What it is that is our Mission.

It seems I have stumbled into a greatly disputed section of our Faith.
Let me first say that I am a Jedi. This title means that I follow the path of the Light side of the force. As stated in our doctrine, Jedi Believe:

In the inherent worth of every person. People are worthy of respect, support, and caring just because they are human.

The dark side of the force does not allow for this belief.

Jedi Believe: In working towards a culture that is relatively free of discrimination on the basis of gender, race, sexual orientation, national origin, degree of ability, age, etc.

The dark side of the force does not allow for this belief.

Jedi Believe: In the sanctity of the human person. We oppose the use of torture and cruel or unusual punishment

The dark side of the force does not allow for this belief.

Jedi Believe: In the importance of democracy within religious, political and other structures.

The dark side of the force does not allow for this belief.

Jedi Believe: In the importance of individual believers determining evil influences and policies within their chosen faith group, and advocate for their correction.

This particular belief is especially important to me. Without identifying what may be negative influences within, you allow rabbits to live and thrive in your garden, eating and destroying your crop.

I simply do not agree with the idea that one can grow in the Force by an attempt to understand the Dark side in any other way than that which is taught by our own doctrine in the way of \"7. Jedi are mindful of the negative emotions which lead to the Dark Side: Anger, Fear, Aggression, and Hate. If we sense these emotions manifesting within ourselves, we must meditate on the Jedi Code and focus on purging these destructive emotions.\"

Purging does not mean allowing to come to fruition in order to better understand. Purging means to eliminate. And through our ability to eliminate it within ourselves we will be able to withstand and eliminate it elsewhere. This is how we learn and understand the Darkside. any other way is a deviation from the Path of the Light, which is the path of Peace.

I'm curious how you know what the dark side does and does not allow, if you have/will not study or walk the path? I do not claim to be an expert by any means, I'm just curious where your information comes from. Is there a \"Jedi guide to the dark side\" book somewhere that I'm missing? I think maybe you should work to understand it, before you work to combat it. By fighting that which you do not understand, you fight more with yourself than that which you wish to battle. Good luck on your journey brother, hopefully you will be a better Jedi because of it.

Dhagon Krayt

You are not understanding what I am saying. Let us look at the line I visited last.

\"7. Jedi are mindful of the negative emotions which lead to the Dark Side: Anger, Fear, Aggression, and Hate. If we sense these emotions manifesting within ourselves, we must meditate on the Jedi Code and focus on purging these destructive emotions.\"

Now, within the time spent in meditation on this when I have felt these feelings manifesting themselves within me, I have been able to analyze them. This analysis, which anyone can do with time and practice, will show you what the feelings are at thier core. And this tells what the dark side is. What the dark side allows. And most importantly how the Dark side is most effectively defeated. No there is no book. and there is no book because a Jedi will learn this for themselves when in this meditation over time becuase it must be learned for each individual. There is no one way to to best overcome the darkside. This is learned by each individual for themselves. '

So my knowledge comes from having explored these feelings in my meditations to purge them from myself. And It has saved my marriage as a result.

What I am saying my friend is that you can have full and complete knowledge of the Dark side without every touching it or practicing it. This is what allows a Jedi of the Light to master thier emotions and ultimately master themselves. Otherwise, you are simply doing a balancing act and never truely become the master of yourself.

I have to say I agree with you Br. Whiteman, but I might play devil's advocate and present an alternate perspective.

First, the light side of the force and the Jedi are not the same, just as the Dark side of the force and the Sith are not the same. The latter are practicioners of those apsects of the force, but no practicioner can be completely perfectly of the light or completely perfectly of the dark. The Light and Dark side of the force are different aspects of the same energy, because the force is an all encompassing omniscient entity, and both are necessary. In Greek mythology there is instead of a single omniscience a pantheon in which aspects of the omniscient entity are represented by seperate entities, in which the ultimate good could(arguably) be seen as Zeus while the God of death(bad) would be Hades.

While the force itself has polar oposites of ultimate light/good and ultimate evil/dark, the practicioners cannot in their physical state own up to this perfection.

Furthermore, simply because the light side observes a certain set of virtues does not imply that the dark observes opposite. In many aspects it is true, but in some cases the same virtue can be present on both ends. Honor for example could mean honorable fighting and honorable deeds to one side but honorable conquest and honorable smiting of the enemy to the other. Where as we see their version of honor as barbaric and evil, they see ours as weak and intangable. We might spare a man who is unarmed and recieve praise for that honorable deed while they may slay an unarmed man and be praised for a good kill. Perspective is a very key part because both sides feel they are undeniably correct.

As Jedi we are claiming the light in that we claim those values to be our goals and intentions, but by simply recognizing that the force has both a light and a dark side is recognizing not only that the force is impartial to good and evil, but that there is also a more or less opposite perspective to ours.

Br. Whiteman I hope you will excuse me if I truncate your post a bit to describe this point.


Twsoundsoff wrote:

Jedi Believe:
In the inherent worth of every person. People are worthy of respect, support, and caring just because they are human.

The dark side of the force does not allow for this belief.

The dark side may not include care or support, but (to go back to the knights theme), a dark knight may recieve respect by his piers for slaying 10 men, and thus be judged valuable to their cause. Respect and worth.

Twsoundsoff wrote:

Jedi Believe:
Jedi Believe: In the importance of democracy within religious, political and other structures.

The dark side of the force does not allow for this belief.

We believe in democracy as a means of being just and fair and seeing all perspectives so everyone gets a voice. Maybe the dark practicioners see democracy as a means of getting all available plans assessed by the population to best direct their efforts?

Twsoundsoff wrote:

Jedi Believe:
Jedi Believe: In the importance of individual believers determining evil influences and policies within their chosen faith group, and advocate for their correction.

Our individual believers determining evil influences and policies as determined by OUR DOCTERINES. Who's to say the dark practicioners don't see us as the evil and thus look to root out our beliefs in their system.




Lastly, and I know this is long, but I wanted to address Br. Whitemans statement:
Twsoundsoff wrote:

I simply do not agree with the idea that one can grow in the Force by an attempt to understand the Dark side in any other way than that which is taught by our own doctrine in the way of \"7. Jedi are mindful of the negative emotions which lead to the Dark Side: Anger, Fear, Aggression, and Hate. If we sense these emotions manifesting within ourselves, we must meditate on the Jedi Code and focus on purging these destructive emotions.\"

Purging does not mean allowing to come to fruition in order to better understand. Purging means to eliminate. And through our ability to eliminate it within ourselves we will be able to withstand and eliminate it elsewhere. This is how we learn and understand the Darkside. any other way is a deviation from the Path of the Light, which is the path of Peace.

THis I agree with, but I might add to it in that I think that by meditating on our dark emotions, on our evil thoughts and intentions and trying to understand them it isn't an abstract thing where we are aloof from them and looking at them, only to kick them out. These dark emotions are within us, they are a part of us, we are expierencing them every day. Meditating on them to control them is like throwing up a containment field in which we can analyse and learn about them in a controlled environment, so we are in fact expierencing the dark side of the force, but just in a safe manner that we can then chose to discard them afterwards. Instead of letting them manifest (in the extreme) in the form of a bank robery or a murder, we let them manifest in the little shell we create when we meditate and learn about them, and because we have chosen to look at them when they are small and controlable we can chose to discard them. When I meditate on these things I fully immerse myself in the perspective that the dark side justifies those emotions and I try to really understand their origin and their reason for exhistence, and then I channel those lessons into a productive use and I discard the dark emotions themselves as best I can. I am expierencing the dark side in doses I can handle.

This may not be how the majority of the Light side Jedi practicioners see it, and in that is why I would consider myself a Grey Jedi, chaotic neutral, or chaotic good at best, because I do my best t understand as many perspectives as I can while personally persuing the ones that would generally be considered good.

Thoughts on this?

Side question: if Jedi practice the docterines of the light and Sith practice the docterines of the dark, is there a branch in Lucas' invention that would be a practicioner of the grey/neutral? and if not shal we create one? and if grey is considered a third branch/section, neither sith nor jedi, does this being a JEDI order somewhat exclude them?

Allow me to think upon this and I will provide you with a response in 3 hours time.

First let me say That many of these statements are very wise. They show a great deal of learning study. Now to respond I will follow each one individually. This may get rather lengthy, however I believe it will also be helpful.

HesinRaca Wrote:
”First, the light side of the force and the Jedi are not the same, just as the Dark side of the force and the Sith are not the same. The latter are practitioners of those aspects of the force, but no practitioner can be completely perfectly of the light or completely perfectly of the dark. The Light and Dark side of the force are different aspects of the same energy, because the force is an all encompassing omniscient entity, and both are necessary. While the force itself has polar opposites of ultimate light/good and ultimate evil/dark, the practitioners cannot in their physical state own up to this perfection.”


This is most certainly true and I would not question these statements. However, I would say that it would be the Goal of a Jedi to strive for this perfection. In doing so they would gain great Knowledge and wisdom whether able to accomplish the task or not. The old saying “Shoot for the moon. Whether you get there or not you’ll land among the stars.” Comes to mind here.

HesinRaca Wrote:
“Furthermore, simply because the light side observes a certain set of virtues does not imply that the dark observes opposite. In many aspects it is true, but in some cases the same virtue can be present on both ends. Honor for example could mean honorable fighting and honorable deeds to one side but honorable conquest and honorable smiting of the enemy to the other. Where as we see their version of honor as barbaric and evil, they see ours as weak and intangable. We might spare a man who is unarmed and recieve praise for that honorable deed while they may slay an unarmed man and be praised for a good kill. Perspective is a very key part because both sides feel they are undeniably correct.”


This is somewhat true, however in most cases even though the same word is used, if does not have the same meaning then it is not the same idea behind the word. As an example If to the light side Peace were the idea of everyone respecting and caring for one another compassionately and working together in harmony and to the dark side peace were the idea that absolute control and everyone working towards the goal of that one leader. These are very plainly not the same. And while the same physical letters are assigned to it does not mean that they are the same in anyway.

HesinRaca Wrote:
”As Jedi we are claiming the light in that we claim those values to be our goals and intentions, but by simply recognizing that the force has both a light and a dark side is recognizing not only that the force is impartial to good and evil, but that there is also a more or less opposite perspective to ours.”

This is also true and you should never worry about pulling my words in order to rebuke, correct, or expand upon. I am open to them all. I’ve even had a few twisted to mean other things from time to time. Now, on to the fun stuff.




Twsoundsoff wrote:
Jedi Believe:
In the inherent worth of every person. People are worthy of respect, support, and caring just because they are human.

The dark side of the force does not allow for this belief.
HesinRaca Wrote:
”The dark side may not include care or support, but (to go back to the knights theme), a dark knight may recieve respect by his piers for slaying 10 men, and thus be judged valuable to their cause. Respect and worth.”

Again a case of mistaken identity. Our belief is that people are worthy of these things (and heres the kicker) simply because they are Human. That denotes no other need or requirement. The simple fact that they exist as humans is what provides them with this worth. On the other hand, having to commit some deed or have some special ability does not fit within our belief Because the worth is inherent to them, special abilities or not. That is why the it does not allow for this belief.

Twsoundsoff wrote:
Jedi Believe: In the importance of democracy within religious, political and other structures.

The dark side of the force does not allow for this belief.
HesinRaca Wrote:
”We believe in democracy as a means of being just and fair and seeing all perspectives so everyone gets a voice. Maybe the dark practicioners see democracy as a means of getting all available plans assessed by the population to best direct their efforts?”

Actually the practitioners of the dark side do not believe in democracy at all. This is because of their thirst for power. A dictatorship is more their style with one ultimate power at the head. (I am not certain here and would love input on this matter)

Twsoundsoff wrote:
Jedi Believe: In the importance of individual believers determining evil influences and policies within their chosen faith group, and advocate for their correction.
HessinRaca Wrote:
”Our individual believers determining evil influences and policies as determined by OUR DOCTERINES. Who's to say the dark practicioners don't see us as the evil and thus look to root out our beliefs in their system.”

This is very much true and they do. They feel threatened by our words and practices and indeed do want to eliminate us as a threat from the universe.






Twsoundsoff wrote:

I simply do not agree with the idea that one can grow in the Force by an attempt to understand the Dark side in any other way than that which is taught by our own doctrine in the way of \"7. Jedi are mindful of the negative emotions which lead to the Dark Side: Anger, Fear, Aggression, and Hate. If we sense these emotions manifesting within ourselves, we must meditate on the Jedi Code and focus on purging these destructive emotions.\"

Purging does not mean allowing to come to fruition in order to better understand. Purging means to eliminate. And through our ability to eliminate it within ourselves we will be able to withstand and eliminate it elsewhere. This is how we learn and understand the Darkside. any other way is a deviation from the Path of the Light, which is the path of Peace.

HessinRaca Wrote:
”THis I agree with, but I might add to it in that I think that by meditating on our dark emotions, on our evil thoughts and intentions and trying to understand them it isn't an abstract thing where we are aloof from them and looking at them, only to kick them out. These dark emotions are within us, they are a part of us, we are experiencing them every day. Meditating on them to control them is like throwing up a containment field in which we can analyze and learn about them in a controlled environment, so we are in fact experiencing the dark side of the force, but just in a safe manner that we can then chose to discard them afterwards. Instead of letting them manifest (in the extreme) in the form of a bank robbery or a murder, we let them manifest in the little shell we create when we meditate and learn about them, and because we have chosen to look at them when they are small and controllable we can chose to discard them. When I meditate on these things I fully immerse myself in the perspective that the dark side justifies those emotions and I try to really understand their origin and their reason for existence, and then I channel those lessons into a productive use and I discard the dark emotions themselves as best I can. I am experiencing the dark side in doses I can handle. “

This is exactly what I am teaching here. To be able to pull aside the emotion and look at it through a microscope in order to understand it. Wonderful analogies.

HesinRaca Wrote:
Side question: if Jedi practice the docterines of the light and Sith practice the docterines of the dark, is there a branch in Lucas' invention that would be a practicioner of the grey/neutral? and if not shal we create one? and if grey is considered a third branch/section, neither sith nor jedi, does this being a JEDI order somewhat exclude them?

I believe this is the path of the Shadow Jedi. However from what you have described to me I do not believe you are on that path. I think you are far more Light than you think.

Great piece and I look forward to seeing response. MTFBWYA

I agree almost completely and I will meditate on both what I had said and what you have said to further gain some thoughts on it.

I do have some additional thoughts to further explain my reasoning.

Twsoundsoff wrote:

HesinRaca Wrote:
“Furthermore, simply because the light side observes a certain set of virtues does not imply that the dark observes opposite. In many aspects it is true, but in some cases the same virtue can be present on both ends. Honor for example could mean honorable fighting and honorable deeds to one side but honorable conquest and honorable smiting of the enemy to the other. Where as we see their version of honor as barbaric and evil, they see ours as weak and intangable. We might spare a man who is unarmed and recieve praise for that honorable deed while they may slay an unarmed man and be praised for a good kill. Perspective is a very key part because both sides feel they are undeniably correct.”
---
This is somewhat true, however in most cases even though the same word is used, if does not have the same meaning then it is not the same idea behind the word. As an example If to the light side Peace were the idea of everyone respecting and caring for one another compassionately and working together in harmony and to the dark side peace were the idea that absolute control and everyone working towards the goal of that one leader. These are very plainly not the same. And while the same physical letters are assigned to it does not mean that they are the same in anyway.

I agree that often the same word can have different connotations to many people. The word \"love\" for example can mean anything from appreciation to deep emotional connection depending on who is saying it and how often. On the other hand there are a fairly decent number of words that though the reasoning is different the meaning is fairly close. When I said honor I meant it in the sense that the culture(jedi or sith for example) places on the word-->

dictionary-->
1. honesty, fairness, or integrity in one's beliefs and actions: a man of honor.
2. a source of credit or distinction: to be an honor to one's family.
3. high respect, as for worth, merit, or rank: to be held in honor.
<---
Although the majority of society deams honor to be equivilant to number 1, I I was thinking more in terms of the 2nd and third in that honor denotes a feeling of respect for a person and a high regaurd for their actions. The fact that the sith culture deams deciet and treachery as a basis for honor and respect does not deny the fact they the concept of honor and respect is the same. The reason for the honor and respect is different.


Twsoundsoff wrote:

Twsoundsoff wrote:
Jedi Believe: In the importance of democracy within religious, political and other structures.

The dark side of the force does not allow for this belief.
HesinRaca Wrote:
”We believe in democracy as a means of being just and fair and seeing all perspectives so everyone gets a voice. Maybe the dark practicioners see democracy as a means of getting all available plans assessed by the population to best direct their efforts?”

Actually the practitioners of the dark side do not believe in democracy at all. This is because of their thirst for power. A dictatorship is more their style with one ultimate power at the head. (I am not certain here and would love input on this matter)

In thinking on it I realize that I was observing the concept of an \"evil\" nation enacting democracy. In theory the idea of a democratic system could function in an evil culture, but I can't think of any so I can't back that up.


Twsoundsoff wrote:

I believe this is the path of the Shadow Jedi. However from what you have described to me I do not believe you are on that path. I think you are far more Light than you think.

I don't necessarily consider myself a shadow jedi, I consider the general outcome of my overall intentions to be good and in many situations I would act in the light, but along the road to the general intentions of the light I have instances where an action that would be commonly considered wrong I see as completely fine. I guess what I am saying is that despite being a jedi of the light I have a personal moral code that differs from that of common \"good people\". I guess something slightly darker then Strider(sorry, I have to admit I'm a bigger LotR geek then anything else), but not without the capacity of Aragorn's sense of rightiousness...


All in all I think we covered some very good ground. The point is more or less clear that though the Jedi are inherently good and the Sith inherently bad by our perspective as Jedi, that does not imply that they are always in polar opposition, though it is more often this way than anything else.

I just can't take or stomach the, \"just because they are human\". You lost me right there totally........


Being human does not excuse or give you the trump card. In fact, being that we have free will it more than makes you responsible for re-payment in kind even tripled is fair.

I pretty much agree with everything that HesinRaca has said in this thread. I do wish to add a couple of more thoughts on this though.

twsoundsoff wrote:

As an example If to the light side Peace were the idea of everyone respecting and caring for one another compassionately and working together in harmony and to the dark side peace were the idea that absolute control and everyone working towards the goal of that one leader. These are very plainly not the same. And while the same physical letters are assigned to it does not mean that they are the same in anyway.

I ask you is the peace in both of these situations not the same? I believe it is. The path it took to get to that peace would be far different of course, but the final goal of peace is accomplished in both situations. On the contrary though, true peace can and will never be accomplished. There is just no way to make everyone happy all time, therefore someone will disturb the peace, one way or another.

twsoundsoff wrote:

Our belief is that people are worthy of these things (and heres the kicker) simply because they are Human. That denotes no other need or requirement. The simple fact that they exist as humans is what provides them with this worth. On the other hand, having to commit some deed or have some special ability does not fit within our belief Because the worth is inherent to them, special abilities or not. That is why the it does not allow for this belief.

If this is true, I ask you this. Since there is no other need or requirement to be respected and worthy if you will, what of rapist, murderers, child molesters and the like? There is not need or requirement for them to follow law or societys moral standard therefore under your belief these people are just as worthy and respectfull as your local sunday school teacher. To further this, terrorists who would strap their children into suicide bomber vests, to get them close to troops and then detonate them, would also be worthy and respected. I just can't see the logic in this.

Maybe I'm missing something, so hopefully you can fill me in on this, because would find it hard to believe that any Jedi regardless of affiliation could respect people like any of these, and deem them worthy of anything, including their lives.

Dhagon Krayt

My friend, this is not a matter of logic as many of our previous discussions have been. This is a simple matter of doctrine and belief.
Ad to answer your question, yes. They all deserve our respect, love, and caring. they may perhaps deserve it in a prison. But they deserve it none the less. They are human, so they qualify. Are their decisions poorly made? yes. Do they need correcting in some or many ways? Yes. But should we respect and love them any less? No. This is a fundamental belief of the Jedi upon which are built many other beliefs.