by Osho
Now psychologists say that almost eighty percent of diseases are caused by repressed emotions: so many heart failures means so much anger has been repressed in the heart, so much hatred that the heart is poisoned.
In controlling you repress,
in transformation you express.
But there is no need to express on somebody else because the ‘somebody else’ is just irrelevant. Next time you feel angry go and run around the house seven times, and after it sit under a tree and watch where the anger has gone. You have not repressed it, you have not controlled it, you have not thrown it on somebody else - because if you throw it on somebody else a chain is created, because the other is as foolish as you, as unconscious as you. He will throw more anger on you, he is repressed as much as you are. Then there comes a chain: you throw on him, he throws on you, and you both become enemies.
Don’t throw it on anybody.
It is the same as when you feel like vomiting: you don’t go and vomit on somebody. Anger needs a vomit. You go to the bathroom and vomit! It cleanses the whole body - if you suppress the vomit it will be dangerous, and when you have vomited you will feel fresh, you will feel unburdened, unloaded, good, healthy. Something was wrong in the food that you took and the body rejects it.
Don’t go on forcing it inside.
Anger is just a mental vomit. Something is wrong that you have taken in and your whole psychic being wants to throw it out, but there is no need to throw it out on somebody. Because people throw it on others, society tells them to control it.
Reaction and Response
Whenever you are spontaneous it means you are not acting according to a preplanned idea. In fact you were not ready, prepared, to do anything; the action has come as a response, on its own accord.
You will have to understand these few words.
First is the distinction between reaction and response. Reaction is dominated by the other person. He insults you: you get angry, and then you act out of anger. This is reaction. You are not an independent person; anybody can pull you this way or that way. You are easily affected; you can be blackmailed emotionally. Reaction is an emotional blackmail. You were not angry. The man insulted you, and his insult created anger; now out of anger comes your action.
Response is out of freedom. It is not dependent on the other person. The other person may insult you, but you don’t become angry; on the contrary you meditate on the fact - why is he insulting you? Perhaps he is right. Then you have to be grateful to him, not get angry.
Perhaps he is wrong. If he is wrong, then for his wrong why should you burn your heart with anger?
Emotions are not going to help you
become an integrated individuality.
They are not going to give you a granite soul.
You will remain just like a piece of deadwood
moving in the stream here and there, not knowing why.
Emotions blind a person exactly as alcohol does.
They may have good names like love,
they may have bad names like anger, but
once in a while you need to be
angry at someone,
it relieves you.
In India you will sometimes see dogs making love on the roads, and people hitting them with stones. Now those poor fellows are not doing any harm to anybody and they are performing a biological ritual that you perform - they just don’t have to hide in houses - and they do so well. A crowd will move around them throwing stones, beating them... strange behavior! People need to be angry once in a while, just as once in a while they need to be in love, and once in a while to hate someone.
A person who never becomes angry and goes on controlling his anger is very dangerous. Beware of him; he can kill you! If your husband never becomes angry, report him to the police. A husband who sometimes becomes angry is just a natural human being, there is no fear about it.
A husband who never becomes angry will one day suddenly jump and suffocate you. And he will do it as if he is possessed by something. Murderers have been telling the courts down through the ages, “We committed the crime, but we were possessed.” Who possessed them? Their own unconscious, repressed unconscious, exploded.
Live, dance, eat, sleep…
do things as totally as possible.
And remember again and again:
whenever you catch yourself
creating any problem,
slip out of it, immediately.
Once you get into the problem then a solution will be needed. And even if you find a solution, out of that solution a thousand and one problems will arise again. Once you miss the first step you are in the trap. Whenever you see that now you are slipping into a problem, catch hold of yourself, run, jump, dance, but don’t get into the problem. Do something immediately so that the energy that was creating the problems becomes fluid, unfrozen, melts, goes back to the cosmos.
Sensitivity grows with awareness.
Through control you become dull and dead - that is part of the mechanism of control: if you are dull and dead then nothing will affect you, as if the body has become a citadel, a defense. Nothing will affect you, neither insult nor love. But this control is at a very great cost, an unnecessary cost; then it becomes the whole effort in life: how to control yourself - and then die! The whole effort of control takes all your energy, and then you simply die. And the life becomes a dull and dead thing; you somehow carry it on.
Mind can play the game of being silent.
It can play the game of being without any thoughts, any emotions, but they are just repressed, fully alive, ready to jump out any moment. The so-called religions and their saints have fallen into the fallacy of stilling the mind. If you go on sitting silently, trying to control your thoughts, not allowing your emotions, not allowing any movement within you, slowly it will become your habit.
This is the greatest deception in the world you can give to yourself, because everything is exactly the same, nothing has changed, but it appears as if you have gone through a transformation.
ANGER
If you really want to know what anger is,
go into it, meditate over it, taste it in many ways,
allow it to happen inside you,
be surrounded by it, be clouded by it,
feel all the pang and the pain
and the hurt of it,
and the poison, and how it brings you low,
how it creates a dark valley for your being,
how you fall into hell through it,
how it is a downward flow.
Feel it, know it.
And that understanding will
start a transformation in you.
To know truth is to be transformed.
Truth liberates - but it must be your own.
What is Anger?
The psychology of anger is that you wanted something, and somebody prevented you from getting it. Somebody came as a block, as an obstacle. Your whole energy was going to get something and somebody blocked the energy. You could not get what you wanted. Now this frustrated energy becomes anger - anger against the person who has destroyed the possibility of fulfilling your desire.
Your anger is true
because it belongs to you,
all that belongs to you is true.
So find the source of this anger,
where it is coming from.
Close your eyes and move inwards;
before it is lost go backwards to the source
- and you will reach emptiness.
Go backwards more, go inwards more,
move deeper, and a moment comes
when there is no anger.
Inside, at the center,
there is no anger.
From where does the anger come?
It never comes from your center, it comes from the ego - and ego is a false entity. If you go deeper you will find that your anger comes from the periphery, not from the center. It cannot come from the center: at the center is emptiness, absolute emptiness
. It comes only from the ego, and ego is a false entity created by the society, it is a relativity, an identity. Suddenly you are whacked, and the ego feels hurt, anger is there.
People ARE angry.
Because they have suppressed so much anger,
now there are no moments when they are not angry;
at the most, sometimes they are less angry,
sometimes more.
Your whole being is poisoned by suppression. You eat with anger - and it has a different quality when a person eats without anger: it is beautiful to watch him, because he eats nonviolently. He may be eating meat, but he eats nonviolently; you may be eating just vegetables and fruits, but if anger is suppressed, you eat violently. Just through eating, your teeth, your mouth release anger. You crush the food as if this is the enemy.
Next time you make love, watch: you will be doing the same movements as are done when you are aggressive. Watch the face, have a mirror around so you can see what is happening to your face! All the distortions of anger and aggression will be there.
In taking food, you become angry: look at a person eating. Look at a person making love - the anger has gone so deep that even love, an activity totally opposite to anger, even that is poisoned; eating, an activity absolutely neutral, even that is poisoned. Then you just open the door and there is anger, you put a book on the table and there is anger, you put off the shoes and there is anger, you shake hands and there is anger - because now you are anger personified.
If you want to know anger only to be rid of it,
it is very difficult, because the attitude of being rid of anger creates a distinction. Then you have started with the assumption that anger is bad and ‘no-anger’ is good; that sex is bad and ‘non-sexuality’ is good; that greed is bad and ‘no-greed’ is good. f you raise such distinctions, you will find a lot of difficulty to know the traits in actuality. Then even if you transcend them, it will only be repression.
A simple act of authentic spontaneity,
and immediately you are transported from this world to another world. Love - or even anger... I tell you that even positive emotions, false, are ugly; and even negative emotions, authentic, are beautiful. Even anger is beautiful when your whole being feels it, when every fiber of your being is vibrant with it.
Look at a small child angry - and then you will feel the beauty of it. His whole being is in it. Radiant, his face red, such a small child looks so powerful that it seems he could destroy the whole world! And what happens to child once he is angry? After a few minutes, a few seconds, everything is changed and he is happy and dancing and running around the house again.
Why doesn’t this happen to you?
You move from one falsity to another.
Really, anger is not a lasting phenomenon, by it’s very nature it is a momentary thing. If the anger is real, it lasts for a few moments; and while it lasts, authentic, it is beautiful. It harms nobody.
A real, spontaneous thing cannot harm anybody. Only falsity harms. In a man who can be angry spontaneously, the tide goes after a few seconds and he relaxes perfectly to the very other extreme. He becomes infinitely loving.
Don’t cut yourself in two.
I would suggested to be watchful, but if the time is not ripe, you cannot be. Before you can be totally one with watchfulness, you have to go through the hell of all your negative emotions; otherwise they will be repressed and they will erupt at any moment, at any weak time. So it is better to get rid of them. But getting rid of them does not mean that first you have to be watchful.
First, forget about watchfulness. Live each emotion that you feel; it is you. Hateful, ugly, unworthy - whatever it is, you be actually in it. First give them a chance to come up totally into the conscious.
Right now, by your effort of watchfulness you can repress them into the unconscious. And then you get involved in your day-to-day work and you force them back again. That is not the way to get rid of them. Let them come out - live them, suffer them.
It will be difficult and tedious but immensely rewarding. Once you have lived them, suffered them, accepted them, that this is you, that you have not made yourself in this way so you need not condemn yourself, that this is the way you have found yourself - once they are lived consciously, without any repression, you will be surprised that they are disappearing on their own. Their force on you is becoming less, their grip on your neck is no longer that tight. And when they are going away, there may be a time when you can start watching.
Remember not to misunderstand.
I have said, “Express your negative emotions;” but I have not said, “Publicly.” That’s how things become distorted.
Now if you are feeling angry with someone and you start expressing your anger, the other person is not going to be a Gautam Buddha and sit silently. He is not a marble statue; he will also do something. You will express anger, he will express anger. It will create more anger in you - and anger or violence create, from the other side, the same, and with a vengeance. And then you will feel like being more into it, because you have been told to express.
Yes, I have told you to express - but I don’t mean publicly. If you are feeling angry, go to your room, close off the room, beat the pillow, stand before a mirror, shout at your own image, say things that you have never said to anybody and always wanted to say. But it has to be a private phenomenon, otherwise there is no end.
Things go on moving in a circle, and we want to end them. So the moment you feel any negative emotion about anybody, that other person is not the question. There is no need to throw anger on anybody. You can go to your bathroom, you can go on a long walk -- it means that something is inside that needs some activity so that it is released. Just do a little jogging and you will feel it is released. Within a five-minute catharsis you will feel unburdened, and once you know this you will never throw your anger on anybody, because that is absolutely foolish.
Anger is beautiful; sex is beautiful.
But beautiful things can go ugly.
That depends on you.
If you condemn them, they become ugly;
if you transform them, they become divine.
Anger transformed becomes compassion
- because the energy is the same.
A buddha is compassionate:
from where does his compassion come?
This is the same energy that
was moving in anger;
now it is not moving in anger,
the same energy is transformed
into compassion.
From where does love come?
A Buddha is loving; a Jesus is love.
The same energy that
moves into sex becomes love.
So remember,
if you condemn a natural phenomenon
it becomes poisonous,
it destroys you, it becomes
destructive and suicidal.
If you transform it, it becomes divine.
But transformation is needed.
So-called ‘nonviolent’ people
are the ugliest in the world.
They are not good people,
because they are holding down
a volcano.
You cannot feel at ease with them.
Something is dangerously present there.
You can feel it, you can touch it;
it is oozing out of them.
If your anger is partial, lukewarm,
it is like a dog who is not certain how to behave with a stranger. He may be a friend of the master, so he wags his tail; he may be an enemy, so he barks. He does both together. On one hand he goes on barking, on the other hand he goes on wagging his tail. He is playing the diplomat, so whatsoever the case turns out to be, he can always feel right.
If the master comes and he sees that the master is friendly, the barking will stop and his whole energy will go into the tail. If the master is angry with the intruder, then the tail will stop completely, and his whole energy will go into barking.
/> Your anger is also like that. You are weighing up how far to go, how much will pay; don’t go beyond the limit, don’t provoke the other person too much.
Pure anger has a beauty because it has totality. That’s what happened to Jesus. When he went into the great temple and saw the moneychangers and their tables inside the temple, he was in a rage. He became angry - the same anger that comes out of compassion and love. Single-handed, he drove all the moneychangers out of the temple and overturned their boards. He must have been really very angry, because driving all the moneychangers out of the temple single-handed is not an easy thing.
