Avoiding Ridicule as a Jedi

I was studying hard in the way of the Jedi about a month ago when i decided to share this discovery with a close friend i thought would also find this interesting. They mocked and very blatantly called me an idiot for following a "Cult" that thinks something George Lucas made up is real. Honestly, it kind of deterred me from doing my studies, and whenever I try to start again i hear their mockery and it deters me further. Have any of you experienced something similar and how can i forget what this friend has said so i may continue my studies?

How is the persecution of your friend any different from that which might be experienced by a christian sharing with an atheist? Or the reverse? It is inherent in man to fear, or marginalize that which seems strange or different to them. Thus the persecution. You chose to study a path that has not been validated by humanity at large. They see idolatry of space wizards. We see the common threads of mythology and understand that the specific mythology used is unimportant. The veneration of the subtext of that mythology is. I don't claim a label. I am here to learn some new tools. Being involved isn't about what you get to call yourself. It's about YOUR path. What gets you from point A to point B. If you have found truth here, who is your friend to attempt to deny you that? How good of a friend are they really if they jump to ridicule and putting up a wall, rather than trying to understand from your perspective? This is your journey. Take it. It will get your from point a to point b. All paths do. The path is all about how you want your journey to affect the journeys of others. Do you want to create positivity or negativity. Do you want to focus on the Self, or the Collective? Only you can make these choices and walk the path.

The key is to learn not to take yourself or this whole thing too seriously. Just make sure you are doing it sincerely.

The more serious you become about this, the more difficult it is going to get with these sorts of things. Some will say "grow thick skin", but I will say instead "be light-hearted and learn how to laugh at yourself".

Avoiding ridicule, in any regard, is nearly impossible because people possess the potential to be very rude about things they don't understand. What's more important is how we handle ourselves in the face of ridicule, and whether or not we allow the opinions of others to change what we really believe.

Yeah , i have had some of that from my friends and relatives , and i kept silent and finished my apprenticeship , so ...yesterday they asked me how my Jedi stuff was doing and i said Yeah well i am a Knight now so ill start teaching soon myself , they just stopped ...and gazed at me. I know they did not think that i would take this so far and that if they disapproved i maybe would be discouraged , but i was not , i have too much fun and i learn a lot.

I laugh so much harder about myself than they ever could :laugh:

MartaLina wrote: Yeah , i have had some of that from my friends and relatives , and i kept silent and finished my apprenticeship , so ...yesterday they asked me how my Jedi stuff was doing and i said Yeah well i am a Knight now so ill start teaching soon myself , they just stopped ...and gazed at me. I know they did not think that i would take this so far and that if they disapproved i maybe would be discouraged , but i was not , i have too much fun and i learn a lot.

I laugh so much harder about myself than they ever could :laugh:

This has literally been my approach. I'm doing the IP when I have time. Moving forward and learning. I don't care what it's called. There's wisdom here. And the whole point is that we are removing the Metaphor so that we can study the lesson itself and see it in all other belief systems. You could just call it Dead Parrotism, and the lessons are still the same. You can seen the archetypes in almost every story ever told, because it is literally how we understand narratives in our own minds that creates the mythologies in the first place. You might as well call a religion/philosophical practice that is all religions and none of them. We all agree on the practice. There had to be a name for it and a mythology provided a narrative so that other people could grow to understand what it is. What better way to spark curiosity than to cleave to a mythology everyone already knew and loved because it wears the idea of myth on its sleeve?

Dcranney01 wrote: They mocked and very blatantly called me an idiot for following a "Cult" that thinks something George Lucas made up is real.

To be honest I find it difficult to talk about it with others, I receive kind reactions when I do talk about Jediism and I enjoy that people take me seriously. The way we bring and brought our messages despite what it is or was, creates the biggest part of the response. Even if we would expect it to be different.

I've found in my experience that it didn't matter which religion or philosophy I was studying I got a similar response. When it was ancient Norse mythology; ridicule. When it was Wicca; ridicule. When it was Paganism; ridicule. Taoism; questions and ridicule. Some of that, it must be admitted, is me projecting my own insecurities and doubts about my path onto the responses of others, so that what was in all likelihood merely bemusement at me taking yet another path seemed to me like mockery. Also, when you are making discoveries about your self and identifying with a new (to you) set of beliefs it is easy to become excited and want to share your discoveries with others. Yet, if you are not one to bring every conversation back to some form of religious ideology all the time, it can come from left field for your audience and they will react without considering a response: it is a reaction to being confronted with an aspect of you they were not previously aware of.

6h057 wrote: You could just call it Dead Parrotism, and the lessons are still the same.

Dead Parrotism would be more widely accepted I think; probably due to its beautiful plumage.

I am sorry that you had to go through ridicule, especially at the hands of a friend.

Jedi, Pagan, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, etc...are all labels. They are terms that give other people an idea what you are talking about. Does that mean they understand the idea? Not at all.

From my point of view, we as people need to learn from all different types of sources otherwise things can become stagnant. You are doing something that helps you grow as a person and as a spiritual being. Not everyone is going to take the same steps as you, but your process should be respected. People tend to mock what they don't understand and 9 times out of 10 they really don't want to understand. They want to stay in their comfortable mindset and world. Don't be held back by other people's limitations. You are worth more than their opinions.

As others have said, don't be afraid to laugh at yourself. A good sense of humor is a nice virtue to have. It is something that can also keep you from stagnation.

mostly im saying what others have already said but in my own way

life is unfair and you really cant avoid ridicule completely

not only will there will be people who misjudge you and misunderstand you but, even worse, sometimes people will judge you harshly and they will have good reasons

so the first thing to do is to accept the reality of judgment and ridicule

consider this: one day youre going be in a situation where you know that you should do a certain thing, or you should refuse to do a certain thing, but people around you -important people like your spouse or your boss or coworkers or your family- are pressuring you to do (or not do) what you know is right

that is the moment when you are, or are not, a jedi, and compared to that moment, what youre facing now is easy

so, get used to walking your own road regardless of the opinions of others

generally, i find that the word "jedi" can be saved for last or omitted altogether

rather than say "i am a jedi, which means that i believe that we are all connected at a fundamental level and that it is my obligation to be of service to the world in which i live"

you could just say " i believe that we are all connected and that it is my obligation to be of service to the world; i guess you could say im a real life jedi"

see the difference?