Anger and rage are dismissed as the villains of our time. “Conventional wisdom” clearly tells us that anger is bad. Many spiritual teachers say that fear is always hidden underneath anger. This is the case with toxic anger. Toxic anger is anger that comes from fear and seeks to create a world that is safe for the ego. Most of what we see on earth as anger is this kind of bullshit anger. Any anger that protects the ego abandons the soul. Imagine, however, a form of anger that honors the soul and comes from love: Sacred Anger.
Sacred Anger is a different matter entirely from toxic anger. Imagine a clear and heartfelt response to cruelty. For example, someone is hitting your mother in the head with a baseball bat. What would you feel? Imagine someone takes your new born baby and starts smothering the baby with a pillow. Now what would you feel? Sacred Anger is the kind of anger that wells up in you, and gets you to stop the other person as soon as fucking humanly possible, to get them away from your baby or mother. Sacred Anger steps in where there is grave injustice and says, “No more!” It does not mince words or waste time; it is direct, clear, and decisive. This anger is a direct channel from love!
Sacred Anger can come in personal situations, like the ones above, or it can be channeled for all of humanity. Masters in history, like Mahatma Gandhi, used sacred anger to expel the British from India through a determined but non-violent resistance of evil practice called Satyagraha (truth force). It was part of the energy Gandhi held inside, to uphold the ground of his truth. Martin Luther King, Jr. was an exemplar of this beautiful and angry passion in the non-violent U.S. civil rights movement that he helped inspire. The Black Panthers and Malcolm X were also tapping into this energy, when they sought to overthrow the dominant U.S. paradigm even though they chose a more violent approach. Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress were tapping into this anger in the anti-apartehid movement in South Africa. They were also training for war at times during this process.
I believe that the rage needed for our time is of a particular caliber that is even more awakening and energetic than anything that was called for in the past. The situation on earth has only become more dire with each passing day. The quality of love needed for these times goes beyond what even the great masters of old were able to channel. The problems that we face currently stem deeply from a denial of what is actually happening on earth. Climate change is real and so is human cruelty. We need a massive, collective wakeup call.
Sacred Anger is the answer for our times to combat the cruelty, rape, torture, and murder in our world. When we open to this Sacred Anger, we draw a boundary between what we will no longer tolerate in our world and what we will allow. When we embrace this Sacred Anger, we take a stand for what we believe in and what we live for. It gives an integrity to our being, which goes all the way down to the bottom of creation.
Sacred Anger is the heart’s natural response to inauthenticity, lies, and repression. The expression of Sacred Anger and rage feels uplifting, inspiring, and life-affirming, as opposed to toxic anger and rage which drags you down, feels deadening, and is full of judgment. Sacred Anger is the response of an open heart to denial of love, any kind of divisive energy, or cruelty. If someone is identified in their ego, they can experience Sacred Anger as threatening and downright terrifying.
What Makes the Anger Sacred?
Sacred Anger serves love and works for the good of all. Toxic anger serves fear and defends the ego. When your anger has been purified in the heart, it serves the good of all humanity. It has the strength of the bodhisattva behind it, or the strength of Christ, Buddha, Kali, or Pele (The Hawaiian Goddess of the Volcano), and other forces who serve the good of all. Sacred Anger is born out of love and serves love. Toxic anger comes from ego and wants to prove a point or take power. Sacred Anger seeks only to expose the truth. As the recipient of Sacred Anger, you may feel attacked. You may feel an attempt to seek power over you. And, if you are trapped in your ego, you will resist any attempt of Sacred Anger to bring you out of your ego identification.
Objective Facts Are Under Attack
We live in a world where we don’t agree on fundamental objective facts. Is human induced climate change happening? Is there racism in the world? Basic experiences are under attack, which are obvious and clear to anyone who can open their fucking eyes. This kind of denial of truth and inauthenticity is disgraceful. There exists an objective reality and we all feel slightly differently about it. However, we can agree on the facts – like we can agree on the weather. If we are in the same location, we know if it’s sunny or rainy out. It is the same for both of us, no matter what we think or feel about it. We have the objective outer fact.
By contrast, the dynamics of people relating in the field are a kind of inner weather. If we all are honest, and not filtering through the lens of our ego, we will join together and perceive things in a shared way. We must unite on the objective facts we are facing, and find solutions to these facts together. This way, we will create a world that we all must share. For example, we must see the objective fact that we are raping the earth by fracking for oil, deforesting the Amazon, consuming overharvested plants, and murdering and obliterating so many animals. We must understand that our society is decadent and corrupt, where the top 1% of the world has the great majority of the money and is using it only to enhance selfish agendas. Until we agree on these basic facts, we will wander in ignorance. Pretending that a problem doesn’t exist, brings us no closer to the solution. We must together open our eyes and see the light of the truth.
All Feelings Are Right
It doesn’t matter what the feeling is, all feelings point to our heart. When our feeling of anger is acknowledged and accepted, all toxins leave the anger and it becomes good, just, and right. Even the desire to prove a point, and be right or self-absorbed, will leave in the light of true love. Feelings don’t inherently seek power. When we are seeking power, or twisted in our ego, we are responding to fear and disconnection. All we need is for the connection to be restored. When the connection is restored, all feelings are of the heart and speak truth again. All feelings guide us back to who we are. By ending the tyranny of judgment against some feelings being welcomed and others, like anger, being pushed away, we set up an inner ecosystem which is truly loving for our hearts and ourselves.
Toxic anger is only toxic because we’ve been denying it. Like a child acting out and seeking love, feelings all seek love and acceptance. When the fear underneath toxic anger is loved, then all the toxicity is expelled from the anger and it will free the anger from its corrupt servitude to the ego. Your anger, like you, is meant to be free. When any part or person is free, they express their deepest nature which is love. Let’s take road rage as an example. Pretend you get mad at someone while driving, and you want to kill them or yell at them, for doing something stupid or inconsiderate on the road. When you let yourself feel the energy of this feeling fully and completely, without taking the action of yelling or killing, you no longer feel the urge to yell at or kill this person. The feeling is accepted and loved and you feel your life-force energy moving through you again. Feeling this feeling is enough.
Anger is Natural in an Open Heart
Anger is not in opposition to love. Anger is of the heart, just as fear and grief, joy, love, faith, and so much more are in the heart. Anger is a perfectly good feeling. In fact, it’s one of the very best feelings that there is. Pure heart opening in anger is like a storm that comes through and clears the energy for something better to come into being. However, toxic anger, unlike Sacred Anger, only comes from judgment. When we don’t judge our anger and we open our hearts, we only have Sacred Anger.
When Anger is in its Right Place
When anger is in its right place in our world, we will rewrite the whole society by the rules of our heart. Suppressed anger, at any of society’s cruelty or injustice, breeds our tolerance of all that is wrong in this world, including rape, torture, and murder. A truly open heart hates the way the world is. Spiritual teachings advise us to accept it. Of course, you accept the way things are, just as you accept that a car is heading straight at you. But you still get out of the fucking way! If someone takes an unprovoked swing at your face, you hit back or get away from them. This world is evil, corrupt, and sinful. Why are we not banding together to make it the way it is meant to be? Ask any nine year old, who is connected with their heart, about how to solve the world’s problems and they’ll tell you we just have to be good to each other and help each other out.
Why the fuck do we live this way? Why do we tolerate such hatred and cruelty? Is this all that humanity is: a raping, murdering factory which condones evil, sex trafficking, economic oppression, and greed? What have we become?
I remember feeling the immense weight of this as a teenager. It bore heavily into my heart, so much so that I didn’t want to go on living some days. The cruelty of this world has only gotten heavier for me as I mature. My desire to bring the conditioning of ignoring these injustices to its knees has risen in me like a sunrise. There’s an unstoppable revolution that lives in the heart of each person.
If this inspires you, join me and all the others in Heart-Centered Revolutions. We will forge a world that fucking works for everyone. What else is there to do with this useless, little, petty life we have. I will not use my life force to amass molehills, which will crumble to dust before the waves of time. I build an eternal shrine to love, out of the anger in my heart. I ask you all to stand with me in this. May all our actions be dedicated to the very highest values in the universe and beyond.
Anger and the Boundaries of the Heart
Sacred Anger and its purity represents all that is true and good in this world. However, mental boundaries, based on fear, are what the PC movement of political correctness espouses to quell our anger expression. True boundaries come from the heart in the moment, and are not pre-written or prescribed. They connect us to who we really are; they do not push things away or keep things at a distance. True boundaries come from a sense of justice and doing what is really called for in the moment. Sacred Anger serves the self and serves others, as well. It’s pure anger’s voice, without boundaries, that will save humanity and wake us from this narcissistic, ego-driven dream we are collectively lost in.
Anger is Passion
Anger is passion and fuels movement. Anger gets shit done. When you care enough to get angry about something, it means you love with your heart. If you want to get in touch with your will, get angry. Your anger tells you what you came here to do. When something drives you to the point of real authentic anger, it’s good for you. It helps you find where you stand, what you believe in, and what you care about. We have so many misconceptions about anger because we see it as the cause of inappropriate violence. Violence is typically caused by repressed anger – not felt, accepted, and expressed anger.
The True Face of Love
When Sacred Anger is seen as the true face of love, and the saving grace for our time, everything which is corrupt in this society will be burned away by the sacred fire of anger. We will have a love revolution which spans from land to sea to sky and envelops our whole world with a kind of love that has never existed before. A love carried by the passion of Sacred Anger to make the world a place that truly works for everyone.
To truly learn how to get in touch with this sacred anger let yourself feel it everyday in every possible way. If you need help accessing it one one one work can help you explore this more deeply. There are also classes that can help you with this. Join us on social media here. There are many many more articles here. And our latest books.
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