“The psychology of anger is that you wanted something and someone prevented you from getting it. Someone came as a barrier, as a blockage. All your energy was directed to get something and someone blocked that energy. You could not get what you wanted. This frustration becomes anger… and this anger is against the person who has destroyed your possibility of fulfilling your desire. You cannot prevent anger, because anger is a byproduct, but you can do something so that the byproduct does not happen.
In life remember one thing: never desire anything so intensely as if it were a matter of life and death. Be a little playful. I am not saying stop desiring—because that will be a suppression in you. What I am saying is, desire but let your desire be playful. If you can get it, good. If you cannot get it, perhaps it was not the right time; we will see next time. Start learning something of the art of the player.
We identify ourselves too much with the desire; then when it is blocked or prevented, our own energy becomes fire; it burns you. And in that state of near-insanity you can do anything for which you are going to repent. It can create a series of events in which your whole life may get entangled. That’s why for thousands of years it has been said, ‘Become desireless.’ But that is asking something inhuman. Even the people who told you ‘Become desireless’ were giving you a motive, a desire: if you become desireless you will attain the ultimate freedom of moksha, of nirvana. That too is a desire.
You can certainly suppress one desire for a bigger desire, and you may even forget that you are the same person; you have only changed the target… Even humility can be an ego-trip… One has to be very alert. You should not try to stop anger. By no means should you keep the anger under control, because it will burn you, it will destroy you. What I am saying is: go to the roots. And the root is always some desire which has been blocked, and the frustration has created the anger. So don’t take desires too seriously. Don’t take anything seriously.
It is a misfortune that not a single religion in the world has accepted a sense of humor as one of the basic qualities of a religious man. I want you to understand that a sense of humor, playfulness, should be a basic quality. You should not take things seriously; then anger does not arise. You can just laugh at the whole thing. You can start laughing at yourself. You can start laughing at situations in which you would have been very angry and mad.
Use playfulness, a sense of humor, laughter. The world is big and there are millions of people. Everybody is trying to get something. It is very natural that sometimes people may come in each other’s way—not that they want to, it is just the situation, it is accidental… Just start thinking of yourself as a light… nothing special; you are not expected to be a winner, you are not expected to be successful in every situation. This is a big world and we are small people. Once this is established in your being, everything is acceptable. Anger disappears, and the disappearance of anger will bring a surprise to you, because when anger disappears, it leaves behind it a tremendous energy of compassion, of love, of friendship.”
— Osho, The Sword and the Lotus
