Trying To Do Better
Allow me to coin a term - "angerholic." The minute angerholics decide that anger is dreadful, and they must eradicate it from their lives, they resemble...
In the previous article, we've completed Level Four and now we continue with Level Five.
Ten Exemplary Levels from Total Anger to Total Tranquility
Level One: Overt Anger and Violent Revenge
Level Two: Silent Anger and Emotional Revenge
Level Three: Incessant Overt Anger, But No Revenge
Level Four: Calm in Public, Angry at Home
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Level Five: Periodically Explosive, but Trying to Do Better
Allow me to coin a term – "angerholic." The minute angerholics decide that anger is dreadful, and they must eradicate it from their lives, they resemble an alcoholic who has joined Alcoholics Anonymous. Such a person is on the road to recovery. Once you make the decision to overcome anger, you jump to Level Five.
Level Five people are learning about spirituality. They're acquiring the tools they need to cope with high-stress situations without losing their composure. Yet, they still "fall" every once in a while. That's fine. If today's Level Five used to shout at his or her family every day back at Level Three, and now he or she only loses their temper once every other week, then that's a sign of tremendous progress.
Where there's a will to succeed, success is not far away.
You have the ability to grasp the reins of life in your hands at any moment. Many people feel that their lives are uncontrollable, like wild horses. Not true. With PWI (perseverance, willpower, and inner strength), you can move up the spiritual and emotional ladder.
The wonderful quality about Level-five people, despite their periodic explosions, is their desire to improve. Once a person recognizes his or her problem with anger and desires to overcome it, he or she can quickly acquire the spiritual tools to do so. Any good doctor knows that proper diagnosis constitutes fifty percent of the cure.
Why is anger a part our lives?
For the last two hundred years, the great Rebbes and Kabbalists have agreed that all the people alive today have reincarnated souls, which have returned to this world for the task of tikkun emuna, or the spiritual correction of lack of faith. This principle provides the spiritual explanation why anger is ingrained in literally every human soul.
A person with no anger sees no need to improve. Once a person feels angry, he or she loses happiness. Many feel that material gains will compensate for the lack of happiness, so they squander time and effort in chasing after money, prestige, short-term enjoyment, and new possessions. None of these satisfy the soul.
When people are prudent enough to seek a spiritual solution for the lack of happiness, then they not only overcome anger – they gain spiritual awareness, develop faith, attain cognizance of God, and thereby accomplish the mission that their souls were sent here to do. Once its tikkun hashalem, or complete spiritual correction is completed, a soul is invited to assume its rightful place in eternal bliss.
Ingrained anger is therefore a favor, showing us that our souls need correction and giving us the opportunity to prevent a future reincarnation. The Kabbalists teach that purgatory is preferable to an additional reincarnation.
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On this level, we don't ask diagnostic questions any more. No matter how low you may have scored on the turbulence-tranquility scale, the minute you decide to grab your anger by the horns and eradicate it from your life, you can and you will. You are now an official candidate for Level-five status. Believe in yourself, and believe that God will give you a helping hand.
Question: Hold on a minute, Lazer. Up until now, you've been talking common sense. Now, you slip the "God" business in the back door. I'm not interested in religion, why are you trying to sell it to me!
Answer: Not true. The Jewish religion doesn't believe in proselytizing, so I'm not a recruiter. I am offering you spirituality – your own personal relationship with God and the recognition of your own Divine human spirit, which is a tiny spark of God. That's the basis for eradicating anger, or any other negative trait or habit in your life.
Question: Why do I need anybody running my life and telling me what to do?
Answer: You already have somebody telling what to do. If you're not yet firmly entrenched in Level Five, and well on the road to becoming a Level Six, then you're a slave to your anger and your base impulses.
Question: Why can't I reach Level Five with plain, secular anger management methods?
I'll remind you that anger management will help tone down your deeds and speech, but it won't eradicate the anger from your thoughts – only spiritual ascent can do that. Besides, just as the notion of "alcohol management" doesn't work for a problem drinker, anger management falls short in bringing the angry to an even emotional keel. You have to shoot for total eradication of the problem.
Question: Isn't alcoholism different from what you call angerholism? Who ever heard of using God and spirituality to get an alcoholic off the bottle? Alcoholics Anonymous is a wonderful organization; do they go around peddling spirituality like you do?
Answer: I agree with one thing you just said: Not only is Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) a wonderful organization, it's a gift to society. Accusing me of "peddling" spirituality is like accusing a lifeguard of peddling artificial respiration. I'm simply using centuries old, field-tested methods of helping you find genuine happiness.
Alcoholism and angerholism are similar, in that both stem from a troubled human spirit. In order to overcome them, you must treat the spirit. Only spirituality can help the spirit, as AA researchers have discovered during years of trial-and-error experience in the field. That's exactly why spirituality plays such a major role in the AA program. Let's examine several of AA's twelve underlying principles[1]:
* AA's Point Number Two expresses the belief that only "a Power greater than ourselves" has the ability to restore a person's sanity. The "Power" they're referring to is none other than the Almighty. AA uses the term "Power" in the beginning of their program, so you won't be frightened away if you're an atheist or an agnostic. As a rabbi, I speak simply and openly, and use the term "God" or "The Almighty."
* AA's Point Eleven encourages you to seek "conscious contact with God," by way of personal prayer and meditation. You'll learn about that in Chapters Four and Nine of this book. AA recognizes that a personal relationship with God is capable of giving you the inner strength you need to create a better life for yourself.
* AA's Point Twelve attributes the victory over alcoholism to "spiritual awakening." AA's founding members reached this conclusion after long and trial-and-error methods. In their own words, "after many other approaches had failed." Do you have time to experiment on yourself? I want to shorten your path to happiness and tranquility, so I'm offering you a direct and easy spiritual solution to anger.
* AA's other points express the need for courageous personal assessment, good relations with yourself, with God, and with your fellow man, and personal resolutions to do better. These points, and more, are all subjects in this book.
Question: C'mon Lazer, you're pulling my leg. I expect a rabbi to be serious and honest. Didn't you invent those points?
Answer: I would be proud to say I did, but I can't take credit for something I didn't compose. I'll tell you what, though – if you plug in the word "anger" instead of "alcohol" in the AA's Twelve Points, you get a good outline of what this book will be teaching from Chapters Four to Ten. If AA – as successful as everyone knows they are – relies so heavily on God and spiritual development as part of their program, why can't I?
Your human spirit – your Divine soul – is a part of God. Without tuning in to God, you have no contact with your Divine soul.
Without being in touch with your own Divine soul and its needs, you're in big trouble. How would you feel alone in the Sahara Desert with no food, no water, and no guide? Panicky? Terrified? Doomed? That's how your soul feels when you ignore it, and that's the cause of all your emotional ills.
An airplane flies through a storm or through darkness with the help of avionics – that is, navigational instruments. Aircraft maintain radio-vector contact with successive air traffic control towers along their route. With no visibility and without a radio vector, the airplane is lost.
This world – the lowest on the spiritual scale of all the worlds – is like stormy turbulence to the soul. The soul, in order to be healthy, must maintain its spiritual direction, or purpose in life. Contact with God gives a person spiritual direction. A person's relationship with God is therefore like a plane flying safely in a storm, by virtue of its connection with the control tower.
Be candid with yourself: Is your life genuinely peaceful, or are you jumping from relationship to relationship, never really satisfied with your life, or seeing an analyst and taking pills? Do you feel anxiety and stress? Do you worry? Saying you don't want to overcome anger by hearing about God is like a diabetic saying that he doesn't want to hear about insulin.
Spiritual growth is meaningless without your establishing a personal relationship with God. You don't need to attend a house of worship, you don't need to affiliate, and you don't need to practice rituals.
By denying God, you don't give yourself a chance to achieve genuine happiness and inner peace. You also neglect your Divine soul, which is a tiny spark of God. Again, a healthy soul is a prerequisite for inner peace and happiness.
At this point, you may tell me that you know plenty of religious people who are far from happy. Maybe they're angry, downright nasty, violent, or dishonest. I agree. Many "religious" people don't have a real relationship with God. If a person is angry or nasty, he's light years away from God. By the way, any human who kills, lies, or steals in the Name of God is nothing other than an enemy of mankind and an anathema to the Almighty, who has infinite love for all of His creations.
Whenever this book mentions the word "faith," it is referring to your personal relationship with God.
To be continued…
(The Trail to Tranquility is available in the Breslev Store.)
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[1] AA members refer to them as "the twelve steps".
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