As a Jedi what is balance to you?

I have the last few days been pretty amped about SW 8: The Last Jedi. I have been perplexed about the part he mentions (Luke) when he says Balance. Now, of course he means the balance of The Force (Darkside and Light) It got me thinking. Outside the realm of the fictional Jedi of SW balance is such a deep subject. We could easily say a Jedi is to be balanced in... (Fill in the blanks) but, a Jedi should be balanced in everything he does IMO but, I often find myself never being able to fully reach that in all things. For example, I am a person who has been overweight a good portion of my life and have often suffered from overeating high fattening foods and less fruits and veggies. Now, you could say, "Well, it's okay to go to Taco bell once in awhile but, not all the time..." and I could say I am human and I need to have self control and "balance" in my life between fatty foods and healthy foods like fruits and veggies.

With that being said, My next topic would be what is balance? Does a Jedi need to be 50/50 mix of dark and light? Good/Evil? Ying/yang? Fire/Ice? Cold/Hot? For me, I don't want any part of the darkside but, again I am human and sometimes I get angry, get bitter towards others, wanna smack that customer that was rude to me, ect. ect. and maybe I am looking too much into this or maybe my thoughts are narrow minded and I am not seeing the big picture of things. Is it that we find balance in resisting these darkside impulses? Or, because we recongize them and realize they're there and accept that there there but, do not give in to their temptations?

Despite my fandom grievance and aggrivations towards the upcoming movie...... I'll hold my venting for the real Jedi and spiritual path's.....I really really dislike the term "Balance."

Balance is a scale of measurement. A little of 'this' with an equal 'value' of that. AKA, as you mentioned, being light but with a measure of darkness....in the case of the term 'Balance' it is suggested that it would be of equal value. Now, you will find plenty of people who might try and dispute that. But strictly speaking in terminology...that is what it is.

However

That being said....Weather you like it or not you will always have a measure of darkness in you, just as you do of light. It is just that...These measurements are not in balance with eachother. They in fact start out as chaotic aspects of your growth. You will have natural times of darkness and natural times of light. And sometimes a bit of un-natural attempts at both.

As Jedi. I feel it is our responsibility to seek "HARMONY" with these forces. Not balance (Excuse the all caps, just trying to punctuate)

When we harmonize with our good and bad sides we are able to open up a third subject.....that subject being "Choice"

By harmonizing with our darkness and our light - we can see it, acknowledge it, and choose our course of action. And it is that choice that makes you a Jedi....or not.

Just my thoughts

Simply, balance is where you find it.

Not every scale is weighted the same, and may require more weight on one side to balance out the other. So even though the weights on either side are equal, supposedly balanced, they will still be off kilter.

It takes a Jedi to recognise this and find true balance.

EDIT: Just remembered there is a philosophy (don't recall the exact name) that devided the world into good and evil, light and dark. But it was thrown out of balance by the dark, light being all that's needed to balance. So they would work to remove dark from the world until light was all that was left, and in turn, everything will be balanced again. Sounds very much like Jedi, but they aren't.

And just for fun:

The Light...

The Dark...

My thoughts carry on off the back of the other topic on balance .

As a Jedi, what is balance to me.....

It's about balancing my focus in ways which bring a better outcome in living life the way I think is best. I don't mean that in a selfish way, as I'm just talking about how I balance my focus on self - not how I balance my interaction with others; for that is highly circumstantial and therefore varied. But importantly guided by the same principles, constantly explored and re-verified, which I think is integral to being a Jedi.

So I try to balance it across time spent on past, present and past, in areas and ways which reinforce, contrast and challenge my sense of self development and dedication. I've found the effort to balance in those approaches to be slightly different, with reinforcement revolving about mode, contrast against the median, and challenge around the mean... a statement which won't make much sense probably because I dunno how to explain it :pinch:

Anyway, I started out here at TOTJO by focusing that balance by spreading learning and exercise across the topics of the theory of multiple intelligences (not really caring if its true or not) - to, in a balanced way, spread my focus in deliberate manner across a spectrum of 'being'. Mostly to pick up my weak spots I guess, but I found it also gave me new contexts to refine my strengths as well. Then in a 'generative design' type of approach, I was able to make the whole process more efficient while improving it, which is important because I'd have to assume we have a cognitive limit, and I like to think I can get more bang for my buck by being usefully creative with the syncretic process. Now this is not all philosophy though, I'm talking about application to body, mind and environment.

These days its more about feeling then thought, as the thinking has been refined and connected to feeling in a functional way... I hope. Where previously it tended to be more about thinking then feeling, which is a bit exhausting to be honest!! I really was not paying enough attention to my body for the first 40 years of life, even though I knew a lot about it, and trained a lot - it was the wrong sort of attention, or right intention but wrong focus.

In short, perhaps a synthesis of body and mind in a deliberate way, hopefully enabling/empowering both in new ways.

TLDR: see things as motion, and balance becomes the 'light' of perception

The promise of harmony alone is a lie. There is no such thing without conflict. Forces constantly wage war against one another both within and without. If they were ever to find true unchallenged harmony it would only lead to stagnation and then death. We must also realise it is conflict and suffering that drives us to achieve. The equal application of these unrelenting forces in contrast to harmony and joy are what we must strive for. That is balance.

Kyrin Wyldstar wrote: The promise of harmony alone is a lie. There is no such thing without conflict. Forces constantly wage war against one another both within and without. If they were ever to find true unchallenged harmony it would only lead to stagnation and then death. We must also realise it is conflict and suffering that drives us to achieve. The equal application of these unrelenting forces in contrast to harmony and joy are what we must strive for. That is balance.

That's an interesting view. Can you elaborate?

Balance: A lightsaber in each hand :laugh:

In terms of achieving balance in all aspects of one's life, I think it important (as the OP says) to define what we mean by 'balance', and also what kind of 'balance' we wish to achieve?

If two people are standing on a tight rope, and neither fall off, then they are both balanced. However, one may be standing perfectly still, in equilibrium with their surroundings, and the other may be flailing around wildly swinging from almost falling off at one end to almost falling off at the other end.

I aspire to achieve the kind of balance shown by the former individual, but I think that in most instances I display balance similar to that of the latter :laugh:

Kyrin Wyldstar wrote: The promise of harmony alone is a lie. There is no such thing without conflict. Forces constantly wage war against one another both within and without. If they were ever to find true unchallenged harmony it would only lead to stagnation and then death. We must also realise it is conflict and suffering that drives us to achieve. The equal application of these unrelenting forces in contrast to harmony and joy are what we must strive for. That is balance.

Who says Harmony is without conflict? 0_o

Shall we look at the literal translation? : "the combination of simultaneously sounded musical notes to produce chords and chord progressions having a pleasing effect." & "agreement or concord."

Elements in life no matter what they are will always carry a note of conflict. Even the most pleasing of actions can conflict with it's environment considering each situation. Everything in life has conflict including the idea and attempts at "Harmony" The thing is, the one living or at least striving towards it is able to (with practice) adapt and harmonize with the events around them.

When things are frightening and people are pushing and shoving. A Jedi can harmonize that conflict by mitigating a new approach that is more "Pleasing in effect"

Even the eastern philosophies and heck...pagan beliefs understand that life is an ebb and flow of unbalanced potentials. The job here is not to be stuck in the middle of it in some asinine attempt to balance the forces of life. But to move with the ebbs and flow's and harmonize with it as you go.

Balance is indeed a deep discussion and should be the goal of every Jedi. I think the problem is that everyone has a different idea of what balance actually is because it is relative. We are all different equations. If we were all the same then we could all conform to the same set of ideas that would balance our equation. Instead, we each start with different variables on one side of the equal sign and so it's not a one-size fits all type of thing. Literally, we weren't all designed to weigh the same because we aren't all the same height. I'm over my ideal weight but I think this too is a balance because when I was young I was almost always under what I thought I should weigh and I wanted to be bigger. Now I just want certain parts of me to be smaller. Later on I might other parts to be bigger. Trying to put a timeline on this might cause imbalance in other areas of my life. What if I devoted so much time into getting physically fit that it negatively affected my relationships? What if it took time away from other things that make me happy, keep me sane, etc.? Even in seeking balance I have to be balanced.

And I don't think the process of balancing every really ends. When does a person ever get to say "It is finished." ? And how do you judge yourself when time itself is a variable in which balance isn't achieved in a certain period of time. What takes one person 3 months might take another person 3 years. But as long as you're moving in the right direction then I think that's what matters. And this moving, by its very nature, is conflict because we also have an equal desire to stand still and to seek comfort. Knowing which direction to move is requires knowledge of where you are relative to a destination. But the destination may not be a point. Instead it may be a vector. This is why some may have a problem with the term balance because in their minds its kind of like it assumes it knows what it is. I don't think any of us knows how to solve our own equation. You simply live that equation in a way that constantly balances it. If you do that well then there will be harmony. If you do it poorly or not at all then there will be more conflict/disorder/disease.

Brick wrote: Balance: A lightsaber in each hand :laugh:

AMEN