What are the harmful effects of anger?

Anger, A Great Violence: A Glimpse into What Anger Causes Subtly

Just like when a train is in motion, at its normal speed, there is no problem. But when its normality is missed, an accident occurs. Similarly, when one becomes emotional, many organisms within the person die. On one hand, one may believe, “I follow the religion of non-violence; I never do the violence of killing living beings”, but on the other hand, one gets angry. People do not realize that when we get angry and emotional, several tiny creatures die and finish.

Anger Damages the Body: One of the Most Harmful Effects of Anger

Anger does cause violence at a subtle level, and at the same time, it has a very adverse effect on the body and mind as well. If we see an angry person, his eyes turn red, his body gets hot, he himself starts trembling. The fierce subatomic particles of anger come out from within the body; that affects the body. If too much anger is done, many a times, it leads to episodes of heart failure, brain hemorrhage or paralysis, and sometimes the person even dies.

Being emotional or getting angry repeatedly kills the digestive bacteria in the body, and this has an adverse effect on the body.

Life span is based on the respiration count. A lot of breaths get consumed in anger and therefore, life gets short.

Not only physically, but if one is not able to gain control over anger, then the person gets weaker and weaker and his mental condition also deteriorates.

Anger Makes One Bind Revenge: One of the Most Common Side Effects of Anger

When some person does not do as per our will or insults us, harms us, then we get angry. For instance, glasses happen to break at the hands of the servant, and we get angry on him so that we are satisfied in our mind that, “I straightened him out.” Glasses are not going to come back. That means, glasses are gone is one loss, our getting angry gave rise to clashes, that’s second loss, and the other person gets hurt and binds revenge with us, “I am poor, that’s why you are scolding me like this, right? I won’t spare you”, that’s the third loss. So by getting angry, you make three-three losses in just one trade.

Once vengeance arises, then from that vengeance another vengeance goes on increasing constantly. The primary cause of wandering life after life in this world is vengeance. Param Pujya Dada Bhagwan says, “Do not bind vengeance with anyone. If it is possible to bind pure love, then bind pure love, but do not bind vengeance. This is because if you bind pure love, then pure love will automatically uproot vengeance. Pure love is such that it will uproot even the ‘grave’ of vengeance. Vengeance indeed increases through vengeance. It constantly keeps on increasing. All this wandering is indeed due to vengeance!”

Lower Life-form, A Consequence of Anger

Anger that hurts both one’s self and others is called Raudradhyan. In state of ignorance, by getting angry, humans commit sins, as a result of which, from human form one binds the life-form of animals. Param Pujya Dada Bhagwan explains the terrible effects of anger.

Dadashri: "By getting angry just once, everything one would have earned over the course of two years would be ruined. Anger means a live fire. The person himself would not realize, ‘I have incurred a great loss.’ This is because the things on the outside do not reduce, yet everything gets destroyed within. The preparations that one has made for the next life, a part of that gets consumed. And what would happen if a large portion of that is consumed? Here, as a human being, he was eating bread, instead he will have to take birth in the animal realm to eat grass in the next life. To go from eating bread to eating grass; is that considered dignified?"

The story of Chandkaushik Naag during the time of Lord Mahavir explains to us the horrific danger of anger.

Chandkaushik Naag

During the time of Lord Mahavir, there was a terrible serpent named Chandkaushik. In his previous life, Chandkaushik was a saint. The saint had practiced very severe penance. So his nature was very egoistic and angry. One day, while returning from the forest after doing penance, a frog came under his feet and he died. One of his disciples was also walking with the saint. He saw what happened, so he advised the saint that, “Sir, the sin of killing this frog has been committed, for that you should repent.” But in the pride of ego, “who are you to tell me?”, saying so, the saint got angry and he did not pay heed to the disciple’s words.

It was a practice among the saints that every night they remember the sins committed through the day and repent for each of them. As per rule, all saints were seeking forgiveness for their mistakes. At that time, once again the disciple reminded the saint to repent for killing the frog. So the saint became extremely angry. And with a stick in his hand, he ran after the disciple to hit him. There was a pillar on the way. The saint in his rage did not see that pillar. His head hit with the pillar and he died on the spot in anger and rage. As a result of the severe penances that the saint had performed, in the next life, he attained the celestial life-form. After that, he reincarnated as a sage in human body.

The sage lived in a large farm of his own. He had cultivated that farm with great care. He had planted a lot of fruits and flowers there. The sage was so fond of that farm that he would get very angry if anyone would even pluck a small branch from his farm. One day, the sage was doing penance. Just then several little boys came to play in his farm. They started plucking the flowers and threw stones to drop the fruits. When the sage came to know, he picked up an axe and ran towards the children to punish them. But on the way was a pothole, where the sage slipped and he fell on the ground. The axe in his hand went for a toss and fell back on the sage’s head only. It tore apart the sage’s head and as he died in terrible agony, he took rebirth as a serpent named Chandkaushik. Chandkaushik was such a terrible serpent who would bite anyone who came in his way, and his poison would kill the person there and then.

Once, Lord Mahavir, in his Vihaar (travelling from one place to another on foot), passed through the same thick forest where Chandkaushik was residing. On the way, the villagers begged before the Lord that he should not enter this forest, because the serpent did not spare anyone who came in his path. But Lord started traveling on the same path. When Lord came near the serpent, the latter got very angry. He tried to frighten the Lord by spitting venom, but Lord Mahavir remained still. So the serpent got even more angry and he bit Lord’s toe. Lord Mahavir was a Tirthankar, so white blood instead of red started flowing from his feet. Little blood went into Chandkaushik’s mouth. As the atoms of God went inside him, Chandkaushik’s state of mind underwent a radical change. No effect of poison happened on Lord Mahavir, rather he stood calm and still, without any movement. Seeing this, the serpent was very surprised. He stared at God in daze. Then, with great compassion and love in his eyes, Lord Mahavir said to him, “Wake up, wake up Chandkaushik!! Just think about what you’re doing!” On hearing these words, Chandkaushik immediately remembered his previous births and he realized how as a result of his extreme anger in the previous lives, he was in the state he presently is in. He immediately calmed down. He bowed down in Lord’s feet and repented deeply for his sins. From then, Chandkaushik made a firm decision that, “I will not cause even slightest pain to any living being” and placing his poisonous mouth into the burrow, lay there on the ground.

People started coming to the forest; some of them saying, “this snake has taken the life of our family members,” would throw stones at the snake or hit him with sticks out of hatred. But the snake would not bite anyone. On the other hand, some people worshipped the snake thinking it to be dead or left milk for it to drink who thought it’s ailing. Due to blood, milk, ghee, etc. on the snake, many ants came and started biting the snake’s body. Even then, the snake kept his composure and remained calm and patient. All his bad karma got over, and upon his death, he attained the celestial life-form.

This story explains to us the terrible danger of having to go to lower life-forms (here from sage to snake) as a result of anger. With the compassion of Lord Mahavir, Chandkaushik realized his mistake and his path to Salvation was opened. In this age, Gnani Purush Param Pujya Dada Bhagwan (the Enlightened One) also shows us the path of coming back with a heartfelt repentance after getting angry.