Burn Anger Before Anger Burns You

Anger is more destructive than fire or earthquakes. When you get angry, certain glands in your body get activated. This leads to an outpouring of adrenaline and other stress hormones, with noticeable physical consequences. Your face reddens, blood pressure increases, voice rises to a higher pitch, and breathing becomes faster and deeper, your heart beats harder and your arm and leg muscles tighten. Your body becomes tense. The cumulative effect is that anger increases risk of coronary and other life-threatening diseases, like strokes, ulcers and high blood pressure. Better, then, to overcome anger. Burn anger, before anger burns you!
    When you are calm, peaceful, happy, digestive processes in your body work normally. When angry, they go for a toss. Doctors recommend remaining cheerful when you eat, for instance. Avoid eating when angry or resentful. Anger affects the entire body; it is poison.
    There are three ways to handle anger. Firstly, your expression. Psychiatrists say it is good to express anger for it brings relief, as you have spoken your mind. The relief, however, is temporary. Resentments build up again, and you are ready for another spill out. Gradually, anger becomes a habit and you could become its slave. Anger controls you; it is a terrible master. Secondly, the way of suppression but that’s not the right way. as it drives anger into the subconscious and continues to create havoc.
    However, neither expression nor suppression is recommended for these do not help you overcome anger. So the third way, that of forgiveness, patience and forbearance, works better. Forgive, and be free! Every night, before you retire, replay the day’s happenings. Were you cheated by someone? Did someone offended you, hurt you or treated you badly? Call out that person’s name and say, ‘‘X, i forgive you!’’ You will sleep peacefully. I recall an incident in the life of the great Prussian king, Frederick the Second. One day, he found one of his servants taking a little snuff from his silver snuffbox. ‘‘Do you like this snuff-box?’’ asked the king in utter simplicity. The boy, caught in the act of stealing, felt embarrassed; he did not answer. Once again, the king repeated the question: ‘‘Do you like the snuff-box?’’ The boy looked up and said: ‘‘Yes sire, it is indeed a beautiful snuff-box!’’ ‘‘Then’’, said the king, ‘‘take it. For it is too small for the two of us!’’
There was a monk who was badtempered. He lived in an ashram but found it difficult to get along with the ashramites. He decided to leave and live a secluded life in the forest. He thought he could thus overcome anger. In the beginning, he found peace and tranquillity within. He was happy.
    One day, he went to the river to fill a jug of water. As he placed the jug on the ground, it toppled over. He picked it up and filled it again. Again, the jug toppled down. He repeated the process a number of times, until finally he lost his temper and smashed the jug to pieces. Then it was that he realised his mistake. ‘‘I left the ashram”, he confessed to himself, ‘‘only to control my anger, but anger has followed me even here into the forest.’’
    It is not individuals or situations that cause anger. It is your own reaction or response to individuals and situations that determines whether you will be angry or otherwise. Therefore, develop the will to control anger.

Either you will be consumed by your desires or you have to consume your desires

Because desire means desire for more; how can you quench it? By the time you have arrived, it asks for more. You wanted ten thousand rupees; by the time you have ten thousand, the desire has moved ahead of you - it is asking for one hundred thousand. By the time you achieve that, the desire has moved. It always moves ahead of you; the distance between you and your desire always remains the same.

The distance between a beggar and his desire, and the distance between Alexander the Great and his desire is the same. Both are poor in the same way. Alexander may have much that does not make much difference — he is not satisfied with what he has.

It is said that Diogenes once said to Alexander the Great, “Have you ever thought about one thing? — meditate over it: you want to conquer the whole world, but are you aware that once you have conquered the whole world, then what? There is no other world. Then what will you do?”

Diogenes And Alexander
And it is said, just by Diogenes saying it, Alexander became very sad, and he said, “Please don’t mention such sad things — let me first conquer the whole world, then we will see. But don’t talk about such sad things to me; it makes me feel very sad.”

He had not conquered the whole world yet, but the very idea that if you conquer the whole world, then what are you going to do? There is no other world, and you will feel stuck. The mind will ask for more.

The mind lives through more, and the more cannot be fulfilled; that is impossible. Every desire ends in frustration, because every expectation is the beginning of frustration. Why does every desire end in frustration? There are only two alternatives: either you achieve your object of desire or you don’t achieve it, but in both cases, it will end in tears. If you achieve it, you will see the utter futility of it all.

The rich man sees the futility of his riches - how much he has laboured, and how much he has worked for it! And now, whatsoever he has attained is absolutely useless, it fulfils nothing. You can have several houses, but you are the same person, as empty as before. You can live in a palace, but how can you change your inner meaninglessness?

Make Life Meaningful
In fact, you will be more meaningless in a palace, because while you are in a hut you can still hope that one day when you have managed to get into a palace, everything will be okay. You can hope, but the man who is in the palace, has no hope, he feels utterly hopeless. And he cannot say it to others either, because that will be stupid of him.  

Just think of Alexander the Great; he devoted his whole life to conquering the world. And when he had conquered it, if he had said to the world, ‘It was useless. I wasted my time and my life’, people would have laughed at him. Could he not see it before?

You go on following others, although you see them living in misery. You go on following the powerful, the rich, the wealthy, although you see their faces are sad, their eyes are dull. They don’t seem to be intelligent either; they don’t have any grace, any joy, any beauty.

If you succeed, you will be in pain, because your success will bring the truth home: that your whole life has been sacrificed for nothing. If you fail, you will be frustrated, because you will see that you have failed, you are not worthy. You will become self-condemnatory.

And no desire simply ends; before it ends, it gives birth to other desires. So it remains a continuum: one goes on from one desire to another desire, life after life.

Witness And Watch
Either you will be consumed by your desires or you have to consume your desires. And consuming means: witness, watch... The intelligent person lives joyfully, contentedly, whatsoever situation he is in, whatsoever he has got.