Lord Krishna speaks to Arjuna in his Gita discourse:
 
"Krodhat bhavati sammohan... buddhinasat pranasyati"
 
From anger arises delusion
From delusion arises paralysis of thought
From paralysis of thought arises destruction of reason
From destruction of reason arises the ultimate downfall
 
Two thousand years ago, during the Roman Imperial period, Seneca wrote in his famous work "On Anger": "... The enemy, I repeat, must be stopped at the very frontier; for if he has passed it, and advanced within the city-gates, he will not respect any bounds set by his captives."
 
Seneca tried to show a clear dichotomy between reason and anger: "Reason grants a hearing to both sides, then seeks to postpone action, even its own, in order that it may gain time to sift out the truth; but anger is precipitate. Reason wishes the decision that it gives to be just; anger wishes to have the decision which it has already given seem the just decision. Reason considers nothing except the question at issue; anger considers everything outside of it."
 
Seneca does not advocate non-violence which he calls unnatural anyway. A hunter chases a wild boar and kills it systematically. But is the hunter angry with the boar? In a civil society, criminals must be captured and punished. Justice must prevail. But it will prevail only in the absence of anger.
 
The angry man is incapable of granting a hearing to the other side. Almost all of us fall into this category.
 
Justice demands that if you have been offended by someone, give your offender his right to defend himself. And then if he deserves to be punished, there must be reason behind it -- the reason of justice, fairness and equality. But not the emotion of anger or madness.
 
Anger arises from a lack of self-esteem, from a dependence on some imaginary superior authority. A man who values his own self, also values others. Whereas a man who degrades himself, will also degrade others. This happens in direct proportion.
 
A perfectly degraded man is willing to kill himself. He is also willing to kill others.
 
A man who hates himself, also hates others.
 
A man who is not free himself, also cannot allow others to be free.
 
The very fact that you relate yourself to others to some extent, demonstrates that you lack in self-esteem to that extent. A completely worthless man lives all his life in relation to others, and not himself for even a minute.
 
Conversely, a man with a complete self-worth is entirely related to himself and his own creative purpose. That man is the creator, civilized and spiritualized.
 
If each man gets involved with himself alone, it will be the end of man's politics, and the beginning of man's spirituality.
 
Involvement with the self is "Ishq" (Love), in the real sense of the word. It is discovery of the soul. Involvement with others, to that extent, is the absence of love of the self. Absence of love, in other words, is hatred.
 
"Loving others" is the forgery of a hypocritical age. It is a perfect lie. It is actually hating yourself to that extent, and as a consequence, hating others to that extent. "Loving others" constitutes the basis of a fearful, guilt-ridden, demoralised society caught in its complex web of self-deception and perfect lies.
 
Lack of self-esteem lies at its root.
 
One of the earliest masterpieces of Mohammad Iqbal, the poet-philosopher and original mentor of Pakistan, was titled "Asrar-e-Khudi" (Secrets of the Self). In this great epic poem, Iqbal said that the system of the Universe originates in the Self. And that the continuation of life of all individuals depends on the strengthening of the Self.
 
Afraad kay haathon mein hai aqwaam kee tanzeem
Har fard hai millat kay muqaddar ka sitaaraa
 
It is in the hands of men how they run their own world
Each individual is a star that shapes the destiny of the Universe