In this Weekly Wisdom, Gurudev shares beautiful insights on overcoming aggression and anger. Here’s how to toss out aggression with the trash.
In response to a question from someone who wanted to understand the root causes of brutality and aggression, Gurudev shared the following:
Aggression and brutality indicate weakness or incapacity to digest a situation. If someone thinks, “I’m so weak,” then he becomes aggressive. If an ant comes and bites your finger, you don’t get upset. It’s a small ant. You don’t take a gun to shoot an ant.
You don’t get upset and take a gun to shoot a mosquito. Why not? Because you know you’re bigger than the mosquito. But when you don’t know you’re bigger, then you have a problem.
What leads to aggression?
When a mosquito comes, we don’t say, “Hey, a mosquito has come. Come, let’s get the gun! How dare you come, mosquito! I’m so angry at you, mosquito.”
It’s a mosquito, my dear! So, you don’t become aggressive. When you think somebody is bigger than you, then you become aggressive. That shows that you’re unaware of your potential, your true nature. It simply indicates your ignorance.
You must wake up and see. The person to whom we direct our aggression is just a mosquito, right? You simply aren’t aware of your strength. Then you become aggressive.
There’s no need to overanalyze the past
Going deep into when you first became aggressive, and all this history, is really useless stuff. Some people may think it’s useful, but I really don’t. Just do a couple of kriyas, and listen to Ashtavakra knowledge. It finishes and is over.
Otherwise, it’s like stirring the garbage. You have dumped all the garbage. When it’s stinking, you just throw it out in the plastic bag, tie it, and toss it all at once. You don’t go in and analyze the garbage, saying, ‘this was yesterday’s garbage, that was the day before, or that was ten years back.’ If the garbage is stinking, you just throw it to the curb.
It’s not worth it, like dream analysis. In dreams, many times, many things crossover. Dreams have no meaning. Often, there are some dreams which may be premonitions which make more sense, but mostly, dreams are a simple hodgepodge of memories. Analyzing them isn’t useful.
It just gives you an indication of what deep impressions are in the mind. For the future, it has no bearing. If you start analyzing, “Why am I aggressive? Because of that past life, this and that.” Come on! Forget it! Throw it all out at once! That’s knowledge.
Emotions and service
Difficult emotions like anger and aggression keep coming and disappearing. Don’t expect them to go away all of a sudden. Even if they come, you relax. Let them come and go, and you return to a normal state of mind. How soon you come back to being centered is most important.
When you don’t have some service project to work on, unhappiness results. Come on, you can raise a dollar a day for children. You’ll see how happy you become.
Leave your shyness. Go out and talk to different businesses and people, and get 100 children sponsored. When you raise some funds for such things, you’re not asking for yourself. You can make a difference.
That will bring you satisfaction and make you happy. Happiness comes with merit, and merit comes with service. If you don’t do any service, then how will you get merit? If you don’t have merit, how will you be happy? You can’t! So, everyone should keep in mind that you have to do some service activity, and that brings you joy.
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Editor’s note:
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