Righteous Anger

I was watching the news last night and I saw a brief interview with The Dalia Lama.  During the interview, he mentioned that at times he too does get grumpy.   I thought that this is an important thing to consider, as in today’s New Age culture, many people are led to believe that a truly spiritual person feels no anger or frustration.  In fact, in my experience, I have come across some New Age teachers who imply that to be a truly spiritual person; you must never let yourself feel any negative emotions at all.  I can see how, in theory, this idea has it’s merit…We are all looking to be more    comfortable in ourselves and that means we must look to remove the issues that reside within us that are negative.   But to say that you must live in total serenity, is to give a person a ticket to complete indifference and numbness or total love and peace…there would never be the full scope of the human experience and therefore no room to grow.

I spoke with a Pentecostal Christian Priest around 2 months ago who told me that Jesus experienced Righteous Anger.  He said that this was the anger Jesus felt when he went to the synagogue and turned up all the tables.  He was right to be angry.  In our history, Jesus is the most famous of all the highly evolved Spiritual Masters that have walked this Earth.  He did not only live in love and indifference.  He also experienced anguish and therefore, his life was not totally serene..He too had come here to learn, as well as to teach others.

 

So, how does this all relate to you, the reader?  Well, you are a Spiritual Being who occupies a body.  Through that body, you are experiencing your own unique reality and learning your own unique lessons.   In order for you to learn these lessons, you must at times experience negative emotions.  It is the purpose of these emotions, just like physical pain, to let you know something is not right.  The purpose is to tell your Spirit, to stop, reassess and move back to a state of balance.  The trick is to allow yourself to experience the emotion and to learn from it and as soon as possible, move on.  The danger of negative emotions is that they can be powerful and they can seduce the person into remaining within that state of mind.  This only leads to more negative experiences and more negative emotions.

Recently I had an experience with some old friends where they wanted me to organize a gathering.  I felt I would enjoy the challenge and I agreed…but deep in my gut, I felt like saying no.  I had a twinge within me and I ignored it, because I wanted to help out.  I soon learnt why I should have listened to my gut.  I began to argue with the other people in the group and I became very upset.  In the end, I backed out.  I gave my position of organizer to another person and I politely vented my feelings in private to the people who had frustrated me the most.  Thus completing the lesson and enabling me to move on.   What a learning experience that was!

I had negative emotions and feelings about this situation and I knew I had to back away.  If I had struggled on, I would have made life much worse for myself and now the scenario is finished, I am able to communicate nicely with everyone again.  Because we dealt with it like adults.  But if I had listened to my gut, to that initial negative feeling I had, I would have never gone into that situation and never had to learn from it… I would have shown myself to have been more evolved.

So, anger and negative emotions have their place.  They are ok, if you control them and not let them control you.  You will be able to move on from an experience and grow from the lessons it dealt you.  Rather than dwell within it and hurt on.

I believe the Spiritual Person or guide is the one who recognizes the issues around them and seeks a positive resolve.  They choose to look at life with positive eyes and choose to dwell in positive thoughts.  But it is impossible to be in complete serenity at all times.  However, it is possible, when you find yourself in a difficult situation, to step outside of it for a moment and to choose to find a positive attitude toward restoring balance.

The Dalia Lama gets grumpy sometimes, Jesus got angry in the synagogue, these are two of the most evolved souls in our history, one alive, one deceased..but both are telling you..it’s ok to be human..and it’s ok to be a spiritual person and to get grumpy sometimes..just move through it with a positive attitude.