Trying To Understand

Hello Everyone,
Some of you may know that I am new around here, but thats not what I am here to ask about.
I'm simply here to ask for some help understanding this faith.
I have read the doctrine and a few sermons, I have a general Idea on what the Force is and I have started the Initiate Programme, but i'm still having a hard time grasping what Jediism is all about. Peace and Joy? Self Knowledge? Ultimate Reality?
If someone could just give me a simplified description, that would be MUCH appreciated.
Saying again, I HAVE read the Doctrine...

simplified.....

doing the right thing because it is the right thing to do. accepting everyone as they are. constantly seeking self improvement.

if it was possible to really simplify it all the world would be jedi...some things just aren't simple....anything worth having usually requires considerable work to aquire

RyuJin wrote: simplified.....

doing the right thing because it is the right thing to do. accepting everyone as they are. constantly seeking self improvement.

if it was possible to really simplify it all the world would be jedi...some things just aren't simple....anything worth having usually requires considerable work to aquire

Wow, Thank You.
That Actually made sense.
So what you said above is somewhat of a basis of what Jedi do? I know that my journey will not be easy. No one ever said that Jediism was going to be easy. But im not giving up, Im going to persevere until I understand, and even then, I will continue to persevere because I want to better the world and better myself and find purpose...

Indeed, "Anything worth having usually requires considerable work to acquire"

You gonna found a lot of definition of what Jediism is exactly.
This religion are pretty Young yet to really have a grasp on it.

For me, Jediism is the ultimate reality.
The seeking of knowledge putting the Faith not on human but directly to the Force.
It's a study not on one religion or perspective but on all the perspectives together.

A Jedi in my definition are the Guardian of peace the true meaning of warrior.
We are protector of life and free will.
Freedom of choice and study of everything.

We can't speak of what we don't know and we critical think anything.
Seeker of the truth and defender of the future generation.
A light to banish the darkness foreva from Earth.

Then what is Jediism? It's a reality study of what it is and Protector of Knowledge.
Living in harmony in this chaotic universe & letting youth make their own choice.
We speak of what we know and we know the difference between theory and fact.

I am pretty new too, so I hope it help you to understand. :side:
Edit: Ryujin put it really simple compared to me :lol:

"Le roi est fort, l'alcool aussi. Les femmes encore plus... Mais la vérité les surpassent tous"

1
The tao that can be told
is not the eternal Tao
The name that can be named
is not the eternal Name. The unnamable is the eternally real.
Naming is the origin
of all particular things. Free from desire, you realize the mystery.
Caught in desire, you see only the manifestations. Yet mystery and manifestations
arise from the same source.
This source is called darkness. Darkness within darkness.
The gateway to all understanding.

The above came to my mind when I read this topic. The "Tao" here can be translated to mean "the Way" We could even say "the Way of Jediism". The problem is that no one can fully describe what Jediism is and to try to do so is to really cripple the capabilities inherent in the Way. You'll notice that the Doctrine is not very demanding on purpose. We don't have commandments and many of the 16 teachings and 21 maxims are basic common sense and human decency.

It may be helpful to remember that you are a unique expression of the Force. You have been living as this unique expression for some time. It is only now that you have become aware. This makes you more sensitive to the Force and how it works, but the way in which it works will be individualistic because you and I and every other creation on this planet is also a unique expression of the Force.

Jediism is then (in my humble opinion) attunement to and action in concert with the Force

Yea, I'd say 'you' are the Force*, and the theoretical best fitting into how you see the Doctrine (or elements which you equally adhere) would represent your Jedi path - so walking it is trying to step in those idealistic footsteps. Interestingly, if I dont say so myself LOL, I tend to define the 'Way' as the thing representative of the group of practitioners path's!!
:silly:

* I could paraphrase that by saying everyone else is also the Force, and many view all life and even some all 'things', but for the purpose of understanding how it means to oneself I used the above language.

a67 wrote: You gonna found a lot of definition of what Jediism is exactly.
This religion are pretty Young yet to really have a grasp on it.

For me, Jediism is the ultimate reality.
The seeking of knowledge putting the Faith not on human but directly to the Force.
It's a study not on one religion or perspective but on all the perspectives together.

A Jedi in my definition are the Guardian of peace the true meaning of warrior.
We are protector of life and free will.
Freedom of choice and study of everything.

We can't speak of what we don't know and we critical think anything.
Seeker of the truth and defender of the future generation.
A light to banish the darkness foreva from Earth.

Then what is Jediism? It's a reality study of what it is and Protector of Knowledge.
Living in harmony in this chaotic universe & letting youth make their own choice.
We speak of what we know and we know the difference between theory and fact.

I am pretty new too, so I hope it help you to understand. :side:
Edit: Ryujin put it really simple compared to me :lol:

"Le roi est fort, l'alcool aussi. Les femmes encore plus... Mais la vérité les surpassent tous"

Wonderful, That made perfect sense

Rosalyn J wrote:

1
The tao that can be told
is not the eternal Tao
The name that can be named
is not the eternal Name. The unnamable is the eternally real.
Naming is the origin
of all particular things. Free from desire, you realize the mystery.
Caught in desire, you see only the manifestations. Yet mystery and manifestations
arise from the same source.
This source is called darkness. Darkness within darkness.
The gateway to all understanding.

The above came to my mind when I read this topic. The "Tao" here can be translated to mean "the Way" We could even say "the Way of Jediism". The problem is that no one can fully describe what Jediism is and to try to do so is to really cripple the capabilities inherent in the Way. You'll notice that the Doctrine is not very demanding on purpose. We don't have commandments and many of the 16 teachings and 21 maxims are basic common sense and human decency.

It may be helpful to remember that you are a unique expression of the Force. You have been living as this unique expression for some time. It is only now that you have become aware. This makes you more sensitive to the Force and how it works, but the way in which it works will be individualistic because you and I and every other creation on this planet is also a unique expression of the Force.

Jediism is then (in my humble opinion) attunement to and action in concert with the Force

Very Good. I understand this faith a little more now. But most of the learning has to be done by me.

Thank You Everyone

Hi Wyatt,

I am a new member to the temple myself, and I think as with anything new it's only natural to have questions. I am like you just finding my around here, but I think the answers that everyone has given are great. I also feel that we have all come to the temple for our own particular reasons, and it's partly those reasons which will dictate the journey you take. I feel that Jediism is a way to explore who you really are as a person, and helps you through patient training, and the support of others to reach your full potential as a person, and to open your mind to how we can all improve as people.

When I first mentioned to a few people that I have looked into Jediism, I was met with a lot of scepticism. People asking questions such as... Who is qualified enough to call themselves a Jedi, let alone create a temple based upon it. I had countless StarWars gags thrown at me, but I think in the end it's about what you hope to become as a person, and if it's something positive then it can only be a good thing.

RyuJin wrote: simplified.....

doing the right thing because it is the right thing to do. accepting everyone as they are. constantly seeking self improvement.

I like Ryujin's answer. It's a solid place to start and I can't say I could do better.

My thought is that it should be less about the doctrine itself and more about your relationship with it. That's something you discover and refine on your own, over time, and revisit often. It's going to be a bit different for each of us, and that's a good thing. Just me talking, but the Doctrine is the beginning of a conversation and the work of discovering. Don't take let yourself get stuck.

for me the word Jedi was something that was always there but took years to embrace and accept because i didnt want to put myself into the category of space cadet new ager who thinks hes luke skywalker

but no other word is more appropriate; regardless of the origins of the word JEDI the fact is that in the modern psyche there is no other word which more fully embodies the synthesis of mysticism and warriorship

there is the shaolin warrior monk of the past, and there is the lightsabered Jedi of the future

i know i know - the movies specifically say "a long time ago" lol welcome to mysticism 101 - the future is now, which incidentally makes it the past which btw is nothing more than the memory of an observation of the unfolding of the cosmic cycle of perception and suchness - lol - if it doesnt make sense then just say its not supposed to make sense, thats part of the point; disrupt the cognition - reframe the point of reference. find a way to convincingly BREAK what you thought was real and when it reforms it will be bigger and more expansive - repeat the process: shatter the syntax enough times and it stops expanding and instead drops all but the simplest and most essential components

concepts useful to me have been jungs synchronicity and collective unconscious

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchronicity

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_unconscious

http://www.highexistence.com/how-to-read-the-signs-of-the-universe/

a quote from part of the ensuing discussion in the above link

".. time and time again following this sort of synchronicity has lead me to better places in my life, and deeper places within myself. Everything I believe is derived from directly experiencing it myself, occasionally validating these experiences with the experiences of others. Some of these things were weird as fuck and no one i know can explain them in a logical fashion. To validate everything I experience by science alone, experience alone, or spiritual/religious belief alone would be tomfoolery and unfair to myself.

I have the beliefs I have today due to the direct experiences widening my realm of possibilities. I feel like you must use all of these methods to reach a mutual understanding within yourself. I felt myself as a part of a collective, just as I am made of a collective of cells, and they a collective of atoms, and those collectives of particles. I felt how the energy in my body vibrated at specific frequencies just as a plethora of light waves blend together bouncing off my environment into my eye to make what I saw in front of me. It was far different from reading about it in a textbook but a textbook makes it verifiable, at least so far as science has come already.

The problem I have with validating things by scientific evidence alone is that it is only capable of measuring with whatever tools we’ve managed to create so far. And since this is always advancing, indeed at a steeper and steeper curve, we continuously learn new things that we did not previously, we see further and more than before. As such a lack of evidence can be caused by two possibilities (excluding things that we are capable of studying but have not yet noticed or studied):

1: It is not true, and will be scientifically proven false.

2: We have not yet figured out how to measure it or study it, let alone know of it’s existence.

As such we can only claim to understand based on what we’ve learned thus far. What we do understand from religions is many and varied, and often deals with codes of conduct and ways of living. Direct experience also, ironically, varies from person to person by nature, and skeptics and mystics are both essential to look at the world from different viewpoints in order to grasp all possible angles, right or wrong regardless. The one thing that validates MY direct experience most was science. Science taught me that at the very least, we are all made of three things: protons electrons and neutrons, not mentioning that these are made of even smaller bits, all the same materials, but because of how they are put together, everything is unique. My understanding is that the very basic deep down building block for all things is ‘energy’ in the wide and varied sense not just metaphysical (ie: electricity, ‘Chi’ or ‘Qi’, sound waves, potential and kinetic energy ect). And that last bit I have no science to back, but It is not my job to convince people I’m right: that’s my personal truth, and it’s subject to change when the universe can prove me otherwise."

---

the vedic MAYA, and atman

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_%28illusion%29

http://study.com/academy/lesson/the-hindu-belief-system-darma-karma-and-moksha.html


----

the writings of castaneda

http://www.prismagems.com/castaneda/

"A warrior starts off with the certainty that his spirit is off balance; then by living in full control and awareness, but without hurry or compulsion, he does his ultimate best to gain this balance. In your case, as in the case of every man, your imbalance is due to the sum total of all your actions.

I urge you to feel at ease and confident and trust your personal power.

You must cultivate the feeling that a warrior needs nothing. You have everything needed for the extravagant journey that is your life. I have tried to teach you that the real experience is to be a man, and that what counts is being alive; life is the little detour that we are taking now. Life in itself is sufficient, self-explanatory and complete. A warrior understands this and lives accordingly; therefore, one may say without being presumptuous that the experience of experiences is being a warrior.

A man goes to knowledge as he goes to war, wide awake, with fear, with respect, and with absolute assurance. Going to knowledge or going to war in any other manner is a mistake, and whoever makes it will live to regret his steps.

When a man has fulfilled those four requisites there are no mistakes for which he will have to account; under such conditions his acts lose the blundering quality of a fool's acts. If such a man fails, or suffers a defeat, he will have lost only a battle, and there will be no pitiful regrets over that.

There is nothing in this world that a warrior cannot account for. You see, a warrior considers himself already dead, so there is nothing for him to lose. The worst has already happened to him, therefore he's clear and calm; judging him by his acts or by his words, one would never suspect that he has witnessed everything.

We are dealing with that immensity out there. To turn that magnificence out there into reasonableness doesn't do anything for you. Here, surrounding us, is eternity itself. To engage in reducing it to a manageable nonsense is petty and outright disastrous.

For a sorcerer, reality, or the world we all know, is only a description that has been pounded into you from the moment you were born. The reality of our day-to-day life, then, consists of an endless flow of perceptual interpretations which we have learned to make in common. I am teaching you how to see as opposed to merely looking, and stopping the world is the first step to seeing.

The sorcerer's description of the world is perceivable. But our insistence on holding on to our standard version of reality renders us almost deaf and blind to it. When you begin this teaching, there is another reality, that is to say, there is a sorcery description of the world, which you do not know. As a sorcerer and a teacher, I am teaching you that description. What I am doing with you consists, therefore, in setting up that unknown reality by unfolding its description, adding increasingly more complex parts as you go along"

Whenever the internal dialogue stops, the world collapses and extraordinary facets of ourselves surface, as though they had been kept heavily guarded by our words. You are like you are, because you tell yourself that you are that way. You are too heavy and self-important. Let go!

---

warrior philosophy in general and the japanese conception of BUDO especially

http://mountallison.maritimeikd.com/senshin/?page_id=24

---

for me, these ideas form the context or the background

my view is that within all of the above as the essential context, to be a jedi means to consciously develop ones character, cultivate personal excellence, and be of maximum service to society in particular, and to the earth in general.