Where did your Jedi path start?

I just got done watching American Jedi and I thought it would be awesome to rehash where you started. Why did you decide to become a Jedi? How did you find out about totjo?

It doesn't have to be long or detailed just how you became where you are today.

I'll go first...lol

It was early 2007 I believe...maybe a little later...iys been awhile lol...but, I had just watched episodes 1 through 6 of star wars and I had always had that love for the Jedi path and star wars but, I had always thought, "could this be a basis for a religion? If so, what if?" I dismissed it quickly and went to bed. Next day, it was still in my mind. I went to work and I don't recall how me and co worker got on the subject but, we started talking about star wars lore and we begun jokingly saying and laughing, "oh yes, my religion is the force now." But, as we went to work again it hit me it was so weird being a man of faith already why I would consider this. But, as my mind kept coasting toward it over and over I begun thinking, "Hmm...maybe there is something to this...maybe there are others like me out there?"

So I did like any other person would do to the internet to ask Jedi Master Google! (Laughs) I picked up to my astonishment several large and established Jedi religions with multiple facets. I was exceedingly over joyed. I looked at several including this one. Ended up joining the one that I felt suited my needs...the rest is history.

From about 1996 as a high schooler I referred to the Force/Spirit of God somewhat interchangeably.

I started questioning religion/faith around 2004 and eventually put aside Abrahamic religions altogether in Oct 2011 when I stumbled upon this Temple.

Now I look at the Force as Nature and use those interchangeably.

Honestly, I don't even remember how it started ^_^U

Over a year ago, something compelled me to seek out information on Jediism as a religion, and TOTJO was the first, and thus far, best I found.

I started out as "just curious", and had gotten a start on the IP. I had taken a hiatus from the Temple for several months, and I don't remember if it was before or after that that I sought and attained actual membership.

When I came here, I was a member of "Kemetic Orthodoxy", and while that background imbued in me things that contribute to my practice of Jediism, I do feel distinctly Jedi, at this point in my training, and don't claim to be anything else. I haven't disavowed any of my past practices in my journey, but I'm definitely a Jedi, first.

So, I guess the Force quided me here, in hindsight ^_^U

When I joined the Temple -I began to read the doctrine and began to feel like I was practicing this type of “idea” while I was younger ... I just didn’t know what to call it. So - technically- my Jediism began at 13 when I removed myself from only one way of thinking and hating to a much more broad and more open search of things for myself. I didn’t call my self a Jedi but I truly was. It was when I joined here - it took on a nice label and name and a better form as just wild. Smiley face

In December of 2015 I had just separated from my wife and happened to see the video of our own Cabur and was like, "What the heck? I need to learn more." It was the right time to see the video and after looking the tenants and joining the forum I started my journey in the IP.

Oh, what a long way back this goes. Many years before there were any real-world Jedi orders, and long before the famous response from U.K. residents of "Jediism" to the question "What is your religion?" on their census.

By the early 1980's, there had been only two Jedi-themed movies - no cartoons, no video games, and as far as I know no novels. I was emerging into what to date have probably been the most wondrous few years of my life. I was being rapidly introduced to several new-to-me spiritual perspectives that awakened in me a dormant consciousness that spirituality was about much more than accepting on faith the tenets in a book, and more than the allocation of justice by an allegedly divine being. And of course, somewhere in there I'd been exposed to those two films.

One of my primary activities then was participating in a branch of what was then the Church of Religious Science (now named Centers for Spiritual Living). That church falls in the New Thought category, which has a substantial amount of overlap with George Lucas' idea of the Force and its interaction with human life. Our minister was a dynamic, charismatic woman who began with a congregation of about 50 members and in the space of a few years expanded it to three or four thousand; she initiated a nationwide syndicated television ministry, and once appeared on the front page of the Wall Street Journal. We as members were convinced, based on our own experiences, that we were part of an awakening consciousness that was expanding among the members of the human race, and would lead us into an era of harmony and abundance. (I harbor a substantial degree of disappointment about how that's turned out so far, but that is a topic for a different thread.)

At any rate, one of the many social activities sponsored by this church was a Toastmasters group - Toastmasters being the international organization that trains people in public speaking skills. Each Toastmasters club selects a unique name for itself, and the one in our church was dubbed "O'dem Jedi". I remember seeing references to that in our church bulletins, and reflecting on how similar the philosophy of Yoda and Obi-Wan Kenobi was to the older, real-world teachings I was absorbing.

Ever since, I've had this embedded understanding that the Jedi philosophy of the movies has roots in several of the world's spiritual traditions that resonate with me - mostly ones with roots in the East. Sometime after hearing of the U.K. census referenced above, I did an internet search for Jediism; one thing led to another, and I happily wound up here.

I am grateful for this place, virtual as it is in my life. It is nice to interact with people whose paths have included similar discoveries about life - what makes it up and what transcends it - as my own.

That's my story in a nutshell. I've not put it in writing before, and doing so awakens pleasant memories and inspires happy feelings.

December 2011 - someone was gifted The Jedi Path book and I read through it. It got me wondering what it would look like for a person to live the life as close to what a modern (and realistic) Jedi would if they were alive today. I did a google search and sighed at myself for not realizing that obviously other people had asked the same question long before I did and that I shouldn't have been surprised to find many websites. I looked through them all and decided a place to start - here. I learned a lot - have far more yet to learn - and it seems impossible that it's been 7 years ago.

I played the 'knights of the old Republic 2' game and was impressed by kreia's teachings. A friend had previously told me there were real jedi out there (referring to the census phenomenon) and I had lurked on FA, JRC, jediism.org, sanctuary, etc. I dug around some more and found the (not FA)shadow path, and got involved after kreia essentially converted me. The first community I heavily got involved in was JRC even though I had already rejected realism back then, and thejediismway.org was the one that shaped my beliefs regarding rank and free speech. I eventually joined totjo, black sheep of the jedi community back then, in 2010 I think.

The first time ROTJ appeared on the small screen, I saw Luke Skywalker, cloaked in black and full of confidence, appear before Jabba the Hutt. It was my first experience with Star Wars, and I was hooked.

My first exposure to the Star Wars universe was seeing Attack of the Clones in theaters as a child, and of course being dazzled by the Jedi. It wasn’t until my late teens that I really started to look into the Jedi path as a lifestyle.