Transforming anger

Osho: “If a person is growing rightly, anger will play an important part in his life. Anger has its own colour. If it is removed, then the picture of man’s life will be in some sense incomplete, some colour will be missing. But from childhood you start teaching children to repress certain qualities, and the result of repressing these qualities is that the child will slowly suppress whatever you call bad, he will suppress it in himself. And a suppressed heart becomes weak, because its strings are not rightly tuned. And this suppression will happen in the mind because your education does not go deeper than the mind.

When you tell children that anger is bad, this teaching will not reach to the heart. The heart has no ears to listen with and no words to think with. This teaching will go into the mind, and the mind cannot change the heart. So now a problem is created: the mind centre thinks that anger is wrong, but the heart centre does not; it has no connection with the mind. So every day you become angry, and every day you repent and decide not to be angry again, but the next morning you wake up and again you get angry. You are surprised because you have decided so many times not to get angry, yet it still happens.

You don’t know that the centre which feels angry is different from the mind centre. The centre which decides ‘I will not be angry’ is absolutely different from the centre which becomes angry. They are two totally different centres. So decisions and repentance do not have any effect on your anger: you go on being angry and you go on regretting it and you go on feeling upset about it. You do not understand that these two centres are so separate that the decision taken by the one does not reach the other at all… so man disintegrates within.

The heart centre works in certain ways, and needs certain things to develop. If the mind interferes in that centre, it will become disturbed and chaotic. Everybody’s heart centre has become absolutely chaotic, absolutely disturbed. Certainly the first thing is that anger should be transformed – but it should not be destroyed.

So the first key to tighten the strings of the heart is to develop all the qualities of the heart; none should be destroyed. You may be a little puzzled: does one need to develop anger? I say to you that one certainly has to develop anger, because anger can one day be transformed and become compassion. Otherwise compassion can never arise. If you read the life story of the most compassionate people in the world, you will find that in their early days they were very angry people. Anger has its own dignity and its own pride. (…)

According to me, all the heart qualities within man should be intensely and extremely developed; this should be the priority. Only if there is extreme development can there be transformation. All transformation takes place at extreme points, no transformation happens below that. If water is heated, it does not evaporate when it is lukewarm. Lukewarm water is also water, but at hundred degrees, when the water reaches its ultimate temperature, then a transformation takes place and the water starts evaporating. Water turns into vapor at a hundred degrees, it does not become vapor before that. Lukewarm water does not become vapor.

You are all lukewarm people – no transformation can take place in your life. All the qualities of your mind and of your heart should be developed to the utmost; only then can there be a revolution in them. Only then can there be a change. When anger has an intensity it can be transformed into compassion, otherwise not.

But you are the enemies of anger, of greed, of passion and so you become just lukewarm people. Then life remains just lukewarm and no transformation can ever happen. This luke-warmness has had a tremendously harmful effect on human beings.

In my vision, the first thing that has to be understood is that all the qualities of your personality, of your heart, should develop rightly. Intense anger has a beauty of its own which may not be apparent to you. Intense anger has a radiance, an energy, a meaning. It contributes to the personality in its own way. All the feelings of the heart should be intensely developed.

So the first point is that the qualities of the heart should be developed, not destroyed.

What is the second point? The second point is that there should be awareness, but no suppression. The more you suppress the feelings of the heart, the more they become unconscious. (…)

We lose sight of whatever we suppress; it moves into darkness. All the energies of the heart should be clearly looked at. If you feel angry, don’t try to suppress it by chanting ‘Rama, Rama’. If you feel angry, sit alone in a room, close the door and meditate on the anger. See the anger totally – ‘What is this anger? What is the energy of this anger? From where does this anger arise? Why does it arise? How does it surround my mind and influence me?

In aloneness, meditate on anger. See the anger totally, understand it, recognise it – from where does it arise, why does it arise? Then, slowly slowly, you will become a master of anger. And the person who becomes a master of his anger has great power, great strength. He becomes strong, he becomes a master of himself.

So it is not a question of fighting with the anger, it is a question of knowing the anger – because remember, there is no greater energy than knowing and there is no greater stupidity than to fight with one’s own energies. A person who is fighting with his own energies is committing the same mistake as a man who is wrestling with his own hands. If one hand is wrestling with the other, no hand will ever be able to win because they both belong to the same person. The energy is flowing in both hands, and if there is a fight between these two hands the energy will be dissipated, there can be no question of winning. In this kind of fight you will be defeated. All your energy will be wasted.

Whose energy is in the anger? – It is your own energy. The energy is yours, but you are the one who is fighting it. If you divide yourself and fight, you will go on breaking apart; you will disintegrate, you will not be a whole person. There can be no attainment in life other than defeat for the person who fights with himself. There cannot be, it is impossible. Do not fight. Know your energies, recognise them, be acquainted with them.

So the second point is not suppression but awareness. Do not suppress. Whenever, whatever energy arises within you, do not suppress it. You are a collection of unknown energies. You are the centre of very unknown energies with which you have no acquaintance, of which you have no awareness. (…)

Knowing makes you a master. Within you, many energies greater than electricity are alight, they shine. Anger glows, hatred glows, love glows. You become afraid of what is happening, because you do not know what all these energies are. (…)

Make your life an inner laboratory and start knowing all these energies within – watch them, recognise them. Never suppress, even unintentionally. Never be afraid, even by mistake, but try to know whatever is within you. If anger comes, then feel fortunate and be thankful to the person who has made you angry: he has given you an opportunity – some energy has arisen within you and now you can look at it. Look at it silently, in aloneness; search to see what it is.

The more your knowing grows, the deeper your understanding will become. The more you become a master of your anger, the more you will find that it is under your control. The day you become a master of your anger, will be the day you can transform it.

You can transform only that which you are master of; you cannot change that which you are not a master of. And remember, you can never be a master of something that you fight with, because it is impossible to become the master of an enemy; one can only be the master of a friend. If you become an enemy of the energies within yourself, then you can never become master of them. You can never win without love and friendship.

Neither be afraid of nor condemn the infinite treasure of the energies within you. Start knowing what is hidden within you. (…)

So the second key to keep in mind is that you should not suppress any of your energies: you should know them, recognise them, look into them and see them. From this you will have a very surprising experience: if you try to look at anger, if sitting silently you look deeply into it, then the anger will disappear. As you watch the anger, it disappears. (…)

Then you will realise that you have discovered an amazing method: you will have discovered that only in unconsciousness do anger, sex and greed have power over you. Watching them, bringing your awareness to them, they all disappear.

I had a friend who had a problem with anger. He said: “I am very disturbed by it and how much it is beyond my control. Show me a method to control it without me having to do something myself – because I have almost given up, I don’t think I can do anything about it. I don’t think that I can get out of this anger by my own efforts.”

I gave him a paper on which were written the words: ‘Now I am getting angry’. I told him: “Keep this paper in your pocket, and whenever you feel angry, take it out, read it and put it back again”. And I said: “You can do at least this much, this is the minimum; I can’t give you less to do. Read this paper and then put it back in your pocket”.

After two or three months, when I met him again, I asked: “What happened?”

He said: “I am surprised. This paper has worked like a mantra. Whenever I feel angry I take it out of my pocket. The moment I take it out, my hands and feet become numb. As I am putting my hand in my pocket, I realise that I am feeling angry and then something in my loosens up; the grip that the anger used to have on my inside suddenly disappears. As my hand goes into the pocket, it relaxes and there is no longer any need to even read the paper. When I feel the anger I start seeing the paper in my pocket”. He asked me: “How did the paper have this effect? What is the secret?”

I said: “There is no secret to it. It is simple: whenever you are unconscious, the perversions, the imbalances and the chaos of the mind take hold of you. But when you become aware everything disappears”.

So watching will have two results: first, your knowledge of your own energies will develop and knowing them makes you the master; and second: the strength of the grip which these energies have on you will decrease. Slowly, slowly you will find that at first anger comes and then you watch; then after a while, gradually, you will find that when anger comes, the watchfulness will come at the same time. And finally you will find that when the anger is about to arise, the watchfulness is already there. From the day when the watchfulness comes before the anger, there will no longer be any possibility for anger to arise. (…)

Awareness of things before they happen has a value. Being sorry has no value, because it happens afterward, and nothing can be done afterward. Crying and weeping later on is futile because it is impossible to undo whatever has happened. There is no chance of going back, no way, no door. But whatever has not happened yet can be changed. Being sorry is simply experiencing pain after something has happened. It is meaningless, it is absolutely unintelligent. You became angry – this was a mistake; and now you are sorry – this is one more mistake. You are becoming unnecessarily disturbed. It has no value. What is needed is an awareness beforehand. Such an awareness will develop as you slowly, slowly watch all the emotions of the heart.

So the second key is watching and not suppressing.

And the third key is transformation.

Each quality of the heart can be transformed. Everything has many forms, everything can change into an opposite form. There is no quality or energy which cannot be diverted toward good, toward benediction. And remember, that which can become bad can always become good; that which can become harmful can always become helpful. Helpful and harmful, good and bad are directions. It is only a question of transforming by changing the direction and things will become different. (…)

The third point is to keep a continuous check on which direction it is that deepens your joy. There is no need to ask anybody else. You can use this criterion every day, in your daily life. The criterion is bliss. It is just like the criterion for testing gold by rubbing it on a stone; the goldsmith will throw away whatever is not pure and put whatever is pure into his vault. Go on checking every day using the criterion of bliss, see what is right and what is wrong. Whatever is wrong can be thrown away, and whatever is right will slowly start accumulating like a treasure.”

Osho: The Inner Journey #7