Saturday, March 29, 2008

Is anger a good thing?

A good friend of mine wrote back to me:
“…having an understanding of the situation and having compassion for those involved doesn't necessarily abate anger or frustration over the situation and what led to it, nor do I think it necessarily should. Sometimes anger can be a catalyst for change in a positive way. When Rosa Parks chose not to give up her seat on that Montgomery bus, she was still angry over at the brutal murder of Emmett Till four days earlier. That anger over Till's death in part gave her the courage to commit an act of civil disobedience. It was a powerful non-violent act, but one that stemmed from years of frustration and anger over repression, unfair treatment, and violence. I agree with you, acting out of anger with violence only plays into the hands of the enemy (at least in some civilized societies - it didn't work under the Khmer Rouge or the Nazis) but if it provides the motivation and the courage to act non-violently for change, then it can be a good thing.”

No doubt, if anger and frustration is what most motivates one to rise up and act, then I agree it is a good thing! However, anger is just not good enough. In addition to the action mode triggered by anger and the passive mode (due to indifference), we have a third option, that is being one with the all-compassing, all-loving and all-moving power itself! In this third mode, we are no longer the one who acts; we are surfers who ride on gigantic waves with momentum and forces that are hundreds and thousands more powerful than the power of anger or hatred.

In Hindu’s belief system, human consciousness has three stages of evolution. It starts as tama (inertia), then moves on to raja (energy), and eventually as sattva (harmony and order). I think the humanity is at a critical junction where our civilization is painfully transitioning from a raja state into a sattva state. We either make it and hallelujah, or our very survival is on the stake.

Anger provides the raw power that moves and shakes things at a gross level. It has no doubt been the propeller of the history in the past several thousands of years. However, it doesn’t address the root cause of any problem, especially when the problems are manifested at a deeper level. Rosa Parks’s decision has triggered civil rights movement and illegalized racial segregation. But has it eradicated racial prejudice from our life and from our consciousness? Today, we are still facing the battle of racism, only it is manifested at a much subtler level and at this level, anger creates more chaos and confusion than solution. The issue between Tibet and China now is much reflected at a gross level and probably will need to resort to solutions of crude force but that only alleviates the symptoms and again doesn’t address the root cause. Anger and its associated raw power are the defenses for those who are fighting the enemies at the frontline. In my mind, the responsibilities of addressing the root cause falls on us who are fortunate to live in peace and freedom. In my opinion, the best way to honor those who have fought and lost lives at the frontline is to do our part to fight with the root cause of the problem and this battle is long enduring and not a bit easier.

History has taught us this again and again and again. Last thousands years of history is an endless cycle of one force overcoming anther force and turning into the very old force that it has just overcome. Then things started over again! In fact the Chinese history of a dozen some dynasties is a perfect example of this. Don’t we look a bit like the guinea pig on the spinning wheel?

To me, the lesson from this is that we need to actively take part in the evolution of human consciousness and rewire our brain so that we naturally react to things in a different way, the sattva way, the indomitable will to practice compassion no matter what. This is very difficult and the tendency is to mistaken the sattva state with the tama-inertia state because our human consciousness is still very primitive in terms of understanding this higher level awareness. But we do not have a choice. If we fail, we will be eventually consumed by the destructive power of all these rampaging raja energy flooding all around the world.

And this can be done just in a split of second. Because, anger is merely the shadow of love, just like darkness is the shadow of light! If one does not have deep love, where does the anger and hatred come from? The fact that one hates something inevitably means that one loves the opposite of what she hates. So essentially, these two emotions are coming from the same place of our hearts. However, there is a world of difference between the two. Unfortunately, this is where our human language gets limited, because we are venturing into an area of our consciousness that language has not yet reached. But try this following experiment. Close your eyes. Think of anger and experience it with your body. Next, think of love and experience it with your body. (Not the commercial version of candle-lit romance type of love; but the kind of instinctive, fearless love a mother has in order to protect her only child). These two emotional states have very distinct vibration frequencies. The sensation of love creates a vibration pattern that is much more in harmony and hence harbors much more potential.

So my point is, anger is definitely necessary to get us out of inertia states and make us do something. But too often, we simply stop there after an act of impulse and anger. When this particular incident is over, we go back to whatever our life was until we were shocked back into another tragedy. The solution to the root cause of any conflicts calls for us to embark on a long-enduring journey that takes infinite persistence, courage and patience. Each of us is facing a choice of what to do.
The tragedy we are experiencing today is not the first time in the history. The same kind of human tragedy is repeating itself over and over and over again, between different races, genders, social classes, religious groups, people with different beliefs... And it will keep repeating itself until we learn how to expand our human capacities beyond the current evolution stage to merge with the source of infinite love and compassion.

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