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These were some of the questions we asked ourselves and each other in class today;

What is my relationship like with Anger?
Is it a friend, an enemy, suppressed or celebrated, neutral or ignored?
What do I even think it is? Can Anger empower me?
Where in my body is it located? What makes me, personally, angry?
What helps me deal with it? I believe those are very valuable questions to ask yourself.
“Words that enlighten the soul are worth more than Gold”.
If the ancient seers are to be believed, dealing with this primary emotion is one of the first steps on the path to overcoming suffering and aligning with one’s potential.

Anger often only emerges when we cannot contain it any longer, and
someone has pushed our “trigger button(s)”. The band Metallica wrote
a song and released an album about it, called “Saint Anger”, a testament how a single emotion,
if studied, can be a source of power and creativity. The ancient Gnostics & Essenes (also known as the mystical & first Christians) had a saying that : “If you bring forth what is within you, it
will liberate you, but if you do not, it will destroy you”, this is especially true with anger & expressing it. I’ve heard it said and I very much agree: depression is caused by turning anger inwards, it is cured by expressing it and turning it outwards again, in a healthy way.

I believe William Blake said it best with “Humans who never change their opinions are like stagnant water that breeds reptiles of the mind”, If we don’t curate, cultivate and educate ourselves regarding it, we become those cold blooded reptiles he Immortalized in his poetry; we become ruled by our brain stem and its Fight-Flight-Freeze-F*!$ response, sinking to the animal level, unless we sublimate it.

Anger occurs naturally, like an inhalation and exhalation, like crying when we are hurt, or smiling when we are happy, it is something all children, even all babies, become familiar with as they grow up and hopefully become more emotionally mature; they express it to show where their boundaries are and what they want, they learn to deal with it, only, not all of us actually do, even as adults; some of us grew up in cultures and families that made a taboo out of anger and suppressed it, only to see it explode in harmful ways, which further continues the cycle of denial and Demonization, fueling things like war.

Anger from the perspective of Yoga, especially Classical and Tantric Yoga, is
energy that has been blocked, that is briefly or chronically stuck,
and is now emerging (sometimes too literally) with
a vengeance.

Imagine if Jesus (at least the myth of him, if you don’t believe his life was historical fact),
simply said at the last moment… Sod this, I’m going home… ?
Wouldn’t that sabotage his entire mission? of bringing a new testament, a divine inheritance, to humanity, and proving eternal life is real? That love is stronger than death? And sometimes our days and actions are like that: We are about to do something wonderful, to achieve it, and then we screw it up at the last possible moment, because we don’t direct our anger in an intelligent direction, it bites us, or worse, we know what would be wise, yet we indulge and allow ourselves to be seduced by the temptation of unloading our rage on someone. Instead of enduring the tension of opposing forces and trusting our hearts and better selves, we revert back to familiar behavior and take out our anger in a “safe way”, not raising it up the place where we actually need our energy to achieve our dreams.

I believe this is the truth about a much misunderstood emotion; that it is simply
Energy in Motion, Anger erupts to liberate us, and as Aristotle attempts to share,
a great step in life is to direct our anger consciously and intelligently.

If we don’t direct our body’s energies intelligently, we become ill, sooner or later on all levels of our being, so it really is a battle and a question of willingness to become aware of our own stupidity, for as Einstein pointed out: “I am certain of the infinity of two things; human foolishness, and the universe, and I’m not absolutely sure about the second one”.

In the Film “X-Men: First Class” featuring Michael Fassbender as Magneto and
James McAvoy as Professor Charles Xavier there is a rather moving scene, where the professor coaches a still benevolent friend, and reminds him “The place between Serenity and Rage, be there”.

Humanity is becoming an increasingly domesticated species, and the danger with it is, there is a wild aspect to humans that NEEDS to be free, that cannot be tamed, without ugly consequences, without dis-empowerment… A lion’s nature is to be fierce, and so too, humans have a side to themselves which roars out for what they believe in, which seeks adventure, challenge and dominance. Shrinking away from this aspect of reality and our nature isn’t the way forwards, it’s only a stalling strategy.

White light (pure energy) that has been split into different colours (emotions)…
different temperatures and tastes, different styles & dimensions, but
all inherently, intrinsically, energy.
Which colour would Anger be then? Why is that even helpful, if it’s true?
From my perspective and training, undoubtedly Red; corresponding to our basic ROOT,
the colour of survival and conflict, the colour of vitality and pure, basic, essential needs.
Understanding colours is like understanding keys to a map of existence. Our blood is Red because of the iron in it, Mars is known as the “God of Iron”; the red planet, the planet of War and Raw emotion, i suppose you could say it is the Red planet.
Hatred, in its purest form on the other hand, which anger is often mistaken for, would be black; annihilation, destroying even itself, devoid of any natural vitality, hatred seeks destruction where anger in its purest form actually seeks protection and justice.

What I actually intended on sharing today, that is new for me, that was a real “AHA” Moment & “Click” experience, was that the “Niyamas” of the 8 Parts of the Yoga system, actually lay out the process for sublimating anger, both for one’s personal sake, and that of the world, and that the fusion of two wisdom traditions which we are studying in our class; Taoism and Yoga, contains extremely beneficial information for a lifetime, in the form of pinpointing which exact organs are responsible for processing which emotions, and how to deal with those in multiple dimensions of our existence, for instance, the liver and gall-bladder, according to Taoism, are the organs that help.

Counterbalancing the “8 petals” of the path Patanjali lays out, with his metaphorical flower of enlightenment, is what leads us into bliss, but that balancing act requires self discipline, and the greatest insight i had today is that self-discipline is comprised of two main elements; Compassion and Anger, Compassion contains wisdom and love; knowledge of the oneness of life and appreciation of all of it, whereas Anger seeks to protect boundaries and maintain what is good. Creating new healthy habits and directing one’s life energies in a productive way, is, i believe, much easier when we accept someone like Patanjali as our guide on the path to the goal of all goals: absolute freedom and liberation.

Ultimately it is our consciousness itself, our pure awareness, that must deal with all things in the present moment, all habits, conscious and subconscious sooner or later, but knowing where to go in our own inner universe, which organs to visit and which activities to engage in, or not engage in, was very eye opening for me.

Why am I reminded of this song as well? It seems a little inappropriate,
but perhaps it is actually “just right”, to calm over-active adrenal and hyper-vigilant nervous systems.
The Bare Necessities

One of the habits we’re getting into as would-be Yoga Teachers, is taking a “vow”;
stating our intention before we begin practicing our Pranayama, Medition & Asana sessions, i say each time “I vow to establish Awareness of all aspects of my life,
May all beings, including myself be free and happy,
May all beings become aware of the causes of suffering, and
stop causing it, for themselves and others”.

I am grateful to my teachers; Erin-Bell, Helena, Maria and Rike for living authentic lives and passing on this wonderful, life changing wisdom, and I look forward to embodying and passing it on also, daily (:

Thanks for reading my rambling blog, I hope it was helpful or at least interesting, I can recommend daily sun salutations, Pranayama and meditation if you want to see your life and energy levels improve rapidly. Everyone has 10 to 20 minutes a day to invest in themselves and their own body.

May human consciousness flower open, and may i contribute to the collective evolution of our species