Tuesday, March 14, 2023

On Emotion - The Human Animal

 On Emotion - The human animal


Oftentimes we forget living enclosed within animal bodies why some things are. Most of what animalistic instincts are to survive, not only for one’s self, one’s tribe, but the continuation of the species. Therefore many emotions that we encounter are animalistic instincts, fight or flight, even love and hate. When we fall in love romantically we are experiencing a biological effect. The same when we feel lonely for not having a mate.  This is your animalistic body telling you what you need to do to fulfill the base instinct of continuation of the species. We of course are intelligent and can look beyond that.  We must view emotions, in many forms, for what they are. Many times they are road signs telling you to go this way or to not go that way. We must separate ourselves from the very front of consciousness in order to evaluate, to meditate on what emotion is telling us.


Thursday, April 19, 2012

Monday, January 31, 2011

The Greatest Challange

As you may or may not know, there are many challenges to being a Jedi and leading a spiritual life. The ones I have mentioned are only a few, such as living simply, and learning how to act in accordance with nature. Yet none of these compare to that which is learning to be yourself.

This is a very difficult task. It is a path to enlightenment. If you can see things in such a way that no one else's thoughts or opinions can get in your way, then you've really accomplished something. It is the ultimate freedom. And like usual, anything worth your time and effort is a difficult road. One which has many winding turns. One which can be very rocky, and bumpy.

Instead of explaining the solution to this problem as I have in the past to many other challenges, I can only leave this message as it stands. For I have no solution. The way through can only be experienced, not told. It takes much time, for which you need patience and courage. It takes a lot of heart to be yourself. But once you can open your eyes to the larger film of life, then you will stop acting different parts.

Go and be strong in life. Carry on and don't look back. The greatest challenge awaits you.

Streen
The Jedi Creed

Patients

Run when it is time to run. Walk when it is time to walk. Stand without moving often. -- Jedi Maxim

A young trainee travelled across the Galaxy to study beneath Jedi Master Tai'ja Nekk. Upon arrival he was given audience by the legendary Jedi Master.

"What is it you want from me?" she asked.

"I wish to be your student and become the greatest Jedi in the galaxy" the trainee replied. "How long must I study?"

"Ten cycles at least," the Jedi Master answered.

"Ten cycles is a long time," said the trainee. "What if I studied twice as hard as your other students?"

"Twenty cycles" she replied.

"Twenty cycles! What if I were to practice day and night with all of my effort?"

"Thirty cycles," was the Jedi's reply.

"Why is it Master that each time I state that I will work harder, you tell me that it will take longer?" the trainee asked.

"The answer is clear. When one eye is fixed upon your destination, there is only one eye left with which to find the Way."



‘Haste makes waste’ – Anon

Baal Legato

Chosen Reality

In order to change life, you must first see life. Not just whats around you, but everything as a whole. Where you've been and where your going. LIfe is based on a series of choices that lead to diffrent destinys. Some people belive that our destinys are "predestined" but I don't belive it to be entirley true. I belive if a destiny based on choice. There are somethings you cannot avoid, there are some things you do not have a choice on. But many things you do have a choice on and the choices you make determine your destiny.


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figure1a

Figure1a shows the time point in which we start out on in this planet. All destinys (endings) are there in reach and avaliable to us. (The arrow on the bottom of all of them shows how time always progesses forward and that you cannot go back and change something once it has passed.) It spans out as life progress's the near infiante choices we have.

It is harder and harder to change from one end to the other as time progresses, more choices are available every moment as seen in figure
1b

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Figure1b

Choices happen all the time to move from one line of destiny to the nextof course the oppertunitys don't always take you directly to any timeline in which you wish to be in. But you get the idea. The charts here are very complex and much more 3-d then I can put on paper.

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Figure1c

The time line here shows a life lived. The choices made, leading to diffrent paths. The paths as I said do not actually go back to cross another (well they can but not as directly as it seems in that chart. It is 3-D and it can cross a path similarly leading twords the same destiny. As in Figure 1a.. The purple in Figure 1c represents the choices in life. The Grey area, is the past, that of which you can do nothing about, that is already set. The gold represents the future, the possibilitys that you can change. When it all comes down to it the thin white area the present, the current choices.

I made this graph to show how I think life is, and how it ends up to where. I have had the theory in the works for a while, always being annoyed when somone would say "if it is to be". Because its not, its all your choice, its all chocies thats what makes it life. For example, many people say if it is my time its my time. Not always, so if a bus is headed for you, will you not take the steps to move out of the way before it runs you over, just because you think its your enevitable destiny. Speaking of which if you belive a destiny is enevitable it usually is. Now, the reason in the chart why some of the potential future is gray is because it is no longer based on choices of the past avaliable as a potential future. So therefore its as grey, and unchangable as the past.

Many people do not live in the present as Jedi's should. Not to forget the past but to learn from it to see how it gets to where you are what effect it has to know how to effect the present into the near future/future that you want it to be. I always talk about the false circled path when talking about past present and future. I posted on this board, but since I brought the topic back up I'll post it at the end of this post.

Also, what made me think of this, was that many jedi potential or otherwise belive that they can with the power of there mind, just direct where there life should be. Last night I found a lot of meditational and eastern philosophy books on ebay. I wanted to read them as well as add more stock to the library. But, ebay being ebay you had to bid, aginst other people as well. I woke up this morning, thinking, as I do alot. Many thoughts come during those times of subcontious to contiousness and vice versa (waking up falling asleep) Anyways so I was thinking about the books, and decided to check to see if I won them. Now, I could just sit back and think to myself.. oh well... if I am suppose to have them then I would have won them .. and I wouldn't have to go out of my way or worry about them right? Wrong, being a jedi you shoud be even more aware of the possibilitys as well as directing the timeline to being what you want it to be. Create your fate. The ability to see this time line, to know the choices to where they lead and when the oppertunity is upon us is one of what makes us a Jedi and the ability to change it. Back to the story it so happens I woke up 12 minuets before it eneded.. well got up 12 minuets before it ended and I rebid to win the books. Do not live a passive life where the effects of the universe control you. We are here for a reason we are given a chance, go ahead and take it.

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Figure1d

Figure 1d represents the major choices in our life to bring us to any enevitable eventuality. Now, even though we have the oppertunity to make many choices almost every second of our life. There are some choices that are bigger then others, ones that make a bigger change into where you will end up. It isn't always about where you end up though, but the time inbetween and the changes you make during that time. In the chart there are 5 specified "major choices" specifed with the red X's and as you can see the choices you make especially the ones that have a major effect on the stream narrow down your choices that you will get later. So on and so fourth, which is why any major (or any other choice) has to exsist within the spectrum of the possiblitys brought fourth by the choice you have made.

As I said, part of being a jedi is seeing this time line, these possibiltys eventualitys as well as what happens the way it does to make things the way you want them to be. Complatentcy in choices will be a life wasted. The future is what you make it.

"Your focus determines your reality" Qui-Gon Jinn

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False Cirlced Path

Sadily this is a path that many walk blindy day after day. You know what gets me about alot of people? Is that they arn't as blind as they 'play' to be.

For a very long time I assumed they were blind, and that if I could simply tell that what was going to happen to warn them of the enevitablity of destruction that they could listen and get off that path. Sadily I have found that that is not the case. Too many a times have I sat by and watched friends make mistake after mistake live out there mistakes and I had forwarned them before it was going to happen. Yet no one listens...Its hard to feel pity for those who knew of the comming pain and done nothing to prevent it. It pains me greatly to sit idely by only able to say well I hate to say it, but I told you so. Why, why do these people do what they do? because it is easier or 'seems' better for them at the time.

This leads me to the False Circled Path

As I stated before the false circled path is a path that many walk down day after day. I learned of this path as I was stuck, wondering in circles. (I went the wrong way to a lake in the citys and ended up in one of those giant circle residential areas with nothing but my skateboard. It was a very hot day and a very tiring pointless journey but without which I wouldn't have put this together.) Walking around in circles, going nowhere, that is what they do.

They see the end, they know that whatever path they are on will lead them to eventual pain, desolation, isolation, destruction, whatever. This may be a relationship, a job, a habit, it can be many things. The point is they see it, the ending, the pain. As they are walking, why do they walk? Because it is easier or better for them at the time. Where will it get them? Nowhere.

The saddest part about the false circled path is not that it is a great waste of time, energy, and life itself, but that when the eventual bomb drops. When everything that was foreseen to happen happens... what do they do?? Where do they go? Right back on, the same damned path again, and again, and again, and again. Circling until death. Getting, absolutly nowhere.

If you see yourself on this path on a path that you know will lead to an eventual downfall, destruction, pain. Get off this path now, as you see it. As you see others to do.

____________________________________

Life is in some ways 3 parts:

Past

Present

Future



Many people live in all 3 of them, some people are stuck within the past some look to nothing but the future. This, this moment in time you reading these words, for me typing these words to you is life, this exact moment that is never the same.

Life is like a sand hourglass at the top the future things that have not yet come to pass. In the bottom the past that which has already past. The present is the middle small point where the sand sifts down drips from the future to the past. The past into a memory, the memory eventually faded.

You cannot make a diffrence in any time but the present for that is life.

Along with the 3 parallel times in life there come with 3 ways to deal with them. Or well one way split into 3.

Learn Look Live

Learn- from the past So that the same mistakes you have made before do not happen again. The old saying is true if we do not learn, history will repeat itself (this in the false circled path) .

Live- in the present because as I said this is what life is this fleeting passing moment. We cannot make a diffrence in any other time but the present.

Look- Twords the future, so that you can know where you want to go and how to go there so you do not look at the past, which is now the present and regreat what you have done

Aurora 

Quotes from Episode 4

BEN: Well, the Force is what gives a Jedi his power. It's an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us. It binds the galaxy together.

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VADER: Don't be too proud of this technological terror you've constructed. The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of the Force.

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BEN: The Force can have a strong influence on the weak-minded. You will find it a powerful ally.

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BEN: Remember, a Jedi can feel the Force flowing through him.

LUKE: You mean it controls your actions?

BEN: Partially. But it also obeys your commands.

Suspended at eye level, about ten feet in front of Luke, a "seeker", a chrome baseball-like robot covered with antennae, hovers slowly in a wide arc. The ball floats to one side of the youth then the other. Suddenly it makes a lightning-swift lunge and stops within a few feet of Luke's face. Luke doesn't move and the ball backs off. It slowly moves behind the boy, then makes another quick lunge, this time emitting a blood red laser beam as it attacks. It hits Luke in the leg causing him to tumble over. Han lets loose with a burst of laughter.

HAN: Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid.

LUKE: You don't believe in the Force, do you?

HAN: Kid, I've flown from one side of this galaxy to the other. I've seen a lot of strange stuff, but I've never seen anything to make me believe there's one all-powerful force controlling everything. There's no mystical energy field that controls my destiny.

Ben smiles quietly

HAN: It's all a lot of simple tricks and nonsense.

BEN: I suggest you try it again, Luke.

Ben places a large helmet on Luke's head which covers his eyes.

BEN: This time, let go your conscious self and act on instinct.

LUKE: (laughing) With the blast shield down, I can't even see. How am I supposed to fight?

BEN: Your eyes can deceive you. Don't trust them.

Han skeptically shakes his head as Ben throws the seeker into the air. The ball shoots straight up in the air, then drops like a rock. Luke swings the lightsaber around blindly missing the seeker, which fires off a laserbolt which hits Luke square on the seat of the pants. He lets out a painful yell and attempts to hit the seeker.

BEN: Stretch out with your feelings.

Luke stands in one place, seemingly frozen. The seeker makes a dive at Luke and, incredibly, he managed to deflect the bolt. The ball ceases fire and moves back to its original position.

BEN: You see, you can do it.

HAN: I call it luck.

BEN: In my experience, there's no such thing as luck.

_____________________

VADER: A tremor in the Force. The last time I felt it was in the presence of my old master.

TARKIN: Surely he must be dead by now.

VADER: Don't underestimate the power of the Force.

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BEN'S VOICE: Use the Force, Luke.

BEN'S VOICE: Let go, Luke.

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VADER: When I left you, I was but the learner; now I am the master.

BEN: Only a master of evil, Darth.

VADER: Your powers are weak, old man.

BEN: You can't win, Darth. If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.

____________________________________________________

ZaZen

Assume a lotus position posture for this meditation.

If you're not able to do a lotus position, sitting in a straight-back chair with your legs in front of you, feet on the floor will also be fine.

Keep your eyes open for the meditation - stare at a blank wall or door. (Note: it may be easier when first learning zazen to have your eyes closed - it's ok.)

Inhale slowly through your nose. Focus all your attention on the sensation of inhaling. Feel the coolness of the air as it enters you and fills your lungs. Hold that breath for a second or two.

Exhale slowly through your mouth. Focus all your attention on the sensation of exhaling. Feel the warmness of the air as it exits. Hold that lack of breath for a second or two.

Repeat.

Now, inevitably, thoughts will enter your mind, though you're only supposed to be focusing on your breathing. That is to be expected, so don't worry! When you find yourself thinking, note the thought, then release it. Everytime a random thought enters your mind, note it, and release.

Spark Vallen
The JEDI Website
spark@thejedi.org