Excerpted from "Freedom from the Known" by J. Krishnamurti.
SEED QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION: How do you relate to the notion of looking at anger as just anger without justifying or condemning it? Can you share a personal story of a time you were able to look at your anger without condemning or justifying it? What helps you move beyond a sociological analysis of anger and toward freeing yourself from it?
h Anger have discovered is my body telling me why it is in pain....so anger is a wake up call for meto listen to why my body can tell me this is unfair.....now because I do not find any merit in pain I work with the anger....and eventually find release......and true peace comes into my body.....this is not easy...but very rewarding.
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Expressing anger ,I thought ,was being authentic. As I age, I learned that it is a very destructive feeling . I still get angry when I feel someone close, is being unfair. Others don't rile me anymore.
Anger is a manifestation of emotional energy. The challenge is to channel it productively & not reactively.Protecting one's family or the exploited is righteous. Waging a war to stop a tyrant can be righteous. But, these actions need not arise out of anger, which is but a reaction. Rather, they could arise out of an objective & considered decision.
They say anger is one letter away from danger. Anger is a spontaneous reaction -- it is not a response. The more matured mind is, less prone it is to anger. Always love JK's thoughts and thought-provoking questions.
Sometimes we need to take decisive defensive, or even offensive, action in order to reduce collective suffering. Such action may even result in killing. How to do what is necessary without anger? This is the koan.
"If you circumambulated every holy shrine in the world ten times it would not get you to heaven as quick as controlling your anger. " - Kabir
A timely article. I am reminded of a story about a young starving child who is screaming to be comforted and fed. And the parent, feeling so powerless and at the mercy of external forces seemingly beyond her control... often leaves the child alone, sometimes physically and often psychologically... in order to fight the apparent "others" she believes are the source of her lack of resources. This to me is the way anger begins to become a way of life rather than a wave that rises up then subsides. There has to be 1) an experience of vulnerability that is not being met with love (from our very own selves!), and 2) a story about something external that needs to be controlled in order to feel better again.
Only God can free us from it!
I learned "anger" from my father! As an adult now, I want to keep as far from it as I can! Anger cheats and destroys (just like "the evil one")! I cannot repeat the sin of my father!...I pray ... Amen.
As Krishnamurti points out, any protection of dogma, country etc. is itself indicates anger. To me, it means that anger begins in very subtle ways and at some point becomes gross enough that it to comes into our awareness. When it comes into awareness depends on our sensitivity. I find that being sensitive helps a great deal in understanding emotions, including anger. More sensitive we are, the earlier we can catch ourselves. And that's brings up the question of what is the soil in which sensitivity springs and whether one can cultivate that soil.