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THE ART OF POSITIVE THINKING
But anger is merely an effect; something else lies behind it. We must enquire into the root of anger; there may be some physical, psychological or material cause behind it. Anger is rooted in the past. There is a conditioning factor, a particular tendency, like or dislike, which gives rise to a particular mode of conduct. A man is attached to someone, or hates another, or he is afraid of one and loves another. All these tendencies arise in him and bring about particular results. When there is strife or controversy in the family, the members are advised not to quarrel or dispute among themselves. Such advice often falls flat upon them. People are boiling inside; they are out for a quarrel, all the causes of anger are active in them. Under the circumstances, how can they desist from fighting? You put fuel into the oven and light the fire, and then expect that there should be no heat or flame! How is it possible? Fire and heat are results flowing from the action of lighting the fuel. If you want to do away with the heat, you have to extinguish the fire. We do not want to quench the fire and yet seek to evade the heat! This is contradictory. Ways are often sought to get rid of a particular result immediately. Such efforts do not last long, and seldom prove effective. If we look at our problems and the ways in which we try to meet them, we shall find that all the time we are exclusively concerned with getting or doing away with particular results. So we go round and round, and the problem is never resolved. We never discover the root cause. We find ourselves caught in great illusion. The fundamental cause is there right in front of us, but we never perceive it. Our thinking is so vitiated that everything serves to distort our perception all the more. A man took his wife to the election officer with the complaint that her name was not to be found on the electoral rolls. The officer examined the rolls and said that her name appeared in the list of persons since dead. The wife flared up, "Here I stand alive before you; how can you put my name among the dead?" The husband said, "You stupid! Do you think such a high official is telling a ie? What an irony of fate! The root cause lies right before us, but we prefer to trust the official instead of paying heed to the living. All the jingoistic impulses are alive in us-the impulse to quarrel, to indulge in anger, pride, or possessiveness; all the impulses productive of evil are thriving within us. We trust the big official-he cannot tell a lie! We put our belief in a religious leader who tells us to seek refuge in him, so as to end all pain. We would rather seek the easier course in utter disregard of our inner compulsions. But if we really want to resolve our problems, we cannot afford to be exclusively preoccupied with effects. For the moment we are not concerned with effects or their removal. Rather we concentrate on the secret impulses; as to what particular impulse gives rise to what particular mode of conduct. We
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