Q: Hello John. I have a question about anger. I get angry easily, especially when things don’t go my way and I can’t control the circumstances.

John: Then you don’t have an anger problem, you have a perspective problem.

Q: What’s the difference?

John: You confine value to your self. That enables you to be angry with anything that frustrates that.

Q: I still don’t quite understand.

John: If you have an anger problem it is because you’re existing within a smaller perspective, a perspective that doesn’t include all of the parts, a perspective that enables your self to be the greatest part. When you know that there are parts within your self that are worth more than your self and that are greater than your self, those are the parts that give value to your self. If you have an anger problem then the greater parts within your self are no longer a part of your perspective.

Q: So this anger is just a small part of the personality.

John: It’s a smaller part of the problem. The greatest part of the problem is not your anger, but that you’re not existing for something within your self that is greater than your self.

Q: And how can I exist for that? How can I do that?

John: By identifying those qualities of being within your self that you know are worth more than anything else. Tender openness within is worth more than hardness within. Does your anger move with tender openness?

Q: I don’t know, I’ve never tried that before. I wasn’t tender when I was angry. I was hard.

John: You’re not able to move in anger and tender openness at the same time until you are first existing for such qualities of being as tender openness. So for you, for now, anger is a coarse expression. For you, it is not in any way a refined beingness. For you anger is about the survival of how you feel, and if something frustrates that, you use your power in an emotional way to go against what frustrates you. And if you’re honestly thinking about what you’re doing you can’t be in support of it. You cannot honestly be in agreement with your use of anger. If you’re thinking honestly and very carefully, this would be leading you to re-evaluate everything within your self. It would have you re-evaluating what you’re existing as and why you’re existing as that.

If you have an anger problem that means that you have not yet embodied anything within your self other than a small self. If you have never gone past being a small self, yet you know throughout your life there have been many lovely qualities of being within your self that are much lovelier than your self, you have favoured your self instead of favouring those lovelier qualities within your self. Having an anger problem means that you have not yet collected all of the little bits that you know are true within your self and applied them to your self. You have, instead, just lived for your self.

So having an anger problem is not really an anger problem. It is a perspective problem; that you do not live within the larger perspective that you’re able to live in, a perspective that is made up of knowing, and applying such a perspective to all of the other parts of your self, and then applying that to your life. Having an anger problem means that you value protecting your present experience, the experience of your self, that you value that more than anything. You have given value to your self. You’ve given value to a small self that doesn’t deserve such value. It is only what you know is true within that deserves the value that you’ve given to your self. You know what it is to be touched within by such qualities as goodness or tenderness, and when you are touched within by that, you know that such qualities are worth more than your self. So much so that you would know that it is worth giving your self to such qualities within your self.

If you have an anger problem that means your whole basis for being a person is off. Your reasons for sustaining your person are lower reasons instead of higher reasons that are well thought through, higher reasons that are supported even by your own experience, your own experience of higher qualities of being within your self; that when they do touch you, you are in awe of them. What is lacking, then, is the conscious giving of your self to such amazing qualities within your self. That would bring the level of your self up to the same as those qualities of being that you adore within your self. It isn’t reasonable that after much of a lifetime that the level of self that you exist as is so much lower and coarser than the qualities of being that have countlessly touched you from within your self.

For you to see what is profoundly real within your self you would be left stunned in your self. You wouldn’t be able to be angry about those things that you’re accustomed to being angry about because you would be seeing past your self. You would be seeing reality within your self in a way that has you not just in awe, but that would leave you also broken-hearted. You would know a brokenness within because of recognizing what you’re able to respond to and what you’re actually able to see and that you have, for a long time, been responding to something within your self that has some value but not the same profound value as what would have you in awe.

In this world it is easy to be the way that you have been because its patterning is much like yours. But when you let your self be quieted within and when you let your self be very sharply aware within a very gentled space, you’ll have a seeing that will take you out of what you’re accustomed to being. You’ll begin to recognize a finer meaning, and you’ll love the same. The finer the meaning the more that your heart is touched because there is such a knowing of something within your self that is clearly of greater value than your self, and that it is such value that is worth being. It is that that changes your self.

You can work on your anger but in doing so it will be for the same reason that you have been angry. It is still for your self. Profound change within the self can only come about when it is for what is greater than your self. What is greater than your self within your self is not something large in appearance, but rather it is very little. It’s easy to overlook, it’s easy to ignore, it doesn’t have a voice as loud as yours. It is the most tender voice within. You can only really hear it if you’re genuinely interested in it, if you genuinely care about it. That would have you caring for something that is clearly more than your self, yet within your self. You’re able to very gently pick up your self by realizing and caring for what you know, within, is lovelier than your self.

You’re able as awareness to open within into an astonishing newness. You’re able to be the tiniest qualities of being within by valuing such qualities within your self more than your self. This doesn’t get rid of your self, it doesn’t leave your self behind. It brings your self into being such tender qualities of being. It enables you to be the kind of self that is the same as the loveliest qualities of being that are within your self. It is easy to realize it because it is where you came from, it is what you first were. It is also easy for you to be it because it is your first love. It is, however, difficult to apply it because applying such beingness goes against all of your patterned thinking and feeling. It goes against the entire way that you have set up your life. It goes against how you have established all of your relationships. It goes against every way that you have put anything together. But even though applying such beingness is difficult it is still much more possible than it is difficult. You’re able to both be it and sustain being it.

It is first a shift of awareness in order to realize what is worth being as awareness. Then it is your conscious shift into being such awareness that you’ve already realized. Then it is a shift to applying being such awareness. Within that, you’ll be applying your self but you’ll be applying your self for something that is finally so much lovelier than your self. As awareness you’ll have purpose that is greater than your self. That will have you loving your self, which you’re not actually able to do unless you’re existing for something within your self that is lovelier than your self. You’re not able to comprehensively love your self if you’re living for your self, because it isn’t something that you even respect. There is something within your self that you do respect clearly more than your self. It is only when you’re existing for that that you can truly respect your self.

You’re being quickened by something that is worth being. You’re being quickened by something that matches your own finer knowing. It is such recognition within your self that then calls you to be the same. You’re able to be what quickens you. You’re able to be what profoundly touches you. You’re able to be something other than your own person, and you’re able to be that within your person. This has opened a window in you that you could keep loving looking through. You know what you’re looking through. You may not understand it, but you do know that it is profoundly real, and profoundly good.

When you are loving the reality of that, that is you letting into your self what has always been in you. You are able to enshrine such seeing with your self until such seeing becomes your self.

Q: I’m very grateful to you. Thank you.