Feeling mad in terms of feeling angry is a natural human emotion that arises when we see things around us going wrong or being done wrong. Such a natural emotion may even be an essential and desirable emotion on some occasions, as when we see a small being bullied by a brute. If seeing that doesn’t make us mad, then something essential is missing within us: we may have lost our humanity.

Having said that, we need a holistic vision of things: we should be able to see not just what is wrong in life but also what is right. If our focus constantly gravitates towards what is wrong, we end up being wrong ourselves because we will soon find ourselves overwhelmed by negative, even toxic, emotions such as resentment and anger. Such emotions will keep sabotaging any positive intentions we have, thereby undermining our efforts toward any constructive solutions. Worse still, habitual anger leads to either moroseness and bitterness or intermittent episodes of deadly rage, making an already dangerous world even more perilous and subjecting our fragile bodies to greater vulnerability due to the emotional and physical toll of anger.

For stable emotional health, we need to be able to recognize and appreciate the good in life. If there had been nothing good in our life, we wouldn’t even be alive. Considering the fragility of our bodies and the dangerousness of the world, the very fact that we are alive is a miracle. In fact, there is much that is good and right in our life and in our world — and it is that way without any efforts on our part.  By appreciating this encouraging reality, we can develop a foundation of gratitude, and positivity. Being sheltered and strengthened by that foundation, we can work to fix the things that are not right. Urging us toward building such a foundation, the Bhagavad-gita (17.16) recommends focusing on the positive and cultivating contentment as a discipline of the mind.

Summary:

Feeling mad occasionally on seeing what is wrong is not a big problem — feeling mad constantly due to not seeing what is right is a big problem. 

Think it over:

  • How can occasional anger be a natural and even desirable emotion? 
  • What’s wrong with constant anger? 
  • How can we counter the tendency to fixate on what is wrong in the world?

Audio explanation of the article is: https://gitadaily.substack.com/p/feeling-mad-when-its-ok-and-when

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17.16: And satisfaction, simplicity, gravity, self-control and purification of one’s existence are the austerities of the mind.

Feeling mad — when it’s ok and when it isn’t

To know more about this verse, please click on the image