Native American Jedi? Part 1 - Enter the Sacred Space

I have read quite a bit recently on Native American religious beliefs and basic philosophies of life. Today I stumbled upon a blog written by Matt Valentine on Buddhaimonia.com and decided to share each of his 10 points of discussion separately over time. The gist of his article/blog-post was to explore the incredible similarities between some Native American foundations and Eastern traditions. The same could go here for comparing these points to what we are actively exploring in Jediism.

Thoughts on the excerpt below?


According to Native American wisdom, the Sacred Space is the space between the in-breath and out-breath.

If you’ve studied Eastern philosophy of any kind or are at all familiar with meditation techniques, you’ll immediately recognize this as significant.

Paying attention to the space between the in-breath and the out-breath, or inhalation and exhalation, is a meditation technique that’s been practiced for thousands of years. This is because the space between the two has much spiritual significance.

The space between breaths is said to be where we enter back into our natural state, where “I” falls away and we exist as “one” with the world around us.

It’s in releasing the ego, the sense of a separate self, which thinks it’s independent when it’s really interdependent, that we transcend fear and realize true love.

Also, the phrase Walk in Balance refers to having spirituality (referred to as Heaven) and physicality (referred to as Earth) in harmony.

This as well is profound. This old Lakota prayer is telling us what Eastern wisdom (and our own intuition) has told us for thousands of years: that Heaven and Earth are not separate.

They can at first feel as though they’re separate, but with practice we realize they’re really two aspects of the same thing, therefore balance between the two is balance within our lives.

The Adder Condition: The purpose of this post and any such subsequent posts in this series is to tease out ways others might find the presented information to resonate with the teachings we study here at the Temple. Although I have already more or less concluded that these traditions are inherently similar, I am open to considering information which may show the two to actually be at definitive odds.

I just have the biological view on it, that its the moment of most oxygenation, which would allow a shift in focus away from needing to breath (therefore slight relaxation in that regard), plus invigorates the heart which itself is a big important part of the nervous system. To a small extent also it allows one to relate to an important an ongoing automatic process and as such brings one closer to their own subconscious, and the subsequent trend to hypoxia does strengthen that, at a real risk. So all in all there is some merit to meditative work there for sure, but I tend to think the cognitive experience of the spiritual emerges from the balance of movement, not the holding of it to highlite its dynamism.

Note: condition met with thanks :silly:

Adder wrote: I just have the biological view on it, that its the moment of most oxygenation, which would allow a shift in focus away from needing to breath (therefore slight relaxation in that regard), plus invigorates the heart which itself is a big important part of the nervous system. To a small extent also it allows one to relate to an important an ongoing automatic process and as such brings one closer to their own subconscious, and the subsequent trend to hypoxia does strengthen that, at a real risk. So all in all there is some merit to meditative work there for sure, but I tend to think the cognitive experience of the spiritual emerges from the balance of movement, not the holding of it to highlite its dynamism.

Note: condition met with thanks :silly:

Agreed. The interesting point to me was more this: I only recently, as in the past 4-5 months, have become aware of this in-breath/out-breath moment. I originally struggled to find it. When practicing only breathing, focusing on nothing else, my ins & outs felt controlled, monitored, and measured. Only more recently did I discover that it is not the intent of the practice to control ones breath and pause at the in/out moment, but simply to recognize it the instant it arrives during normal unassisted and daily-automated-breath.

It seems mostly to be a notion relegated strictly to Eastern thought, and I have not seen evidence (nor have I looked for any) that there is a lineage of similar practice in Western (insert Christian or not, it doesn't matter) thought. So to find a stark similarity in Native American beliefs, I was somewhat excited.

I have found various other suggestions of the Native American spiritual centers being identical to those of the Indian Chakras, etc., and I am aware of suggestions that Eastern civilizations may have visited the Americas centuries or longer before Columbus. More similarities exist...should it interest anyone in the next segment I offer on this series.