I Am

I knew I joined this community for a reason!

When we talk about these things, the insights from you guys are simply brilliant!

Jestor wrote: Who says it is a single answer?

Mine is kinda multiple choice... :laugh:

For my Christian friend? it "God's will"...

"To each his own."

Thats the crux of it right there isn't it. We search for answers in everything we experience, every doctrine we come across, every person we encounter, we want them to give us this "answer". We frantically search for it everywhere but in reality there is no final answer existing somewhere in the universe. Instead the answer for each of us is something we already possess. It is inside of us and we just need to come to that realization. No external construct will give you a more satisfying answer than the personal one we find meaning with inside of us. To each of us it is unique and perfect. And no two will ever be the same, just as no two people will ever be the same - this is the mystery of our existence, there is no wrong answer to the question any one of us seeks. We need only find the one that speaks to us and that can only come from within. Until we can come to that realization we are just doing the equivalent of futilely looking for our "car keys" while all the time they are actually in our hand!

"""
Look at every path closely and deliberately. Try it as many times as you think necessary.

This question is one that only a very old man asks. Does this path have a heart?
"""

-- Castaneda

Streen wrote: But who are we? What right do we have as a people to call ourselves by a name that we cannot possibly hope to live up to?

I am Bart, but it is not a name I tend to use.. much.. :dry: Becoming part of this community is one of the best choices I have made, but when I start to think about the question. Could it be that we know who we are, but what we want to do with it? It reminds me of this lovely image that Marta showed me ones..
I do know who I am _{(to a certain degree)}, I do know that I am a Jedi, and I do know the core principles of Jediism for as far that is required. But I do not know where it will bring me, and I do not know what I will do with it. Only that I try to do that what I would like to call a 'blind choice' in our road map. One can learn history, advanced thingies, and structure of philosophy, but philosophy itself, the doing part, can only be learned by doing it? I guess that the same thing can be told about who I am. I know I am me, but I do not know what I want. And I discover what I want every time again when I explore life? Guess that that is what I am. Something ready for exploration.. :blink:

It's a little difficult to address everyone's issues with what I've said, but I'll try to clarify my point of view.

Codama asked me, "Who is Streen?" An excellent question, in my opinion. Streen was a Jedi who followed his own path, believed whatever benefited him best. He believed that everyone should follow their own way, whatever felt right.

Notice I speak of "Streen" from the third-person (a name borrowed from a Star Wars book). I don't really think of myself as that person anymore. My birth name is Aaron. As a good friend of mine informed me (a man formerly known as Relan Volkum), my Hebrew root name is Aharon, meaning "bringer of light" (among other things), brother of Moses, first high priest of the Israelites. I've found that it takes a great deal of strength to simply be who I am, as I was Streen for so long, avoiding my true self, pretending to be a Star Wars character.

Why is this post all about me? Because it takes some context to understand why I posted here originally on this topic. It's interesting that some brought up the topic of Christianity in relation to my original post. I never mentioned it. I don't generally agree with Christianity, mostly because Christ never intended for his teachings to become a religion. He was a guide, to show us how to live sinlessly. Which is impossible, but that's a topic for another time. It's just something to strive for.

The point is that what most people follow is what some call "churchianity". Most people don't realize they've fallen into this trap. And honestly, I get the impression that some people have fallen into that trap in Jediism.

Jestor, you asked if I brought this up at other Jedi sites I frequent? The answers is No. That's because TOTJO is the only Jediism site still active. This is the only place I visit.

1)

TOTJO is the only Jediism site still active

Can anybody comment if that's really so for the sites you know? I, for once, know that Russian and Belorussian Jedi are active at usual level.

2) I can't understand someone's problems with role-playing truly - I always used my own name, because I know that it comes from the name of a Greek god and that's spiritual enough for me. I don't care about fiction much, only in the sense in which it gives creative drive to real life.

3) Personally, I think that role-playing is for children. However, I can also understand role-playing for charity or in context of a party. Otherwise it seems infantile to me. #IMO.

4) I think we need much much much more examples of what is meant to be a grown up and a Jedi in modern society and at TOTJO. I'm sure we have quite an amount of brothers who meet real challenges and answer them along the Jedi principles. But I *rarely* hear of such things, much more - of philosophy or (pardon) some crazy stuff about UFO or conspiracy.

5) The whole thread reminds me of how I sought to join traditional a year ago and everything I saw felt like it's already history. I feel like genuine Jedi path is the only living and (at least, a little) organized spiritual thing.

6) IMO, this whole thread is about

(a) getting into TOTJO without being authentic to Jedi way
(b) finding out that it's not genuine
(c) blaming Jedi way

I suppose who we are within the Temple is defined by why we are here ? What are your reasons to be here ? To be enlightened ? To make friends ?

Silas, part of the mission of the Temple is to learn to stop defining ourselves by some external motive mould. It is on one hand natural to join of community of people one thinks is "like-minded" seeking some sort of growth, but then what happens is that two or more "like-minds" start competing for the same external resources. Just like a field of the same plants or a forest of all the same sort of tree will compete for the nutrients in the soil and sunlight. Some starve others ... I certainly hope that this is not what our Temple is about.

No, I am not here for "definitions" and encourage others to abandon that quest also. It is the prime ingredient of existential mayhem to need to be "defined" (thus limited) to some vicariously selected conceptual models. It is Sartre's "Nausea" from spoonful to bucket ...

One cannot find Enlightenment by going into any Temple, be it a Shinto one, a Buddhist one or a Jedi one. Enlightenment comes with understanding that it can't be pursued nor possessed ; one cannot store 'light' in a jar ~ much less even in a book or in an elegant discourse. To find what one needs, one need only stop - right where one is now - and look inside oneself. 'Tis there that one finds everything that one is inculcated to think is "out there."

Making friends is also something that happens on its own : we are drawn to some people, and they us, and others tend to repel us. And there is a whole spectrum in-between. The beauty of the TotJO is that we interact with a good mixture of the whole continuum of it. "(I shall never seek so much) ... To be understood as to understand ;" means that one can get a great deal of that slippery Enlightenment from those to whom we would not probably choose to listen to, from those we consider "those people" (out-group folk). Certainly we need some validation, but the major source has to be from within ourselves. Only the refining polish can come from others, be they "friends" or "those people".

Furthermore, Enlightenment comes by standing still in a bucket of boiling existential angst most of the time. We are covered under layers of the sludge of social, familial, educational and commercial conditioning so that we start out usually very mucked up indeed. Yet, we cannot just wash it off under the shower. That would kill us almost instantly. What the Temple provides therefore is a place to rub it gently, to soothe its itching, shake off the flakes ... knowing that we may never come totally squeaky clean (we are human beings, after all).

I am here because I spent 20 years as an errant knight without a home. Then one day, I wound up here. They ended up giving me a job so that I might actually earn my keep ... :whistle:

my friend, obviously Your believe in Christ shadowed your thoughts . Did You know that Jesus after his crucified and 3 days in a cave he was actually resurrected ? I hope this everybody knows here.

But did You know that after his resurrection he lived for 40 days only ? And after 40 days he died my friend, as any other man.

So if he saying the same as I did You will do too, I say thank You my lord, I am not interested, because where is the point.
And if somebody sick , he can take some penicilin or other tablet

One cannot find Enlightenment by going into any Temple, be it a Shinto one, a Buddhist one or a Jedi one.

(Not speaking to you Alex, just in general)

But, we dont know that...

Looking for "IT" (enlightenment, the answers, whatever), is tricky, like looking for your car keys...

It is always in the last place you look...

Except in this case, the answers you seek are not in the fridge, or on your dresser, but rather within yourself....

But, we have to look in the "Christianity" and the "Buddhism" and the "Jediism" to find it...

Here I am, 5 months in TOTJO, and telling folks the answer is within, lol...

And, while I was "saying it", I had not "realized it", yet... Not completely... I need more "soak time", lol...

To really look, to find this within, we have to hash this out, and the only way to do that, is to talk about it... Get mad about it, bitch about it, argue, with our 'cosmic selves' in others...