Transforming the energy of angerDealing with anger - The greatest lesson of George Gurdieff’s life. George Gurdieff was an Armenian mystic. He has been praised by Osho Rajneesh as one of the most enlightened masters of modern times. This is the story of what Gurdieff claimed was the greatest lesson of his life. When Gurdieff was a young boy his father died. The father called young Gurdieff to his deathbed and told him –“ Son I have no money or wealth to pass on to you. I have only this one piece of advice that is a real treasure. It is this – when someone does or says anything that makes you angry do not respond immediately. Wait for 24 hours before reacting or responding in any way.” George Gurdieff lived up to this teaching out of respect for his dying father. When ever he got angry he would say to other person “my father taught me on his deathbed to wait for 24 hours before responding. I have to honor his wishes of a dying man. Please wait 24 hours and I will reply to you”. And George Gurdieff invariably found that either the criticism was justified or that it was not. When he found that the criticism was justified he would go up to the other person and thank him for bringing the matter to his notice. This used to surprise the other person as he expected Gurdieff to respond angrily. And when the criticism was not justified Gurdieff found that it was simply not worth his while to respond in any way. He used to then ignore the matter completely and get on with his life. This is excellent advice on dealing with anger. This was the piece of advice that George Gurdieff said was the greatest lesson that he had learned in his life. It brings out the fact that we should act and respond to situations after thinking and also that we should never think or act when we are angry. Take time to cool down, think and then respond. Never do your thinking while is a state of anger. Deal with the feeling first and then think. The Buddha once said that a monk had the right to be angry but not for more then 24 hours. Wait 24 hours before responding to the person who has made you angry. 6) Diet & Mindful Consumption We divide ourselves into separate entities of Body and Mind but in reality Mind and Body are one. What affects the Body affects the Mind. Our diet affects our emotions and feelings as does our consumption of such items as TV programs, Movies, Books, Magazines and conversations. Thich Nhat Hanh brings to our attention the fact that the chicken and meat products we eat contain a lot of anger in them. Chickens are brought up so that they have to stand all day in small cages. They cannot move or sit they can only stand. What would happen in such a situation – the chickens go mad. When we eat the flesh of these chickens we are ingesting a lot of anger and other negative feelings. This will affect our state of mind. Osho Rajneesh says that when animals are butchered for their meat then at the time they die they release toxins into their flesh because they know they are about to die and are in a state of fear. These toxins will affect us if we eat meat. Osho therefore calls the eating of meat to be eating poisoned food. I suppose it would be best if we eat only vegetarian food. It is not easy. I eat meat products myself. But regardless of this our health and our digestion would be much better if we practiced eating mindfully. Chew each mouthful of food at least 50 times before swallowing. The food in our mouth get thoroughly mixed with saliva and become liquid. It is then easily digested by the stomach and intestines and we will absorb the nutrients better. I have started eating mindfully myself making the effort to chew the food thoroughly before swallowing. I now find that I eat less. Our stomach are empty before a meal and we naturally feel hungry. If we slow down our intake of food is the stomach will get the signal that it is full before we eat our usual amount. In the time that we take to eat it two sandwiches, we eat only one sandwich and yet we find that we feel satisfied. Also my stomach used to feel very heavy after a meal and I found myself unable to do any work. This was no doubt because of eating quickly and also over eating. Now I feel satisfied and fit for anything even after a meal and it is all the result of my taking time to chew my food thoroughly and mindfully. You will also enjoy the taste of even the simplest of foods better if you take up this practice. In addition to your diet you may also want to observe your habits of consuming magazine articles, books, TV programs and movies. There is a lot of anger and violence and negative feelings in many of these programs. Inevitably we will be affected if we watch them. To really come to grips with the habit of anger you may want to consider changing your habits of consuming these items. These are new ways of dealing with anger and making sure it does not arise. 7) Compassionate Listening This section deal not with how to tackle your own anger but dealing with disturbed feelings of others. When we are feeling disturbed we don’t need someone to tell us what we have done wrong. We don’t need to be told that we deserve to suffer. All that may be true but we are quite capable of figuring that out for ourselves. What we need is someone to listen to us. We do not need a solution to our problem. We need someone to take away the pain that we are in as all of us are when in a state of anger. And this is where compassionate listening comes in. Compassionate listening is listening with aim of letting the other person unburden himself or herself of the pain that he or she is in. It is mindfulness in a sense of the other person’s pain – just witnessing it without reacting, being one with it. Listening in such a manner is a terrific way of building deeper ties in a loving relationship. It is listening not with the intent of understanding the person, or gathering information, or analyzing or presenting a solution. It is listening with the goal of sharing in the person’s pain. This sort of listening really helps the disturbed person to feel calm again this is in fact the reason why psycho-analysis is sometimes so effective. It is more than the fact that the person is getting in touch with his internal demons and complexes and bringing them out into the consciousness. It is also that the psycho-analyst really listens to his patient. The patient perhaps for the first time in his life FEELS ACCEPTED by someone else. Just this much can be a powerful force to help transform ourselves. Compassionate listening is a skill that can be learned. It also requires however that you be at peace with yourself. It requires you to deal mindfully with your own disturbed feelings so that you know how to witness the other person’s pain. It also requires that we should not do too much of it in case we feel burdened by all this misery. We need to enjoy the company of friends, a good book or a movie or a sunset so that we water the seed of happiness in us and can take on the task of witnessing someone else’s pain. Please go to the next page for further advice on dealing with anger constructively over here Using communication to defuse anger:
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