ON BECOMING OFFENDED

Nowadays it seems there is always somebody being offended by one thing or another: a joke, a racist comment or an attack on their religious or political beliefs etc. Those who take offense in such scenarios identify the person or persons who have offended them as the main cause of their feelings of offense. In their attempts to prevent such feelings arising again they may even resort to killing the person or persons they believe to be the source, or main cause of their suffering.

But let us look a little deeper. When we feel offended by someone, is the main cause of our feeling something outside of us, or something inside of us? To answer this, let us first look outside of ourselves and ask another question: Is there some inherent power in words that can cause feelings of offense?

For example if we have an argument with a tree, lose our temper and call it: 'A lazy bastard that never gets up off its arse and does anything', will the tree take offense? Perhaps it will try to drop a large branch on our head, or flick a leaf into our eye? No. Although the tree is a living thing, it is not able to comprehend our words and therefore does not become offended.

Even if we pour a lot of negative energy into our words as we say them, the tree will still not be offended. Why? Without comprehension of the meaning of the words there is nothing to trigger the feelings of offense.

For example if somebody is shouting and screaming at us and projecting a large amount of negative energy in our direction, but we mistakenly think they are criticising the person next to us, we don't become offended.

We can look at other examples. If we call a statue of David Beckham: 'An overrated corporate puppet whose speed of thought and general demeanour resembles that of a retarded chimpanzee', would the statue take offense? No. Clearly there needs to he an apprehending human consciousness - with fully functioning ears.

If you were to say to a one-armed deaf person: 'People with disabilities should all stay together in their own country separate from the rest of us so we don't get to hear their constant moaning', they would not take offense at that criticism if they could not hear it. As soon as they realize they are being criticised - whether through lip-reading, an interpreter for the deaf, reading a transcript of what you said, or any other method - their psychology will change and they will feel offended.

The fact that their are no feelings of offense until there is comprehension of the words also clearly  shows us  that  the  negative or  positive  intention of  the  person criticising has no bearing on the suffering experienced.

So we need two things: 1). Words uttered by a criticizer and 2). An object of their criticism who is able to clearly apprehend, through the senses, the criticism directed at them. Is this sufficient to generate feelings of offense? No.

We can take as an example two practising Catholics. One is a mature nun in her early 70's, a seasoned spiritual practitioner. The other a young student of the nun, a man in his early twenties, infused with the religious zeal of the freshly converted.

Now imagine if you were to meet the two of them and engage in polite conversation over a piping hot cup of tea and a generously buttered fruit scone. You exchange pleasantries, before suddenly and unexpectedly launching a vicious personal attack on the personable nun: 'You look, and smell like, a cross between a giant panda and Yoda', you say.

Upon hearing and comprehending these words the man becomes deeply offended. Because he projects onto the nun that she is his saviour and protector, he almost feels as if your verbal assault is directed at him. If we are strongly attached to someone or something it is easy to become angry when the object of our attachment is threatened in some way.

In the above example he becomes offended because his view of his teacher is coming under threat. This view is a creation of his own mind that he projects onto the nun. This view is the foundation of his beliefs and thus we are indirectly attaching his belief system. This is one of the problems of belief in the truth as oppose to knowledge of the truth.

Meanwhile, the nun herself, is completely unaffected, remaining peaceful and calm. What is to account for the huge difference in their reactions? If both have a human consciousness, both hear the same words, and one person becomes offended and the other does not, what can we say about the words themselves? Clearly the words themselves have no inherent power to cause human suffering. If they did have some  inherent  power  from  their  own  side  to  cause  offense,  then  why  are  both  people  not suffering?

The main cause of becoming offended lies within the mind of  each individual,  the words are merely a contributory factor, they are NOT THE MAIN CAUSE. Without the main cause being activated their are no feelings of offense. The  nun  is  able  to  remain  at  peace  -  unaffected  by  the  slanderous  words  -  because  of  self-knowledge  born  from self-awareness. 

As  Socrates  said: 'Know Thyself'.  Implicit  within  this statement is the idea that to free ourselves from the constricting psychological mechanisms that are the main cause of our pain, we must take personal responsibility. For example, stop blaming others when 'they' cause us suffering by supposedly offending us. If we have self knowledge born from self awareness, we can clearly identify the inner mechanisms that function to make us feel offended, angry or jealous.

If we watch our mind over a period of time we will eventually identify these inner mechanisms. They will appear clearer and clearer until we will gain a deep understanding of them: we will be able to identify them the moment they appear to us, we will understand why they have arisen, their function and, importantly, we will be able to remain an observer of them, unaffected by them.

We will be able to watch them just as we are able to watch birds fly through a clear, blue sky. This is freedom. Then we will not blame others for making us feel offended because we will know with complete certainty that the main cause of feeling offended is within our own mind. With self knowledge and self awareness we will be able to transcend the psychological mechanisms that are at the root of our suffering. Sticks and stones may break our bones but words will never hurt us.