Anger Management

Prafula Kumar Mohanty

I don't know whether the Business Schools have designed a course in Anger Management, but I feel it is high time such a course was offered to every student of life. Anger is one of the basest emotions which blinds a person to all illumination of the mind and heart. Anger makes the eyes burn like demented suns destroying all life on the planet. The first impact of anger is sudden rush of blood to the system of the brain which loses the balance of judgement. The mouth foams and the limbs tremble, the mouth tongues a high pitched register alien to the personality. Anger makes the inner world of a person "out of joint". When anger rises a wanton energy radiates in all directions dissipating order, balance, harmony. It darkens the soul and blackens the divine conscience which is basic human essence. Nature always moves towards order balancing her three attributes - Satwa, Raja and Tama. If Tama rises Tamas (darkness) is created, nature's satwik traits are lost. In Hindu myths, Kali is Durga's anger. When Chand and Munda, two demons were sent to torture Durga after she killed Shumbha and Nishumbha, Durga lost her cool and became furious. From her darkened eyebrows Kali was born, that is kali was an embodiment of Durga's anger dark diabolical and disruptive energy which disintegrates nature's creative process. Anger in god or man is an anti - cosmic blasting force which breaks order: the degree and place are lost at least for the time being. The Panchavayu, the respiratory system gets totally disrupted as the Samana  or Samat, Prana, PranaVayu, Udana Vayu, Apana Vayu and Vyana Vayu, the energy regulators  of the body lose equipoise and cause total chaos in the body. The mind and emotions flow as per the force and magnitude of anger in negative directions.

 

Anger is very natural to humans, animals and even gods because no creature is self-sufficient or auto fulfilling including, the Creator if any. Anger stems from frustration, unfulfilled desires, insults, undeserved, unmerited suffering, ego hurts and challenge to one's own sense of superiority. A man has his personal intimately private world of reality, wishes desires, dreams and fancies which are unique. In short a person is God of his little acres of reality. When that god is rivalled, opposed, challenged his mirror reflects a defeated face. His reactions, spontaneous and immediate, is anger. He musters his energies to smash the enemies; physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual. The enemies at times are invisible like fate but he fights in the dark, shoots arrows against the formless, shapeless chaos of his imagination and often turns masochistic in helpless rage. The Christian God because of his powers punishes the Archangel Lucifer (who becomes Satan) only to be unrivalled. God punishes Adam and Eve for disobedience. The Hindu gods, goddesses too never pardon, they always kill, punish, cause immense suffering in others. Zeus , Indra and the higher ups Vishnu, Shiva, Durga - all get angry at the slightest tap on their egoes. But there are many great men who know how to manage their anger. They nurse it in silence but plan, plot and strive to achieve what they wanted.

 

Anger's first victim is Reason. An angry man kills like  Hercules, becomes stubborn and irrational like Duryodhana. Anger is often born out of hate, racial, religious and ideological. Colour and caste too often lead to hate and anger.  We saw in Osborne's Look Back In Anger how an Oxford educated young talented and ambitious man nurses his anger against the state after the War II brought in its trail the social misery, poverty and unemployment. He hated the church Bell, the peaceable housewife, he had no respect for values of all kinds. He became what in the 80's we called Angry Young Man. Bollywood exploited this theme commercially and many minor writers wrote Penny Dreadfuls for a living.

 

Often intellectuals and geniuses are angry at the human condition, at the nature of reality. Others are angry at the state of administration and governance. But their anger is filmy, for pretentious an intellectual showmanship. Some people of course write poetry, some like Botticelli paint hell. And yet others of the left leaning pseudos verbalize their anger. Raspy fuming temper flows out their anger like uncorked champaign in an empty room. This anger is not wrath, often infantile pressure releasing rant, of the Jimmy Porter variety.

 

Anger is a very potent energy in a great man and he harnesses it to accomplish things for mankind; he utilizes the energy for a great cause. The art of Anger Management, therefore, is a rare talent in man. Mostly anger becomes self stultifying because people do not know its potential. If one is angry for a cause, he must channelize in a manner suitable to achieve the cause. The best illustration of anger management, in my view, was in Bishnu Gupta( Chanakya). His father Chanak, a diplomat and thinker was tortured and killed by Dhana Nanda. Chanakya made his anger grow, mature adding other patriotic values, into the most powerful energy which would free the then Bharat foreign invaders like Alexander and corrupt tyrants like Dhana Nanda and Ambi. He selected a boy Chandragupta while he was a professor of political science, and groomed him as a strong, patriotic, politically aware and morally alert Bharatiya who would dedicate his life to unite Bharat into a cohesive, independent political unit powerful, wealthy and culturally emancipated. In the first chapter (Prakarana-" Vidyasamuddesha" of his Arthashastra  Kautilya uses the word Annvikhiki Sthapana that is cultivating the power of thinking. We know how he thought and what he thought. The wrath which he nourished with single minded devotion for his avowed purpose was for acquisition and protection of the earth. He managed his anger not by anulom belom or varstrikas but by annvkhiki which is a  Science of thinking. And there has not yet been a second Chanakya in India or the world.

Anger is a wild horse, If you cannot tame the stallion you will come under its hooves but if you can control it the stallion will turn into Pegasus and you can connect heaven and home on a gold line.