#214 How to manage anger (the framework of the Bhagavad Gita)

When you have been angry, has anyone asked you to count to 10 or take a few deep breaths? I don’t know about you but I would get even more angry when someone would tell me to do this.

The secret of managing or mastering anger is not really in the managing of the anger after it happens but before. Through a brilliant framework  of teaching by Bhagavan Krishna to Arjuna, he points out the process of how a person is completely taken over by the senses, how desire originates, how its pursuit begins, the resulting anger, how it destroys our objectivity, and so on. This analysis applies to everyone, people who have viveka as well as people who don’t.

ध्यायतो विषयान्पुंसः सङ्गस्तेषूपजायते।
सङ्गात् संजायते कामः कामात्क्रोधोऽभिजायते।।2.62।।

In the person who dwells upon objects, an attachment is born with reference to them. From attachment is born desire and from desire, anger is born.

क्रोधाद्भवति संमोहः संमोहात्स्मृतिविभ्रमः।
स्मृतिभ्रंशाद् बुद्धिनाशो बुद्धिनाशात्प्रणश्यति।।2.63।।

From anger comes delusion and from delusion comes the loss of memory. Because of the loss of memory, the mind becomes incapacitated and when the mind is incapacitated, the person is destroyed.

Every desired object has its own peculiarities, its enticing qualities and desirable attributes. The object is not desired for itself. It is desired because it is seen as desirable. When the person dwells on a particular object and its merits, he/she develops certain longing, love or affection for the object. The word ‘object’ here could be a person, a situation or an object. First, you come into contact with an object or a person and then, when the encounter is over, it is over, unless, of course, the object or person keeps coming back into your head. There is no reason, as to why certain objects come back into your head. They just do; and when they do, you dwell upon them just like the pining lover in the movie says – Main aur meri tanhai – akshar ye baate karte hain..tum hoti to aisa hotaa..tum hoti to waisa hotaa. Missing his lover who is not with him, the hero says – me and my solitude. We often speak. If you were here, this would happen. If you were here that would happen. You would say this.. me and my solitude. We often speak.

The more we dwell on the object and its desirability, the more we feel we cannot do without it. An object that comes back into your head and goes away again is not a problem. Any experience leaves some memory, smrti, and, because of the impact of the experience, the whole scene may be played back in your mind. This, in itself, is not the problem. 

Dwelling upon the object means constantly thinking and sometimes obsessing about something. It could be the person’s dress, jewellery, voice, speech, mannerisms, decorum, thinking, hair, nose, eyes, or height. As a result, a certain love, affection and sometimes obsession has developed for another person or an object, a sense of being pleased with the object. Otherwise, there would be no attachment. A person may develop affection for a cat merely by continuing to think about it and caring for it. An attachment can also develop so that without the cat, you find that life is empty. If life is full only when it is full of cats and dogs, definitely you will find a life full of cats and dogs! This kind of attachment can occur towards any object, a carpet, furniture, house, anything! Is it any wonder, then, that there is affection and then attachment towards a person who talks back nicely in a sweet voice that utters pleasing words? If affection for and attachment to a mewing cat can be developed, of course a talking, smiling, thinking person is capable of evoking an even better response.

Affection itself is no problem. The problem is this, whatever you like you almost want to possess and control. This is why Bhagavan Krishna said that desire is born from attachment, that attachment is the cause of desire. And because there are different types of objects, there are different types of desires – the desire to possess, the desire to own, the desire to experience.

To create a desire, all that is required is looking at your social media feed. Seeing the post of your friend who has just returned from a holiday to Greece, a desire is born in you too, to experience, to own, to possess. Not every desire can be fulfilled. Varieties of desires are born, depending on the objects for which you have affection and attachment. Desire is not a problem, but once a well-shaped desire has been formed, it is no longer in the fancy state, and you have to deal with it. You have to fulfil it and this causes you to take action. If you can fulfil the desire, there is no problem. More often than not, however, the desire is not fulfilled. This is where the problem arises. There are many obstacles that prevent the fulfillment of some desires. The problem comes when the desires are not fulfilled, and you become angry. The desire itself turns into anger, krodha. Thus, anger is born of desire. Some examples are –

The anger at the delivery boy because he arrived late when you were ravenously hungry.

The anger of Ravana being rejected because of a desire for acceptance and controlling Sita.

The anger of  thousands of employees who have been laid off work after all the team building games and promises of having ethical practices by the company.

The list goes on. 

If there is no expectation with reference to a desire, there will be no anger if the desire is not fulfilled. Suppose you want someone to do something for you and the person does not do it. If you knew that he or she might not do it, then there is no anger. But if you expected the person to do it, you will definitely be angry when it is not done. Even if the anger is not expressed, anger born is born.

The intensity with which you desire something is what determines the magnitude of your anger, and not the object itself.

If your desire is such that it does not matter to you whether it is fulfilled, then anger will not be there. Even if it is, it will amount to very little. Whereas, if the intensity of the desire is great almost bordering on an emotional dependence, the anger that comes from the desire not being fulfilled is not going to be easily managed either by you or by the person who happens to be between you and what you want.

If the other person is an obstruction to what you want, then, your desire will turn into anger towards that person. If you expect the person to behave in a manner and he or she does not do so, then the person will definitely be the target of your anger. When your partner, children, friends don’t behave like how you want. People who have too many ‘shoulds’ ruling their life cannot help but be angry. To add to it they may tell themselves – I should not be angry. And then smoke starts coming out of their ears. One cannot counter one should with another ‘should’. 

Anger is always towards the obstruction to the fulfillment of your desire. If between you and the object that you desire there is an obstruction, that obstruction is the target of your anger.

The point here is not to avoid anger by avoiding desire. Rather, you have to remove the sting from your desire, for which a proper attitude is very important.

That everything should happen as you want it to is not a realistic expectation.

Such an expectation is due to ragas-dveshas  alone, which have to be neutralised if you would like to be free of anger.

Nor is it a matter of controlling anger.

What does controlling anger really mean? Anger is inside and you are simmering, simmering, simmering, until suddenly one day, it erupts like a volcano or a pressure cooker!

Once anger is there, Aviveka, lack of discrimination, will definitely be there. In anger, you are not going to take time to consider whether an action is proper or improper. You are not going to spend time considering, ‘Should I kick him or should I punch him?’ Whatever comes first is what happens. Once anger is there, things just take place. What you do or say takes place of its own accord and depends entirely upon the past, your upbringing, and so on. There is no question of control here. The very meaning of anger is that viveka with reference to what should and should not to be done, is lacking.

क्रोधाद्भवति संमोहः संमोहात्स्मृतिविभ्रमः।
स्मृतिभ्रंशाद् बुद्धिनाशो बुद्धिनाशात्प्रणश्यति।।2.63।।

From anger comes delusion, sammoha. There is no time involved here; dwelling on an object implies affection, desire, anger, delusion, and more. Delusion is like a blackout that makes you forget the wisdom you had. Because of the delusion born of anger, smrti-vibhrama, loss of memory, takes place. Here, smrti, memory, refers to whatever you may have learned by studying the shaastra, from your teachers, elders, and life’s experiences, whatever you have assimilated about right and wrong, what made you angry in the past, what happened, and so on. None of these you remember because delusion has come, and, along with it aviveka. Thus, there is a loss of memory with reference to the wisdom you had gathered from your past education and experiences. Once the wisdom of your past experiences, smrti, is not available, the mind is debilitated.

There is buddhi-naasha, an as though destruction of the intellect. It is incapable of giving orders to go ahead or stop in accordance with what is right and wrong because whatever wisdom you had gathered is not available to you. Anger causes a reduction in cognitive ability and the processing of sensory data. Dangers seem smaller, actions seem less risky. There is barely any thought given to the consequences of one’s actions. In the absence of wisdom, it behaves as though it is programmed; impulse takes over. If people really were able to think clearly when seized with rage, so many crimes would have been avoided. At that moment, the buddhi is destroyed, pranashyati.

The person is no more a human being and can be likened to an animal because he or she gives himself or herself over to impulses. The impulses take over and determine exactly what the person is going to do. It may be biting, kicking, screaming, hitting someone, uttering the most humiliating insults, shaming the person etc. When a person is controlled by impulse, anything can happen and whatever happens, just happens. Until anger comes, the person can be careful, but once anger is there, all caution is gone.

The verbs used in these two verses are very revealing in this regard. From attachment, binding desire ‘is born’ and from desire, anger ‘is born.’ At this point, however, the verb changes from ‘is born’ to ‘takes place.’ From anger, delusion ‘takes place’ and from delusion, the incapacity of the mind ‘takes place.’ This shows how the person has no more any control over the situation. Once anger is born, delusion, loss of wisdom, and the destruction of the person just take place.

Angry people are more likely to demonstrate correspondence bias, the tendency to blame a person’s behavior more on his nature than on his circumstances. ‘You always insult me. You never understand me.’ Note the use of absolute sounding words – never, always. The person does not say, ‘I am hurt and upset by these words that sound insulting to me..no..no..‘You always insult me. What kind of a family have you been brought up in? What did your parents  teach you etc.? It is a full blown attack on the person.

The angry state of the person is linked to the behaviour of the other which is globalised to the trait of a person to the character or rather the lack of character. And all this at supersonic speed. And no one can stand an attack on their character or what is the core person.

 Anger is unlike sadness and fear, which promote analytical thinking. Control or Mastery is possible only before anger; afterwards, what happens is history.

And so we look into the intensity of ragas and dveshas, our binding likes and dislikes. Raga-dveshas do not just go away because the person has viveka. What does a mumukshu do then? This was exactly Arjuna’s situation. During the war that eventually ensued, his son died and Arjuna took a vow that, before sunset, he would avenge his son’s death by killing the person who was responsible. We see, then, that Arjuna had lot of grief. It was because ragas-dveshas do not go away overnight. Even though, in the eighteenth chapter of the Gita which preceded his son’s death, Arjuna had said, ‘No more delusion for me. I know exactly what it is all about.’ He still had ambitions and therefore attachments. He had definitely been living a life of dharma, but raga-dveshas were still in his heart. This is why one has to live a life of karma-yoga for a length of time.

Ragas-dveshas by themselves do not decide. The extent of our emotional dependence on the fulfilment of the ragas-dveshas determines our moods including anger.

Our binding desires can be reduced to preferences when we see the extra value we had projected on the object or person to make us feel complete. In doing this we see the objective value of the object or person as we bring down our subjectivity. In other words we do apavaada of the adhyaropa that we had placed on the person. E.g. I cannot live without my partner. The level of dependence on the partner is so high that we overvalue what the partner is and undervalue our own  sufficiency and capability. So many people have lost partners and gone on to have equally if not more fulfilling relationships later on in life.    

 If our binding desires are reduced to preferences and our emotional dependence is reduced then the likelihood of getting angry is much less. ‘Sure I would like something to happen. At the same time I do understand the laws of karma that contribute to a given outcome. ‘

Given that meditating on desirable objects creates dependence for you, the message of the verse is  instead of meditating upon objects, meditate upon the self. Instead of meditating upon your own problems and inhibitions, meditate upon the pratyagatma, the inner self, because, if you do not, you will naturally meditate upon the objects, which is the cause of all of your problems.

When your ragas-dveshas do not come between yourself and the sense pursuits, the determining factor for the sense pursuits is purely dharma and adharma. You then become one whose mind moves only according to your will. In other words, you are a person who is ‘together.’ Such a person is a karma-yogi, living a life of karma-yoga for the sole purpose of neutralising his or her raga-dveshas. Every karma-yogi is a mumukshu. Because karma-yoga is meant for moksha, the karma-yogi pursues knowledge while engaged in freeing oneself from the hold of raga-dveshas.

The next verse goes on to say that for the one whose mind is controlled, continues to move in the world with the sense organs that are under his or her control; he or she is free from binding likes and dislikes, attains tranquility. Om shantih shantih shantih

(Majorly excerpted from The Bhagavad Gita Home Study Course by Pujya Swami Dayananda Saraswati ji)