“How it feels to be a Jedi...spiritually home. I feel more relaxed. I feel more at peace. I'm not so concerned for my future. The really great thing in Jediism is that we all can have our opinion and I can happily live mine (Pure Land), while a Pagan Jedi can live theirs, and an Abrahamic Jedi can have theirs and we all get along!
We don't teach others what to think or believe -what we teach or try to teach is the ability to educate oneself; to develop free thinking, independence from dogma and mind control that has and continues to exist in many forms over many years. We believe however it is perfectly acceptable to question what we're told without the need to resort to confrontation.”
Remember this passage from our “Way of the Jedi” manual dated 2010? So my question is…Who are we, or more to the point, who are you? Many of us here at the Temple were trained to accept the personal religions we may have grown up with and still practice. Others were looking for a “religion” in which to align themselves. Either way, the idea that each Jedi could have an understanding of the Force and relate it back to their personal beliefs was ok and acceptable.
In my case, I was looking for something to believe in or more to the effect that I needed something to show me what I believed was for me and no one else to decide. I believed I had a calling for something, but I was not sure what it was. I felt I had a belief system, but it did not fit into any specific religious category. In finding Jediism, and with the way Master Anjuu taught me to look into myself, I found that being a Jedi and having my OWN religion was perfectly acceptable. I could meld my understanding and principals, ethics and personal code, with the ways of the Jedi.
As I went through the lessons of Watts and Campbell, I came to believe that Jediism is the melding of all religions into one. That some of my Buddhist beliefs and Catholic beliefs were balanced and could explain who and what I was all about. I became enriched by the best of all religions and by the codes of the Knight of Jerusalem, Samurai, and the Jedi. Jediism became my “One Religion of Many Religions”!
Having the insights brought about by my life’s experiences, and the knowledge that has come from my training here, I have been able to interact on a higher level with the people I meet in my everyday travels. By allowing the freedom of religious choice here at the Temple, I have learned about other faiths in a way that has taught me to be compassionate and sympathetic to their lives.
In my understanding of Jediism, it is not a religion of dogma and dictated liturgy, but of the free flow of faith and knowledge of the Way of the Jedi. So let us be careful as we develop our Jedi liturgy through our clerical staff. Let us be careful as we interact with other religious beliefs. In statements like “We are not going to recycled Christian faith prayers”, we deny a part of our own faith. That we accept all people for who they are! We are a religion onto ourselves, but we are A Religion of All Religions And Of All People!
