Turn anger’s heat into light

[1]

Amrit Sadhana [1]

We often repent after throwing a fit of anger and decide not to get carried away again by the same emotion. But when the actual moment comes, all the resolutions are swept away by the tornado of anger and we helplessly succumb to its powerful outburst.

Apart from being embarrassed by our own insane rage and the harm it does to our relationships and work, anger’s physical side effects are alarming. You frequently see studies about the damage that this emotion can do to our bodies. In one study of almost 13,000 subjects, individuals with the highest levels of anger had twice the risk of coronary artery disease and three times the risk of heart attack, as compared to the subjects with the lowest levels of anger.
However, I feel that anger has not been studied scientifically as an energy. Only the results of anger have been observed.
Most of the management programmes teach techniques to control anger, which they call management. But controlling anger is giving it more power. Controlled anger enters the unconscious mind, draws strength from other negative emotions and waits like a predator to erupt at the right time.
Meditators think that anger is a hindrance, a barrier in becoming peaceful. So they try to divert their attention by counting 10 and other such feeble attempts. This doesn’t work either.
What Osho has proposed is an extremely original approach to anger with a scientific attitude. The first and foremost thing is to look upon anger as an energy; do not label it as good nor bad, it is neutral.
Anger has two features: heat and the light. Usually we only experience the heat of anger and do not know that it can be converted into light. Osho gives a method by which we can transform the heat of anger into light.
The method is simple: When you think anger is coming to you, close your eyes and meditate on what anger is. Dig deep inside and find out the source from where it is coming. At that point your body may want to take the restlessness out, maybe jump up and down, so do it. You can dance your anger, you can sing your anger. Cooperate with the body. It will be a wonderful release.
What you are doing ordinarily is just the opposite. When you get angry you begin to think about the object of anger. You think about the person who has triggered it, and not about the source of anger, from where it is coming. This will not help because the source is inside you. Go deep and you will come to the source of heat from where the accumulated energy is bursting forth to get out.
“Watch it; do not indulge in it — because if you indulge in it, it will be thrown out without being transformed. And do not suppress it — because if you suppress it, it will be thrown back to the original source which is overflowing. It cannot absorb it. It will be thrown back again with a more forceful movement. Just be conscious. This is the key”, says Osho.
The inward movement of your consciousness slows down the emotion; this very observation transforms the quality of anger, because this calm watchfulness is an antidote. It works like cold water on fire.
When this calm watchfulness enters into anger, it changes its quality, the very chemical composition of it, and the heat becomes light. Then the anger is neither thrown back to the original source, nor is it thrown to the object which is a foolish wastage.
By watching it, this energy becomes diffused. It moves to the periphery of your body as light. It becomes an inner light.

— Amrit Sadhana is in the management team of Osho International Meditation Resort, Pune. She facilitates meditation workshops around the country and abroad.