Finding the Treasure at the Root of Outrage

If you feel a deep outrage at the suffering you see around you, investigate the root of your outrage. Go all the way into it with your consciousness, without expressing it or acting it out, denying or repressing it. You may experience another emotion under the outrage. Relatively speaking, outrage is superficial.

If you let your heart break deeper than it has ever been broken you might find that it holds a treasure for you:

Under the outrage is often a profound despair at the endless cruelty (or mindless destruction of the environment, for another example), seemingly everywhere you look.

If you get to this point of despair, right now, as you read this, allow your consciousness to fall into the core of this despair. Despair is the one emotion that is most avoided. To meet despair means to let go of any story about despair. Simply meet it in innocence so that you can discover what is at the core. Then you can discover that your despair holds a treasure from the depths of yourself.

Are you willing to invite despair, which you have hated, which you have sent away, into your heart? Are you willing to see that hating despair and sending it away won’t get rid of it? Are you willing to say, “Okay, despair, come in, let me meet you as you are?” When you do, you feel in alignment with the outrage. But you can also be in alignment with what you discover at the cover of despair? That core is the truth of your being. If you are in alignment with that, you are in alignment with all. Nothing is excluded.

There is so much unexperienced grief in the closed heart, but the heart broken open sets grief free. When you meet your own pain, grief, or despair all the way, you discover that each holds the gem of truth.

Read more: Spirit, Inspiration, despair, outrage

Adapted from The Diamond in Your Pocket, by Gangaji (Sounds True, 2005). Copyright (c) 2005 by Gangaji. Reprinted by permission of Sounds True.
Adapted from The Diamond in Your Pocket, by Gangaji (Sounds True, 2005).

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of
Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

Jane B.

4:41PM PDT on Mar 23, 2012

After the mindless destruction of the environment, where exactly is this "gem"? All I'm seeing is
Big Biz polluting our air, food and water and it's getting worse and worse. Am I missing something? I think it's futile to be "outraged" when you can't DO anything about it. Perhaps we should fine and imprison these poisoners of our CHILDREN and see how they like that.
No more outrage, just take care of the problem.

send a green star

Sue H.

8:19PM PDT on Mar 12, 2012

Still looking for that "treasure", have not found that "gem" of truth.

Jennifer C.

12:17AM PST on Feb 16, 2012

Thanks for sharing.

Danuta W.

1:33AM PST on Jan 11, 2012

Thanks for this article.

Miss M.

9:27AM PST on Dec 27, 2011

This makes me think of the book that I just read, "The Secret Life of Bees" where one of the characters in the story, May Boatwright, had her own personal wailing wall, because her heart would get too heavy with everything that had made her sad or upset, so she would write it on a note and stick the note in her stone wall.

"A worker bee weigh less than a flower petal, but she can fly with a load heavier than her. But she only lives for or five weeks. Sometimes not feeling is the only way you can survive"

~ May Boatwright from "The Secret Life of Bees"

9:26AM PST on Dec 27, 2011

Carole R.

8:36PM PDT on Oct 13, 2011

Thank you for sharing.

Debra K.

12:37PM PDT on Sep 16, 2011

I've been to despair more than once. The only truth I found was that I didn't like this life very much and would be grateful to leave when my time comes. I've tried voting for the best candidate hasn't done much at all. I've tried talking to friends and co-workers about respect for the earth and the need to live a greener lifestyle; most of which fell on deaf ears. I have worked to make myself a better person living a greener life and spending more money to do so. All this did was put my bill paying power in jeopardy. So for me despair is mostly the way I live wondering how am I going to reconcile living greener and paying my bills. I have no control over many aspects of my life such as how the company I work for decides to downgrade my health care coverage and my working conditions. Those things are stressors in my life that in this economy I am helpless to change. My heart has been deeply broken many times and yes there have been truths revealed by some of those breaks. But leaving myself open to despair seems like an unwise decision to me.

ii q.

6:05PM PDT on Apr 3, 2011

Hmmm...

KS G.

4:57AM PST on Dec 14, 2010

Thanks for the article.