Anger
After happiness, I think anger is the emotion we humans like to feel the most. If we did not like it so much, there would be less of it in the world. If you think my assertion is crazy, then please explain why there is so much hostility and violence in the world, from child abuse, to domestic violence, to racial hatred, to international wars, and even to environmental destruction. We like anger.
Anger is commonly seen as an extreme emotional reaction towards someone or something that, in our personal opinion, has deliberately and unfairly obstructed and / or offended us. I believe anger to be ego-centric. Anger is a very personal (and biased) choice to react – from our ego – against what we consider to be unfair and insulting.
And what is insult? I believe “insult” is a sense that arises from two perspectives: one internal, and one external. Internal insult comes from within ourselves based on how we see the world, while external insult comes from outside of us based on how the world treats us. Ultimately, all insult boils down to being internal in nature based on our personal beliefs and value system. So, for example, we might receive external insult from someone (in the form of unjust racial slander), but our internal sense and perception of the world determines the nature of our reaction. Insult is founded on our personal belief that someone or something has deliberately disrespected and offended our sense of right, and our self-esteem.
Our ego is a construct of our material human self. It arises from our identity with our material body. All of us believe that we are – we exist – because of our body. For that reason, we all form our identity – our sense of self – based on our body. How we see our body, and how we think about it (especially in relation to other bodies and the world around us) determines our sense of self, and our idea of self-worth. When we see ourselves as equal to or better than others we have a positive or inflated sense of self-esteem, and when we see ourselves as inferior to others we have a negative or deflated sense of self-esteem.
When the behaviour of others affects our self-esteem we feel certain emotions. From positive affects on our self-esteem we feel good emotions (e.g. joy, confidence, trust), while from negative affects we feel adverse emotions (e.g. fear, disgust, anger). Every emotion we feel is a personal choice that we make – nothing makes us feel an emotion; we choose to feel that emotion. With this in mind, we must understand that nothing makes us angry; we choose to be angry. In response to negative affects on our self-esteem we could choose indifference over anger, or we could choose serenity over anger. It’s always our choice.
The sturdiness and healthiness or our self-esteem (as opposed to fragility and dysfunction) can help us make the right emotional choices. But as long as we link our self-esteem to our ego we are likely to have difficulty building strong and healthy esteem. Our ego is tied to our material bodies which are rooted in this material world; therefore our self-esteem (which comes from our ego) is rooted in the material as well. The problem with the material world is that it’s fickle, insincere, superficial, and very, very self-centred and selfish. As long as we define ourselves based on our ego, we will always fall foul of base emotions.
Why is anger a bad emotion? Here’s an example from my own life.
Recently I was driving home from work with my family in the car. It was early evening on a winter night. As we approached the traffic light to turn right onto a main road that had three lanes from the turn into the main road we were joining, a car raced up next to us on our right and took the turn too fast, almost side-swiping us before cutting in front of us. We had to veer to the left and we almost collided with another car on our left. The idiot who almost caused a terrible accident simply continued driving.
I chose to react with anger.
I immediately pursued the speeding idiot, flashing my bright lights in his rearview mirror as I chased him. My family became scared. I drove fast to keep up with the idiot. Eventually he slammed on brakes in front of me, causing me to stop my car. I immediately opened my door and started to exit my car. My intention was to confront him face-to-face. As soon as the idiot saw me starting towards him, he sped off like a coward.
Had I reached him, I absolutely would have assaulted him, and very likely would have caused him severe injury requiring medical attention. I wanted that so much. I could not think of anything else. I chose to feel rage and was driven towards extreme destruction.
Had that situation played out, the idiot would have sustained severe injury. I would probably have been arrested and charged for assault with intent to cause grievous bodily harm, and most likely I would have received a criminal sentence. My family would have been impacted, and would have been very disappointed in me. Nothing good would have come from the situation.
In that moment, I had no feelings or considerations towards consciousness of my soul or any other souls. I did not think of my soul and its connection to the spirit of the ONE. Achieving enlightenment was the farthest thing from my mind. In that moment, I did not hear my wife’s pleas for me to stop reacting with rage. I could not see or hear anything other than the idiot I was chasing. My entire body was filled with tension – I could actually feel my intense rage, like an insatiable hunger, and I needed to feed immediately. I only “came to my senses” when I was getting back into my car and I saw the fear and shock in my family.
Now, two very bad things happened in my state of rage:
- I became the darkness of the inconsiderate idiot who almost caused my family and other innocents to be involved in a serious accident – I descended into the darkness of this world of the fallen. I became what I most dislike;
- I lost contact with my soul, the spirit in my soul, and the light that guides my spiritual soul.
In essence, I departed from the ONE true God. In that moment of rage, you could say that my soul died and my ego possessed me.
Essentially, there was no external insult to me from that idiot driver – he was just being an idiot, governed by his own self-centred inconsiderate ego. He is not unlike any other inconsequential phenomenon that exists beyond my control – like the fumes emitted from car exhaust pipes, or a bird’s tail feather falling from its body in flight. I could just have recognised the idiot was being an idiot, given thanks to the ONE for protecting my family and others from harm, and calmly continued on a safe journey home. Instead, I succumbed to my own internal sense of insult – I allowed my ego to take over. Why? How? In that moment I thought "how dare you invade MY space in that way; how dare you push ME around; how dare you express your own stupidity so blatantly and with no regard or remorse for ME and MY family?” It all became about ME and my ego.
Whether my internal sense of insult was right or wrong, it came from my ego. It came from the weakness bred into the genetic code of my material body by the fallen race of angelic beings that created humans. I fell into the darkness of my being. What bothers me about this is how instantly and instinctively I did it.
It is not enough for me to acknowledge that I have soul consciousness, and that my soul has access to the spirit of the ONE, and that I have started my journey to enlightenment. None of this matters if I cannot recognise and ACT to turn from my base instincts and emotions. As long as I succumb to my ego and fall into the darkness of my base emotions I will never find true and full enlightenment.
Image: Hercules, Baden State Museum, Karlsruhe, Germany. Copyright - Michael Beaton
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