Anger in the Light of J Krishnamurti Teachings

ANGER
Let’s Explore
5th July 2015
KFI Cuttack Centre
KFI Cuttack Centre / Sunday Dialogue

Even at that altitude the heat was penetrating. The
windowpanes felt warm to the touch. The steady hum of the
plane’s motor was soothing, and many of the passengers were
dozing. The earth was far below us, shimmering in the heat, an
unending brown with an occasional patch of green. Presently we
landed, and the heat became all but unbearable; it was literally
painful, and even in the shade of a building the top of one’s
head felt as if it would burst. The summer was well along and
the country was almost a desert.
We took off again and the plane climbed, seeking the
cool winds. Two new passengers sat in the opposite seats and
they were talking loudly; it was impossible not to overhear
them. They began quietly enough; but soon anger crept into
their voices, the anger of familiarity and resentment. In their
violence they seemed to have forgotten the rest of the
passengers; they were so upset with each other that they alone
existed, and none else.
- J. KrishnamurtiKFI Cuttack Centre / Sunday Dialogue

Why People Shout in Anger?

• “When “I” is absent I shout”.
--- Chitta
• “Past remembrance makes me shout in
anger”.
--- Manasi
• “We shout when energy (shakti) in us
consolidates and influences us”.
--- Shasanka
Let’s read Instant reply by different persons…..

• “Angry words are outbreak of emotions rather than
thoughts. Loud voice is the speed at which emotion
of anger flies”.
---Nandini
• “Shout in anger happens due to choice. Here choice
of seeing that something wrong has happened.”
--- Saumitra
• “When my image is hurt I shout”.
--- Kabita

• First: “We shout when we loose control over ourselves
and not aware of the environment”.
• Second: Genetical / Habit
• Third: When one feels himself without any
psychological protection he shouts for a support for
himself.
• Fourth: When there is no fellow feeling for thee other,
for no considerations for the other. So love is the
essence of the tolerance.
--- Punya Prava Patnaik

• “When we lose patience we shout. Why do
we lose patience because we can’t control
ourselves that’s why we shout. Different
level of people have different level of
tolerance therefore some people shout
immediately because they have less
tolerance. ”.
--- Himanshu Patnaik

WHY WE SHOUT IN ANGER
~ A traditional approach in short story on Anger ~
A Hindu saint who was visiting river Ganges to take bath
found a group of family members on the banks, shouting in
anger at each other. He turned to his disciples smiled ‘n
asked. ‘Why do people shout in anger shout at each other?’
Disciples thought for a while, one of them said,
‘Because we lose our calm, we shout.’ ‘But, why should you
shout when the other person is just next to you? You can as
well tell him what you have to say in a soft manner’ asked
the saint.
Disciples gave some other answers but none satisfied
the other disciples.

Finally the saint explained, ‘When two people are
angry at each other, their hearts distance a lot. To cover
that distance they must shout to be able to hear each
other.
The angrier they are, the stronger they will have to
shout to hear each other to cover that great distance.
What happens when two people fall in love? They
don’t shout at each other but talk softly, because their
hearts are very close. The distance between them is
either non-existent or very small…’ The saint continued,
‘When they love each other even more, what happens?
They do not speak, only whisper and they get even closer
to each other in their love.

Finally they even need not
whisper; they only look at each other
and that’s all. That is how close two
people are when they love each other.’
He looked at his disciples and
said. ‘So when you argue do not let
your hearts get distant, Do not say
words that distance each other more,
Or else there will come a day when the
distance is so great that you will not
find the path to return.’
...KFI Cuttack Centre / Sunday Dialogue

Anger of a Hungry Man
A Small Story
Once a man who was very hungry entered a
village. He went near a field with large juicy
watermelons. He looked around and saw no one
around. So he quickly bit into a watermelon. Just
as he finished eating it, a powerful muscular
farmer whose field it was, rushed to him and
said, "How dare you eat my watermelon?" ….

"Please sir, I was hungry and I ate just one of them."
But the angry farmer (aggressor) took a rod shouted in
anger and hit the hungry man (victim). On being hit he
was in excruciating pain. Now the man was angry, "You are
punishing me for just one watermelon. A time will come
for me to take revenge." So here the insult inflicted was
registered in the brain of the man and he carried a image of it.
Some months after this incident, the man (the
victim) sees the farmer (the aggressor). On seeing him,
the man develops a violent rage and physically assaults
him.
Does this resulted because of the registration of the insult
inflicted upon him some months back. Had he not registered it then
then he would not have become assaultive on seeing the farmer.

On scrutiny, of this story, it will be seen, that the
emotional action consists of four stages:
• Cognition
• Affect
• Conation
• Expression

First Stage: COGNITION
Cognition means seeing & recognising (in this
instance, recognising the farmer as aggressor by the
man – the victim). Mere seeing but not recognising him
is not Cognition.
For example, monkeys are normally terrified by
the snakes. After some particular operation on the
brain (which results in loss of power of cognition) the
monkeys may pick up live snake and chew it alive.
This is called ‘psychic blindness’. The monkey,
after the operation is able to see (that is why, he is able
to pick up the snake) but is unable to recognise the
terrors associated with a snake.

Affect means development of a feeling and
emotion (feeling of anger in the story
narrated).
Second Stage: AFFECT

Conation means desire to act (desire to beat
the aggressor (farmer) by the man (victim).
Third Stage: CONATION

• Expression has two parts,
– a) Bodily Action (e.g., pouncing upon farmer and
beating him, as in the story), and
– b) visceral motor (e.g., development of excess
heartbeat, high blood pressure and so on).
Fourth Stage: EXPRESSION
The first three stages of any emotion i.e. Cognition,
Affect and Conation, taken together may be
attributed to our thought process whereas the last
one - expression is the bodily action which is the
resultant of the first three processes.

The Scholarly Description of the Word
ANGER
Anger is an emotion characterized by antagonism
toward someone or something you feel has deliberately
done you wrong.
Anger is often called a secondary emotion
because we tend to resort to anger in order to protect
ourselves from or cover up other vulnerable feelings.
A primary feeling is what is felt immediately
before we feel anger. We almost always feel something
else first before we get angry.

Lets Explore
ANGER
in the light of J. Krishnamurti teaching?
Distribute the print out of J K’s Writing on ANGER among the participants.

“Even at that altitude the heat was penetrating. The
windowpanes felt warm to the touch. The steady hum of the
plane’s motor was soothing, and many of the passengers were
dozing. The earth was far below us, shimmering in the heat, an
unending brown with an occasional patch of green. Presently we
landed, and the heat became all but unbearable; it was literally
painful, and even in the shade of a building the top of one’s
head felt as if it would burst. The summer was well along and
the country was almost a desert.
We took off again and the plane climbed, seeking the
cool winds. Two new passengers sat in the opposite seats and
they were talking loudly; it was impossible not to overhear
them. They began quietly enough; but soon anger crept into
their voices, the anger of familiarity and resentment. In their
violence they seemed to have forgotten the rest of the
passengers; they were so upset with each other that they alone
existed, and none else.

Contd …..
Anger has that peculiar quality of isolation; like sorrow, it
cuts one off, and for the time being, at least, all
relationship comes to an end. Anger has the temporary
strength and vitality of the isolated. There is a strange
despair in anger; for isolation is despair. The anger of
disappointment, of jealousy, of the urge to wound, gives a
violent release whose pleasure is self-justification. We
condemn others, and that very condemnation is a
justification of ourselves. Without some kind of attitude,
whether of self-righteousness or self-abasement, what
are we?
Contd …..

Contd …..
Most of us do not mind being angry, we find an excuse for
it. Why should we not be angry when there is ill-
treatment of another or of ourselves? So we become
righteously angry. We never just say we are angry, and
stop there; we go into elaborate explanations of its cause.
We never just say that we are jealous or bitter, but justify
or explain it. We ask how there can be love without
jealousy, or say that someone else’s actions have made us
bitter, and so on. We use every means to bolster
ourselves up; and anger, like hate, is one of the easiest
ways.
Contd …..

Contd …..
Simple anger, a sudden flare-up which is quickly
forgotten, is one thing; but the anger that is deliberately
built up, that has been brewed and that seeks to hurt
and destroy, is quite another matter. Simple anger may
have some physiological cause which can be seen and
remedied; but the anger that is the outcome of a
psychological cause is much more subtle and difficult to
deal with. Most of us do not mind being angry, we find an
excuse for it. Why should we not be angry when there is
ill-treatment of another or of ourselves?
Contd …..

Contd …..
So we become righteously angry. We never just say we
are angry, and stop there; we go into elaborate
explanations of its cause. We never just say that we are
jealous or bitter, but justify or explain it. We ask how
there can be love without jealousy, or say that someone
else’s actions have made us bitter, and so on.
It is the explanation, the verbalization, whether
silent or spoken, that sustains anger, that gives it scope
and depth. The explanation silent or spoken, acts as a
shield against the discovery of ourselves as we are. We
want to be praised or flattered, we expect something;
and when these things do not take place, we are
disappointed, we become bitter or jealous.
Contd …..

Contd …..
Then, violently or softly, we blame someone else; we say
the other is responsible for our bitterness. You are of great
significance because I depend upon you for my happiness,
for my position or prestige. Through you, I fulfil, so you are
important to me; I must guard you, I must possess you.
Through you, I escape from myself; and when I am thrown
back upon myself, being fearful of my own state, I become
angry. Anger takes many forms: disappointment,
resentment, bitterness, jealousy, and so on.
The storing up of anger, which is resentment,
requires the antidote of forgiveness; but the storing up of
anger is far more significant than forgiveness. Forgiveness
is unnecessary when there is no accumulation of anger.
Contd …..

Contd …..
Forgiveness is essential if there is resentment; but to be
free from flattery and from the sense of injury, without the
hardness of indifference, makes for mercy, charity. Anger
cannot be got rid of by the action of will, for will is part of
violence. Will is the outcome of desire, the craving to lie;
and desire in its very nature is aggressive, dominant. To
suppress anger by the exertion of will is to transfer anger
to a different level, giving it a different name; but it is still
part of violence. To be free from violence, which is not the
cultivation of non-violence, there must be the
understanding of desire.
Contd …..

Contd …..
There is no spiritual substitute for desire; it cannot be
suppressed or sublimated. There must be a silent and
choiceless awareness of desire; and this passive awareness
is the direct experiencing of desire without an experiencer
giving it a name.
Commentaries On Living – Vol I
Chapter - 29

WHAT IS ANGER AND WHY DOES ONE GET ANGRY?
Krishnamurti: If I tread on your toes, or pinch you, or take something away from
you, won't you be angry? And why should you not be angry? Why do you think
anger is wrong? Because somebody has told you? So, it is very important to find
out why one is angry, to see the truth of anger, and not merely say it is wrong to
be angry.
Now, why do you get angry? Because you don't want to be hurt - which is
the normal human demand for survival. You feel that you should not be used,
crushed, destroyed or exploited by an individual a government or society. When
somebody slaps you, you feel hurt, humiliated, and you don't like that feeling. If
the person who hurts you is big and powerful so that you can't hit back, you in
turn hurt somebody else, you take it out on your brother, your sister, or your
servant if you have one. So the play of anger is kept going.
First of all, it is a natural response to avoid being hurt. Why should
anybody exploit you? So, in order not to be hurt, you protect yourself, you begin to
develop a defence, a barrier. Inwardly you build a wall around yourself by not
being open, receptive; therefore you are incapable of exploration, of expansive
feeling. You say anger is very bad and you condemn it, as you condemn various
other feelings; so gradually you become arid, empty, you have no strong feelings at
all. Do you understand?
Chapter 8
Thing on These Things

You see, when we have a feeling, we always name it, don't
we? We say it is pleasurable or painful. When we are angry we
give that feeling a name, we call it anger; but have you ever
thought what would happen if you did not name a feeling? You
try it. The next time you get angry, don't name it, don't call it
anger; just be aware of the feeling without giving it a name, and
see what happens.
Chapter 11
This Matter of Culture
When you are angry, for example, you never ask why you
are angry, do you? It is only afterwards that you ask this
question. Having been angry, you say, "How stupid, I should not
have been angry". Whereas, if you are aware, thoughtful at the
moment of anger without condemning it, if you are `all there'
when the turmoil comes up in your mind, then you will see how
quickly it fades away.
Chapter 16
This Matter of Culture

Do you see anger with your heart, mind, ears and eyes? Or
do you see anger as something unrelated to the rest of you, and
therefore of great importance? When you give importance to the
whole you do not forget the particular. You are aware of anger
with your whole being. If you are, is there anger? Inattention is
anger, not attention. So attention with your entire being is seeing
the whole, and inattention is seeing the particular. To be aware of
the whole, and of the particular, and of the relationship between
the two, is the whole problem. We divide the particular from the
rest and try to solve it. And so conflict increases and there is no
way out.
Urgency of Change

In the presence of a person who is angry see what takes
place if one is aware of it and does not respond. The
moment one is aware of the other person’s anger and one
does not react to oneself, there is quite a different
response. One’s instinct is to respond to hate by hate, to
anger by anger, there is the welling up chemically which
creates in the system the nervous reactions; but quieten
all this in the presence of anger, and a different action
takes place.
Chapter – 10
Questions and Answers

end

Anger in the Light of J Krishnamurti Teachings

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