CAUSE OF ANGER

Friends !
         Before we analyze causes of anger, it seems logical to know about it. Anger is the general term for a sudden violent displeasure. Fury, indignation and rage may be thought close to anger. Rage is vehement anger. Indignation implies deep and justified anger, for example: indignation at cruelty or against corruption. Fury is rage so great that it resembles insanity. Anger causes resentment, exasperation, irritation, displeasure, infuriation, insanity and madness. A person in anger loses his thinking power and a person devoid of thinking power can go to any extent. Any right or wrong thing or act can be expected from him. Therefore, it is absolutely necessary to have control over anger.

On analyzing the behavior of human beings, we can classify human behaviors in following three broad categories:

(i) Persons who live balanced and peaceful life. These persons are knowledgeable persons. They are kind to all creatures. They are harmless creatures and are free from all types of vices. They have conquered their desires. They live ascetic life.

(ii) Persons who are ambitious and have lot of expectations and strong desires. They are always worried for results in their favor. They have strong feeling of attachment for their own. They are lustful, passionate and impulsive.

(iii) Persons who are lazy, who look (or behave like) mad and who have no control over their sleep. They are bullheaded. They believe in phantasm, delusion and illusion. Their acts suffer lack of knowledge.

We can assign each class a name. In holy Geeta, while addressing Arjun, Lord Krishna has referred to these classes of properties as Sato Gun, Rajo Gun and Tamo Gun. These properties have been referred to as properties of nature. At any moment, a person reflects properties of one of these classes in his acts. Properties of nature referred to in clause (i) above may be referred to as divine features. Properties of nature referred to in clause (iii) above may be referred to as devilish features. Properties referred to in clause (ii) above lie in between them.

At any moment in our life, we live one of three properties of nature, viz. sato gun, rajo gun and tamo gun (sat, raj & tam). We all know that particular type of behavior of a person is not permanent and everlasting. A person, who, at certain point of time, has been living tamo properties of nature, may behave as if he owns sato properties. Likewise, a person, who, at certain point of time, has been living rajo properties of nature, may behave as if he owns tamo properties. Sometimes, change in behavior is permanent. Person, who has been living properties of one class for a long time, can change his behavior for remaining span of his life. We have read story of Angulimala, the robber and murderer who later became a saint. We also know that Maharshi Valmiki, in his early period of life, had been a robber but in his latter life he became a great saint who composed the pious book Ramayana.

Feeling of anger is associated with Rajo gun. Person who cultivates sato property of nature has depth in his nature. Such person never gets excited. On analyzing the behavior of human beings, we find that anger arises on account of one of the following:

(i) A person has done something which we had not expected from him; or

(ii) A person has failed to perform any act as per our expectation.

Looking into the causes of anger, we can say that our expectations are sole cause of our anger. This feature is associated with rajo gun. In order to get rid of anger, we have to adopt sato gun. Person owning sato gun lives a balanced life. He has depth in his nature. He has no expectations. But in our modern life it is hard to believe that one can do without expectations. When we set our targets or goals and fail to achieve them, then what we feel is not anger. It is desperation. In this case we do not get excited. We do not lose our temper. But where we expect something from our others and they fail to deliver the desired result we get excited with anger. But we can avoid anger if we are kindhearted and we believe in forgiving. There may be cases where one may feel that his associate has done wrong deliberately. In such cases, it may be difficult but it is not impossible to avoid anger.

Suppose that your close associate does not follow your directions in performing a particular act but he / she acts on his / her own and by doing so spoils the wrath. This may be a reason of anger. But this can also be avoided by considering his / her ignorance. At one place, he / she does not know that he / she is expected to obey you and at the same time he / she does not know the proper way of performing the act. On account of his / her ignorance, he /she deserves sympathy. He / she must be forgiven.

Mahatma Gandhi has rightly said “Hate the sin not the sinner”. It is also believed that “Love the sinner, hate the sin” is a saying from holy Bible. Readers will forgive me if I am wrong. I am totally in favor of the saying “hate the sin not the sinner”. My view is that sinner commits wrong because he / she is ignorant about the sin. Sinner does not understand that it is wrong to commit a sin. He / she does not know that he / she should abstain from committing a sin. Therefore, he / she deserves sympathy. In stead of showing our anger, we should feel pity on him /her.

Unfair assessment of capabilities of our associate may be another cause of anger. Sometimes, we do not assess the capability of a person and expect him to do a certain act. If performance requires A grade knowledge but the performer possesses B grade (lower than A grade) knowledge, then we should not expect that performer will do the act properly. Similarly, an act done by a child should not be evaluated by comparing it with the act performed by a young person. We should give margin for short experience and lack of knowledge. If we expect then we should expect and we should assess the result considering these aspects.

Lack of our tolerance limit may be another cause for anger. In order to avoid anger, we should -

(i) avoid expectations and if those cannot be avoided then they should be based on fair assessment of capabilities of the person from whom we expect;

(ii) enlarge our tolerance limit;

(iii) cultivate habit of forgiveness.

We are human being and we have been blessed with enormous power to fight evils. Lord will not forgive us if we do not use these powers in improving our nature.