10. How do I control my anger?
I have spent significant time on this topic and my conclusion is that nature has instilled a special mechanism in a person by which he can control his anger. When angry, all one has to do is observe silence. Anger incites a psychological fire within a person and in the resulting rage, he is not able to control himself. But when one becomes silent in moments of anger, the rage instantly begins to take a downward trend. So, when someone provokes us, we must simply become quiet.
At all such times, I myself do not react and I have experienced that anger takes no time in subsiding. Reaction leads to chain reaction and not reacting stops the chain reaction, but in order to stop the chain reaction, one needs the power of self-control. Only the spiritually strong can break the chain reaction in a situation involving provocation and rage. It is a sign of great strength. As per a tradition of the Prophet Muhammad:
The strong man is not one who is good at wrestling, but the strong man is one who controls himself in a fit of rage. (Sahih al-Bukhari, hadith no. 5763)
It has also been alluded to in the Quran that one may earn a position in Paradise by being forgiving at times of anger:
for those who spend, both in prosperity and adversity, who restrain their anger and are forgiving towards their fellow men—God loves those who do good works. (Quran 3:135)
Even I used to get angry in my early days, but my anger led me to self-thinking, which made me realize that anger yields no result. I then concluded that it was futile to waste energy on anger.
During 1975, I had written an article for the publication, Al-Jamiat, where I had narrated the story of how I was invited to Ahmedabad by a young Muslim engineer who had set up a factory there. The engineer was a very competent person. As he was showing me around the place, we came across a new kind of machinery which was produced at that time only for export purpose. While demonstrating the prowess of the machine, he first pushed on a button and its flywheel started rotating at top speed. He then pushed another button and the flywheel immediately changed its direction and started rotating opposite to the previous position. As I saw this, it struck me that when matter (or machine) has the quality to change its direction within seconds, then a human being should have this ability manifold. After this incident, I started training my mind to change my emotion within seconds whenever a situation requiring so arises.
Hence, in moments of rage when our natural tendency is to speak or react aggressively, we need to instantaneously change the direction of our flywheel and remain silent. Without doubt, the anger shall dissipate and we shall be in a position to prudently handle the situation.
