Jedi Realism: In Your Own Words

[StryseParticipant]

I hail from Jedi Mysticism, a branch of Jediology that has some parallels with Jedi Realism.    So I can’t tell you what Jedi Realism is.  But you can tell me.  In so doing, you can also help the work of some of your fellow Jedi in figuring out how to define to the world just what Jedi Realism is.

So tell me, Realists….  The Stryse wants to know.    What is Jedi Realism, in your own words?

[MemnoichParticipant]

Hmm, this is something I’ve been thinking alot about recently, and to put it simply and steal a quote from The Book of Eli, “Do more for others than you would do for yourself”.

Jedi Realism to me is a Path of self discovery, That Path is a journey of the soul, leading you to the truths of your life, with the ultimate goal of enlightenment. As Jedi Realist, we come together as a community to help each other along their path by sharing what we have learned along our own path. Many of the truths that, we as individuals, have been shared by many of us, some have only been a small part of the greater truth that can only be learned by seeing the whole image. Some of these are reflected in the Tenets of the Jedi, or Core values as Gleaned from the movies.

Quote:

A Jedi…
1. Places trust in the Force.
2. Strives to harmonize all aspects of life through by disciplining Mind, Body, and Spirit.
3. Acknowledges emotions without allowing them to alter their actions or vision
4. Approaches life with courage and honesty,
5. Cultivates an attitude of benevolence
6. Accepts a responsibility to pass on their knowledge and experience to willing students of the Force

Lets look at these from my point of view first
1. Trusting that there is a plan, and that everything that happens is a chance to grow.
2. When a person is in balance then life makes sense
3. Allowing emotions to take control makes any situation that much more difficult
4. Life is precious and short, to short for lies and being timid, Take chances and enjoy it, and if people can’t handle how you feel, that is something they need to work on
5. Again life is precious, and we can all make life easier on each other if we are willing to help one another
6. We are all guides, and to gain knowledge and horde it is a waste, the only way we grow is by learning, and the only way to learn is to share what we know.

WARNING:Possible Rambling

Karma is the Idea of whatever you do comes back on you, you reap what you sow, what goes around comes around. Many religions believe this. I can see this as a truth, but it is also a point of view. Some people wonder why bad things all was happened to them, some point to luck others point to karma, very few, however, see it as an opportunity for growth, such as when I was laid off a couple years back, now I’m in a better job. Some might have looked at what happened and talk about bad luck, but with the right point of view, it was time for me to move on.

To coincide with this I’d like to point to the book One by Richard Bach, the idea behind this book is that we are all one, and that what is done to one of us is done to all, so if you want this world to be a better place do good things. This works with the Idea of The Force, we are all connected, if you look at it scientifically, all matter in it’s base form is energy, and if everything is energy, then all we are is different circuits on the same power grid.

The biggest thing I see for Jedi Realism and the Jedi Realist is that we pull from many philosophies, the truths that we see from our point of view. As Obi-wan hinted at, most truths are dependent upon the point of view of the viewer. While there are simple truths, i.e. being poked hurts, fire burns, ice is cold, most truths of life are from a view of the viewer. Is it wrong to kill, is it better to be a vegetarian, etc… It would be nice to be able to survive without harming anything living, but that’s not a possibility at this time, so we live by doing the least harm.

So to recap, to me a Jedi realist, and by Proxy Jedi Realism, Is about searching for the truth in one’s own life, Doing the least harm possible to others as we are all interconnected and what is done to one affects us all, and as part of our personal growth, passing on our knowledge in needed so that as a whole, humanity can grow.

[JaxKeymaster]

I was part of the group that created the definition and code for Jedi Realism.  I still stand by that and feel it’s a thorough yet concise way to describe it. 

[AslynParticipant]

Put simply, Jedi Realism is the ideological form of the Jedi Way – separated as such from ‘Jediism’, the religious form. We coined the term 5-6 years ago in order to make that particular distinction, simply because we had way too many people that were advocating a religious approach to the Jedi Way which didn’t quite fit with the non-religious approach that had been in development. Jedi Realism, then, is the Jedi Way as practised independent of religious faith, in which the ‘Force’ isn’t raised to the level of a deity or higher power, but rather is considered simply a force of nature, something that is there, but needs no worship or putting on any particular pedastal. As a result of this, the expressions of faith and practice that are part of Jedi Realism stem not from being devotional forms of worship, but rather best practice as determined through a non-religious filter. Our emphasis, then, is less on what the Force is and what it means, and more upon what the consequences of our knowledge of the Force creates.

What that comes down to, then, is mostly methodology: for Jedi Realists, the focus of the Jedi Way is both upon our understanding of the Force and, through that, of ourselves. Put simply, we believe in the connectivity of life as a result of the Force, and this in turn informs our practices with respects to our moral considerations, our emotional/behavioural methodologies, and our choice to serve life. I’ll put it this way:

Connectivity of Life -> Sanctity of Life -> Recognition of Consequences (in that all actions have an effect on others) -> Moral Principles -> Methodology -> Service

This begins firstly with faith or knowledge, depending how you like to think of it: we know of the Force, and we understand that all life is connected through it (as I tend to think of it, the Force being that which creates life in the first place, essentially being what we call the ‘spark’ of life, which diffentiates life from non-life). Then there’s another level of faith that is required: understanding that all life is connected, we come to understand that every action we perform has consequences for both ourselves and others around us. Since we all possess a sense of moral judgement, invariably that requires us to exercise considerable control over what we do in order to either maximise ‘good’ or beneficial behaviour, or to minimise any harm we cause (part of what I think of as the Ethical Directives for Jedi Realism). From this, we gain our behavioural methodologies: emotional self-discipline, application of a ‘default state of mind’ in the form of personal Serenity, the use of objectivity (where possible), and so on. I could go on forever with respects to THAT.

It’s worth noting that the way in which we approach this typically starts with a focus on the self: to develop that level of control, a student must first study themselves, to work out why they act as they do, and to determine what provokes and motivates their actions, such that these things can then be brought under their control, in accordance with our ideals (which they would presumably share by this point :p). Jedi Realism thus takes a three-pronged approach: first, we begin with the self. Secondly, we move onto focusing on others, using what we learn from the first part of training and putting it into practice for the benefit of others (even if only to the extent that you’re considering the impact your actions have on others). Thirdly, we turn those experiences back towards our training: using that knowledge gained to feed back to others within our Community, to in turn teach them what we know, and thus to expand upon our ideology.

Anyway, I’m gonna shut up now, otherwise the only impact I’ll be having on you guys is to offer you a cure for insomnia Be well.

[Anonymous]

I see Jedi realism, as a Philosophy that brings all the elements that I have been practicing since I was 14 together e.g. martial arts, yoga, meditation, philosophy etc, that have been detached from each other, in Jedi realism they all blend together and become one, as they all should have at the beginning, I seemed to have separated them all and put them in different boxes, and replaced them all with just martial arts, I should have known better as some martial arts philosophise and some meditate and cover many other aspects of life including healing, I was just concerned with fighting and self defence for a very long time.

[StryseParticipant]

Quote:

in which the ‘Force’ isn’t raised to the level of a deity or higher power, but rather is considered simply a force of nature, something that is there, but needs no worship or putting on any particular pedastal.

Jedi Mysticism has a virtually identical view of the Force’s place in veneration. 

[StryseParticipant]

Quote:

I was part of the group that created the definition and code for Jedi Realism.  I still stand by that and feel it’s a thorough yet concise way to describe it. 

Somehow I suspected as much. 

[Beral KhanParticipant]

Aslyn’s words are those I would use to explain Jedi Realism. In the end, a simple and complex way of understanding all living things are connected and affect each other.

[Author]

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