You have a furnace within you. It is a furnace of love. There is a little offshoot of it where you can divert your love. This offshoot is called anger. It is really a little teapot spout, beloveds. Steam arose from a boiling sense of injustice. Sense of injustice arises from judgment. Anger does not exist without judgment. Oh, the spoils of judgment! The havoc of judgment!

If you did not feel you deserved to be angry, you wouldn't be. You are certain you deserve to be affronted. You are certain you must defend your honor. Will you still take offense when I tell you that it is your ego you are fighting for? Your ego has decided what is allowed and what is not. Your ego has decided you have a cause, and that you must assert it.

That which is really you does not know anger, but ego is a master at convincing you that its call to arms is yours. The ego convinces you in a single stroke to take a side and let the wrong side know it is in the wrong and that you are in the right. And so you throw down the white glove, and so you start a duel of small or mammoth proportions. Puffed-up ego has convinced you that its rightful name is Honor, or Self-Esteem, or Perfection, or Idealism. By whatever name, discreditable ego convinces you that it is in the right and that it is your duty to fight. Whatever the cause, ego has made a trumped-up charge. Ego has a good time for itself, dancing around you and cheering you, while you get weak with rage. Rage is not strength. Rolled up in anger, you become weak. Leeching off your energy, anger becomes strong. What did you think anger was if not a leech on your energy and your mind? Truly anger is an offense against you.

The relative world has been filled with what is called injustice. It is always the "just" who see injustice. It is the "just" who see the demerit in injustice and the merit in full-fledged anger. And so, when you are angry, you are sure your anger is just. The world may not be fair, but you are sure you are fair in your anger.

You take the world personally. You take even a snub from a stranger personally, and you judge the position of someone's nose as an offense. A bell is rung, and, Pavlov's dog that you are, you follow an old conditioning that has long outlasted its usefulness. Its only usefulness was to muddle you up.

Beloveds, you must deal kindly with those who are not as aware as you or whose need to vent anger is stronger than yours. And when you are the one who is not as aware as you can be and you have the irresistible urge to initiate a fight or fight back, you must also have mercy on yourself and catch yourself in your tracks. You do not have to erupt. You do not have to erupt. You do not have to erupt.

Have the intention that you will never be angry again. Tell yourself that you do not have to start a war nor do you have to wage a war. You no longer have to shadow-box. If you start to feel a flare-up, be wise enough to place your anger down on an altar you have built for Me. I will know what to do with this four-flusher called anger, and, My beloveds, you will rise without it. You don't have to have it.