Anger

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Anger Defined: a strong feeling of displeasure and belligerence aroused by a wrong; wrath; ire.

True anger is a hate hold. Anger is simply the process of trying to hold everything still.

“If a small thing has the power to make you angry, does that not indicate something about your size?” – Sydney J. Harris

“He who angers you conquers you” – Elizabeth Kenny

“Malice drinks one-half of its own poison” – Seneca

“In a controversy, the instant we feel anger, we have already ceased striving for truth and have begun striving for ourselves. ” Abraham Herchel

“How much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it.” Marcus Aurelius

“If you are patient in one moment of anger, you will escape a hundred days of sorrow.” Chinese Proverb

When you become angry, leave the place immediately. Take a long walk; stay away for a half hour. Repeat the sacred mantra OM SANTI one hundred and eight times. You will find that your anger subsides.

Another way is to count from one to thirty – your anger will subside. When anger tries to show itself, observe silence. Never utter a harsh word. Try to nip it off before it emerges from the subconscious mind. You will have to be alert. It tries to come out so suddenly. But, before anger manifests in the mind, there is agitation in the mind. If you strive to subdue anger, then hatred subsides – but even then there may be slight impatience lingering there. Eschew this slight disturbance also. For a man who is leading a divine life, this is a serious drawback. Irritability is a weakness of the mind. Remove it by practising tolerance, mercy and love. Calmness is a direct means to the realisation of Brahman. ~Swami Sivananda

A conversation:

Anger: “I will make the people blind and deaf. I will overpower them with wrath and suffocate them with rage. I will catch hold of even wise men. They
shall neither hearken to what concerns their own happiness, nor reflect what they had read in the scriptures.  In a moment I can destroy even the learned, the famous, those who are attentive to duties, charitable and the mighty potentates.

I can infuse fury, resentment, wrath, indignation into the minds of all in the twinkling of an eye. I am very powerful. I will disturb the Tapas of the aspirant and even Yogis and destroy serenity.

Man: Alas, who will help me now?

Forgiveness: I will. I will pull out the venomous tooth of this demon, Anger.

Universal Love: I will. And I am the water to quench the fire of anger.

Conscience: I will. When I rise, anger dies.” Swami Sivananda

Avoidance of Anger

It is restraint that restrains rage when it can injure. If it cannot harm, what does restraint really matter?Wrath is wrong even when it cannot cause injury, but when it can, there is nothing more evil.

Forget anger toward all who have offended you, for it gives rise to teeming troubles. Anger kills the face’s smile and the heart’s joy. Does there exist a greater enemy than one’s own anger? If a man be his own guard, let him guard himself against rage. Left unguarded, his own wrath will annihilate him. Anger’s fire engulfs all who draw near it, burning even friends and family who risk rescue. As a man trying to strike the ground with his hand can hardly fail, just as surely will one who treasures his temper be destroyed. Though others inflict wrongs as painful as flaming torches, it is good if a man can refrain from inflammatory tantrums. If hostile thoughts do not invade his mind, all his other thoughts may swiftly manifest. As men who have died resemble the dead, so men who have renounced rage resemble renunciates. – Chapter 31: Kural 301 – 310 ‘Thirukkural’

“Be angry but do not become blind with anger. Never allow anger to possess you. Then it blinds you. When anger is given free rein, it bursts out and causes damage – not only to the person at whom the anger is directed, but also, more seriously, at all levels of being to the one who is angry. Let anger become conscious. Step back, be a witness to anger and its mechanisms, to what is appropriate and inappropriate in the situation. The show of appropriate anger in daily life may be inevitable. The parent chastising a child, the teacher reprimanding the student, may call out a display of anger in protective guidance. No one should be consumed by anger. Remain a vehicle of appropriate and conscious expressions of anger, always working for the highest possible good. Then anger cannot possess or damage the mind or body, or thwart the purposes of the soul.” Baba Lokenath

“Whenever you are angry, be assured that it is not only a present evil, but that you have increased a habit.” Epictetus

“The toughest fiber is anger. It is the stickiest dirt. When you get angry, you forget mother, father and teacher; you descend to the lowest depths. You lose all discrimination in the excitement.” Sathya Sai Baba

“When you clench your fist, no one can put anything in your hand, nor can your hand pick up anything,”

Anger is one letter short of danger~Author Unknown

“I don’t have to attend every argument I’m invited to.”  ~Author Unknown

“The best remedy for a short temper is a long walk.”  ~Jacqueline Schiff

“If you’re angry at a loved one, hug that person.  And mean it.  You may not want to hug – which is all the more reason to do so.  It’s hard to stay angry when someone shows they love you, and that’s precisely what happens when we hug each other.”  ~Walter Anderson, The Confidence Course, 1997

“Do not teach your children never to be angry; teach them how to be angry.”          ~Lyman Abbott

Take no revenge that you have not pondered beneath a starry sky, or on a
canyon overlook, or to the lapping of waves and the mewing of a distant
gull.  ~Robert Brault

“The world needs anger.  The world often continues to allow evil because it isn’t angry enough.”  ~Bede Jarrett

“Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one getting burned.” Buddha (563 BC-483 BC)

“For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness.” Ralph Waldo Emerson Source

“Try to get somebody to be reasonable when he is very angry  and you’ll find out his reality is very bad.”

“There is no liar lying like an angry man.” The Phoenix lectures ~ L. Ron Hubbard

“In a controversy, the instant we feel anger, we have already ceased striving for truth and have begun striving for ourselves.” Abraham Heschel

CONTROL ANGER: The fire that you kindle for your enemy burns you first. The anger acts as a boomerang because it injures the one who becomes angry. It comes back to the angry man and harms him. Anger is a mental weakness. It begins in folly and ends in remorse. If you control anger, you will have limitless energy. — Sri Swami Sivananda

“It is natural for the immature to harm others. Getting angry with them is like resenting a fire for burning.”- Shantideva

“Anger is a brief madness.” – Horace

“When you clench your fist, no one can put anything in your hand, nor can your hand pick up anything.” – Alex Haley

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