Beyond anger management -By Sri Krishnaji

Let us ask ourselves - WHAT HAVE WE LOST BECAUSE OF OUR ANGER?

An angry mind is exactly like this monkey's mind. 

The more you are thrashed by life, the more tightly you will cling on to your anger.

BEYOND ANGER MANAGEMENT

In rural India there is a way of catching mischievous monkeys that come to steal from homes. 

They deliberately leave some very aromatic desserts in a tiny hole in a tree. 

The monkey gets excited smelling the desserts, and squeezes its hand through the tiny hole and gets hold of the delicious dessert.  

But the hole is too small for it to get 

it's closed fist out.  

The monkey struggles to get its hand out of the hole, but will not let go of the dessert and so is stuck. 

And the villagers easily come and catch it. They keep it tied for a day or two and leave it in the near by forests. The terrified monkey does not easily come back into the village after that. 

That's how it is with anger. You hold onto your anger  and refuse to let go of it, until you commit enough wrong actions - and utter enough wrong words, that will lead you to getting a beating from life.

An angry mind is exactly like this monkey's mind. 

The more you are thrashed by life, the more tightly you will cling on to your anger. Because each time you receive a blow from life like losing your respect, losing a job, losing your health, losing an opportunity,  losing a friendship or losing your wealth because of your wrong actions. your anger only grows towards the person with whom you were originally angry.

You  blame the other for all your problems. You refuse to see, that it is your holding on to anger and your wrong actions that is  givng you the beating, not what the other did to you years or months ago.

Remember, anyone can hurt you once, can hurt you ten times, or forty times but what hurts you the most is yourself; it is you who hurt yourself every time you move into anger.

When you are in anger, if i asked you - who is hurting you the most? Your fingers would only point in the direction of someone else. They would never point in the direction of your own angry mind. 

Just as until the monkey, chooses to let go of the dessert, it has no freedom. 

Unless, you make the decision to let go of your habit of blaming the other, there is no freedom for you from the one who hurt you. 

You are not free to love again. 

For a few moments, stop blaming someone else. Stop blaming yourself too. Calmly reflect  how much you have lost because  of your angry thoughts, angry words and angry actions.