Achalatwam-Part-2

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Dear LP, As my gaze fell on

the snow trail behind my house from atop the porch, I found the marks of an animal-paw. I wondered what animal could possibly brave this winter cold and set its foot prints in the ephemeral path of time and then promptly entered into deep reverie. I could see icicles being formed and broken alternatively as cold and sunshine worked in an unending undulation of time and rhythm. As my wooden rocking chair creaked on the hard lumber floor, I found that my body had become one with the mind akin to the Rithwicks who worked on a divine drone of the Veda mantras in a Yagna shook the febrile air with their prayerful rendering of chants to the Paramam-immanent in all for at-oneness. GuJNjaa madhuraa baalaa madhuraa yamunaa madhuraa viichii madhuraa . salilaM madhuraM kamalaM

madhuraM madhuraadhipaterakhilaM madhuram… This e-mail let me concentrate on two more misconceptions about anger. It is not that I never get angry. Anger is a form of energy, albeit a negative energy and must be transmuted to that of a positive one and used constructively. As I type these e-mails meditatively, my proclivity is not upon sermonizing or posing a ‘Holier-than-thou’ attitude but to learn myself in the process. Each assay is a meditation as Zen-monks say. Misconception 2: If you ignore all our hurts and anger, they will go away and won’t cause you any trouble later on. Squelching our feelings never pays. In fact, it’s rather like

plugging up a steam vent in a boiler. When the steam is stopped in one place, it will come out somewhere else. Either that or the whole business will blow up in your face. And bottled-up feelings are just the same. Jealousy is another expression of anger (passive anger) and it demeans spirit and makes one’s soul compare to yet another and indulges in self-pity which in turn takes the form of wrath. Which is what precisely happened to the lady who tiraded against me. Oftentimes, the person who gets angry himself or herself is surprised how he could be so angry. The ghost of anger suddenly surfaces and shows its ugly face. Let me first analyze each component of anger fully before I dole out any “advices”. One must define a problem fully to understand how to go

about the solution. This is imperative. Many of my friends say “Don’t bother about this or that. Take it ‘light’. What is the need for you to analyze such trivial things as anger?” I for one would not take anything ‘light’ nor do I consider anger as something trivial. Because, cumulatively each “light” thing adds up to a big burden in the end! So, I naturally had to form a spiritual system whereby I could drop these “light” things and surge ahead and this comes-by only through a proper vedantic process of Athma-vichara and Ethos-pathos-logos

thinking. Many of these friends whom I do not even confabulate much these days, have fallen prey to modern day stress and strain and a couple have even divorced their wives and two are suffering with hypertension(they may croak anytime!). They have never engaged much in any angry-bout with anyone and have taken things “light” & behaved in a very polished manner but suddenly one day the dam bursts! In organizational behavior classes I attended during my MBA here at USA, a lot was said about Emotional intelligence (EQ) and Howard Gardener’s

work. But what about Spiritual intelligence (SQ)? West confuses spirituality with emotionality. Without SQ, neither EQ nor IQ can work. My workable definition of SQ is something very different which I framed myself. I will dwell upon that later. Ok without beating around the bush, let me come to the third misconception Misconception 3: Just let all your feelings and anger hang out-just get them out of your system- and you’ll solve your anger problem. This was a theory which was popularized in 1970s that said that if you just get your feelings and anger out in open, you’ll feel better and everything will be fine. But there is one problem with this

view-it doesn’t work, and in the long run, it destroys one’s health and relationships. People like these usually feel miserable, depressed (sometimes to the brink of suicide), feel lonely as people don’t like them and finally end up having problems of hypertension, heart attacks and even cancer. They throw tantrums, shout using abusive and filthy language, throw things around and break items like furniture, etc and sometimes even try to attack physically their near and dear ones. All this is done in one outrage where they lose complete control of themselves and even forget who they are as if in a trance. This sort of anger even becomes addictive and they start abusing their near and dear ones verbally and physically. However, after the anger-bout is over, they regret endlessly for their actions or make themselves numb and

enter into a depressive mode. Moreover, the people surrounding such a person normally are not helpful as they have been hurt and further embroil such a person into more repetitive behavior and then dub him/her as mentally unstable needing clinical psychiatric treatment instead of understanding in the bud itself the problem and nipping it. (To be continued…) Jagath-prasoothyai-Namaha! Yours yogically, Shreeram Balijepalli Purity, Powers, Parabrahmam... IIश्रीराम बलिजेपल्ली II Click to join Rajarajeshwari_Kalpataru

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