The Gita in daily life
When the anger will not go down
I am angry all the time and I cannot put it down. What does the Gita say about anger?
I am angry all the time and I cannot put it down. What does the Gita say about anger?
The Gita treats anger as the end of a sequence rather than a thing in itself. Dwelling on something breeds attachment; attachment breeds wanting; wanting that is blocked turns into anger (2.62). What follows is a collapse — confusion, memory gone, judgement gone, and then the person gone (2.63). Anger is named one of three gates that ruin a man (16.21) and, with desire, the enemy worth naming (3.37). Of the anger already present, the text asks you to withstand its force (5.23). It does not ask you to pretend it is absent.
Hansi Gita Bhawan Trust · from the Bhagavad Gita
Notice where the text puts the work. The chain at 2.62 begins long before the shout. By the time anger is present, three steps have already happened, and the Gita’s interest is in the first of them: dwelling, going over a thing again. A man who replays the same insult on the bus, at the counter, and once more before sleep is not yet angry. He is preparing. 2.64 gives the alternative without drama — a person moving among the same things with liking and disliking no longer in charge, and coming to a settled calm.
2.63 is the sharpest sentence the Gita has on anger, and it is not a moral sentence. It is a description of damage to the equipment: confusion first, then memory fails, then understanding, and with understanding gone the man himself is gone. Anyone who has sent a message at midnight and read it again at seven knows the order of events. The text is not saying that anger makes you wicked. It is saying anger makes you unable to think, and that the harm gets done in that window.
On anger that has already arrived, the Gita is brief. 5.23 praises the person who can bear the force that rises from desire and anger here, in this life, while still in the body. The verb is worth holding on to. Not “not feel it”, and not “let it out” — something closer to standing in a strong wind without being moved off your feet. 2.56 describes the settled man as free of longing, fear and anger, but that is a portrait of an end state, not a method, and the Gita does not pretend the distance to it is short.
In the Gita’s own words
Where this comes from.
Bhagavad Gita 2.56Shri Bhagavan
दुःखेष्वनुद्विग्नमनाः सुखेषु विगतस्पृहः ।
वीतरागभयक्रोधः स्थितधीर्मुनिरुच्यते ॥Untroubled in sorrow, without craving in happiness, free of longing, fear and anger — such a person is called a sage of steady understanding.
The settled man: untroubled in sorrow, without craving in happiness, free of longing, fear and anger. A description of where the work leads, not an instruction for this afternoon.
Bhagavad Gita 2.62–63Shri Bhagavan
ध्यायतो विषयान्पुंसः सङ्गस्तेषूपजायते ।
सङ्गात्सञ्जायते कामः कामात्क्रोधोऽभिजायते ॥क्रोधाद्भवति सम्मोहः सम्मोहात्स्मृतिविभ्रमः ।
स्मृतिभ्रंशाद्बुद्धिनाशो बुद्धिनाशात्प्रणश्यति ॥Dwelling on things, a man grows attached to them. From attachment desire is born. From desire comes anger. From anger comes confusion. From confusion, memory fails. When memory fails, understanding is lost, and when understanding is lost, the man is lost.
The chain, in two verses: dwelling, attachment, desire, anger — and then confusion, failed memory, lost understanding, and the ruin of the man. The first link is the one that can actually be interrupted.
Bhagavad Gita 2.64Shri Bhagavan
रागद्वेषवियुक्तैस्तु विषयानिन्द्रियैश्चरन् ।
आत्मवश्यैर्विधेयात्मा प्रसादमधिगच्छति ॥But the one who moves among things with his senses freed from liking and disliking, governed by himself and under his own control, comes to a settled calm.
The alternative stated positively: moving among the same things, senses no longer governed by liking and disliking. Not withdrawal from the world — a change in who is in charge.
Bhagavad Gita 3.37Shri Bhagavan
काम एष क्रोध एष रजोगुणसमुद्भवः ।
महाशनो महापाप्मा विद्ध्येनमिह वैरिणम् ॥It is desire, it is anger, born of the guna of rajas. It devours everything and does great harm. Know this to be the enemy here.
Desire and anger, born of rajas, named as the enemy. Krishna answers Arjuna’s question about what drives a man to do wrong even against his will.
Bhagavad Gita 5.23Shri Bhagavan
शक्नोतीहैव यः सोढुं प्राक्शरीरविमोक्षणात् ।
कामक्रोधोद्भवं वेगं स युक्तः स सुखी नरः ॥The man who can bear the force that rises from desire and anger here itself, before he is freed from the body, is a man of yoga, and he is happy.
The one verse about anger that is already here: bear the force of it, in this body, in this life. The verb is endurance, not suppression and not release.
Bhagavad Gita 16.21Shri Bhagavan
त्रिविधं नरकस्येदं द्वारं नाशनमात्मनः ।
कामः क्रोधस्तथा लोभस्तस्मादेतत्त्रयं त्यजेत् ॥This gate to hell is of three kinds, and it destroys a person: desire, anger and greed. Therefore one should let all three go.
Anger listed with desire and greed as the three-fold gate that destroys a person, with the instruction to let all three go. The strongest thing said against it anywhere in the text.
What to actually do
Small, and today.
- Catch it at the dwelling stage. The chain in 2.62 starts with going over a thing in the mind. Notice the third replay of the same conversation and stop there. It is far easier than stopping the tenth, and it is the only link the verse suggests a person has much purchase on.
- Put a night between the anger and the reply. 2.63 says memory and judgement fail in the middle of it. Write the message if you must; do not send it; read it in the morning when the equipment is working again.
- Ask what was actually wanted. Anger at 2.62 comes out of a blocked wanting. A shopkeeper furious at a customer is often not angry about the customer but about money he had already counted. Naming the want does not excuse anything, and it stops the quarrel being about the wrong thing.
- Keep the matter and the anger separate. If the wrong is real — unpaid wages, a boundary crossed, a child badly treated — it still has to be dealt with. 16.21 asks you to let go of anger as a thing that governs you. It does not ask you to let go of what is right.
What the Gita does not say
That the Gita asks you to swallow it. 5.23 asks a person to withstand the force of anger, not to hide that it is there, and nowhere does the text say a wrong done to you was not a wrong. Krishna is saying this to a man he has just told to fight. What 2.62–63 warns against is being run by anger — acting while confused, with memory and judgement gone. That is the danger the Gita names. Not the feeling. The being run.
The words behind this
Common questions
About this.
Is anger a sin according to the Gita?
The text calls it one of three gates to hell, with desire and greed, and says all three should be let go (16.21). At 3.37 it names desire and anger, born of rajas, as the enemy. But it treats being governed by anger as the ruin, not the rise of the feeling itself, and 5.23 praises a man who bears the force of it.
What does Gita 2.62–63 actually mean?
It is a chain. Dwelling on something produces attachment, attachment produces desire, blocked desire produces anger; anger produces confusion, confusion unsettles memory, lost memory destroys understanding, and with understanding gone the person is lost. Krishna is describing a mechanism rather than passing judgement, and the useful part is that the chain breaks most easily at its first link.
How do I control anger according to the Gita?
Its answer is mostly upstream. Do not feed the dwelling (2.62). Move among things without being ruled by liking and disliking (2.64). Withstand the force when it does rise (5.23). There is no breathing technique here and no quick method. The text is describing a change in what a person is, over time.
Does the Gita say to forgive the person who angered me?
It lists kshama among the qualities of one born to the higher nature (16.3) and among the work proper to a brahmin (18.42). That is a commendation of a temper. It says nothing about whether the wrong was small, nothing about apology, and nothing about whether to keep the person in your life.