How to overcome anger and other negative feelings

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Vajra
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How to overcome anger and other negative feelings

Post by Vajra »

Dear Hari
It is said that the worst contaminatin is anger .
And indeed it is so.
If one contaminated with anger he fell himself so bad after .
And it can make people actually mad.
So many bad things hapening because of anger
So naturally arising a question.
How one can control anger?
Some people and so called authorities in psyichology advising to not control it
but to reveal it in some way,
In some organizations and companies was even a room where there was a statue of
a person on whom one is angry let say on office manager and one who is fall in anger
because of that manager comes and beginning to beat his statue.
But latter on the same psychologists came to conclusion that it is making situation worst.
Actually i think if somebody allows anger to come out then he is contaminated.
And to make it a habit it is not wise.
But some or other anger is very important to calm or transform.
Can you tell from your experience a best way to deal with anger, to calm it down?
Also practically all people during there life getting so many nagative feelings like resentment, grievance, hurt, injury, bitterness,petty grievances, and most of them living with us sometime whole life and even more people carrying it to other lifes.
Can you also tell wath one should do to overcome all this feelings,?

Thank you
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Hari
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Re: How to overcome anger and other negative feelings

Post by Hari »

This question contains many words and phrases that one can discuss. It is too big a topic to be covered in this forum. Thousands of books discuss anger from every point of view. What more can I add to the discussion?

However, I disagree with the premise as it is phrased in the title of the topic. Why should I overcome anger and why should anger be a negative feeling? What makes a feeling negative? If I have reason to be angry and I feel anger, what is wrong? Anger is a natural feeling that arises when we feel that something is wrong. Anger itself is not a problem. None of our feelings are a problem. Our feelings are a result of our situation, conditioning, behavioral modification, stress, how we are dealt with, and thousands of other causes. Our feelings are a natural result of the stimuli that create them and are indicators of how we react to circumstances.

If I am angry at someone who is exploiting another person, this anger is justified for me because the act of exploitation is wrong according to my world view. Even though the exploiter has a good reason to justify it, my value structure does not accommodate it. What I do after I feel angry defines who I am. I can walk away mumbling about how bad this is, I could run into the situation and beat the exploiter, I could teach him, or try to change him somehow, or I could bribe him to stop, give him something else to do, or even though I might be burning inside, I could try to ignore it because I am busy in something else. How I react depends on who I am at that present moment.

If my anger were to turn to a rage that propels me into actions seemingly beyond my control, then we have a serious problem. Here in Florida, we have a phenomena called road rage. Everyone gets angry on the highway because sometimes we are stuck behind slow, stinky trucks, careless drivers, drunk people, or even sometimes someone cuts in front of us so closely that it could have caused a serious accident. If I had a really bad day because my boss gave me a hard time, I lost money, my girlfriend insulted me, my cell phone broke and my neighbor's dog pooped on my doorstep, amongst other issues that can turn a fertile consciousness into a hotbed of emotion, I can say, "You lousy no-good (*&^%$! You cannot do that to me! I am going to show you something you will never forget!" And subsequently my nice Lexus becomes a deadly weapon roaring down the road after the unsuspecting offender who might not have been aware that the person he cut off was even there because that car was in his mirror's blind spot. [No, I do not have a Lexus and I am a typical old driver whose number one principle is avoidance of all danger] Now we have a road rage incident with the offender getting knocked by the raging driver, speeding up to get out of the way while the rager chases him down the road. People sometimes see this happening in their rear view mirrors and get out of the way and call the police who come out with blaring sirens to control the rage affected driver who has entered into the state of being a dangerous madman. Anger is not terrible until it becomes rage. When rage appears, control is lost and one falls into all kinds of really bad situations.

You cannot calm your own rage. You can only work like mad to avoid getting there. You cannot stop feeling anger, but you can attempt to let it fizzle out. There are ways to do this, some better, some worse, but none of them are universally effective for all people at all times. We might sometimes simply leave a situation where we are very angry and let it cook within us till it burns out (hopefully) or it appears later on as bad words against others that we later regret. We can express our anger right away as clearly and rationally as we can so that others are aware that something has really ticked us off and created this reaction. This is a good method because most anger is caused by misunderstanding. We might think that someone just said something horrible about us when in reality they meant to compliment us, or we assumed something that was not true, or we expected another outcome when it was never to be. False expectations are a real problem. Not being aware of others and what they really mean creates all kinds of difficulty in relationships. Another problem is not caring enough about others to ask if what you heard was what they said and if so, why would they say such a thing?

Sometimes we just explode in anger. This displays our deficient investigation of previous events or being faced by issues we can no longer avoid, or when we realize we have been cheated. Most rage comes within situations where someone you love cheats you or some form of familial treachery. Most murders occur as crimes of passion.

We cannot overcome feelings. We can only deal with them once they appear by making modifications in our life by changing our choices. We can change our external circumstances or work with the catalyst of our feelings to channel that energy into a positive direction.
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Vajra
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Re: How to overcome anger and other negative feelings

Post by Vajra »

Thank you for your answer.
It is interesting .
In many scriptures anger is considering as contamination and a feeling that should be avoided.
But your answer is much practical and acceptable.
In this regard apearing other question wath is contamination,?
We heard many times that hearth should be cleaned up from contaminations ,but wath is that conatamonations,?

Greed ,lust,egoism ,feeling alwayes guilthy,feeling ofended ,and so on/
Is all this contaminations wich is hindering us for clear vewing the reality of Divine,?

And also can you tell how one can overcome the useless feeling of beeing offended when this happen?
Why i am asking this since i see that it is the bigest fear in the hearth of people and maybe there is a reason.

Thank you
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Hari
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Re: How to overcome anger and other negative feelings

Post by Hari »

A contamination is anything that is not naturally occurring in our pure spiritual essence. Removing contamination means removing anything that is unnatural to essence.

If spiritual realization depended entirely on removing all contamination, no one would realize anything. The practical task of optimizing the realization of our potential is supported best when we remove anything that blocks our awareness or distorts our consciousness. When this is done, we can best feel essence. By feeling essence, contamination dissolves. This experience powerfully cleanses the consciousness. If you wait to remove all contamination before attempting to feel essence, you will wait forever.

If you are aware of how you react to what others say or do to you, you will understand how others will react to what you say or do. If you understand how you are sometimes moody, angry, upset or frustrated for little or no discernible reason, you will understand better how others are dealing with you when they seem irrational. Better wait a bit before reacting and investigate why someone is doing what they are doing. Perhaps they are seeking help in an awkward manner because they are unable to simply ask? Or perhaps we should simply give them space and retreat from their association till they calm down? In most cases, reacting with anger to an angry person is not advantageous.
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