greater perception and prohibits us from living in the heart and feeling the divine flow that results. It’s also necessary for our growth out of the lower dimensions, and whether or not we advocate spirituality, we still have the potential to lose ourselves in darkness and the tendencies that feed it.
When we reach a certain purity of mind and heart, however, anger (and anything else that keeps the lower vibrations in place) will be a thing of the past. A lot of spiritual teachers have and will continue to tell us about anger and it’s destructive but ultimately necessary nature, and hopefully, their guidance will help those of you who tend to get lost in anger.
I’ve been there, and I can say from experience that it’s much less fun and rewarding than the path of spiritual evolution. Enlightenment is our goal, and to get there, we have to release our resistance and flow with whatever happens, making sure we don’t deny the existence of the lower qualities we want to transmute.
They certainly exist, and they’re ready to be healed. Are you ready to heal them and move on?
Wes Annac – One of many seekers who’s interested in healing anger and embracing love.
Footnotes:
- Paul Ferrini, Silence of the Heart. South Deerfield, MA: Heartways Press, 1996, 9.
- Proverbs 16:32.
- Proverbs 15:1
- Red Pine, trans., The Zen Teachings of Bodhidharma. Port Townsend, WA, Empty Bowl, 1987, 22.
- Swami Nikhilananda, trans., The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna. Ibid., 178.
- Stephen Bodian, “Adyashanti Interview: The Taboo of Enlightenment.” From http://nonduality.com/hl1892.htm, downloaded 11 March 2006.
- Loc. Cit.
