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Read more about Anger from the works of the Mother and Sri Aurobindo.


What Is Anger?

Anger is a violent reaction of the vital to some shock that is unpleasant to it; and when it involves words or thoughts, the mind responds to the influence of the vital and also reacts violently. [1]

The fact that the anger comes with such force is itself enough to show that it is not in you that it is, but that it comes from outside. It is a rush of force from the universal nature that tries to take possession of the individual being and make that being act according to the will of this outside force and not according to the will of the soul within. [2]

Why Anger Manifests in the Human Instrument?

Anger comes from the vital nature or if it has been driven out from there rises back into it from the subconscient or from the environmental Nature. [3]

Weakness in the Vital Nature

Vital movements (desire, anger, fright, etc.) produce vibrations, which spread through the atmosphere like waves of electricity and strike those who are open, sensitive or weak. [4]

Anger is a deformation of the vital power, an obscure and wholly unregenerated vital, a vital that is still subject to all the ordinary actions and reactions. When this vital power is used by an ignorant and egoistic individual will and this will meets with opposition from other individual wills around it, this power, under the pressure of opposition, changes into anger and tries to obtain by violence what cannot be achieved solely by the pressure of the force itself. [5]

Impurities in the Subconscient

The subconscient is the support of habitual action—it can support good habits as well as bad. [6]

First of all, it is the subconscient that has to become conscious, and indeed the main difficulty of the integral transformation is that things are constantly rising up from the subconscient. You think you have got a certain movement under control—anger, for example. You try very hard to control your anger and succeed to some extent, then suddenly it rises up again for some reason unknown to you, as if you hadn't done anything at all, and you have to start all over again. If it were the transformed part of the being going back to its old ways, it would be most depressing, but it is not like that. It is the material part, the material life which is sustained, supported, so to say, by a subconscient life. And this subconscient is beginning to get individualised around some people; it has certain affinities with a kind of subconscient somewhat like our own, and that is where the things you have repressed or thrown out of your nature go to—and one fine day they rise up again. But if you are able to bring the light into the subconscient and make it conscious, this will no longer happen. [7]

Hostile Forces in the Environment

The hostile forces have a certain self-chosen function: it is to test the condition of the individual, of the work, of the earth itself and their readiness for the spiritual descent and fulfilment. At every step of the journey, they are there attacking furiously, criticising, suggesting, imposing despondency or inciting to revolt, raising unbelief, amassing difficulties. [8]

If they come in, it is a sign that there is something in the being, vital or physical, that either responds or is too inert to oppose. [9]

The purpose they [the hostile forces] serve in the world is to give a full chance to the possibilities of the Inconscience and Ignorance—for this world was meant to be a working out of these possibilities with the supramental harmonisation as its eventual outcome. [10]

The Process of Transformation

The Practice of Self Observation

Most of you live on the surface of your being, exposed to the touch of external influences. You live almost projected, as it were, outside your own body, and when you meet some unpleasant being similarly projected you get upset. The whole trouble arises out of your not being accustomed to stepping back. You must always step back into yourself—learn to go deep within—step back and you will be safe. If someone is angry with you, do not be caught in his vibrations but simply step back and his anger, finding no support or response, will vanish. Never decide anything without stepping back, never speak a word without stepping back, never throw yourself into action without stepping back. All that belongs to the ordinary world is impermanent and fugitive, so there is nothing in it worth getting upset about.When you get the sense of the relativity of things, then whatever happens you can step back and look; you can remain quiet and call on the Divine Force and wait for an answer. Then you will know exactly what to do. Remember, therefore, that you cannot receive the answer before you are very peaceful. Practice that inner peace, make at least a small beginning and go on in your practice until it becomes a habit with you. [11]

Inner Detachment

The individual consciousness is not by its nature detached from the mental and other activities. It can be detached, it can be involved. In the human consciousness it is as a rule always involved, but it has developed the power of detaching itself—a thing which the lower creation seems unable to do. As the consciousness develops, this power of detachment also develops. [12]

Detachment means standing back with part of the consciousness and observing what is being done without being involved in it. There is no "how" to that; you do it or try it until it succeeds. [13]

It is so, by standing back from these forces [in the surrounding world], neither attracted nor disturbed by them, that one gets freedom, perceives their falsity or imperfection and is able to rise above and overcome them. [14]

Developing a Witness Attitude

The part that observes and knows is called the Witness sākṣī in man. It is always possible to develop this in oneself. [15]

There is a stage in the sadhana in which the inner being begins to awake. Often the first result is the condition made up of the following elements: (1) A sort of witness attitude, in which the inner consciousness looks at all that happens as a spectator or observer, observing things but taking no active interest or pleasure in them. (2) A state of neutral equanimity in which there is neither joy nor sorrow, only quietude. (3) A sense of being something separate from all that happens, observing it but not part of it. (4) An absence of attachment to things, people or events. [16]

Read more about Anger from the works of the Mother and Sri Aurobindo.

References