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Jax
Since we haven’t offered formal training at the academy this summer, you’ve all been left to your own devices so to speak. Just out of curiosity, how do you decide what you are working on or focusing on? Do you focus on anything in particular?
Personally, I tend to focus on whatever is dominating my life at the moment. Lessons come flying from many directions, so I have plenty to work on without sitting down and deciding what to work on. lol But when I’m not dealing with an immediate lesson, my personal focus is on integrating myself so that I’m not separate areas (ie logic and creativity) but one whole and fully realized human being. How I do that can depend on many things too.
What do you do?
Yeelan
Like you I have a look on whatever enters my present life, insides and outsides.
One example: A few days ago I took a walk to clear my mind, because I have a chaotic time now. I met a man sitting on a bench in the sunshine, stroking his cat. He invited me to sit beside him and we had a great conversation about spirituality. He borrowed me a book of his (we met the first time!) which gave some new orientation and guidance.
On the other hand I read about your Astral Projection Group in the forum. I learned a few years ago to experience OBEs deliberately, but I let it slip away after a while. Your course inspired me to train it again.
Well, and I am really looking forward the term to begin…
Innocence_Lost
Personally, i usually look up what ever pops into my head or interests me. Most philisophical or spiritual. Or sometimes whatever occures in my life. Once i was play a Roll Playing Game called Vampire the Masquerade, on pen and paper. Well i play some of the best Malkavians, they are a race of insane vampires (go fig, lol). I decided to do a little research in the field of mental health and found it quite interesting, the book i got from the library wasn’t so much of the what happens, why it happens types of book. It was more along the lines of the history of the metal health community. It had some wonderful excerpts (SP?) from very people who were diognosed with different form of insanity. Many people question whether it is they who are insane or the rest of the world.
“the world is a great Betlam (famous institution) where the more mad lock up those who are less mad,”
Or something like that.
Other then that lately here i have been researching deeply into the eastern religions, Taoism, Buddhism, Cunfusism (sp?) at the moment i have a book on Buddhism, i have read the Tao Te Ching, and half of a book written by Alan Watts. I would love to find a religion that can incorporate Taoist and Buddhist thought together that would be wonderful.Anywho, those are the thought that go threw my head when looking into subjects.
Why look for a religion? Just live your own spirituality. Follow what feels true. If you like ritual, take rituals that you like and perform them. The thing is, even if you found a religion that combined the two, it wouldn’t be your spirituality, it would be someone else’s that matched yours ‘close enough’. Do you see what I mean? Everyone is unique and should find their own spirituality. Even those within the same religion often have differences.
In short, like within rather than out.
Anonymous
Oh… This summer I took a short Reiki class. I am working at the Astral Projection Class. I have decided to some reading on western philosophy and try to bring them more into Jedi Writings (Greek for the most part), I am taking Mandarin as a foreign language while also brushing up on my French.
BIG change was completely changing my eating habits…. It took a lot to go from really unhealthy to healthy – but a wonderful change and I actually am having more fun cooking and eating than ever because my diet is so much more varied!!!
All that I am studying has also been something that I needed in my life.
I, just this weekend, was reading at the Gatherings Group about Metatemples, and other temples, and the suggestion that each Jedi’s house could be his personal “temple” (I preffer the term solo Jedi Training abode…heh) and since I’ve been working on my house I suddenly realize I can take this opportunity to re-think what I need to do.
It’s fun…this study. It’s functional and beneficial.
Very cool new lifestyle for me…
-Asta Sophi
Bright Falcon
Off topic but . . .
Why look for a religion? I spent several years looking for a religion myself, while cultivating my spirituality
Practicing my spirituality within a community was important to me, which meant finding a religion that was compatible with my spirituality. And I was at a stage of my spiritual growth where I felt the need for a religion. I can’t explain it any better then that. It was what I needed then.
So, in my opinion, while anyone who seeks a religion should also always follow their own spirituality, religions exist for a reason, which is that sometimes they are needed.
Kol Drake
Quote:Off topic but . . .Why look for a religion? I spent several years looking for a religion myself, while cultivating my spirituality
…
So, in my opinion, while anyone who seeks a religion should also always follow their own spirituality, religions exist for a reason, which is that sometimes they are needed.
Opinion: Most use the word ‘religion’ — when, I believe, they really meant to say they are looking for a philosophy or ‘world view’ — belief — if you will, which will jive with their experiences and thinking.
Looking at Buddhism, Christianity, Judiism, Shinto, or Islam… or any of the other ‘faiths’ — all have kernels of ‘truth’… and all can be studied with the eye toward ‘what seems logical and right’. I suspect most only have ‘trouble’ with the ‘structures’ (churches) put in place to codify the original philosophies and teachings — which tend to veer from the original intent and meaning of said teachings.
Exploring the possibilities — is never bad. Finding ‘what works for you’ is a good thing… even if it’s a patchwork of pieces from all world ‘religions’.
Aslyn
My question would be this: why do you choose such courses to occupy your time? I am curious as to the motivations of our students/practitioners – is there any particular reason you would choose one course over another? Or is this simply based upon whim or circumstance?
Loremaster
Alex,
I suppose it depends greatly upon your choice of path. As a Jedi mystic, my “teachable moments” are largely found in meditation and prayer. And I am led to study various courses or topics as a result of what my meditations reveal. As a philosopher, your priorities and focus are obviously going to be different. That is perfectly OK. It takes all types of Jedi to make an Order.
As far as Jedi studies go, I need to investigate more along the Spirituality path. So I am planning my studies accordingly, focusing on Force studies and meditation, since this is where my knowledge base is weaker. Apparently there is a Novice 1 course that combines all the intro courses, and I have scheduled myself to enroll in that next term. So it is neither whim nor circumstance. It is a careful consideration of what topics I need to cover in order to move toward a particular goal on my own path – and the most expedient way in which to do so.
I can only speak for myself, but I hope this answer helps a bit.
Loremaster
Why one chooses what to study? How do they pick classes?
Two examples — (I will try to not make this a novel !)
(1) For approximately a year, I traded near daily emails with a good friend from many states away. They had varied interests as did I… however, during our daily ‘conversations’, we would hit on topics of mutual interest, recent news, books, movies, etc. Also, they owned a business which touched on sound systems, brain function and I was ‘then’ working an online ‘neverending story’ set in the Star Trek universe where I ‘played’ a doctor (among others).
I started researching brains, brain function, brain surgery. I liked to make my ‘doctor’ posts a bit more realistic even in a fantasy.
It also allowed me to be more ‘on par’ with my friend when discussing their explorations. Soon, I spent each night (midnight to 2 or 3am) doing Internet searches on some topic we wished to explore or ‘find out more’. I learned bunches.. since I am so anal as to actually go ten or twenty pages of search ‘in’ and really read what they said… so I’d have data with references, etc. which I could share a day or two later.Nice thing was — a question and search one night always led to more indepth probes and new questions / information worth searching for. Some would consider it ‘lost sleep time’… I really felt like I was seeing information I would never normally be messing with.
(2) As I may have mentioned in my history and elsewhere — I once tried to collect data and write a ‘book’ on ‘what it meant to be a Jedi (how to be a ‘now on Earth’ Jedi) and what is the Force. Those studies /research led me to look into the standard sources… Lucas, Campbell, myth, religion — similarities and differences, magic, parapsychology, Ninja, Samurai and on and on. Again, all materials leading to other items to research, chew on, and work out how it fit into ‘my view of how things worked’.
Thought I was doing it for my kids.. but it was more… clarifying for myself. And, it meant more to me than to them.. since they were not (and are not yet) at the same point in their paths as I was.
Guess I am trying to state — one chooses what one feels best addresses a ‘felt’ need; an area of interest — triggered by curiosity or some past ‘happening’ in one’s life; or tosses a dart blindly at the ‘pick a class’ board. Most of the time, it is something we ‘hope’ will speak to us — give us another, higher spot to look forward from and to.
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