Anger is believed to be a negative emotion which is quite harmful to the body and soul. We all try to shun anger as it changes our personality and make us very much detestable. No one likes to see an angry person as his face exhibit repulsion and hatred. Yet none of us can claim that we never got angry or that we shall not get angry in future.
Why do we get angry?
It is difficult to understand why people get angry. While some people seem to be angry all the time, there are many who never get angry. Most of us falls somewhere in the middle as we get angry sometimes and enjoy happiness at other time.
There is a close relationship between anger and happiness. It is impossible to be happy and angry at the same time. The presence of one seems to automatically remove the other. Thus if you get happiness, you shall not become angry.
However, happiness like anger is never permanent. You cannot remain happy for a very long period. However, big you achievement could be, it can make you happy only for short time. As a matter of fact, there are more chances of feeling unhappy after a great happiness as you have to now achieve even more to make you happy and that is not always possible.
The Cause of Anger
Anger is caused by our perception of the external reality. It is our reaction to what is going on around us and against us. We get angry when we face an “unpredictable” adverse situation which is likely to damage us. We also get angry when someone tries to damage what we love. For example, if someone treats you badly, you get angry immediately. When someone insults your loved one, you feel extremely angry. We also feel angry if someone is trying to damage our country, our culture, and our people because we love them.
We rarely feel angry if the damage is caused to our adversely or enemy. In fact, we may feel happy about it.
Thus anger is very closely related to love. You get angry when you love. If you love more people or love your country or love the entire humanity, you are likely to get angry more.
Most of the time, anger is spontaneous and temporary. Yet, it is a strong emotion which reduces after sometime. However, if anger against an individual or entity (like a country or organization) become frequent than it may leave a permanent mark on the psyche of the person as then anger become hatred.
The Dangers of Hatred
Hatred is extremely dangerous as it has the potential to convert a well meaning person to a devil. In Bhagwat Gita, Lord Krishna warns against anger when he says
“Delusion arises from anger. The mind is bewildered by delusion. Reasoning is destroyed when the mind is bewildered. One falls down when reasoning is destroyed.”
In some way, anger can be compared with fever. There can be many causes of fever. In fact all ailments of the body are somehow converted to fever i.e. rise in body temperature which increases metabolism giving additional power to the antibodies to fight against the external enemy like infections and viruses. Once the body wins the battle, the temperature returns to normal.
In similar way, anger is caused when our mind is attached with some difficult problem. Anger enables the mind to focus all its energy in a single direction and find a solution of the problem. Thus anger is desirable in many situations as it helps us focusing our mind on a single cause. In fact some people who can not focus their attention, may so only when they are angry. On the contrary, if a person can focus his attention on his will may rarely get angry as he does not require the path of anger to focus his attention.
However, the fever becomes dangerous when it lasts for a longer period. This weakens the body and reduces its resistance.
Defeat Anger
Anger must, therefore, be handled with great caution. Every anger try to teach a lesson just like every fever teaches your something. It tells you that your diagnosis of the problem is wrong. As we avoid unhygienic food and close association with a person having infection, we have to avoid such people and such environment to avoid anger. When we are strong, we can still take such adversaries. However, when we are weakened particularly by the recent attack of such anger, the relapse of anger must be avoided till we acquire sufficient strength to fight such situations. It is only by clever planning and increase of our mind-power that we can avoid anger and eliminate hatred from our lives.
