My Opinion. Jestor's Lie

Coyote wrote: The movies are mythology - not to be taken literally. That is one of the topmost things we learn here. They have to make things larger-than-life and extravagant in the movies, because they are movies. Reality doesn't work that way. There is no dark side, there is no light side, there is only personal actions, and no amount of selfishness is going to get you to a point where you can shoot lightning from your fingers.

You make a good point. I feel you made it unintentionally, but you just gave away the ending of the main lesson of every Jedi's training: there is no light or dark. The Force is a mirror, and it reflects light or dark back at you, depending on what you do and are.

Why be Jedi at all? Why use this fictional reference if you barely resemble the jedi in fiction?

Mortose wrote: Why be Jedi at all? Why use this fictional reference if you barely resemble the jedi in fiction?

Homage to the source?

Mortose wrote: Why be Jedi at all? Why use this fictional reference if you barely resemble the jedi in fiction?

Because it is the membership which defines Jedi and not the other way around.

Jon wrote:
Because it is the membership which defines Jedi and not the other way around.

Then "Jedi" could become anything...
Should there not be at least some solid structure?

Mortose wrote:

Jon wrote:
Because it is the membership which defines Jedi and not the other way around.

Then "Jedi" could become anything...
Should there not be at least some solid structure?

You tell me. Should any living organism have a structure? Or is there a structure already present such as in the DNA? There are things in life which happen, without needing to be decided upon.

For a religion that hasn't been around for as long as I've been alive, I think we're doing fine. Its not our fault everyone else has hundreds if not thousands of years of development behind them. Also, nobody has made fun of me for my inclusion of the mythology(mostly because I refer to it as a mythology, I think) into my personal practice. I've even found others who enjoy incorporating elements of the mythology into their practice as well.

A part of me is starting to get annoyed at the number of people who want a prepackaged theology/lifestyle handed to them when they show up and look all disappointed and tell the Temple it sucks because Jediism expects people to find their own path. How many religions tell you to go out and think for yourself?

The vast majority of our teaching and training is only available after one becomes an apprentice.

Mortose wrote: Should there not be at least some solid structure?

Why? This is a healthy place to start that discussion.

V
The Tao doesn't take sides;
it gives birth to both good and evil.
The Master doesn't take sides;
she welcomes both saints and sinners. The Tao is like a bellows:
it is empty yet infinitely capable.
The more you use it, the more it produces;
the more you talk of it, the less you understand. Hold on to the centre.