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RE: How Much Anger is 'Normal'? The Role of Anger in Evolution And Maintaining Free Will / Balance.
I think the important thing is learning how to control and acknowledge, but not suppress your anger. Figure out where it is coming from; sometimes the roots are deeper than we believe. I've seen so many relationships fall apart because anger and hurt was suppressed early on because partners did not want to show each other their "bad sides." I think about it like a controlled burn. You have to let it come out from time to time in reasonable ways so you don't end up with a wildfire. I think you're right that being devoid of anger is actually just being emotionally dead inside. Even the most dedicated yogis and meditators I've known have virulent road rage, and somehow, they don't see the contradiction there.
I understand now that control and suppression are synonymous. Control requires a controller and 'the controlled', which means there is a separation being made between self and emotions - however, emotions are part of self. They are movements of our own energy - so control is not really needed. A more balanced approach that feels good is to understand the origin of emotion and to respect it fully such that you know in advance it can move all it likes, without there being a problem.
Meditation and Yoga, like anything else, can only be beneficial when there is no denial involved. The primary method of meditation in use today involves total denial of emotions in favour of 'returning to the breath' - this is a recipe for carnage on subtle levels and will never produce balance beyond the appearance of balance for publicity photos. ;)
Hmm, well I don't mean to disrespect you, @urasoul but the context by which you suggest meditation is "total denial of emotions in favour of 'returning to the breath'" is rather benign and uninformed.
I am a hard-core survivor of uncontrolled anger, both as a recipient and as an offender. I watched it slowly devour my family and then each person individually. Some died from suicide, some from cancer, some from sadness, most are utterly alone and slowly fading from life.
For myself, NOTHING has helped more than MEDITATION. IT has been the single most important undertaking of my life and I believe the single greatest that any person can take. -And it is difficult. You clearly misunderstand the true tenets of the practice. The beginner's training of the practice of breath is the first level of self understanding and self control. The focus on breathing is the PROCESS by which you are simply learning to master your own thoughts, feelings and emotions. It is learning to control and create a singularity of mind. To discover "True Self".
In this place of pure mind there is simply no need or purpose for emotion. Especially anger.
Anger is actually the purest form of BLAME. Think about that for a minute. It is aggression against the outside universe. Yes it occurs naturally and has a natural place in the universe for any being's survival, it is flight, fight or freeze. It is the necessary function of the cerebral cortex.
Frankly, the answer you are looking for regarding anger is to NOT REMAIN THERE for more than a second. Yes It happens. You recognize it. You transform it. To hold on to anger or use it as a creative/destructive power for more than an instant is the very act that poisons your body, your mind and your being and everything around you. YOU feed it and IT feeds you. Literally.
Anger is Anti-Love. Do not stay there.
~X
Aloha!
Following over 10 years of emotional healing work and also a lot of meditation, I continue to disagree with what I feel to be subtle judgements in your perception here.
Firstly, when you speak of being a victim of uncontrolled anger - you are describing anger that is being directed by unloving thought processes (aka heartlessness). Heartlessness is SO heartless that it can even take a fully loving relationship between two people and twist it deliberately to become a weapon to achieve an agenda (such as might be plotted and carried out by 'secret services' for example). My point here is that in the case of anger, the unloving light of mind that has been dominating on earth for so long, often has warped anger into a destructive form, but that is not anger's natural state. Anger's natural state is actually more loving than what many people are calling 'love' at present. Anger is the energy that moves in a mother to protect her children against a predator - it IS love. Even love can be warped by heartlessness.
The only way to successfully transform held rage/anger (and terror/pain/fear) on all levels is to fully accept that energy and learn to move it using sound, in private (in a safe place). You are describing the results of unloving mental energy directing anger in a dangerous way. I am describing loving mentality compassionately accepting the rage and allowing it to move how it needs to move - WITHOUT doing any harm to anyone. These are two very different scenarios.
A state of being that has no emotion is psychopathic and psychotic.
Meditation can be achieved without DENIAL. This is what I advocate. Meditation is an important skill for healing self - absolutely, but until you come to understand the unseen role of denial, it is likely that what appears to be healing will actually be only increasing denial and causing unprocessed emotions to simply change form and become even harder to detect, understand and heal.