Anger as a Tool for Change

If you need to correct somebody’s behavior, to get them to stop some negative action, you may have to use anger. By doing that, you are “punishing” their mistakes, but you are not punishing the person. You are not hating them. It’s like the child in a classroom, who makes some mistake and the teacher corrects them. Is the teacher hating the child? No. They are correcting the child out of love.

Anger is a good tool if you can keep it in the pocket, pull it out and use it when you want to, but not really get angry. You can use anger. There is nothing wrong with that and it will have a  positive effect. Getting angry is not necessarily negative, it could be positive. You have to get angry in certain situations—to create a positive effect. You have to know how to use anger. That means, you have to be in control of your own mind. You have to be master of your mind and bring out the anger only when it will be useful.

By Sri Swami Satchidananda