By Rev. Glenn Neil Stocking
Do you miss being angry? One of the unadvertised effects of spiritual enlightenment is the surrender of any right to remain angry. The key word here is “remain” angry. We deny anger at our own risk. Bottle up emotions and the consequences are well known, and never pretty. However, remaining angry is a choice.
On the road toward enlightenment anger becomes less satisfying. Before enlightenment a good story was a crafted work of art. A minor incident in traffic occupies the imagination for the duration of the trip so the story could have the best possible presentation to share with anyone willing to buy in. It was always a good way to start a round of “Ain’t it awful,” around water cooler.
Anger still pops up, often as a deflection of fear. Recognizing that it really is fear quells the heat of the emotion. We empathize with fear. We comfort a terrified child; we recognize that screaming at them does not allay their fear. We apply ourselves to making fear go away. The idiot that cuts us off in traffic does not make us angry, he terrifies us with the reality of possibly dying and the realization that we may have contributed by our inattention.
Dying is easy, but no one wants their stone to read “That was stupid.” Recognizing fear for what it is allows us to move quickly away from anger toward empathy for ourselves. WARNING: Feelings of empathy directed toward the self often opens avenues of empathy for others. Addressing our own fears puts us in the other guy’s shoes. Maybe he is late picking up his daughter from pre-school, maybe his boss just embarrassed him in front of co-workers, maybe he is an idiot; a sterling example of God’s work in that ideal.
We can reserve the right to become angry. We can allow ourselves to feel that emotion, and with enlightenment more and more easily get over it. Recognize it for what it is and recognize that our anger hurts only ourselves. No one else cares how we feel. If they engage at all it is to defend their own anger. Anger is a solitary endeavor in that neither party really cares at all about the other’s anger.
Since anger really does not feel all that good, the enlightened have learned to shut it down pretty quickly. Have they discovered some new magic, a drug or therapy known only to the most privileged and learned? Hardly. Recognizing our Spiritual selves, aligning our consciousness with our Christ nature comes through education and practice.
Workshops, classes, affirmative prayer treatment, and various forms of meditation teach us to process, more than react. Our bodies give us clues, evaluating our thoughts causes us to notice whether they are comforting or confounding. We can choose how we prefer to feel and embrace thinking that takes us there.
Like an old nemesis that haunts our past we may find ourselves missing the anger sometimes. There are so many people willing to support our anger. There are entire industries devoted to its well-being. We do not need to be responsible. We are justified and only the one we are angry at can bring us back to peace. Unfortunately, they are not aware of that and in our righteousness we fume in solitude.
There is a place for anger in our lives. It tells us when it is time to re-evaluate a relationship. It tells us something is out of harmony and ready for a change. Anger is a great motivator and can carry us through where fear might paralyze us.
We have employed anger so consistently through our history that it seems natural and normal; a human emotion. Humans however, are expressions of God, and anger is not a characteristic of God. The “angry” God portrayed in the Bible is a myth, stories told to impart the consequences of pushing against our Spiritual selves.
Humans are taught fear and anger. Love comes naturally because the power of the Universal Intelligence, Higher Spirit or God is love. Love gives us whatever we believe we want. It is a consequence of our freedom to choose that there are no filters on Spiritual love and our belief is acted on by Spirit without judgment.
Believing we are not enough, gives us the appearance of lack. Believing someone else is our enemy brings us evidence appearing to support that belief. Believing our leader’s interpretation of events is the only possible interpretation allows us to dehumanize anyone out of our belief.
These are conditions that cause God to appear angry. Our beliefs are out of harmony with Spirit so our world spins out of control. We cannot accept our part in creating the illusion so an angry God is easier to blame. So, follow the reasoning here; if God gets angry, and humans are made in God’s image, voila, human anger is normal and Godly, we are off the hook.
There is something to miss about anger. The simplicity, the freedom from responsibility, and the company of fools it surrounds us with; until we remember how it makes us feel. Like missing the high of recreational pharmaceuticals, until we remember how the morning after feels and the knowing that anything else is better.
Learn more about Spirit, Spiritual love, Universal Intelligence, affirmative prayer treatment, and demystify your understanding of God at a Center for Spiritual Living in your community and online at CSL.org and CSLFTL.org.