How Faith Asks Us to Deal with Our Pain

We’ve all felt our own anger, and we’ve probably all wondered, after the rage subsides, what to do about it. How can we control it, and move past it?

“Where there is anger,” Eckhart Tolle wrote in The Power of Now, “there is always pain underneath.” So how do we deal with that anger-inducing pain in our hearts and souls? How can we find ways to let go of the hurts we’ve suffered?

Throughout history, religion has offered us excellent suggestions:

Conquer the angry one by not getting angry; conquer the wicked by goodness; conquer the stingy by generosity, and the liar by speaking the truth. – Buddha, The Dhammapada, verse 223.

An angry person is ugly and sleeps poorly. Gaining a profit, he turns it into a loss, having done damage with word and deed. A person overwhelmed with anger destroys his wealth. Maddened with anger, he destroys his status. Relatives, friends, and colleagues avoid him. Anger brings loss. Anger inflames the mind… A man conquered by anger is in a mass of darkness. He takes pleasure in bad deeds as if they were good, but later, when his anger is gone, he suffers as if burned with fire. He is spoiled, blotted out, like fire enveloped in smoke. When anger spreads, when a man becomes angry, he has no shame, no fear of evil, is not respectful in speech. For a person overcome with anger, nothing gives light. – Buddha, Kodhana Sutta

Be not hasty in thy spirit to be angry: for anger resteth in the bosom of fools – Ecclesiastes 7:9.

If a man be under the influence of anger his conduct will not be correct. – Confucius

He who is slow to anger has great understanding, but he who has a hasty temper exalts folly … Who is strong? He who subdues his evil inclination, as it is stated, “He who is slow to anger is better than a strong man, and he who masters his passions is better than one who conquers a city.” – Proverbs 14:29, 16:32.

You have heard that it was said to the men of old, ‘You shall not kill; and whoever kills shall be liable to judgment.” But I say to you that every one who is angry with his brother shall be liable to judgment … – Mathew 5:21.

A man said to the Prophet, “Advise me! “The Prophet said, “Do not become angry and furious.” The man asked (the same) again and again, and the Prophet said in each case, “Do not become angry and furious.” – from the Muslim Bukhari Hadiths, number 127.

Anger and intolerance are the twin enemies of correct understanding. – Gandhi

You can see the problem here—we all carry the pain from past hurt and suffering, so we all get angry. Also, in the oldest part of our mammalian brains, we have an innate, built-in mechanism for anger and rage—but every great Faith cautions us not to use it against others.

The Baha’i teachings bring some clarity to that conundrum:

… the heart that partakes of the outpouring grace of the Holy Spirit and becomes sanctified is made goodly and pure. The purpose is that the reality of man be purified and sanctified from the defilements of the world of nature, which are vile attributes such as anger, lust, worldliness, pride, dishonesty, hypocrisy, deceit, self-love, and so on. Man cannot free himself from the onslaught of vain and selfish desires save through the confirming grace of the Holy Spirit. – Abdu’l-Baha, Some Answered Questions, newly revised edition, pp. 103-104.

The Baha’i teachings say that the best prescription for alleviating pain and rage involves turning towards the spiritual side of life. When our hearts and souls seek a connection with that spiritual reality, the Baha’i writings say, we can learn to transcend our animalistic tendencies and turn the impulses from our lower nature toward higher, more constructive ends. In his Most Holy Book, Baha’u’llah advises us not to lose our tempers, and not to anger our neighbors. Abdu’l-Baha asks each one of us to turn toward our Creator and strive to become holy souls, freed from ignorance, rage and anger, so we can discover the truth of our oneness:

Turn to God, supplicate humbly at His threshold, seeking assistance and confirmation, that God may rend asunder the veils that obscure your vision. Then will your eyes be filled with illumination, face to face you will behold the reality of God and your heart become completely purified from the dross of ignorance, reflecting the glories and bounties of the Kingdom.

Holy souls are like soil which has been plowed and tilled with much earnest labor, the thorns and thistles cast aside and all weeds uprooted. Such soil is most fruitful, and the harvest from it will prove full and plenteous. In this same way man must free himself from the weeds of ignorance, thorns of superstitions and thistles of imitations that he may discover reality in the harvests of true knowledge. Otherwise, the discovery of reality is impossible, contention and divergence of religious belief will always remain, and mankind, like ferocious wolves, will rage and attack each other in hatred and antagonism. We supplicate God that He may destroy the veils which limit our vision and that these becloudings, which darken the way of the manifestation of the shining lights, may be dispelled in order that the effulgent Sun of Reality may shine forth. – Abdu’l-Baha, The Promulgation of Universal Peace, p. 293-294.