Soul Sustenance

The Relationship Between Anger And Attachment (Part 1) 

Most of us logically understand that all forms of anger are worthlessness emotions, but when we enter into the field of practical actions, we tend to argue that there are some situations where the weapon of anger has to be used and where it is justified or allowable. When someone tries to harm me personally, like giving sorrow to a friend or loved one, send a complaint about my work to the higher ups in the office or simply insult me or bang into my car at the street crossing for that matter, it would seem that our anger is justified, on such occasions. But the basic principle is the same in all these cases. We are, in our own mind, trying to control and change what we cannot change - the past or other people or events.

In all the above cases above we suffer a lot when these things that are close to us are changed or lost. So why does that happen? It is because we keep all these things too close to us or in other words we are over attached to them. When someone tries to bring me down at the workplace, or in other words tries to harm my position in the office and I suffer because of the same, it is because I identify with my role in the office, I think I am the role. When someone bangs into my car, the emotion of anger emerges inside me, because I identify with the car, I think I am the car! This is the deepest mistake. It is the deepest cause of the negative suffering called anger. We are not aware of this of course, but if we were to take a moment and see what we do in our minds, we would see we emerge the image of our role or our car on the screen of our mind. We have then gone into that image in our mind, and we have lost our spiritual identity or individuality in that image. In effect we have identified completely with the role or the car or are too attached to them. So if the role or the car is harmed in any way, it feels like it is happening to us and, as a result, we become disturbed or angry. 

(To be continued tomorrow…)