Bosanski - Hrvatski - Srpski

Anger - Express or Not

 

Anger - Express or Not

A visitor asks: "Osho; have you suggested that now is the time for me to live out my negative emotions, because in the past I never allowed myself to show them in public? I remember a group experience, years ago, in which one of the exercises was to express, in your own way, any emotion suggested, and i was unable to express anything except anger. Maybe I really didn't even know what such emotions felt like, in a conscious way; I didn't even allow myself to admit that these emotions were there. I am trying to put together the pieces in this puzzle. Am I on the track?"

"First remember not to misunderstand me. I have said, "Express your negative emotions;" I have not said, "Publicly." That's how things become distorted.

Now if you are feeling angry with someone and you start expressing your anger, the other person is not going to be a Gautam Buddha and sit silently. He is not a marble statue; he will also do something. You will express anger, he will express anger.
It will create more anger in you - and anger or violence create, from the other side, the same, and with a vengeance. And then you will feel like being more into it, because you have been told to express.

Yes, I have told you to express - but I don't mean publicly.

If you are feeling angry, go to your room, close off the room, beat the pillow, stand before a mirror, shout at your own image, say things that you have never said to anybody and always wanted to say. But it has to be a private phenomenon, otherwise there is no end. Things go on moving in a circle, and we want to end them.
So the moment you feel any negative emotion about anybody, that other person is not the question. The question is that you have a certain energy of anger. Now, that energy has to be diffused into the universe. You are not to repress it within yourself.

So whenever I say, "Express," I always mean privately, in your aloneness. It is a meditation, it is not a fight. If you are feeling sad, sit in your room and feel as much sad as you can - it can't harm. Be really sad and see how long it stays. Nothing stays forever; soon it will be passing away. If you feel like crying, cry - but in your privacy.
These things have nothing to do with others. Everything is your problem; why make it public? And that way, it is not going to be helped but on the contrary, it will be increased.

So every day, before going to sleep, for one hour at night, sit on your bed and do all kinds of crazy things that you wanted to do, that people do when they are angry, violent, destructive. And it does not mean that you have to be destructive to very valuable things; just tearing papers into small bits and throwing them all over - and you know the story. And that will do.
Destroy anything, it can be valueless - but everything has to be done in your privacy, so when you come out, you come fresh.
If you want to do something in public, do what I was telling you about those primitives. You can go to the person you were angry with and tell him, "I have been, in private, angry with you. I shouted at you, I abused you, I said ugly things to you; please forgive me. But it was all done in privacy, because it was my problem; it has nothing to do with you. But in a certain way it was directed at you, and you are not aware of it; hence an, apology is needed.
This has to be done in public. That will help people to help each other. And that person will not be angry; he will say, "There is no need for an apology. You have not done anything to me. And if you are feeling clean, it was a good exercise.
But in public don't bring your negativities, your ugliness; otherwise, you are creating bigger problems in trying to solve small problems. Be really very careful. Everything negative has to be in private, in your aloneness. And if you want to make any public statement about it - because somebody may have been in your mind with whom you were hateful, whom you killed while you were tearing the paper - go to him and humbly ask for his forgiveness".
Osho

 

back to top