How is anger not just an emotion but also a thing?
Transcript
This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
So, you said that lust, anger, greed are objects or things. What does it actually mean? Okay.
Let me put it this way. I work on computers. I’ll give software example.
Say, there is some site which there are say, this particular site which is there. If I visit that site, you know, say there is a site with some sensual images, I go and visit that site, I get agitated. So, that is I who am doing that.
So, it is my decision, my intention which I am doing. But when we visit a particular site, that gets stored in the browser. It gets stored in the software.
And the next time, say, if I visit a particular news site, then say, if I repeatedly, as soon as I type I, I may want to go to ISKCON News now. But in the past, if I have gone to India News so many times, then as soon as I type I, it will give autocomplete as India News. And if I am not careful, it will just go there automatically.
So, there is, on one side, going to that, on one extreme, you could say that going to that site is my decision. But another side, that decision creates a history in my computer, a bookmark or a record by which I next time directly, automatically go to that site. So, like that, when I feel angry, it is an emotion that I experience.
But along with the emotion that I experience, it creates like a setting. Next time, anger becomes more easy for me. Getting angry becomes more natural for me.
So, for example, if somebody has never worked as a butcher, first time they would kill an animal. How can I kill this animal? Will they kill once, twice, thrice? You just become desensitized after that. Once, I was going in Bengal and I was seeing that, there were, there were kids, about eight, ten years old, they were chatting with each other and lopping off the neck of chickens.
Like, we may cut sabji, they are cutting like that. It becomes completely nonchalant. So, when we keep doing a particular activity, that gets, we could say, that gets stored like a setting.
So, that stored setting is what I mean, it is an object. So, when that stored setting is there, the relapse or the indulgence becomes not only easier, it almost becomes like inevitable. You have to consciously check it.
Otherwise, it will become like a default reaction that comes. Does that address the question? So, thank you very much. Hare Krishna.
You can have about ten, fifteen minutes more. Ten minutes more.