How can Anger destroy a person?
Bhagavad Gita Verse 2.63 Explained
Introduction
Bhagavad Gita is a conversation between Krishna and Arjun. This dialogue begins just before the war of Mahabharata is about to begin. On seeing his family in opposition, Arjun is gripped with fear and confusion and wants to run away, but Krishna convinces him to fight and tells Arjun why he today must raise his weapons to kill his brothers and relatives in this war.
Bhagavad Gita teaches us how to live life!
The core message of the Bhagavad Gita is considered very powerful for it can fundamentally transform the way you live your life. Bhagavad Gita is also called a summary of Vendantic Knowledge or simply ancient Knowledge.
Bhagavad Gita is crystallized form of the Hindu thought.
Bhagavad Gita is 700 verses long, spread across 18 chapters. Here we will understand Verse 63 of Chapter 2 of the Bhagavad Gita.
Verse 2.63
क्रोधाद्भवति सम्मोह: सम्मोहात्स्मृतिविभ्रम: |
स्मृतिभ्रंशाद् बुद्धिनाशो बुद्धिनाशात्प्रणश्यति || 2.63||
krodhad bhavati sammohah sammohat smriti-vibhramah
smriti-bhranshad buddhi-nasho buddhi-nashat pranashyati
Translation
Anger gives rise to hypnosis, which leads to delusion of memory. This delusion of memory destroys your “Buddhi” (Intellect) and the destruction of intellect ultimately leads to the destruction of the person.
Commentary
In the previous verse, Krishna spoke about Anger (क्रोध) and explained what makes a person Angry.
In this verse Krishna is telling Arjun how “Anger” (क्रोध) affects a human, indeed.
Anger causes Hypnosis
Krishna tells Arjun that Anger can be equated to a state of hypnosis in which a man experiences delusion. In this state of delusion, he is selectively accessing his memories which reside in his conscious and sub-conscious mind. This selective recollection of memories creates an illusive picture of reality in his mind. This picture is distorted as it discounts reality. This picture shows a man what he most wants to see in that situation. This makes him think differently than he normally would and makes him take unwise actions which almost always causes him and his life some degree of harm.
For example:
If you are angry with someone because they hurt you emotionally. Your mind will automatically fetch more memories of where it thinks you were being treated unfairly by this person. In light of this information, the present situation will feel more intense. These selective flashes of curated memories will add fuel to the fire of anger and you will start fuming. However, when you think about the same person with a calm mind, you will recall many positive experiences as well which will create a balanced picture in your mind. You will react very differently, and definitively not get angry, unless this person has only caused you nothing but harm. But even in that situation, there would be no fire of anger which can be fueled. So your reaction might be one of disappointment, remorse, or hatred, but not of anger which burns like fire!
Let’s understand this better.
Hypnosis leads to Delusion
Have you ever seen a person getting hypnotised? Well, maybe not in reality but perhaps in movies.
In the process of hypnosis, the person who is putting and controlling the subject under hypnosis makes him dive deeper into his subconscious mind and selectively fish out memories related to a certain event. Such a recollection of memory is almost perfect as if the person is reading from a book of memories. This happens as the mind is like a video recorded which records each and every event, each and every experience in our life, without fail, and that too in great detail.
But not all these memories can be recalled when we are conscious. This is because a bulk of these memories sink deep into our subconscious mind.
Imagine throwing stones in a lake. They will sink to the bottom of the lake and will become part of it forever, away from the public eye!
In fact, the conscious mind is like a flowing river with muddy water, and it is impossible to see the river bed.
While a mind under hypnosis is like a still lake with crystal clear water which makes the lake floor clearly visible, and one can see what lies beneath the water. He can dive deeper and hand pick memories which lay at the bottom unnoticed from year.
Now when these memories are cherry-picked, we can construct a strong recollection of an event, as if it happened just a few moments ago.
But will this picture speak the truth??
Let’s understand this!
Let’s say under hypnosis you are being asked to recollect all the moments when your mother physically hit you. Now mother-child relationship is a special one. There are numerous moments where a mother is compelled to hit her child with the intent to discipline him. But at the same time, there are even greater moments of love which she showers upon it. But selectively recollecting only the memories where your mother hit, can paint a picture which shows that your mother hates you and hence she did it.
But would that be the right conclusion?
Well, absolutely not.
To see the right picture, one must also recollect all the moments of love and care shared with your mother and you will see that it is a cardinal sin to even think that your mother doesn’t love you!
This is how hypnosis causes Delusion!
Delusion destroys Intellect
When a person is under delusion, he is not seeing things clearly. As a result, he assumes what is false to be true and makes a decision basis that. His perceived reality is not the truth, but rather far away from it.
While Intellect (Buddhi) leads us to wisdom. It makes us take wise decisions. And a wise decision is taken by considering all that is visible to us and enquiring if what we see is the truth. By deduction and analysis, intellect helps filter what is not true from what is indeed true. Intellect also helps us know what is not visible to us, or simply what is not known to us.
Knowing what you don’t know is also wisdom
Such holistic equity, such complete assessment, which is driven by our intellect helps us make wise decisions.
But wise decisions can only be taken with a calm mind. If the mind is not calm, if the mind is not silent, it is nearly impossible to make a wise decision. That is why stupid mistakes are made in haste.
A sign of a stupid person is the pace at which he makes decision without much thought!
Delusion is the Darkness of Ignorance
Let’s take one more example to understand this better!
Imagine watching a tall tree swaying in a strong wind at midnight. Through the darkness, to some, the tree might appear to be a ghost which is hissing with anger. However in reality it is just a tree swaying with the wind and the noise is due to the wind filtering through the thick conopy of leaves. When the same tree is seen swaying in the same manner during the day, it doesn’t cuase such delusion as there is bright light.
The moral of the story is:
Delusion causes us to see the truth in darkness!
Delusion is nothing but darkness of ignorance in the mind.
When there is light of Wisdom, a person sees thing for what they are.
Anger always causes you harm
Now we understand that Anger is nothing but a phase of Delusion. And delusion is nothing by Darkness of ignorance which destroys the lamp of intellect and extinguishes the light of wisdom.
So we can say that Anger is a dark phase of life. Acting in anger is like running in a dark forest on a moonless night. There is nothing but absolute darkness and you are most likely to stumble and fall, not once but multiple times.
And every time you fall, you hurt yourself. And some of these falls can also be fatal!
Also, it is a dark “forest”. And forests have other dangers as well, in the form of dangerous wild animals. If your luck is bad, you might become prey to a bear which will tear you to pieces while you are still alive!
So the moral of the story is: “Stay away from this dark forest”
Stay away from Anger! For anger will only harm you. Nothing good comes out of anger. It is like a fire which is created by you but will indeed burn you.
Krishna’s message
Krishna is asking Arjun to stay away from anger. He tells Arjun that Anger causes delusion and delusion in turn destroys intellect and takes away wisdom, making a person make unwise decisions which always harm a person.
Krishna is telling Arjun to bathe in the light of wisdom. And his solution to such light is to bask in the sunlight of Meditation (Yog)
Meditation allows a person to think from a calm mind. It helps a person to read situations and gives him the ability to respond instead of react. Meditation sharpens your intellect and intensifies your wisdom. Meditation gives you the light which shall forever be with you like a shining sun, which will light up even the darkest of forests.
A true Yogi understands this and never falls into the trap of anger!
Listen to Krishna. Be calm. Avoid anger.
If you are ever angry, take a deep breath, exhale slowly and feel the calm!
Chapter 2 to be continued..
If you like what you read and would like to read more, please subscribe to this page!
Hare Krishna
