anger

131:4.6“The spirit of the Uni­verse Keeper en­ters the soul of the sim­ple crea­ture. That man is wise who wor­ships the One God. Those who strive for per­fec­tion must in­deed know the Lord Su­preme. He never fears who knows the bliss­ful se­cu­rity of the Su­preme, for the Su­preme says to those who serve him, ‘Fear not, for I am with you.’ The God of prov­i­dence is our Fa­ther. God is truth. And it is the de­sire of God that his crea­tures should un­der­stand him—come fully to know the truth. Truth is eter­nal; it sus­tains the uni­verse. Our su­preme de­sire shall be union with the Su­preme. The Great Con­trol­ler is the gen­er­a­tor of all things—all evolves from him. And this is the sum of duty: Let no man do to an­other what would be re­pug­nant to him­self; cher­ish no mal­ice, smite not him who smites you, con­quer anger with mercy, and van­quish hate by benev­o­lence. And all this we should do be­cause God is a kind friend and a gra­cious fa­ther who re­mits all our earthly of­fenses.

141:3.8Je­sus por­trayed con­quest by sac­ri­fice, the sac­ri­fice of pride and self­ish­ness. By show­ing mercy, he meant to por­tray spir­i­tual de­liv­er­ance from all grudges, grievances, anger, and the lust for self­ish power and re­venge. And when he said, “Re­sist not evil,” he later ex­plained that he did not mean to con­done sin or to coun­sel fra­ter­nity with in­iq­uity. He in­tended the more to teach for­give­ness, to “re­sist not evil treat­ment of one’s per­son­al­ity, evil in­jury to one’s feel­ings of per­sonal dig­nity.”

140:6.4Then said Si­mon Pe­ter: “Mas­ter, if you have a new com­mand­ment, we would hear it. Re­veal the new way to us.” Je­sus an­swered Pe­ter: “You have heard it said by those who teach the law: ‘You shall not kill; that whoso­ever kills shall be sub­ject to judg­ment.’ But I look be­yond the act to un­cover the mo­tive. I de­clare to you that ev­ery one who is an­gry with his brother is in dan­ger of con­dem­na­tion. He who nurses ha­tred in his heart and plans vengeance in his mind stands in dan­ger of judg­ment. You must judge your fel­lows by their deeds; the Fa­ther in heaven judges by the in­tent.

4:3.2The eter­nal God is in­ca­pable of wrath and anger in the sense of these hu­man emo­tions and as man un­der­stands such re­ac­tions. These sen­ti­ments are mean and de­spi­ca­ble; they are hardly wor­thy of be­ing called hu­man, much less di­vine; and such at­ti­tudes are ut­terly for­eign to the per­fect na­ture and gra­cious char­ac­ter of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther.

110:1.5The Ad­juster re­mains with you in all dis­as­ter and through ev­ery sick­ness which does not wholly de­stroy the men­tal­ity. But how un­kind know­ingly to de­file or oth­er­wise de­lib­er­ately to pol­lute the phys­i­cal body, which must serve as the earthly taber­na­cle of this mar­velous gift from God. All phys­i­cal poi­sons greatly re­tard the ef­forts of the Ad­juster to ex­alt the ma­te­rial mind, while the men­tal poi­sons of fear, anger, envy, jeal­ousy, sus­pi­cion, and in­tol­er­ance like­wise tremen­dously in­ter­fere with the spir­i­tual prog­ress of the evolv­ing soul.

100:5.10The more health­ful at­ti­tude of spir­i­tual med­i­ta­tion is to be found in re­flec­tive wor­ship and in the prayer of thanks­giv­ing. The di­rect com­mu­nion with one’s Thought Ad­juster, such as oc­curred in the later years of Je­sus’ life in the flesh, should not be con­fused with these so-called mys­ti­cal ex­pe­ri­ences. The fac­tors which con­tribute to the ini­ti­a­tion of mys­tic com­mu­nion are in­dica­tive of the dan­ger of such psy­chic states. The mys­tic sta­tus is fa­vored by such things as: phys­i­cal fa­tigue, fast­ing, psy­chic dis­so­ci­a­tion, pro­found aes­thetic ex­pe­ri­ences, vivid sex im­pulses, fear, anx­i­ety, rage, and wild danc­ing. Much of the ma­te­rial aris­ing as a re­sult of such pre­lim­i­nary prepa­ra­tion has its ori­gin in the sub­con­scious mind.

149:4.2“Anger is a ma­te­rial man­i­fes­ta­tion which rep­re­sents, in a gen­eral way, the mea­sure of the fail­ure of the spir­i­tual na­ture to gain con­trol of the com­bined in­tel­lec­tual and phys­i­cal na­tures. Anger in­di­cates your lack of tol­er­ant broth­erly love plus your lack of self-re­spect and self-con­trol. Anger de­pletes the health, de­bases the mind, and hand­i­caps the spirit teacher of man’s soul. Have you not read in the Scrip­tures that ‘wrath kills the fool­ish man,’ and that man ‘tears him­self in his anger’? That ‘he who is slow of wrath is of great un­der­stand­ing,’ while ‘he who is hasty of tem­per ex­alts folly’? You all know that ‘a soft an­swer turns away wrath,’ and how ‘griev­ous words stir up anger.’ ‘Dis­cre­tion de­fers anger,’ while ‘he who has no con­trol over his own self is like a de­fense­less city with­out walls.’ ‘Wrath is cruel and anger is out­ra­geous.’ ‘An­gry men stir up strife, while the fu­ri­ous mul­ti­ply their trans­gres­sions.’ ‘Be not hasty in spirit, for anger rests in the bo­som of fools.’” Be­fore Je­sus ceased speak­ing, he said fur­ther: “Let your hearts be so dom­i­nated by love that your spirit guide will have lit­tle trou­ble in de­liv­er­ing you from the ten­dency to give vent to those out­bursts of an­i­mal anger which are in­con­sis­tent with the sta­tus of di­vine son­ship.”

128:6.7The morn­ing fol­low­ing their sec­ond day in prison Je­sus ap­peared be­fore the mil­i­tary mag­is­trate in be­half of Jude. By mak­ing apolo­gies for his brother’s youth and by a fur­ther ex­plana­tory but ju­di­cious state­ment with ref­er­ence to the provoca­tive na­ture of the episode which had led up to the ar­rest of his brother, Je­sus so han­dled the case that the mag­is­trate ex­pressed the opin­ion that the young Jew might have had some pos­si­ble ex­cuse for his vi­o­lent out­burst. Af­ter warn­ing Jude not to al­low him­self again to be guilty of such rash­ness, he said to Je­sus in dis­miss­ing them: “You had bet­ter keep your eye on the lad; he’s li­able to make a lot of trou­ble for all of you.” And the Ro­man judge spoke the truth. Jude did make con­sid­er­able trou­ble for Je­sus, and al­ways was the trou­ble of this same na­ture—clashes with the civil au­thor­i­ties be­cause of his thought­less and un­wise pa­tri­otic out­bursts.

131:3.6“The fool has said in his heart, ‘Evil shall not over­take me’; but safety is found only when the soul craves re­proof and the mind seeks wis­dom. The wise man is a no­ble soul who is friendly in the midst of his en­e­mies, tran­quil among the tur­bu­lent, and gen­er­ous among the grasp­ing. Love of self is like weeds in a goodly field. Self­ish­ness leads to grief; per­pet­ual care kills. The tamed mind yields hap­pi­ness. He is the great­est of war­riors who over­comes and sub­dues him­self. Re­straint in all things is good. He alone is a su­pe­rior per­son who es­teems virtue and is ob­ser­vant of his duty. Let not anger and hate mas­ter you. Speak harshly of no one. Con­tent­ment is the great­est wealth. What is given wisely is well saved. Do not to oth­ers those things you would not wish done to you. Pay good for evil; over­come evil with the good.

139:4.13John was in prison sev­eral times and was ban­ished to the Isle of Pat­mos for a pe­riod of four years un­til an­other em­peror came to power in Rome. Had not John been tact­ful and saga­cious, he would un­doubt­edly have been killed as was his more out­spo­ken brother James. As the years passed, John, to­gether with James the Lord’s brother, learned to prac­tice wise con­cil­i­a­tion when they ap­peared be­fore the civil mag­is­trates. They found that a “soft an­swer turns away wrath.” They also learned to rep­re­sent the church as a “spir­i­tual broth­er­hood de­voted to the so­cial ser­vice of man­kind” rather than as “the king­dom of heaven.” They taught lov­ing ser­vice rather than rul­ing power—king­dom and king.

150:9.3Je­sus would have good-na­turedly man­aged the crowd and ef­fec­tively dis­armed even his vi­o­lent en­e­mies had it not been for the tac­ti­cal blun­der of one of his own apos­tles, Si­mon Ze­lo­tes, who, with the help of Na­hor, one of the younger evan­ge­lists, had mean­while gath­ered to­gether a group of Je­sus’ friends from among the crowd and, as­sum­ing a bel­liger­ent at­ti­tude, had served no­tice on the en­e­mies of the Mas­ter to go hence. Je­sus had long taught the apos­tles that a soft an­swer turns away wrath, but his fol­low­ers were not ac­cus­tomed to see­ing their beloved teacher, whom they so will­ingly called Mas­ter, treated with such dis­cour­tesy and dis­dain. It was too much for them, and they found them­selves giv­ing ex­pres­sion to pas­sion­ate and ve­he­ment re­sent­ment, all of which only tended to arouse the mob spirit in this un­godly and un­couth as­sem­bly. And so, un­der the lead­er­ship of hire­lings, these ruf­fi­ans laid hold upon Je­sus and rushed him out of the syn­a­gogue to the brow of a near-by pre­cip­i­tous hill, where they were minded to shove him over the edge to his death be­low. But just as they were about to push him over the edge of the cliff, Je­sus turned sud­denly upon his cap­tors and, fac­ing them, qui­etly folded his arms. He said noth­ing, but his friends were more than as­ton­ished when, as he started to walk for­ward, the mob parted and per­mit­ted him to pass on un­mo­lested.

181:2.15Je­sus then stepped over to James Zeb­e­dee, who stood in si­lence as the Mas­ter ad­dressed him, say­ing: “James, when you and your younger brother once came to me seek­ing prefer­ment in the hon­ors of the king­dom, and I told you such hon­ors were for the Fa­ther to be­stow, I asked if you were able to drink my cup, and both of you an­swered that you were. Even if you were not then able, and if you are not now able, you will soon be pre­pared for such a ser­vice by the ex­pe­ri­ence you are about to pass through. By such be­hav­ior you an­gered your breth­ren at that time. If they have not al­ready fully for­given you, they will when they see you drink my cup. Whether your min­istry be long or short, pos­sess your soul in pa­tience. When the new teacher comes, let him teach you the poise of com­pas­sion and that sym­pa­thetic tol­er­ance which is born of sub­lime con­fi­dence in me and of per­fect sub­mis­sion to the Fa­ther’s will. Ded­i­cate your life to the dem­on­stra­tion of that com­bined hu­man af­fec­tion and di­vine dig­nity of the God-know­ing and Son-be­liev­ing dis­ci­ple. And all who thus live will re­veal the gospel even in the man­ner of their death. You and your brother John will go dif­fer­ent ways, and one of you may sit down with me in the eter­nal king­dom long be­fore the other. It would help you much if you would learn that true wis­dom em­braces dis­cre­tion as well as cour­age. You should learn sagac­ity to go along with your ag­gres­sive­ness. There will come those su­preme mo­ments wherein my dis­ci­ples will not hes­i­tate to lay down their lives for this gospel, but in all or­di­nary cir­cum­stances it would be far bet­ter to pla­cate the wrath of un­be­liev­ers that you might live and con­tinue to preach the glad tid­ings. As far as lies in your power, live long on the earth that your life of many years may be fruit­ful in souls won for the heav­enly king­dom.”

194:3.12Pen­te­cost en­dowed mor­tal man with the power to for­give per­sonal in­juries, to keep sweet in the midst of the gravest in­jus­tice, to re­main un­moved in the face of ap­palling dan­ger, and to chal­lenge the evils of hate and anger by the fear­less acts of love and for­bear­ance. Uran­tia has passed through the rav­ages of great and de­struc­tive wars in its his­tory. All par­tic­i­pants in these ter­ri­ble strug­gles met with de­feat. There was but one vic­tor; there was only one who came out of these em­bit­tered strug­gles with an en­hanced rep­u­ta­tion—that was Je­sus of Naz­a­reth and his gospel of over­com­ing evil with good. The se­cret of a bet­ter civ­i­liza­tion is bound up in the Mas­ter’s teach­ings of the broth­er­hood of man, the good will of love and mu­tual trust.

48:7.2018. Im­pa­tience is a spirit poi­son; anger is like a stone hurled into a hor­net’s nest.

140:5.6The faith and the love of these beat­i­tudes strengthen moral char­ac­ter and cre­ate hap­pi­ness. Fear and anger weaken char­ac­ter and de­stroy hap­pi­ness. This mo­men­tous ser­mon started out upon the note of hap­pi­ness.

• erroneous teaching

20:6.7When be­stowal Sons are not put to death by vi­o­lence, they vol­un­tar­ily re­lin­quish their lives and pass through the por­tals of death, not to sat­isfy the de­mands of “stern jus­tice” or “di­vine wrath,” but rather to com­plete the be­stowal, “to drink the cup” of the ca­reer of in­car­na­tion and per­sonal ex­pe­ri­ence in all that con­sti­tutes a crea­ture’s life as it is lived on the plan­ets of mor­tal ex­is­tence. Be­stowal is a plan­e­tary and a uni­verse ne­ces­sity, and phys­i­cal death is noth­ing more than a nec­es­sary part of a be­stowal mis­sion.

• Jesus refused to accept the teaching

125:0.6Though many of the tem­ple rit­u­als very touch­ingly im­pressed his sense of the beau­ti­ful and the sym­bolic, he was al­ways dis­ap­pointed by the ex­pla­na­tion of the real mean­ings of these cer­e­monies which his par­ents would of­fer in an­swer to his many search­ing in­quiries. Je­sus sim­ply would not ac­cept ex­pla­na­tions of wor­ship and re­li­gious de­vo­tion which in­volved be­lief in the wrath of God or the anger of the Al­mighty. In fur­ther dis­cus­sion of these ques­tions, af­ter the con­clu­sion of the tem­ple visit, when his fa­ther be­came mildly in­sis­tent that he ac­knowl­edge ac­cep­tance of the or­tho­dox Jew­ish be­liefs, Je­sus turned sud­denly upon his par­ents and, look­ing ap­peal­ingly into the eyes of his fa­ther, said: “My fa­ther, it can­not be true—the Fa­ther in heaven can­not so re­gard his erring chil­dren on earth. The heav­enly Fa­ther can­not love his chil­dren less than you love me. And I well know, no mat­ter what un­wise thing I might do, you would never pour out wrath upon me nor vent anger against me. If you, my earthly fa­ther, pos­sess such hu­man re­flec­tions of the Di­vine, how much more must the heav­enly Fa­ther be filled with good­ness and over­flow­ing with mercy. I refuse to be­lieve that my Fa­ther in heaven loves me less than my fa­ther on earth.”

125:0.7When Joseph and Mary heard these words of their first-born son, they held their peace. And never again did they seek to change his mind about the love of God and the mer­ci­ful­ness of the Fa­ther in heaven.

142:2.1There was in Je­ru­sa­lem in at­ten­dance upon the Pass­over fes­tiv­i­ties one Ja­cob, a wealthy Jew­ish trader from Crete, and he came to An­drew mak­ing re­quest to see Je­sus pri­vately. An­drew ar­ranged this se­cret meet­ing with Je­sus at Flav­ius’s home the evening of the next day. This man could not com­pre­hend the Mas­ter’s teach­ings, and he came be­cause he de­sired to in­quire more fully about the king­dom of God. Said Ja­cob to Je­sus: “But, Rabbi, Moses and the olden proph­ets tell us that Yah­weh is a jeal­ous God, a God of great wrath and fierce anger. The proph­ets say he hates evil­do­ers and takes vengeance on those who obey not his law. You and your dis­ci­ples teach us that God is a kind and com­pas­sion­ate Fa­ther who so loves all men that he would wel­come them into this new king­dom of heaven, which you pro­claim is so near at hand.”

142:2.2When Ja­cob fin­ished speak­ing, Je­sus re­plied: “Ja­cob, you have well stated the teach­ings of the olden proph­ets who taught the chil­dren of their gen­er­a­tion in ac­cor­dance with the light of their day. Our Fa­ther in Par­a­dise is change­less. But the con­cept of his na­ture has en­larged and grown from the days of Moses down through the times of Amos and even to the gen­er­a­tion of the prophet Isa­iah. And now have I come in the flesh to re­veal the Fa­ther in new glory and to show forth his love and mercy to all men on all worlds. As the gospel of this king­dom shall spread over the world with its mes­sage of good cheer and good will to all men, there will grow up im­proved and bet­ter re­la­tions among the fam­i­lies of all na­tions. As time passes, fa­thers and their chil­dren will love each other more, and thus will be brought about a bet­ter un­der­stand­ing of the love of the Fa­ther in heaven for his chil­dren on earth. Re­mem­ber, Ja­cob, that a good and true fa­ther not only loves his fam­ily as a whole—as a fam­ily—but he also truly loves and af­fec­tion­ately cares for each in­di­vid­ual mem­ber.”

142:2.3Af­ter con­sid­er­able dis­cus­sion of the heav­enly Fa­ther’s char­ac­ter, Je­sus paused to say: “You, Ja­cob, be­ing a fa­ther of many, know well the truth of my words.” And Ja­cob said: “But, Mas­ter, who told you I was the fa­ther of six chil­dren? How did you know this about me?” And the Mas­ter replied: “Suf­fice it to say that the Fa­ther and the Son know all things, for in­deed they see all. Lov­ing your chil­dren as a fa­ther on earth, you must now ac­cept as a re­al­ity the love of the heav­enly Fa­ther for you—not just for all the chil­dren of Abra­ham, but for you, your in­di­vid­ual soul.”

142:2.4Then Je­sus went on to say: “When your chil­dren are very young and im­ma­ture, and when you must chas­tise them, they may re­flect that their fa­ther is an­gry and filled with re­sent­ful wrath. Their im­ma­tu­rity can­not pen­e­trate be­yond the pun­ish­ment to dis­cern the fa­ther’s farsee­ing and cor­rec­tive af­fec­tion. But when these same chil­dren be­come grown-up men and women, would it not be folly for them to cling to these ear­lier and mis­con­ceived no­tions re­gard­ing their fa­ther? As men and women they should now dis­cern their fa­ther’s love in all these early dis­ci­plines. And should not man­kind, as the cen­turies pass, come the bet­ter to un­der­stand the true na­ture and lov­ing char­ac­ter of the Fa­ther in heaven? What profit have you from suc­ces­sive gen­er­a­tions of spir­i­tual il­lu­mi­na­tion if you per­sist in view­ing God as Moses and the proph­ets saw him? I say to you, Ja­cob, un­der the bright light of this hour you should see the Fa­ther as none of those who have gone be­fore ever be­held him. And thus see­ing him, you should re­joice to en­ter the king­dom wherein such a mer­ci­ful Fa­ther rules, and you should seek to have his will of love dom­i­nate your life hence­forth.”

142:2.5And Ja­cob an­swered: “Rabbi, I be­lieve; I de­sire that you lead me into the Fa­ther’s king­dom.”