How Can We Control Anger?

“The most intense experience you have had in your life is probably anger. That is the reason why you are sanctifying anger, because it propels you into action.”

—Sadhguru

Does anger sometimes get the better of you, leaving you to regret the consequences later? Sadhguru answers a question on why anger seems to have such a hold on us and what we can do about it.

Questioner: In some situations we lose our temper, but it is only later that we realize our stupidity. By then it is too late. How can we control our anger?

Sadhguru: There is no need to control anger. Right now, are you angry? No. So why should you control something that does not exist? How can you control something that does not exist?

Anger is a certain level of unpleasantness, both for you and everyone around you. Most of the time you suffer more than your victim. And when you get angry, you could do the most idiotic things of your life. It is definitely not an intelligent way to exist.

Being angry about something or the other comes from a strong sense of likes and dislikes. This comes from a very deep identification of a certain way of thinking and feeling, which according to you, is the best way to live, think and feel. When someone is not in line with that, you get angry with them. As your likes and dislikes and your identifications with something or the other become stronger, all that you are doing is excluding the existence. If you say, “I like this very much,” you are excluding the rest of the existence in a big way at that moment. The stronger the like or dislike becomes, the deeper the exclusion becomes. Anger overflows because you have not included someone or something as a part of yourself. The very process of liberation is to include, not exclude. In inclusion, you become liberated. The day when everything, the whole existence, is included in you, you are liberated. In exclusion you become trapped, you become separate.

Anger is Your Creation

You do not wish to be angry, of course, but it is happening because you are creating an outside source for what is happening within you – which is not true. Just see that it is something that you are creating. Why are you creating something that you do not want? There is only one basic cause – you are ignorant of yourself.

If you knew how your system functions and how to manage this system, why would you create anger? Anger is not only damaging the external situation, it is also damaging the internal situation. People are causing enormous amounts of anger within and creating health problems for themselves. Accordingly, consequences will happen for external situations.

For every action that you perform, there is a consequence. You cannot avoid the consequence. When you cannot avoid the consequence, action should be controlled. Actions can be controlled only if a human being is controlled within himself. When he is in perfect balance, only then will he perform harmonious action. Still there are consequences; that is always there. There are enough consequences in the life process as it is. You do not have to go about creating new consequences for yourself.

So, especially if situations around you are rotten, is it not very important that you keep yourself in the most pleasant possible manner and see how to spread this pleasantness around you? If your actions were coming from your intelligence, this is how you would act. If situations around you are hopeless, it is all the more important that you keep yourself as beautiful as possible and see how to make it happen. Whatever you are, that is what you will spread around you. If you are angry, you will spread anger. With anger, more unpleasantness will come into the situations around you.

Seeking Intensity

Anger is enormous intensity. Intensity is the only thing that man is seeking. The reason why all the thrillers, action movies, and sports events are so popular is because people want some intensity, somewhere. The only way they know how to be intense is either through physical action, or through anger, or through pain. The very reason why drugs and sex have become such big things in the world is because somehow, people want to experience some intensity at least for a few moments. Intensity releases you from many things. Anger could also release you from many things, but the problem with anger is, it is not pure intensity within you; it gets entangled with the situations around.

It is not necessary that only your anger should propel you into action. The most intense experience you have had in your life is probably anger. That is the reason why you are sanctifying anger, because it propels you into action. Unfortunately, you have never known the intensity of joy or love. But love and compassion can also propel you into action – very gently, but very wonderfully and effectively.

At work and at home, would you like to live with angry people, or peaceful and joyful people? Obviously you would want to live with peaceful and joyous people. Please remember, everybody around you is expecting the same thing. Every human being around you is always expecting to live and work with people who are peaceful and joyful.

Editor’s Note: Find more of Sadhguru’s insights on human emotion in the ebook “Emotion: The Juice of Life”, available at Isha Downloads.