All World
Gayatri Pariwar

  Folklore says that people of a primitive tribe have a mental weakness; they are overly excited. Cruel murders and beatings are common place in this tribe. If the son disagrees with the father and gets upset, he often ends up just killing him. Similar is the nature of father and other family members. They are unable to contain their anger. They fight over the smallest of things, often hating each other, feeling jealous, and feeling bitter.

What is over-excitement? It is an excess of impulse. Normally, there are two kinds of people. There are those with the so-called thick skin. They are not intrinsically reactive. They are not easily provoked by harsh words, cursing, fighting, or insults. Jealousy, anger, hatred, impulsive outbursts do not normally upset them.

In the other category are the ones with volatile emotions. They are impulsive: soft like butter, sensitive like the plant "touch me not". Excess of emotions becomes their weakness. Emotions include anger, love, attachment, kindness, jealousy. These people just live in the whirlpools of turbulent emotions. They are too impulsive to use their discriminatory powers and calmly ponder over the pros and cons of a situation. This could be a good quality for a poet, but harmful for an ordinary human being. Being under the spell of ones’ wayward instincts leads to complete loss of equilibrium.

Over-excitement is nothing but a momentary attack of madness. It is a violent dance of emotions; a storm of anger, hatred, and jealousy. A person of weak willpower is unable to weather this turbulence and is completely engulfed by it. In the storm of excitement, intelligence is annulled, impulsiveness gains total control over the body. Such people have no farsightedness, and are often clueless about their own strengths. Even if they are weak, they often get into a fight with a much stronger person; the excitement blinding them to the reality of the situation.

The biggest enemies of a balanced life are our own internal mental ailments. These ailments inhabit various levels of our psyche; and they are present in every one in varying degrees. People who can rid themselves of these ailments are cultured and successful in proportion to the amount of imbalance they have been able to shed.

The basic causes of this imbalance are: desires, anger, attachment, greed, arrogance, hatred, and aversion. If we give free reign to these impulses, they will spread their poison all over us and corrupt our discriminative faculty. We are then unable to see clearly and discriminate between right and wrong. Even one of these vices, if present in excess, can destroy our lives. Left untamed, they stay with us all through our lives, burn us internally, and lead to a lifetime of avoidable suffering. These ailments are often present as underpinnings of several human tendencies. They can turn into mental depressions, and bad feelings, leading to severe mental disorders.

In most cases, we are not really aware that we are helpless prisoners of these vices. When angry, we do not know that we are burning in jealousy or that we are wasting away precious energy, damaging our health and longevity. When we are greedy, we get trapped in attachment and lose all ability to discriminate. Sometimes, we fall so deep within the well of mental ailments that we start taking pleasure and even satisfaction in them. We define progress as the continuing satisfaction of desires. We imagine the violent anger as being glorious, confusing pride with self-respect. Greed becomes the tool to succeed, and attachment takes the place of true love. All this leads to more and stronger negative mental tendencies. Such corroding "progress" is suicidal.

Another thing to know about these mental ailments is their attraction toward one another. One attracts the others. One prepares the ground for the next. Attachment often leads to greed. Aversion leads to hatred and jealousy. Anger leads to arrogance and false pride. The tussle of these ailments takes various forms. The arousal of one base impulse, depending on the circumstances, can turn into a mental outburst of anger, fear, hatred, attachment, etc.

Anger is closely related to mental issues. Anger makes us forget what is right and what is wrong; incites us to jump into an avoidable fray. Getting upset at the smallest of pretexts and arguing becomes common place.  If the feeling of anger is exposed immediately, it’s still manageable from a mental health point of view. It is when the anger takes roots deep inside and becomes a tendency then it leads to trouble. Long term anger turns into resentment. Resentment leads to suffering on a daily basis, due to the imbalanced mental state. It keeps our view of the resented person very skewed; we ignore any or all previews, memories, good qualities of the person, and even any old friendship we might have shared. It turns into a permanent feeling of aversion and it leads to a blind urge to hurt and insult the other person, and the whole thing tortures the mind constantly.

Antagonism and resentment are like decrepit diseases and anger is more like momentary, short-lived sloth. Anger clouds our minds and we can not think clearly. Antagonism or aversion, on the other hand, is full of thoughts, however negative or unclear. Anger involves instability, impatience, self-defense, intolerance and similar feelings that lead to a desire to punish and hurt.

Anger is like a ghost; when it takes you over, you lose control over yourself. It’s as if somebody else is running your life. The negative tendencies become like demons that take over the mind. The mind then is unable to get out of this spell and see things clearly.

In modern times, the personal life and the mental state of a man are very depressing. He isolates himself from others, sees enemies everywhere, and keeps imagining the worst. All through life, it’s as if we are just helplessly rolling along the rocky path of worries, fear, sadness, doubtfulness, and lack of faith. These are some of the bad results of anger. Anger is having a substantially negative impact on man's spiritual progress. The biggest obstacle to the good spiritual practice may very well be the demon of anger. Anger destroys peace. It destabilizes the mind. We breathe faster, our hearts feel restless. This is not conducive to internal progress. For internal spiritual progress, we need peace, happiness, love, and good will.

The above mentioned discussion leads us to the conclusion that mental balance is crucial for happiness and peace. We must control the mental ailments that lead to imbalance. Ups and downs in life are inevitable. Small (or big) is a relative concept: there are and always will be people who are better in some respects.  That is no reason to be angry, jealous, and sad. A true human is one who goes on his journey of life with even-mindedness under all circumstances. A calm and peaceful mind makes all difficulties and challenges surmountable.