Does naming yourself seperate yourself from the rest of the world?

Saw this and thought it could provide interesting debate-
“When you call yourself an Indian or a Muslim or a Christian or a European, or anything else, you are being violent. Do you see why it is violent? Because you are separating yourself from the rest of mankind. When you separate yourself by belief, by nationality, by tradition, it breeds violence. So a man who is seeking to understand violence does not belong to any country, to any religion, to any political party or partial system; he is concerned with the total understanding of mankind.”
-Krishnamutri

Friendly discussion please!
1) Do you agree with the above? Does it make sense to you?

2) Could we apply this principle with calling oneself a Jedi?

Have a think about it before you read (if you want to!) my thoughts ...



Cheers! To a insightful and interesting conversation!

Yes and no.

Thinking you belong to a group will soon result in believing your group is superior... that's man nature.

But being a Jedi... by calling oneself a jedi he isn't separating himself from the world. Jediism is a mixture of almost all belief systems. It is more like uniting with everyone by saying I believe in Jediism, which includes everything mankind believe and even more...

I mean look at us... I have a muslim background, some have Christian some pagan some atheist some...

I think it isn't clear I might have to think for a better way to write this...

Vusuki wrote: 1) Do you agree with the above? Does it make sense to you?

Not in the slightest. Humans are inherently categorical. Labelling things isn't inherently violent, it plays on a system of classification that's kept us alive for the entirety of our evolution. It's when those labels become excuses for violence that are a problem; the labels themselves are not.

2) Could we apply this principle with calling oneself a Jedi?

If you could ever get two people to agree, outside the fiction, what a Jedi is.

It's a nice idea... but I'm not entirely convinced it works...

So I won't call myself a Jedi, and you [talking about a hypothetical person] won't call yourself a Christian. Let's call each other neither man or woman, but humans.

Now I want to have a conversation about our varying beliefs.

"So what do you believe in?" I ask.
"Well I believe in a historical Christ figure and what he taught (and so on)..."
"Oh really? That's pretty awesome, I think those beliefs are wonderful." I reply. "Have a good day!"

So we part and then at some later time I come across another person and the conversation goes the same way
"Well I believe in a historical Christ figure and what he taught (and so on)..."

And each time it takes me an hour to understand their personal views. Wouldn't it be great of, instead of taking 10 hours to know what their views are it would take me only one or two?

So they come together and call themselves 'Christians' and that makes it easy for me and others to have an idea of what they are about without having to ask each individual person what their belief is.

In a journal reply the other day this happened:

They said wrote: in order to be a Jedi you must believe in Eternal Life (the unsaid stipulation being in whatever vernacular one so chooses)

I said wrote: "be a Jedi [at Temple of the Jedi Order]" - and hell even then we don't particularly enforce it! lol

See that? 'even then we don't particularly enforce it', because you know what? It's actually perfectly possible for me to call myself a Jedi and respect the differences of other Jedi. By what Krishnamurti says my calling myself a Jedi is being violent against you, but what exactly is it that is meant to cause such violence? And does that always have to be the case?

It is about creating a group mentality, you have an in-group and an out-group, the in-group are those that are similar to yourself and the out-group? They are different, they are not the same.

This can create the idea that because they are different they are somehow 'wrong'.

"What? You're not a Jedi? I don't understand, we are all Jedi, what is it about us that you don't get? Why don't you 'get' it?" Can you see where that line of thinking can lead? Not everyone will go down there, but a fanatic here and there can pull other people over the edge and before you know it the 'in-group' and the 'out-group' becoming a pretty big deal for some.

But why would names inherently lead to that in every instance? This would imply that having a name would make it inherently impossible to ever think of the whole world as you 'in-group'. Is that the claim that is being made? I don't think that stands up to scrutiny.

At TotJO we have an underlying rule that we are ourselves, we don't particularly get involved with everyone else so much (in a temple-wide or official way), because we are happy with being ourselves. We are just us and we allow others to simply be themselves.

Violent people breed violence, sometimes they might might do so in the name of something, but did every Muslim cry out in joyous victory at the 9/11 terror attacks? You better believe that they most certainly did not.

Violent people are violent; loving people are loving.

And a name? That has as much importance and distinction as we choose to give it.

One can understand the idea that a name creates a distinct in and out group without actually thinking of themselves as being in a distinct in or out group, just like one can understand the nature of a psychotic mind without themselves being psychotic.

If talking about 'names' is what is needed for someone to realise this then Krishnamurti's words are what is needed, but his words are not the only way in which this concept can be understood.

That's my take on it at least.

I wouldn't go as far as he does. naming can either be functional or defining. function is making an observation (for example that someone is christian), while definition is the acquisition of a property (christianity) as self, and the rejection of other properties (for example islam) as different.

Egolessness is nothing new to jediism however, it's even central: all things are connected through the Force, and there is only one force. egolessness is the acceptance of that, individuality its rejection.

to go back to krishnamurti, I wouldn't say that individuality necessarily leads to violence, however those that use it as a mean of defining themselves do indeed tend to cause trouble. It is quite obvious that people gain power by controlling factions by reinforcing their "definitions".

I want some vanilla ice cream for a root beer float, but at the store there are no labels because they have been deemed too violent. I don't want anything but vanilla, so I peak at the plastic tubs in the freezer until I find one with a white ice cream in it. I buy my "vanilla" ice cream anyway only to get home and realize it is "lemon" ice cream and I'm allergic to lemons.

Good thing I already had root beer or I really would've had a time of it....

Disproportionate misuse of labels is kinda violent; it creates conflict, confusion and ignorance. A label represents something, and not beyond what it represents - the trick is that each person tends to have slightly different interpretations and the fun is negotiating that difference to achieve effective understanding.

It can be used to hide oneself into a group by appearances only instead of actual subscription to the labels true meaning, but it can go either way I'd guess.

A common problem seems to be that people merge labels with symbols (or specific unique actions), thinking that those must exist to serve 'as a label'... when often a they can operate for specific functional reason and only be partly representative of a label.

In both those cases it is easily a tool to de-power the merit of an individuals existence by association into some perceived notion of identity, it just depends who is being violent with the use of labels.

If we could not identify one another or ourselves and talk about things, that would undoubtedly make for a much more violent approach to Life than we have.

It is not the words themselves which breed the violence, but the conditioning set upon them. That I would say : I am Jedi, or I am French, is not a violence. If on the other hand, I am Jedi were to signify that I am better than a poor, ignorant [whatever religion], or I am French pours out 949 years of bloody hatred for the English -- in those cases we've got the full head of the violence coming out.

Moreover, in those compare-contrast games, I'm stuck in a no-win guilt cycle of never being a 'model' Jedi or Frenchman or [whatever 'form'] I'm identifying with. It is self-violence generating violence upon the other ; the violent nature that is the head and source of every atrocity ever known - AND therein, my humanness and my share of it all.

Read it again, Joshua ...

Saw this and thought it could provide interesting debate-
“When you call yourself an Indian or a Muslim or a Christian or a European, or anything else, you are being violent. Do you see why it is violent? Because you are separating yourself from the rest of mankind. When you separate yourself by belief, by nationality, by tradition, it breeds violence. So a man who is seeking to understand violence does not belong to any country, to any religion, to any political party or partial system; he is concerned with the total understanding of mankind.”
-Krishnamutri

Friendly discussion please!
1) Do you agree with the above? Does it make sense to you?

2) Could we apply this principle with calling oneself a Jedi?

This is the Balance of all things. It is both violent and peaceful, selfish and unselfish. It is in the perception of the viewer, and the application of the one naming themselves, that make it violent or peaceful.

If you are standing in a Muslim country and proclaim to be a Christian (or visa-versa), you may illicit a violent reaction. The application is meant to be inciteful. But if you are standing in a Christian church and proclaim you are Christian, this is something different.

Only the ego of man makes the naming of human things violent or peaceful.

It does apply to all things!

I never could understand that quote of Krishnamurti. My guess is it was mistranslated. The full quote:

Violence is not merely killing another. It is violence when we use a sharp word, when we make a gesture to brush away a person, when we obey because there is fear. So violence isn't merely organized butchery in the name of God, in the name of society or country. Violence is much more subtle, much deeper, and we are inquiring into the very depths of violence.
When you call yourself an Indian or a Muslim or a Christian or a European, or anything else, you are being violent. Do you see why it is violent? Because you are separating yourself from the rest of mankind. When you separate yourself by belief, by nationality, by tradition, it breeds violence. So a man who is seeking to understand violence does not belong to any country, to any religion, to any political party or partial system; he is concerned with the total understanding of mankind.

You could say he is referring to systemic violence and then it might make sense. Jediism is non-violent so identifying with it isn't violence.