Anger may be passionate, but that doesn't mean it's always a shadow
passion. There is such a thing as righteous anger. Jesus showed righteous anger when he chased the money changers
from the Temple of Solomon. Muhammad waged battle against fellow Arabs
who sought to destroy him and his followers (although, as pointed out
in a recent article by a leading Muslim scholar, he "spent less than 20
hours in battles which cost less than 500 casualties, nearly half of
them Muslims"). Now the Dalai Lama has strongly condemned continuing Chinese Communist clampdowns in Tibet. In what the New York Times described as a "blistering speech," His Holiness called for autonomy for Tibet and further stated "that the Chinese Communist Party had transformed Tibet into a 'hell on earth' and that the Chinese authorities regard Tibetans as 'criminals deserving to be put to death.'"
He has long spoken out for autonomy for Tibet rather than outright independence, but his patience with the Chinese government appears to be wearing thin.
So when considering your own anger, be careful to weight where it comes from and how it is expressed. The Kabbalists say that when we become inordinately angry, our spirit temporarily leaves the body, and we can be inhabited by a negative spirit. That's why, they say, you should never look in the eyes of an irrationally angry person. But righteous anger is of a different magnitude. Although it may be hard to be aware in the moment, stop and ask yourself whether you are able to remain fully conscious while feeling anger, particularly at an injustice that you perceive needs to be rectified.
Considering your own anger, pay attention to where does it come from? While going through a web video of Baba Ram Dass in a dialogue, I came across the words, 'the map of consciousness' - he mentioned that he discovered it in a culture. Through my personal experiences I think to trace the source of one's anger, it is useful to ask if one is in touch with this 'map of consciousness'. For example, setting right the relationship with one's parents - Sri Bhagavan - is a profound route in that (he describes how it can be empirically proved - ie. money problems are solved through healing and developing gratitude toward one's father because it affects change of heart which sends signal to the brain and the message gets set for one's life experieces; for relationship it is mother - if this area is not working it helps to look at this map and see the lack of connection, through gratitude or love)
I also feel each of us is a system - the system that which I am beginning to understand I have less knowledge about that I cannot afford to live with. So practicing righteous anger can be left to the real human beings, the mystics and sages and stop to ask whether it is possible to be less than perfect in my thinking if ? not 'fully conscious while feeling anger' - most often... the answer is no!
namaste.
I've been thinking about this a lot lately. At the moment it appears to me that there's 2 kinds of anger, that which comes from love and that which comes from resentment. It seems that anger laden with resentment is always the fruit of a mind that sees division and duality, the products of delusion. Anger from love is tempered with gentleness and the desire to see someone discontinue choices that are self-destructive. It doesn't seek to injure, as is often the case with angry mindsets.
Thanks for letting me work this out here in your dialogue.
Love and anger make dynamic combination. You make the right distinction; the fire of love--romantic or spiritual--is akin to the fire of anger.
There is also such a person who truly knows and understands the difference between anger and righteous anger/indignation.
G-d bless the unique hearts and souls of pure truth, honesty, and deep understanding.
Without such great and important qualities there is no real love or real life.
There is also such a very common thing as open-mindedness being wrongly sensed as hypocrisy. Open-mindedness refers to the seeking of different political views and philosphical understandings as well as to the acceptance of new ideas and tolerance of new arguments which only very few can be very true and fair about.
Unfairness/persecution is worse than anger and oppresion is worse than slaughter.
Good intention is the key. G-d is the All-Understanding where as humans have limited understanding. Many humans also often disregard good intention by mainly or only judging others by their covers/impressions while ignoring their own faults/guilts. Materialism and ego-censorship is the root cause of such wrongful shallow-mindedness and really of all evil.