How can I control my anger?

One thing we have to realize is that anger is OUR response to the problems we face in the outside world.

“Anger is due to the inflexibility of our mind, which makes us incapable of dealing with the changing world.”

– Mahavir.

Normally, we get angry, blame the outside world and get it over with.

Blaming others is an easy technique to deal with YOUR anger.

After all, anger was your response, meaning it comes your within.

So, let’s analyze why we have anger.

We have anger because we expect a certain thing to happen, and if it doesn’t, we get angry.

These expectations become a cause for our anger and bring suffering.

And why do we have expectations?

Because of our likes and dislikes.

Whatever we like, we want more of it to happen, and whatever we don’t like, we don’t want it to happen.

Everyone has a different set of Likes and dislikes.

We are carrying around a twelve-inch ruler with us.

Whoever fits in that, and they are perfect twelve inches, we are happy with them.

If they are eleven or thirteen inches, we don’t like them and get angry with them.

This ruler we carry with us all the time, in our heads.

But, the reality is –

The world changes on its own; it has its own Urja ( inner life force ).

World does not care about your likes or dislikes ( Ego ).

But we insist on our likes and dislikes, which have made us hard and inflexible, resulting in friction with others’ likes and dislikes, and anger results.

We get angry with others, but the fault lies in us.

Anger makes you say things you normally wouldn’t say and, worse, do things you wouldn’t normally do.

Mahavir says anger is your enemy ( Kasay )  within.

And there is only one way to remove it.

MEDITATION.

Meditation is non-doing, just observing the mind ( thoughts ). Don’t TRY to stop anger, or remove anger.

Just observe your mind and its clumsy, erratic, and self-destructive behavior in meditation.

Observation means not “‘trying to change the mind” but only observing it.

It takes time, but eventually, the mind starts calming down.

And the entity that is observing the mind ( thoughts ) is our soul.

In the company of purity and divinity of the soul, the mind will start a journey towards making itself flexible enough to accept life as is rather than keep trying to change it.

If you TRY to change your mind, the soul will take a back seat and wouldn’t interfere.

So, absolutely NON-DOING.

This will develop an atmosphere of peace and tranquility, transforming the mind.

Mind is material right now.

To make it flexible, we need to douse it with the ultimate source of flexibility – consciousness, which is spirit.

“Trying” to change the mind is the sansaric, material approach – ME VS MIND. – wrong approach.

Just find the thoughtless state of consciousness within, merge in it, and it will transform the mind because the mind is the child, and its mother is the consciousness.

The child will listen only to its mother – the higher and wiser entity.

All this may sound not easy to grasp, but it will start making sense once one gets deeper into meditation.