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cowherd saw he had been wrong. Even when he stopped being angry at Mahavir, Mahāvir did not react. He knew that there had been a karmic debt between them from a past life and that now he had paid it. In his mind, he did not accuse the man for being ignorant or cruel. He remained in his equanimous center, unperturbed throughout.
The Master suggested, “Already your insights have taken you deeply into the heart of anger. Continue your investigations. Keep watching. Whenever anger comes, see from where it sprouts. Practice seeing it as nothing but a big bubble of air coming out from the mind. Bring it to the surface and watch it burst."
Munishree deepened his investigation of anger. He became vigilant of the slightest pang of annoyance or irritation in his body. He saw how it generally originated with a feeling of heat in the navel. If it was allowed to continue, it would reach a boiling point, like water. He went to the root of the emotion. He made several discoveries.
Anger is nothing but a strong mechanism of survival which is inborn in the very fabric of this human body. It is an impulse which has been carried from lifetime to lifetime. It's part of the legacy of my animal nature. For an ant about to be deprived of his sugar, it takes the form of biting. For a bee about to be robbed of his honeycomb, it is stinging. For some human beings, anger takes the route of tears or escape. For others, like me, it jumps into fight.
It sprouts from frustration. When I want to get something and I'm thwarted in my attempt, I am frustrated, and whoever is in my way becomes my enemy. It's like being hungry when the door to the kitchen is locked. The person who has the keys turns into the foe. It is nothing but wrong perception — seeing through the distorted lens of need and greed.
But anger means himsa, violence, the desire to kill. And I am on the path of ahimsā. I have a choice. I am not an animal. I can transcend this tendency. Why should I condemn myself to the prison of instinctive consciousness and Automatic conditioned reactions?
When he talked this over with his Master, he was pleased. “Yes, that is the secret, to remind yourself, constantly and 108
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