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THE EMOTIONAL CLEARING PROCESS / Re: Trying too hard?
« on: May 06, 2011 »
John, thanks very much for your previous answer – great to be able to discuss these issues with you. Osho said something incredibly interesting:
“You say anger is bad and you don’t want to do it, but then somebody insults and you became angry and you say, ‘What to do? In spite of myself I become angry. I know very well that anger is bad, poisonous, destructive. I know it, but what to do? I became angry.’
“If you come to me, I will say, ‘You don’t know that anger is poisonous. You have heard about it. Deep down you know that anger is necessary; deep down you know that without anger you will lose your standing, everybody will be bullying you. Without anger, you will not have any spine, your pride will be shattered. Without anger, how can you exist in this world of continual struggle for survival?’ This is what you know, but you say, ‘I know anger is poisonous.’ You have heard Buddha, you have listened to Buddha, you have learned something from him – but that is his knowledge.” (Osho, The Buddha Said…, p.123)
So we say we ‘know’ anger is bad, but actually we have a deep belief that anger is necessary; that it is, in the end, the right thing to feel and express. And so, no matter how we try to work with our minds to will ourselves to be patient, we keep getting angry. Osho argued the solution is to experience our anger, to feel and watch it deeply. When we truly feel the hurt and burning toxicity of it we learn just how awful and poisonous it is. Normally we don’t feel or know this deeply because we rush to avoid the pain of anger by suppressing or venting it, by rushing to focus on the person causing it rather than the anger itself.
So doesn’t this focus not so much ‘clear’ the anger as clear our ignorance about the painful truth of our anger, so that we are then able to respond to provocation with disinterest in getting angry so that we really don’t get angry? It’s like we’ve been nibbling away at anger awareness because of reflexive habits and because we think it’s too painful to face. Only when we’ve really +gorged+ ourselves on the experience of anger do we get so sick of it that we can, finally, push it away and say - ‘Enough! I’m not interested!’
“You say anger is bad and you don’t want to do it, but then somebody insults and you became angry and you say, ‘What to do? In spite of myself I become angry. I know very well that anger is bad, poisonous, destructive. I know it, but what to do? I became angry.’
“If you come to me, I will say, ‘You don’t know that anger is poisonous. You have heard about it. Deep down you know that anger is necessary; deep down you know that without anger you will lose your standing, everybody will be bullying you. Without anger, you will not have any spine, your pride will be shattered. Without anger, how can you exist in this world of continual struggle for survival?’ This is what you know, but you say, ‘I know anger is poisonous.’ You have heard Buddha, you have listened to Buddha, you have learned something from him – but that is his knowledge.” (Osho, The Buddha Said…, p.123)
So we say we ‘know’ anger is bad, but actually we have a deep belief that anger is necessary; that it is, in the end, the right thing to feel and express. And so, no matter how we try to work with our minds to will ourselves to be patient, we keep getting angry. Osho argued the solution is to experience our anger, to feel and watch it deeply. When we truly feel the hurt and burning toxicity of it we learn just how awful and poisonous it is. Normally we don’t feel or know this deeply because we rush to avoid the pain of anger by suppressing or venting it, by rushing to focus on the person causing it rather than the anger itself.
So doesn’t this focus not so much ‘clear’ the anger as clear our ignorance about the painful truth of our anger, so that we are then able to respond to provocation with disinterest in getting angry so that we really don’t get angry? It’s like we’ve been nibbling away at anger awareness because of reflexive habits and because we think it’s too painful to face. Only when we’ve really +gorged+ ourselves on the experience of anger do we get so sick of it that we can, finally, push it away and say - ‘Enough! I’m not interested!’