*Chapter 9 - Controlling Anger*
How can anger be controlled? First of all notice the sensations in your body. When you get angry where do you get the sensation - in the temples, head, throat and jaw.
Anger is experienced intensely from the throat to the head. Whenever you are in a situation when something irritating is happening and you are clenching your fist and your jaw.
Observe what's happening to you. Observe your breath and your sensations before reacting. When you do so the anger will either subside or will be in your control.
Then you can react or not react. You gain the choice to act on it or to just observe it and to let it go. All the negative emotions are offsprings of love.
You love perfection, so you are angry at imperfections. You love someone, so you are jealous about him or her.
You love people, so you feel jealous when they move away from you or talk to someone else. If you love objects too much, then you become greedy.
Excessive love for objects brings greed in you. Now, these things are natural and they come and go. From childhood you have seen that anger is a part of life.
Don't think you have to eliminate anger completely. It keeps coming up. If you resist it, it will come up more and more.
The best way to deal with it is to observe and create more awareness in yourself. Observe the sensation and be more centred.
If you really want to be successful in life you need to have a little centeredness and dispassion. Without dispassion it is impossible to be happy.
Every situation in life points out towards dispassion. Often we think dispassion is a sort of dull, apathetic state of life and that people who are dispassionate are drowsy, sleepy, apathetic and sad.
It's not the case and it should not be. Dispassion is freedom. Dispassion is joy. Dispassion is love. Dispassion is the thrill in life.
Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankarji
Waves of emotions
