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Post by Kyrin Wyldstar on May 23, 2018 18:11:18 GMT
A lone female figure emerges from a technologically advanced pyramid. Agitated purple and black storm clouds gather and swirl overhead. She is dressed in the style of her warrior-monk clan. A grey, full length cloak, which is tossed in the wind, revealing sleek, black combat armor beneath. Her hooded head is bowed, casting her face into shadow, but not enough to hide her piercing yellow eyes as they track a path straight forward. A massive flash of brilliant white lightning strikes the monolithic pyramid. Its radiant power is reflected in the polished and expertly honed Tachi worn at her side. As she raptly moves forward, she whispers to herself…
“I am wrath… and I am tranquility… I am my own authority… I am The Force...”
Stay tuned to this journal to witness the emergence of a new path… One of true shadow the likes of which the Jedi have never before seen!
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Post by Kyrin Wyldstar on May 30, 2018 16:45:25 GMT
"...and these children that you spit on, as they try to change their worlds are immune to your consultations. They're quite aware of what they're going through... - David Bowie"
And so it begins… (Addendum: kamikeediguild.freeforums.net/post/8/thread )KAMIKEEDA TEMPLE OF THE RESURRECTED ORDER OF JE’DAIII have been denied the title of Jedi Knight by the council. So in beginning this new journal I have a few things to say about that as well as the Jedi path in general. This entry is not intended as a “bitch session”. It is simply an honest and open assessment of my current views. However, if you’re going to be offended and not take responsibility for yourself, please stop reading now. My mentor, Alan, recommended me for Knighthood a few months ago as the culmination of my apprenticeship with him. I went through the entire vetting process including the Knights Trials. But in the end I was denied. The culmination of over 80k words in my combined journals and my prolific time on the boards of this temple have been judged as insufficient to qualify me for Knighthood. Barely any explanation was offered to me personally for this decision. Absolutely no detailed critique, no write up, and no coherent suggestions were offered that could be used to move forward. In fact it took a direct request by me to the council for them to give me any input at all. They simply returned only a few sparse and cryptic comments as reasons. These are depicted below: • Interactions that I have seen (read) in the forum • There's still room for more lessons to be completed • I've watched her in the forums • Activity outside herself beyond teaching (?? No idea what this even means??) My mentor Alan has not gotten much more and in fact what he has been given is much harsher, leading me to consider the idea that I am being patronized at best by the council. Comments given to him follow: • No sign of personal growth • Read nothing where there was some kind of personal revelation • Fails to try to understand others or their point of view • Argues her own point of view with little to no concession for others or their views • Suggest studying the Seven Principles (of Hermeticism) or Natural Law. Focus to be made on Cause and Effect, especially the plane off effect, and gender, with focus on the feminine aspects. I have never hidden the fact that I consider my path truly “Grey”. The Grey path does not lean toward the light or the dark but embraces both sides equally. This view is one of moral skepticism in which lies the idea that moral absolutes do not exist (i.e. Natural Law), nor do the concepts of good and evil. Because of these concepts I also do not ascribe my path to much of the doctrine here. In fact I reject most all doctrine save for a few sparse lines I have described in my Journals. It is in these ideas that I do not call myself Jedi in so much as ascribe myself as one simply following a “Jedi path” in my learning here at this temple. I have written about these concepts extensively during my time here. I have taken this disconcerting outcome regarding my recommendation for Knighthood and pondered it intently. I have meditated on this in “The Force” and I have reached out to peers and other Knights I have a relationship with for further feedback. I have spoken with Alan on this at great length. The overall consensus from all of the above sources is that, if this temple truly embraces all Jedi paths under the required course of study, then there is nothing that should have precluded me from the title. And yet I was denied, leaving me to conclude that in actuality, all Jedi paths are not accepted; or at the very least they are not understood. This is strongly evidenced by the further lesson plan that the council recommended to Alan they felt I should undertake - that of the Hermetic Principles or Natural Law. If the council had even an inkling of an idea as to what I was about or what a strictly Grey path entails as I have described it, they would have never recommended this. I have studied these things intently over the decades and I have seen nothing to convince me these moral absolutes exist. The problem with these concepts is they just don’t hold up to close scrutiny from either a scientific point of view or a grey perspective. If the council has not understood my point of view after reading what equates to a novel by any standards in my journal writings alone, then they either did not pay attention or they are just willfully ignorant of the path and see it as a debased means to an end. There have been many incarnations of Natural Law systems over the millennia. However all of them have one underlying basic thread in common. They presuppose that everything in existence is here as a result of some form of “intelligent force” that was compelled to act for one reason or another to create this reality in which we exist. This force has been called many things, from “The All” to “God”, to “The Force”. In this creation, this “sentient entity”, which operates in the highest possible “vibration”, (I will get more into “vibration” below”) also created universal, self-evident and immutable laws in which we operate. In the case of Hermeticism these laws include cause and effect, polarity and gender among others. But if our entire world subsists on the concept of cause and effect then what caused the original “intelligent force” to begin with? How does one make the leap from formless energy to sentient mind? Why does this “uncaused cause” get a special pleading? As well, the law of polarity espouses the idea that everything in nature is dualistic and “bad” things vibrate at lower frequencies than “good” things. So for example, love vibrates higher than hate and in turn those vibrations attract like vibrations (or can change the vibration of other things). “God”, who is considered “most good”, vibrates at the highest rate and that’s what we are supposed to aspire to. But I would call this a false dichotomy because, as a moral skeptic, I don’t believe there is any such thing as “good” or “bad”. In fact every emotion is just energy and any emotion, be it love or hate for example, is capable of being constructive or destructive in and of itself. It is not the emotion that dictates its position on the scale but in how that emotion is utilized that sets its station. These laws also say gender is in everything but I think you would have a hard time proving that a rock has a gender. Just as in the case of the intelligent mind above, personifying human characteristics onto inanimate particles of charged matter by attributing them as having masculine or feminine attributes is nothing more than an exercise in characterization by faith. This is also where the law of attraction or karma fails. It states “energy” vibrations attract like vibrations. First off, this implies that some form of subtle energy exists that can “vibrate” at the aforementioned “higher” or “lower” states. However, once again, this is not something that has ever been shown to be true. In fact these so called “laws” are actually just an exercise in probability. They are nothing more than a measure of the likeliness that an event will occur. As humans we are pattern seekers and because of this we often see correlations that are not really there. We perceive a desired output based on some positive input that is facilitated by some outside source that takes care of a problem for us. But in actuality we really have no control over these consequences because we don’t build these patterns until after the fact. This allows us to substitute any input for any output and thus build this self-deceptive illusion of Karma! This is simply human psychology that has been elevated to ill-conceived paranormal standards not in evidence. In actuality there is no universal justice or ultimate judge. Sometimes bad things happen and people get away with it. As well, bad things that happen can just as easily be mapped to good outcomes and visa versa. This is the crux of the human condition. The idea that it is suffering that allows us to grow and we must accept that as valid and necessary. This is the quintessential bad thing that causes a good thing! I have been told by the council that I am not “in touch” with the feminine aspects of my being. But this idea of left brain, right brain dominance has been proven to be nothing more than another mythological false teaching of Natural Law. This idea that a female performing a stereotypically male act is somehow “borrowing” male energy in the execution of that act is a misnomer. For some reason they fail to see that the female spirit, while naturally introspective and hard to stir can also be quite analytical and even possess a strong warrior aggression. We are not linear in the idea that we either manifest masculine or feminine energy or some amalgam of the two. In reality things are not this simple. In fact our manifested personalities are actually a combination of an intricate array of influences including environment, culture, experience, DNA and hormones that results in the emergence of a unique and wonderful consciousness that manifests not as masculine or feminine energies but as a blending of a multitude of distinct archetypes, of which the anima and animus are but a small part. For me, it is actually in my feminine power that I find strength and dominance. This is because, once again, energy is just energy, making these artificially aspected dichotomies of gender actually just one in the same. It is simply in the way the energy is manifested and not because they are from one side of our brain or the other that makes the energy aggressive or passive, logical or intuitive. Physically we are male or female and we possess either male or female brain structures with unique sets of pathways respectively. However, the internal structures of our brains are not in a power struggle for control. On the contrary they are in a state of constant collaboration with each other in an equal, perfect AND unique harmony. It is in this idea that we come to understand that we are each perfect in our imperfections and we are exactly who we are supposed to be at each point in time. This artificial “masculine/feminine” model of singular relationship that contains stilted gender roles and specific emotional constants is not something we should aspire to. In fact it actually only serves as a means of control and is only responsible for a vast amount of misery. Part of my journey here has been to aggressively but respectively argue against such paranormal claims as I describe above as well as the assertions that presupposed dualities exist in concepts such as good and evil or masculine and feminine. But I have been told that I am to closed minded in my judgement of others opinions, views and philosophies; that I have not been respectful of their views and too stubborn or abrasive in my approach. And maybe this is true from this temples limited philosophical point of view towards a “light side” morality. But I think it just as likely that perhaps certain individuals are reading posts and “hearing” a certain voice that is not really mine but instead only their projection. If this is the case they are being overly sensitive and therefore overly critical. I have never approached a conversation or debate with anger or malice or ill intent. But I also will not soft serve ideas either. It is not in universal agreement that we grow but in challenge! I happen to embrace that concept and I expect that, if people engage, they also have the ability to separate the issue being discussed from feelings of personal attack. I’m sorry but I simply do not believe that attributes such as power, strength and affirmative aggression are attributes that need to be eradicated from our lives. I wrote extensively about such things in my journals and in my time in the boards. And the entire time I was told by “the powers that be” that my views were ok because each Jedi’s path is unique to the individual and all are accepted as valid. It seems ludicrous to me that the council now turns around and hypocritically endorses the idea that my undertaking a lesson to embrace the very things I have argued against will cause me to suddenly “see the light”! In the end it seems that my path has been just as closed mindedly judged as I have been accused of being. The council actually took 4 months to evaluate my training, including having me go through the Trials, before they informed me they has seen no “personal growth” or “revelation” in my journey. If they had found no insight worthy of any value whatsoever in my journals, why was I even asked to go through the Trials? It seems from their comments that undue emphasis was placed on my time on the boards, which leaves me wondering if they ever really did read my journals in the first place. In effect this leaves me mischaracterized through biased opinion of a few of my more intense board interactions. And if this is not the case then I can only surmise that in their comments, the council is trying say they feel I have “not developed” in a manner they consider appropriate according to their subjective worldview on what a “Jedi Knight” at this temple should be. They have seen no “revelation” to correct the “error of my ways”. In effect, I should be swayed from what they consider an “erroneous path” in favor of their concept of a “correct path”. Either way, I perceive this as a direct failure of the council to adequately conduct apprentices towards their preferred yet skewed outcome of the coursework through a lack of instruction given to Knights in their roles as mentors. In any event I warn those of you who truly follow a Grey path at this temple to take heed. If you pursue knighthood here, you will be harshly judged. All of this has brought me to one standing – it is the path of the Jedi, as defined by this temples leadership that is unbalanced and therefore corrupted. In effect, they have demonstrated to me quite effectively that they are woefully underqualified to guide anyone on an advanced spiritual journey outside of their own narrow and limited point of view. Sorry but I will not place ritual or tradition above happiness and freedom and my own authentic self-expression by bowing to this sort of deficient assessment just so I can earn a tin badge that says Knight. I will live as I choose - authentically, with transparency, spontaneity and freedom, not in conformance to a bunch of politically stifling, doctrinal bullshit. I have said many times before that I have never been here for the title, only the experience. I have gotten that experience in spades under Alan’s instruction. In fact Alan, whose opinion I value more than any others at this temple, has recognized me as a Jedi Knight on his own authority outside this temple and has released me from apprenticeship. A pronouncement with which I concur as it will allow me to fully pursue further studies as I see fit. And so it is for these reasons that I am abandoning my pursuit of Knighthood here under the authority of this gilded cage of a temple. In fact I am leaving the path of the “Jedi” altogether in favor of a new path. A path that more accurately fulfills my station - that of the truly Grey force wielder. With the introduction of this new journal I am resurrecting the Order of the Je’daii. This will be facilitated by the formation of the first guild temple of the order; the Temple of the Kamikeedi, a path (School of Thought) I developed and wrote about during my time as an apprentice. I am beginning this new path as a Je’daii Journeyer and will use this journal to virtually travel the continents of Tython with the goal of visiting each of the 9 great temples of the Je’daii. At each station I will delve into the mysteries of the Je’daii philosophy to learn their secrets as I walk the path towards becoming a Je’daii Ranger. Some may ask why I am staying at all. It is for two reasons. The first is because over my time here I have built several friendships with others that are of like mind and similar curious nature. I would like to continue those relationships on this new journey. The other reason is if even one person reads any of these journals and it causes them to start a conversation and that conversation leads to the evolution of any party’s worldview in the idea that the path of grey balance is a true and valid path, then all this is worth it. In the weeks to come I will be developing many of the concepts I have briefly mentioned in this first post as I explore each “temple” through this journal. So more details will follow as I progress this new path. If any of this has peeked your interest and you are so inclined, please stay tuned to this journal and if you have questions, comments, praise or critique, by all means, feel free to contact me by PM!
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Post by Kyrin Wyldstar on May 30, 2018 17:19:02 GMT
"In the light, there is a darkness and in the darkness, a light. It is the way with us all. Be a prisoner of neither Bogan nor Ashla.
PHILOSOPHY OF THE ORIGINAL JE’DAII ORDERIn a time, millennia before the rise of the Jedi or the Sith, an ancient monastic order of force sensitive scientists, scholars, warriors, philosophers, and artisans was formed. They were the sole inhabitants of a planet known as Tython. They were brought to the Planet in massive pyramid shaped ships called Tho Yor. Upon their arrival these Force sensitive visionaries formed this great order and took up the name Je'daii, a Dai Bendu term meaning "mystic center." Je is mystic, daii is center. The order saw the Force as three aspects of a whole; the Ashla (light), the Bogan (Dark), and the Bendu (balance). However they did not believe these aspects were to be divided. Instead the Je’daii embraced them as a whole. This philosophy was based on the fact that Tython itself was a place highly sensitive to the force and reacted violently to imbalances between the light and dark sides with Force Storms and quakes. Not only did these imbalances affect the planet but they also affected the power of the Je’daii themselves. Because of these things the Je’daii embraced the fact that there is always a light within darkness, and a darkness within light. They held the idea that it was impossible for one to ever be truly free of the other. Because of this natural need for balance the Je'daii were encouraged to give into the temptations of both the light and the dark. They believed it was necessary to embrace both in order to learn more about the Force and adopted that philosophy in the practice of their individual talents. The Je’daii were not passive in their approach to life. They knew full well that Tython's beauty also came with dangers, and so their lives were not spent in silent meditation but in a constant act of “moving meditation” in which they concentrated on the balance in the Force. The philosophy of this balance was essential to survival on Tython, as equilibrium between Ashla and Bogan maintained the peaceful beauty of Tython and prevented the chaos and destruction that came with disproportion. They also saw this perceived duality in the Force represented in the night sky of Tython in the form of two natural satellites; one bathed in light, the Ashla, another shrouded in darkness, the Bogan. If an individual strayed too close to one side of the Force or the other, the Council had the authority to exile that Je'daii to one of these two moons to meditate until they returned to balance. During the first thousand years of the order, the nine great Je'daii temples were constructed. These temples were cities and centers of learning and healing. Each temple was centered around one of the Tho Yor ships that had originally brought them to Tython. The bulk of the Order's presence on Tython was distributed between these nine temples and each one was presided over by a Je'daii Temple Master. These Je'daii masters also formed the Je’daii Council and governed over the order itself. They decided important matters and generally directed the Order. Each of the 9 great temples had their own specialty of training and were defined as follows: Temple Academy (Academic Training) • Known as Padawan Kesh – This was the temple that initiates trained at until they were selected by a Je’daii master to undergo the Padawan trials. If successful the master would then take them on for one on one training. Temple of Balance • Known as Akar Kesh - served as the Order's academy for instilling the ideals of balance of the light side and the dark side of the Force among its students through introspection and meditation. Temple of Science • Known as Anil Kesh - Je'daii who studied within the halls of Anil Kesh sought to learn the mysteries of the Force through the application of science and alchemy. Temple of Healing • Known as Mahara Kesh – which focused on the healing arts where journeyers learned about healing both with and without the capabilities of the Force. Temple of the Arts • Known as Bodhi - served as the Order's academy for the arts, instructing students in the ways of writing, calligraphy, dancing, drawing, sculpture, cooking, music, and theater. Temple of Martial Arts • Known as Stav Kesh – taught martial arts, weapon combat, and other forms of combat. Studies included Meditation and centering and finding balance which was considered a part of fighting. Temple of Force Skills • Known as Qigong Kesh - served as the Order's academy for enhancing and improving one's mental and sensory skills with the Force. Temple of Knowledge • Known as Kaleth - served as a repository of knowledge and wisdom for many generations of a multitude of philosophers and scholars from across the galaxy. Temple of the Forge (weapons) • Known as Vur Tepe - students learned the ways of the Force through metallurgy and the construction of tools and weapons. Beyond the council, the Je’daii maintained a simple and straightforward rank structure that reflected their station in the order. In order to progress through the ranks each Je'daii initiate was expected to travel to each of the Temples to hone different skills. • Initiate – The most basic rank within the Je’daii order. They lived at the great academy temple called Padawan Kesh. It is during these years they received their basics of education until they were of the age to undertake the Padawan Trials. • Padawan - A Force-sensitive adolescent who was a member of the order that had graduated from the Je’daii academy by successfully undertaking the Padawan Trials and had been selected by a Je’daii Master to begin one-on-one instruction. • Journeyer – A padawan that has been released by his master to travel to each of the nine Je'daii Temples of the Je'daii Order and master the skill sets of each institution as part of their “Great Journey”. In their teens, each Journeyer was expected to travel by foot across the several continents which separated the Temples in order to meditate and learn survival techniques on their quest to become a Je'daii Ranger. Great Journeys typically lasted several years. Most Journeyers chose a discipline to specialize in during their Great Journey, and many returned to the Temple that taught that discipline later in life as Rangers or Masters. • Ranger – a Force-sensitive who had completed their studies at each of the Great Temples of Tython. They had passed their final trials as a Journeyer and were now eligible to undertake official missions on behalf of the Order. As representatives of the Je'daii Council, Rangers were the public face of the Order off world and were stationed across the Settled Worlds to prevent conflicts and war. • (Temple) Master - Masters were members who had achieved such a comprehension of the Force as defined in the Ashla and the Bogan that the Je'daii Council saw fit to bestow upon them the rank of Master. Serving the Order by meditating on the Balance, some Masters would teach at the Great Temples while others would go into seclusion and only appear to guide the rest of the Order in times of struggle or danger. From among these masters a Temple Master was also occasionally selected to head up a particular temple as well as serve on the Council. The Je’daii lived by a concise code that reflected their views on living as a Je’daii under the guidance of the entire breadth of The Force. The Code of the Je’daii was as follows: "There is no ignorance; there is knowledge. There is no fear; there is power. I am the heart of the Force. I am the revealing fire of light. I am the mystery of darkness In balance with chaos and harmony, Immortal in the Force." ―The Je'daii Code
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Post by Kyrin Wyldstar on May 30, 2018 17:20:02 GMT
Let the world honor you my Huntress, Live forever in the stars.
CREED AND TENETS OF THE GUILD OF THE KAMIKEEDA TEMPLEThe below entries depict the current creed and tenets of the resurrected order of Je’daii as defined by the guild of the Kamikeeda temple. These entries are designed to be concise but also malleable and open to individual adaptation. As Je’daii we know the same path but we do not walk the same journey. What this means, is that for any Je’daii, the journey is not set in conformity to any one guild. The path is not restricted to a single set of rigid rules but instead it is one where the individual finds the nurturing environment to define her own canon. While some may choose to be a part of an existing guild, others may journey to shape their own guild, or even be a member of multiple guilds. The possibilities are as endless as the number of individual Je’daii. Creed of the Kamikeeda Path1. Have an unbounded love of all forms of life - love and protect those close to you unconditionally 2. Always approach life in an altruistic manner, until given ample reason not to 3. Forever chase the mystical – strive to become one with your idea of the divine 4. Nurture curiosity to the extreme – always question and think critically 5. Live life as honestly and as sincerely as you can – always be loyal, fair and truthful 6. Strive for joy in your life through an all-inclusive balance of every aspect of your nature 7. Never dread the unknown – try everything you can at least once – never refuse an opportunity 8. Abstain from violence unless absolutely necessary – and then show no mercy 9. Take from life what you want but only within the bounds of the first 8 tenets. 10. Welcome challenge, always confront adversity, but also know that suffering is inherent 11. Never regret failure or loss – instead learn from them and let them make you stronger 12. Understand that life is inherently unfair - There is no such thing as universal justice 13. Do not fear death, know it and accept it as a fact of life - Life is sacred but not everything gets to live 14. Hold reprisal as an inalienable right, if warranted - but be willing to accept any potential consequences 15. Know everything has a season, let things go when it is time or they no longer serve you 16. Never conform – fight for things that promote independence and freedom above all else Tenets of the Kamikeeda Path1. All life is connected at the most basic level as well as the universe itself. The Kamikeeda path describes this connection as “The Force”. Individual descriptions of what this is vary from esoteric energy fields to the idea that everything is literally made up of the same star dust. Other spiritual paradigms may use different terminology but to a Kamikeeda follower this is no matter. They accept all allegorical descriptions of unity as different attempts to quantify that which otherwise cannot be described. 2. All myth describes the spiritual circumstance of the human condition. In this view no one myth or set of myths is definitive. In fact it is the culmination of all myth that comes the closest to describing that spiritual core within us that makes us human. 3. As a follower of the Kamikeeda path, one pursues the concept of the legendary “Homeric Warrior Hero’s Journey”. This can be described as having a lust for life and a pursuit of adventure. The Kamikeeda hold honor as sacred above all else and will not tolerate the oppression of themselves or others. It is a place where one does not seek power but accepts and undertakes leadership whenever it presents itself. It is a philosophy that espouses the concept that a Kamikeeda follower tries something new every single day that terrifies them. 4. Followers of the Kamikeeda path are disciples of the “warrior monk” archetype – as modern day embodiment's of this Archetype a Kamikeedi follower combines aspects of being a monk, such as deep spiritual and sacred devotion to her path, a constant pursuit of knowledge and striving to maintain a balance and harmony with the forces of nature as she defines them, with being a warrior, trained in the arts of fitness, discipline and patience as well as the capability to engage in conflict, (sometimes violent conflict). A Kamikeeda follower is one who strives to achieve the highest levels of training in these areas of mind, body and spirit so that she may protect herself, her ideals and any other life that cannot protect itself while exercising what she considers to be her rightful political, economic and spiritual rights in the never ending search for truth and wisdom. 5. The Kamikeeda Path is one of comradeship and mutual mentorship. Kamikeeda followers believe it is best to not walk the path alone but instead to walk the path with worthy life companions that exist in the form of select guilds whose members share similar life philosophies. These groups may take the form of soul partners, or as bonded brothers and sisters. These colleagues, linked in a reciprocal relationship through honor and trust, walk a similar path and serve as continual life mates, advisers and companions in arms to one another.
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Post by Kyrin Wyldstar on May 30, 2018 17:25:30 GMT
The value of an education is not the learning of many facts, But the training of the mind to think something that cannot be learned from [another’s] textbooks. - Albert Einstein
Temple Academy (Academic Training)
An ancient pyramidal structure stands nestled into an outcrop at the edge of the tree line atop a massive mountain peak. The pyramid, now encased in stone bricks and topped with several golden spires, is barely recognizable anymore. The fortress-like temple is Padawan Kesh, the Je'daii Orders Academy Temple.
A lone figure emerges from the tree line. Her breath visible in the cold air as she pants from the effort of the climb. She approaches the entrance to the temple. A massive door opens as a great fur covered Wookie appears in the doorway. It is Ruhr, The Master and overseer of the Temple. The girl approaches and the Wookie greets her with a great barking bay of affection. He motions her inside, her first point of focus begins here…
Personal Log – Entry IThis is the first temple that any Je’daii knows. It is the place where all Je’daii receive their initial education and basic training in The Force. Because of these reasons it will be the first temple that I explore as well. However I will not be starting from scratch at this place. Considering the fact that the Je’daii order did not exist before its resurrection by the Kamikeedi guild, other means had to be utilized to get basic training in the ways of The Force. As a former Jedi, I consider my life experience and dedication to my spiritual pursuits, up to and including, my time training as a Jedi in the IP as an Initiate and AP as an Apprentice under Alan, as sufficient to qualify me for graduation from Padawan Kesh. This is further supported by the fact that my former mentor has deemed me sufficient in that training to have qualified me as a Knight. So I will use this stop at Padawan Kesh as a time of introspection and critique on specific aspects of my former Jedi training. Below are several areas I wanted to reflect on. At one point I was also going to include a section on Doctrine but I have written a great deal about my aversion to doctrine in many other places as well as in the body of text that follows, so I have decided to scratch that entry.
The Hero’s JourneyAs a species we are ravenous for myth. We need these stories to bring magic to our existence and to interpret meaning in our lives. Star Wars is one such, larger than life, space operatic myth that more than adequately fulfills that role in our modern day lives. Joseph Campbell’s concept of myth was instrumental in the creation of Star wars as any practicing Jedi well knows. His philosophies are at the heart of the Initiate teachings at many Jedi temples. Campbell believed that all myths the world over told one story. This concept has become known as the monomyth or “the Hero’s Journey”. For me, studying Campbell’s work was one of those defining moments in my life when I realized a basic truth to existence. (One of those personal revelations the council decided I never experienced). That truth being that there is no such thing as doctrine or pantheon or religious paradigm. These are all artificial structures of control. All of these limiting models pale in comparison to the idea that it is actually the culmination of all mythology that best describes the profound connection we feel to something greater than ourselves in the human condition. These are those aspects of our reality that otherwise cannot be defined, only experienced. Who we are, where we come from and where we are going. Even though I completed those lessons quite some time ago I continue to appreciate Campbell’s work and his enthusiasm for, and love of, myth. But I also think that, like many aspects of Jediism in general, too much emphasis is placed on his concepts alone. This is because there is an inherent danger built into this course of study and its intrinsic path of revelation. That danger is, that even though studying Campbell’s philosophy is designed to evoke the revelation I describe above, it also replaces all those old paradigms with a new paradigm that is just as limiting, that of the monomyth itself. Jedi studying this concept have a tendency to accept it as a singular path to enlightenment and are so thrilled at its discovery that they fall into the trap of replacing one system of control with another! The TotJO council not only does not discourage this, they endorse it. This is because it serves as a power base with which they can wield dominion over these Jedi, who have become convinced that the council has obtained some innate understanding of life in which the council alone possess the power to judge the paths of others. Instead this power should be given to the Knights since it is the Knights alone that can best judge their apprentices worthiness of knighthood according to the apprentice’s individual path, not the council. But the council is terrified to relinquish this power to the Knights, as it should be, because of some distorted idea that it may corrupt or dilute the temple in some way. It’s easy to fall into this trap of “hero’s journey” worship. Campbell himself set the stage for this monolithic dilution of the Hero; that any story is a story of a hero as he defines it. A young man going off to college is a Hero, a woman giving birth is a Hero, and the baby is a Hero for coming out intact. Do something tough that involves an inner change and you too can be a Hero. Today we idolize Movie Stars, Sports professionals and musical performers as heroes. In fact anyone can be a hero. But are all or even any of these people really heroes? For me they are not. What comes closer to heroes for me are men and women who sacrifice some portion of the core of their being to be in the service of something greater than themselves. Not many meet the challenge to be accepted into these orders of small elite groups that challenge themselves physically and mentally, face down danger, take chances, push envelopes and protect our world. These sorts of heroes make up organizations such as the Astronaut Corps or the Marine Corps. But even these men and women often times do not really embody the traditional role of the “Heroes Journey”. First of all, the hero is not always a “good guy”. Secondly a hero is not always a male!! Where are the Heroines in all this? Campbell’s response to this questions is that women don’t have a Hero’s Journey because they are a goal of the Journey. They are the Prize. But obviously this is not how much of myth sees them and this is not how we live our lives either! These monomythic aspects of an individual’s character, that we personify as larger than life and place on a pedestal, are also not the entirety of their makeup. This is clear evidence that Campbell’s monomyth is to limiting and thus ultimately flawed. We need to realize the fact that the “Hero’s Journey” is not the only journey we can undertake. The Jedi are force fed the idea that there is only one valid way to live their lives and the council uses the monomyth to enforce that. But I am not one that has been drawn to this singular path of one sided interpretation like the Jedi. It seems to me that not everyone can or should fit into this neat and tidy package called “hero”. Just as we are not “just female”, or “just male’, so too we are not ‘just hero” as Campbell defines it. In fact we follow many rich and diverse “archetypal hero paths” just as we embody a vast array of personal character archetypes, (something I have spoken about in previous posts). The traditional hero’s journey is but a single one of this multitude of potential paths and any one of these paths if not some combination of a few are just as likely to lead us to revelation. It is in this idea that the Je’daii do not relegate ourselves to one of singular “hero’s path” but a variety of diverse paths we undertake simultaneously in our lives. These paths include the Heroines path, the Homeric hero’s path and the anti-heroes path to name just a few. Most of these paths are not steady nor can they be succinctly defined as Campbell has tried to do with the Heroes Path. And in fact many of them conflict with one another, but this is not a point of contention for this philosophy. On the contrary, it actually compliments the philosophy as the concept simply reflects the function of nature itself; that function being one in which strife and conflict and sorrow as well as harmony, and cooperation and joy exist as necessarily operative components of reality both contrastingly as well as in simultaneous complementary harmony. Below are a few examples of these hero journey archetypes. The Anti-heroes JourneyThe Ant-hero has a call to adventure just like the hero, however this calling will be one of more selfish means. He will experience doubts or a casting out or rejection as a component to his call. The adventure that is undertaken is one that consumes them with a thirst to achieve something that eludes them. This could also be motivated by such things as vengeance. The anti-hero arrives as his threshold as a conflicted individual making a clean linear transformation difficult. They appear to oscillate between heroism and their own selfish morals and motivations. Anti-hero’s do not have a mentor but rather an instigator who tempts them into various trials or challenges as a path to power. Often times, these instigators have a desire for the anti-hero to fail in these pursuits. The anti-hero’s path is not marked by success. Rather it features increasing isolation, selfish motivations and a need to fight fate. In this there are failures but one in particular that it will set the anti-hero on the final path to reformation or total destruction or sometimes both. Because the anti-hero’s ending is not always happy, and always contains elements of suffering and strife we see the possibilities of our own humanity reflected back to us. Examples of this sort of anti-hero architype in mythology include Han Solo, Cassian Andor, Dexter Morgan, The spaghetti westerns “man with no name” or Jax Teller. The Homeric Heroes JourneyThe Homeric Hero’s journey is one classically described by Nietzsche as one of master morality. It offers models for living one’s life well through the demonstration of action and success. This sort of heroism was essential to the ancient Greeks whose heroes and heroines offered models for living one’s life. Yet these hero’s do not act in accordance with what many today consider moral values. This philosophy sees heroes and heroines as greater than other men, stronger and more physically attractive. The essence of this sort of hero’s journey is action: the ability to accomplish great things. Risking one’s life in the pursuit of glory and honor. Combat is a central theme and to die in this way is the epitome of this hero’s moral values. This is facilitated by a code of conduct the hero lives by. Not only is glory defined by the attainment of material goods by those that risk their lives in this way. These heroes are also honored by their people. The heroic code is enforced by public pressure which facilitates service by the Hero to his people in some way. An essential part of this sort of heroic warrior society is public esteem or, alternatively, public disgrace. Those who risk their lives are honored in society; those who are cowards and run away from battle are disgraced in the eyes of society. Examples of these sorts of heroes include the Mandalorians, The Samurai, The Klingons, Jason and the Argonauts, Odysseus, The Vikings (Ragnar Lodbrook) or the Amazons (Diana Prince). The Heroines JourneyThe Heroines journey is one of integration and unification. It goes about breaking down the typical stereotypes of a patriarchal dominated society and allows for the reunification of otherwise masculine and feminine qualities into a singly aspected whole being. It is the reclaiming of qualities that have been lost to each sex through enculturation. This indoctrination divides aspects of our being into male or female components. Those components deemed male are then lost to the female character and visa-versa. This journey of the heroine seeks out those components that had been viewed as not rightfully theirs and reintegrates them through their own unique psycho-spiritual journeys. This is a process we all go through and begins by separation from the divine feminine which is often aspected as mother. Then the journey involves taking control of that societies defined masculine qualities and choosing a path that is different than the role prescribed for him/her and deciding to ”fight” an organization, role, or group that is limiting the heroine. The hero goes though trials and meets people who try to dissuade her from pursuing her chosen path and/or attempt to destroy her. Boons are achieved by overcoming these obstacles. But success in this new way of life is either temporary, illusory, shallow, or requires a betrayal of self over time. As the Heroine comes to terms with the idea that ultimately her “masculine” strategies were insufficient, she falls into despair. She cannot return to her original limited position and she sees no path forward. It is at this point that she reconnects with her feminine qualities and goes through a process of transformation that melds both halves into a whole. This is a place where masculine and feminine qualities become meaningless and integrated archetypes take over. Examples of these sorts of heroines include Padmé Amidala, Leia Organa, Tris Prior, Katniss Everdeen, Sarah Connor, Maleficent and Star Treks 7of9. MeditationMeditation is another area of emphasis that I think is subject to a lot of misunderstanding. I see people all the time saying they can’t seem to concentrate, or clear their minds or focus for long periods of time. However I don’t think any of these are necessary to be an effective meditator. The measure of your effectiveness at meditation is not the length of time you can “do it well” according to some arbitrary standardized set of rules. Meditation is not supposed to “work” in this way. In fact it does not work at all - this is exactly the point. It has no goal. Meditation is not one more thing to accomplish or to do right. You cannot fail in meditation. It is time to simply be. We humans have a marvelous capacity for wishful thinking, rationalization, selective use of data, and confirmation bias. When we are introduced to new ideas such as meditation we convince ourselves that mechanisms such as this are a path to cure all that ales us. But meditation is not something that is used to cure unhappiness, pain, inability to sleep, substance abuse, lack of concentration, or cure past hurts. The fact is that if you're at a low point in your life, either mentally or physically, chances are you're going to start feeling better no matter what you do. So does sitting for hours at a time in quiet solitude really do anything? I think not. Meditation is not something to do. It is simply the process of observing ones thoughts. It is being aware of the moment and the actions we are taking at that point in time. This is something that takes practice to be sure. We can begin this practice in a quiet darkened room while sitting in a relaxed position and just be aware of what we are feeling and what we are thinking. But the goal here is not to “get better” at this sort of practice. The goal is to attain this state of mind at any time. Especially times when we are under stress or duress. The practice will give us the awareness of the feeling and as we become more aware of ourselves we can just snap into that state of mind at any time. This gives us a better cognizance of our surroundings and of our interactions. This is the “point” of meditation. The ability to bring our awareness to the present as a constant process, not something we do in a closed and darkened room. Through this awareness we encompass the ability to create life as a fully present and available being that is free in the moment. Patience I wrote about patience extensively as a part of the “Letters to Jedi” project that Edan authored last year. The TotJO temple seems to put a great deal of weight on the perceived virtue of patience. Every conversation held about working through the course material is tempered with the idea that it should be undertaken with the greatest of patience. Patience involves maintaining a state of tranquil fortitude under difficult circumstances. It gives us the time to carefully examine things and approach a solution from a measured and multifaceted aspect. We will have many road blocks in life that can leave us unbalanced of unsure of ourselves. Patience will enable us to collect our thoughts so that we may calmly and confidently assess our situation to find the best way forward without undue agitation. So in this regard patience can be a valuable thing. But we should never allow it to stagnate progress either. We also have to remember that patience is only valuable when it’s distributed in a measured and balanced way. The TotJO raises the idea that the longer you wait the greater the virtue; i.e. the greater patience you have, the more reward will come. However this is simply not true. Good things NEVER come to those who wait. Good things come to those who take action, commit, put in the work, persist, and persevere. And there is a huge difference between patience and perseverance. Instead of waiting for reward to come to us, we need to create the opportunities for the reward ourselves. This is done through perseverance. People who have progressed through these training materials to become successful Knights didn’t stop lessons or ponder them needlessly. They took in the information and continued to build upon it by pushing forward into new areas. Experiencing these new areas gave previously unseen insights to past lessons and thus it was the work and the steady push forward that brought deeper meaning, not patience. My advice to those working through lessons here or facing challenges in life or wanting to achieve some goal - be that losing weight, or starting a business, or crafting a masterpiece – is to not wait until the conditions are perfect to start. Instead start creating the perfect conditions for yourself! You simply need to commit to some desire you have in your life and once you are committed don’t then wait around for something to happen. Take action, be productive, persist, be consistent in moving forward and persevere through those difficult aspects! This philosophy will achieve you success versus depending on patience. I leave this section with a quote from my Martial Arts instructor… Know what you want Have a plan and find a success mentor (or coach) Take consistent action Review your progress Renew your goals
And fake it till you make it! AttachmentJust a few thoughts on this. If non-attachment is the way out of suffering we must also accept that it is a way out of dependency. It builds a life where we never have to depend on others. But what we need to realize is that not only is this an unhealthy point of view, it is also one that is unsustainable. We can’t handle everything ourselves all the time, nor should we want to. We should love those we are attached to without limit and allow them to love us. The very nature of this is attachment, not something to avoid but something to embrace. Because of this it is in attachment that we actually find strength. And we need to realize that with attachment comes suffering. However suffering is also something we should not try to avoid but embrace and process in a productive manner. Trying to avoid suffering is no different than avoiding attachment or anger or hate. It is not only something we could never achieve, it is also something we should never strive for. Suffering is inherent in our reality and it’s there for a reason. It facilitates growth. This is why much of the tenets of Buddhism are wrong. Attachment creates suffering, yes, but suffering in turn creates introspection, introspection creates empathy, empathy creates love and love creates the desire to be of service to others. The Nature of RealityWhy is there something rather than nothing at all? This is the greatest of sublime and awesome mysteries; not how the world works but why the world exists at all. This is a question we as a species have been obsessed with since the beginning of our history. Leibnitz was one of the first to ask “why do we exist?” For him this was a simple question to answer, the world exists because God created it from nothingness. But this begs the question, “Why does God exist and where did he come from”? This leads to an infinite regression – Who created God and who created the thing that created God and so on. To leave God out of it we might take a Buddhist approach. Instead we could see the world as nothingness and it is simply our desires that enslave us to believing there is something. And if we release our desires so they no longer have a hold on us we will then begin to see the world for what it truly is, nothing. But if there truly is nothing, then why am I here pondering this question? To an atheist none of the answers found in religion are satisfactory. Instead he may turn to science. And in fact physicists have posited theories of the emergence of “existence” from nothing through quantum fluxuation out of the void. These are highly complicated mathematical hypotheses that I won’t go into here. The problem with these sorts of hypotheses is one again of emergent property. It equates the laws of nature to something similar to divine commands. It implies that they have some sort of ontological power to inform the abyss that it’s pregnant with being and thus call a universe to existence out of nothing. But these laws of physics are nothing more than representations of patterns in nature and as such they don’t exist outside the universe, time or space. Therefore how can they call a world into existence before they themselves exist? In essence equations can’t breathe life into reality. So we are again left with the question, “Why do these laws and their representative patterns in nature, that we experience in this reality, exist, instead of nothing at all? So the question remains, can we ever discern the nature of our reality or why we exist at all? While I don’t think we can ever know with definitive certainty the answers to these questions I think we can make some inferences to arrive at a probable answer. Obviously there is something and not nothing simply because of the fact that we are here considering it. By that same token it seems fairly obvious that we do not live in a perfect multiverse reality. We have strife and suffering and pain and struggle. If we were to live in a perfect reality those things would be meaningless to us. We would have no conception of them and in turn our choices would become meaningless. Any struggle an individual would have with a moral question, for example, would entail an infinite number of different versions of that individual making the correct choice and an infinite number of that individual making the incorrect choice. So any choice made would become worthless and in turn our existence would be pointless. Thus the need for reality would become pointless and we would be right back at nothingness again. So what we can conclude from all this is that, for some reason beyond our comprehension, reality is necessary and that reality must be a generic, mediocre, randomly selected reality. So what is the mechanism that drives this selection? We are really left with two choices. Either there is some force that is external to reality that is driving this or there is something that is inherent within reality itself that is driving this. The idea that we can contemplate questions about seemingly emergent abstract concepts like where consciousness, free choice, morality, mathematics or laws of logic come from give rise to the notion that there might be "something more" to our subjective experience than just matter moving around. We have this perception that our minds seem to be something distinct from our bodies; that our consciousness goes on after physical death in some form of energy spirit or soul; that morality or the laws of logic are absolute and were created by some force that exists somewhere outside physical reality. We humans have this capacity to prop ourselves up and contemplate the idea that we are an anomaly within nature, that we were placed here and exist within this universe by some ongoing external process to function as a “special case”; that we are made up of both physicality and some form of spirit. This is the concept of dualism. The fallacy in much of this lies in the fact that things such as morality or the laws of physics do not really exist outside of our own perceptions of them. In my mind, to ask where morality comes from begs the question, “Well, where is it now?” If “it” came from somewhere then “it” must be somewhere now. But to ask where morality is now is nonsensical and thus the original question as to where it came from also becomes nonsensical. It didn’t come from anywhere, it is nothing more than a construct of our own minds over time. These concepts are just abstract properties that our brains treat as existing "out there". In actuality they are representations we use to describe the reality we experience. In that sense, they exist but they exist only as patterns within physics. They are concepts that we use to organize our thinking about the single, physical substance in which we are embedded. So what about us personally? Is our mind separate from our body or do we have a soul? When it comes to dualism of the self, there are two possibilities. The first possibility is that an ethereal realm exists that houses some spiritual component of our being but it doesn't influence physical events. In this case, what is it supposed to accomplish? Why do we need an entirely separate non-physical thing if it doesn't contribute anything? You might say that the extra substance explains why we have a sensation of "something more" but that's not right, because the statement that "there's something more" is happening within physics, and if the ethereal isn't affecting the physical, then physics itself accounts for why you feel there's something more. But if physics itself explains why you feel there's something more, then nothing is added by assuming there is something more and any concepts of the supernatural become meaningless. The second possibility is that some spiritual component of our being exists in this ethereal realm and does have interaction with physical components. Examples of this could include our ethereal “mind” having interaction with and influence over our physical brain or our physical bodies functioning as vehicles for our ethereal soul/consciousness or even a transcendent God interacting with his creation. However if this is the case, the idea that these two separate components are functioning in two separate realms become superfluous. Anything considered ethereal that has influence over the physical becomes a part of the system it is influencing and so the need for the “extra-physical” is not needed. Instead the ethereal realm just becomes a different part of physics in the physical realm; albeit maybe a part we don’t fully understand as of yet. If the natural force of gravity, for example, can be overridden or otherwise manipulated in a manner beyond what we currently understand there must be some means, such as a physical law we are as of yet unaware of, that regulates this. The same thing goes for telepathy or any other ability labeled as supernatural or paranormal. In this case the supernatural just becomes the natural. So where does that leave us? It leaves us with the ultimate synthesis. A synthesis between nature and the supernatural and ultimately between nothingness and everything. It espouses the idea that “everything” is necessary. There are no unnecessary aspects to reality. The void would not be, without the universe. It would become meaningless. Both the void and the universe are but facets of what is actually one thing. There are no component parts as we might try to define them and it is actually perfect in what we perceive as its imperfections. Our experiences of opposing forces in reality of good and evil, suffering and joy, pain and ecstasy, living and dead are really just aspects of a single neutral balance that the very essence of reality endeavors to be. Because we exist within that dynamic we experience those things as “separate, opposite” parts or sides of a duality in our lives but at the core of reality they really don’t exist. We, as individual aspects of realty, perceive them as such only because it is necessary so that the universe may become aware of itself and experience itself. For me, this is “why” the universe exists – simply because it is better to exist than to not exist. And to exist without experiencing that existence is futile. We are creations way of experiencing itself through this mysterious emergent property of consciousness. Anything beyond that, we can never know. For example, this idea does not answer the question of whether a God exists or not, nor should it. All it really says is that if God (or Goddess) does exist, that entity is an immanent part of creation. In the end we each need to answer the question of whether some form of sentient Deity exists or not for ourselves. And if we come to the conclusion that a Deity does exist, we should then strive to use our experience and critical thinking to discover what that Deities nature and character are.
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Post by Kyrin Wyldstar on May 30, 2018 17:49:16 GMT
“Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming "Wow! What a Ride!” ― Hunter S. Thompson
Temple of Balance
A massive henge structure drifts weightlessly atop a towering, pillar-like rock formation that rises from a thick jungle below. This massive temple is nothing more than a flat pavilion defined by eight thick minarets. At the center is an ice smooth circular pool of crystal clear water. It is around this pool that the masters teach their lessons about the balance between Ashla and Bogan through meditation and introspection.
A female Journeyer climbs the rock formation. The hem of her cloak is now soiled with mud and her boots are scored by the jagged rock. Nearly exhausted, she slowly ascends the last few steps to finally reach the floor of the temple. She has completed the trek to Akar Kesh, the Je’daii Temple of Balance. As she arrives, she nearly collapses but at the last moment is caught by Master Ketu, the human overseer of this temple. He greets her fondly as he guides her to the central pool. Personal Log – Entry III have arrived at the temple of balance. I consider balance to be one of the most important aspects of our lives to focus on. Without balance there is no joy - and we are meant to be creatures of joy. The emotion of joy is different than the feeling of happiness. Happiness is a fleeting feeling that skims the surface of our consciousness from time to time. The slightest change of events in our lives can alter our happiness and so it comes and goes in rapid succession. Joy is not like this. When we experience joy, it is a deeply ingrained emotion that is profoundly embedded into our consciousness. It is enduring and it remains no matter what life events may be happening to us. Balance is how we attain this state in our lives. There are aspects of our personalities that some would say can be undeniably dark, i.e. violent. The surprising thing is that this not only goes for emotions like hate or fear but also love or courage. None of these aspects of our being can be denied or just universally labeled as such though. For each can also serve an equally productive function when used in proper measure. It is only when we fail to use them in balance that they become detrimental. If we fail to understand this and instead try to ignore or suppress or minimize certain aspects of our nature, that we have been conditioned to think are globally “dark” or “bad”, it only brings undue suffering and misery. We need to recognize that we cannot control our surroundings, only ourselves. In doing this we begin to take steps to shed those dead things in our lives that no longer serve us. This is a process of steady transformation through self-evaluation that results in a complete and wholly integrated being. This is how we achieve the balance in our lives and the underlying joy that results in this also brings peace.
Emotional BalanceI have spoken a great deal about emotional balance in my previous journals so I will provide just a brief recap of this type of balance here. One concept I have always found particularly interesting is humanities continual attempt to classify aspects of our being into categories, light and dark, good and evil and so forth. I have never found much use for such classifications as I came to the conclusion a long time ago that every aspect of who we are is a necessary and functional part of our makeup. Given this notion, how can anything that we “are” or we experience be classified as “bad” and in need of suppression, eradication or modification? If I had not experienced every event I have in my life, both good and bad, I would not be who I am today. I think instead, it is not the presence of seemingly malevolent aspects of our nature that give rise to “evil” but our processing of these things out of balance with the rest of our makeup that causes undue suffering. Jediism is especially focused on this theme of good versus evil and it is for this reason that I ultimately left the practice. Even though many Jedi will tell you they live a balanced spirituality they still continue to put undue weight on what they consider positive character traits such as empathy, compassion or selflessness and minimize traits such as fear or anger or hate. In fact one of the major beliefs of Jediism is the idea that fear leads to anger which leads to hate which leads to suffering. Because of this they take a Buddhist approach where they try to suppress or control attachment which they espouse creates the most basic fear we can experience, the fear of loss. But as I have stated in my previous post on attachment, this is a false teaching. Attachment and loss and suffering are not something to be avoided but embraced as they are necessary components of a fully functional and emotionally aware individual. This in turn leads to the idea that we must also embrace our fear, anger and hate as well. In fact it is these things that cause growth in us as individuals and produces the greatest amount of love and desire to be of service to others. I have spoken of the balance of fear in other journals so I want to take anger as an example here. Jedi (light side advocates) tend to think of anger as a wild, negative emotion but this is simply not true. Of course if used in an uncontrolled (i.e. unbalanced) manner, anger can lead to destructive rage that results in a person feeling bad or doing stupid things regardless of consequence. But anger should never be suppressed because it can also be structured and channeled in highly positive and productive ways. This takes a strong knowledge of your personal character and an awareness of triggers. Keep in mind these tools of knowledge and awareness are not innate, they must be learned through the experience of the emotion itself. But if we maintain that meditative cognizance of ourselves (see previous post on meditation) at all times and not succumb to the cloud of shame in our mistakes, we can learn to effectively manage the power of any of our emotions. Even emotions like anger finds its constructive intentions that can be used to good effect when utilizing these tools. The free expression of our anger when combined with our meditative and introspective practices provides self-insight if we permit it. Allowing ourselves to be angry leads to positive outcomes in the form of discernment into our own faults, even if that original expression was one with initially negative consequences. However if we can accept those consequences as we maintain a mindfulness of this process this becomes a cyclic progression that in turn leads to knowing ourselves better and that allows us to more effectively use emotions such as anger in the future. This continual practice of self-evaluation that motivates personal change is actually a form of Wu-Wei in which we don’t struggle against the emotion by artificially trying to control or suppress it. We allow it out and we freely express it in as balanced a manner as possible. All the while, sustaining an acuity of what we are experiencing and gauging its effects so that we may learn more about it and ourselves. This is paramount for a Je’daii to master in order to effectively use anger advantageously. Just a few examples of this include using anger as an inspiring force. Anger can be utilized as a form of positive energy that creates a powerfully motivational intensity. Anger can make us push on towards our goals in the face of problems and barriers. When we see something as beneficial, we want it more when we’re angry. So, when used right, constructive anger can make you feel strong and powerful and help push you on to get what you want. When positively aspected, angry people are actually more optimistic. Anger feeds motivation and that feeds ability to make change and be productive. This in turn increases our sense of accomplishment and self-worth. It drives us toward a more fulfilling happiness. This happens even in the face of tragedy. Those that experience anger as a result of tragedy take on the roles to change the future so that this sort of thing would never happen again. Ironically anger is a tool that can actually help reduce violence in this way. Another is on a personal scale as it is a very strong social signal that a situation needs to be resolved. When others see the signal they are more motivated to try and placate the angry party. The alternative is holding that in and allowing it to turn to violent rage. In this way, anger can also benefit relationships. Anger is a natural reaction to being wronged by someone and this facilitates a highly effective way of communicating that sense of injustice. Unfortunately many try to hide that anger because they are told it is wrong to experience that emotion. But this is one of the most detrimental things you can do, especially in a relationship. Not only is it harmful to your emotional and mental health to hold that anger in, but your partner will also remain unaware of the issue and this will only result in the buildup of resentment which in turn may lead to a destructive rage. Better to express that anger as a justifiable means to finding a solution. Working through these issues in this way can be a great path to benefit and strengthen relationships. Anger can also be a legitimate way to get what you want. As a Je’daii, I embrace the balance of the force and in this I can see anger as an effective means of negotiation. It’s not a guaranteed tool of successful mediation but if it is justified in some fashion anger can be a show of power that will often times limit the other party’s options or control their responses. When deployed effectively in this manner it can be a means to an end to both get what you want maybe even get a little bit even. Of course I don’t advocate revenge unless absolutely warranted but it should be held as a viable dealing mechanism. In the end I think it is important to remember that even emotions perceived as negative or destructive on the surface lose this connotation when used with the correct intent. When these emotions, so called "negative" by the Jedi, are manifested in constructive ways they are just as powerful and productive as our "positive" ones. What we must realize in the end is that there is no positive or negative, no dark or light side. There is just "The Force". Emotions are just energy and that energy is neither light nor dark. It takes no stances and has no opinions. It is simply in how we utilize that energy that is important. When used in an unbalanced or obsessive manner that energy will take on a destructive undertone but when used in a balanced manner it will manifest growth, and constructive ends. This goes for any emotion, be it love or hate or any other falsely dichotomized pair. So we must embrace our entire makeup and meld all our emotions so that they work in harmony to always manifest the greatest good, even when coming from a "dark place"! Metaphysical BalanceBalance used in this sense means a point between two opposite forces that is desirable over purely one state or the other. One example of this would be a balance between what might be interpreted as natural law verses complete chaos. The idea being that “law” by itself would be overly controlling while chaos itself would be overly unmanageable. With this in mind, balance becomes the point that minimizes the negatives of both. Another application of this concept would be maintaining the "balance" of power between multiple opposing forces. Lack of balance (of power) is generally considered to cause aggression by stronger forces towards weaker forces, which would be less capable of defending themselves. These concepts are the idea of dualism. Dualism is a commonly referenced term used to explain our experience of such things as good and evil, natural and supernatural or the contrast of love and hate or fear and courage etc. But do these dichotomies really exist? For a Je’daii they do not. There are several philosophical schools of thought when it comes to the duality of nature. Descartes was one of the first to describe this concept in his substance dualism. The idea that mind and body are both “substance” but are separate distinct entities that exist in separate “realms”. Another version of this duality was put forth by Hermes Trismegistus in his hermetic principles (Natural Law) as published in the book “The Kybalion”. I have addressed the flaws in these concepts in previous journals and in particular talked about the erroneousness of Natural Law in my second entry above, so I will not go into those specifics again here. However there is another concept based in Chinese philosophy I want to discuss in more detail in this entry. That is the concept of Yin and Yang. This concept is another of duality in nature, however it is different than the others in one way. Instead of describing a hard duality it describes how seemingly opposite or contrary forces may actually be complementary, interconnected, and interdependent in the natural world, and how they may give rise to each other as they interrelate to one another. Many tangible dualities (such as light and dark, fire and water, expanding and contracting) are thought of as physical manifestations of the duality symbolized by yin and yang. This is much more closely in line with the Je’daii philosophy. The Je’daii view this apparent duality in the idea of the void and of the universe – nothing and everything, existence and non-existence. Because we exist within this dynamic of finiteness we experience life as made up of “separate, opposite” parts or sides of a duality in our lives. And because we are creatures that seek a self-subjective gratification over affliction we categorize these aspects into desired and not desired. However, at the core of reality, they don’t really exist. Our experiences of opposing forces such as good and evil, suffering and joy, pain and ecstasy, living and dead are really just aspects of a single neutral infinite balance that the very essence of reality endeavors to be; making every component we experience necessary and thus desired. To take this one step further, in truth there are no component parts as we might try to define them because they are ultimately just two conditions of one supreme phenomenon. The Je’daii believe that the reasons we experience reality in this way is twofold. The first is that we as individually aspected embodiments of this whole must naturally perceive the world as made up of contrasting components and conflicting dynamics because of these two conditions of existence and nonexistence. These two conditions cannot be separated and so this phenomenon requires the existence of “something”. It then becomes futile to exist without experiencing that existence. And so we are manifest as nature’s desire to become aware of herself and to then experience this awareness. This is why “something” exists. Simply because it is better to exist than to not exist. The second is that the nature of our consciousness is one that actually actively resists or fights against the melding of these perceived dual aspects of our reality into what could be considered their true singular nature. This is because the individual (and our species as a whole) wants to view themselves as separate, special or singly exceptional; that they are somehow different from or better than that which surrounds them. This is built into us by design as it facilitates the journey of experience to then discover the true nature of our place in the universe. This functionally that we express is not driven by any sort of implied consciousness as we might define it. In fact it makes no claims about the existence or non-existence of such entities at all. This is something we must each define for ourselves as part of the journey. However if faith is to be discarded in this regard, we must realize this idea becomes something that we can never truly know. As a Je’daii, eradicating tendencies toward faith or self-importance from our being is a paramount pursuit in the achievement of realizing the true balance that is inherent in nature. This is the veritable journey - becoming “aware” of this awareness. Not the suppression or eradication of one side of our nature or the separation of ourselves from that nature. Instead we strive for the synthesis of all these things. We are not separate from nature any more than love is separate from hate. It is not in domination or control or suppression of any part of our being that we find balance but in the realization that full integration of every aspect of our personality brings ultimate revelation of this fact and that in turn achieves harmony within. There is no Middle RoadThe last thing I would like to explore at Akar Kesh is this idea of a “middle road” or the concept that the height of balance exists by striving to maintain an ethical or philosophical middle ground that exists between the extreme and the lacking. This is the idea that we should never indulge in anything to excess. The Greek Philosopher Aristotle called this the “golden mean”, the desirable middle between two extremes, one of excess and the other of deficiency. He believed that happiness is the highest good and the end at which all our activities ultimately aim. He defines the successful pursuit of this as a disposition to behave in the “right manner” which is a mean between extremes of deficiency and excess, both of which he considered vices. To return to our anger example above, we should never strive to be hot-tempered nor overly lacking of spirit but we should strive for the mean (virtue) of patience between these two. To the Greek mentality, this was an attribute of beauty that produced harmony. In Buddhism, this concept is known as “The Middle Way”. This is the term that Buddha used to describe the character of the Noble Eightfold Path that he felt led to liberation and ultimately Nirvana by carving a narrow path between corporeal indulgence and asceticism. Through this process of eliminating or lessening excessiveness, which he ultimately viewed as detrimental to our being, we find balance in our lives. It is in this place that harmony is found. In the broadest sense, the Middle Way refers to the Buddha’s view of life and also the actions or attitudes that will create happiness for oneself and others. This philosophy describes a way of viewing life in such a way that compromise of extremes on both sides is what leads to ultimate truth. However these philosophies ultimately fail because of two reasons. The first reason is that these philosophies encourage an embracement of mediocrity in our lives. People that live their lives this way worry more about appearances than outcomes. They tend to focus on what hasn’t been done as opposed to progress made. It is a view of life that puts undue emphasis on “the process” and not the results. As a consequence of this, these people fail to connect with life and have a lack of vision or bold dreams. They are takers of short cuts to minimize effort and as a result comprise their goals. They want to believe that life can be an easy ride and that they can minimize or avoid pain and suffering and loss. Their need to be safe and secure overrides their sense of adventure and curiosity and boldness. They are people that say “no” to challenge. They have been tricked into believing that playing it safe will make them happy and successful because one day they will be rewarded for their mediocre life styles. They spend their lives waiting for that one person to find them, to be chosen, to be promoted, to be made famous or rich instead of going out and brazenly taking the chances and accepting the consequences in life in the pursuit of achieving those things for themselves. The second reason is that this idea of middle ground creates a logical fallacy; that of argumentum ad temperantiam or the false compromise. The false compromise exposes the fallacy that the truth must be found as a compromise between two opposite positions. People naturally gravitate toward minimizing conflict by searching for middle ground. But if you are searching for absolute truth, compromise and accepting alternative interpretation is an ineffective way to go about this. An individual operating within the false compromise fallacy believes that positions being considered represent extremes of a continuum of opinions, and that such extremes are always wrong, and the middle ground is always correct. However this is not always the case. One should not be exclusively looking for a middle ground between disinformation and information or between falseness and truth. Sometimes only X or Y is acceptable, with no middle ground possible. Additionally, the middle ground fallacy can create the rather illogical situation that the middle ground reached in the previous compromise now becomes the new extreme in the continuum of opinions; all one must do is present yet another, radically opposed position, and the middle-ground compromise will be forced closer to that position. This “Middle ground” is something that a Je’daii never settles for. We live our lives with an embracement of our every instinct and the pursuit of our every “lust” as a natural part or who we are. Every characteristic of our makeup is valid and worthy of pursuit, not sinful or evil or something to be denied or put in moderation. It is embracing the extremes of our morality and our power and having a reverence for the potential and sovereignty of creation itself. We need to realize that “Love of the adventure is the burning point of life that contains both joy and sorrow and to say no to life because of its pain is a childish attitude because love is the pain of being truly alive”. (-Campbell) To take up the adventure is to embrace our undeniable place as a part of nature in its true syncretic state. If we strive only for the middle ground, even in the adventure, there is no room for excellence! Instead, The Je’daii embrace the philosophical extremes of both sides of existence because we are all of it – the light and the darkness. We are the sunshine and the storm. We are there in the laugh but we are also there in the tears. Both these essentials are the reason for everything. We love unboundingly and embrace attachment wholeheartedly for anguish is caused by love and love is caused by desire which in turn is caused by anguish. We believe the individual that is cut the deepest also has the highest capacity to heal. In these ideas, when it comes to a Je’daii’s approach to our emotions, our morality, our philosophy or our approach to life, we do not live life to the mean, but to the extreme!
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Post by Kyrin Wyldstar on May 30, 2018 17:58:59 GMT
The Universe is under no obligation to make sense to you. You have people who believe they are scientifically literate but, in fact, are not. And I don't mind if you're not scientifically literate, but just admit that to yourself, so that you'll know, and perhaps you can take a first step to try to eradicate that. -Neil deGrasse Tyson
Temple of Science
An immense metal structure straddles the cliffs of a massive gorge. This gorge, known only as the Chasm, serves as the home of Anil Kesh the Je’daii temple of science and alchemy. The structure has three massive lower struts that curve over the summit of the chasm and hold it aloft like clutching talons. Above an armored cupola that sits at the center of these struts three more arms jut skyward and curve above the structure, encasing it within a hard metal grasp.
A Je’daii Journeyer reaches the edge of the chasm and stares breathlessly into the abyss below. Bolts of energetic vapors dance in her eyes as she slowly scans upward to take in the massive structure straddling the chasm. A masterpiece of Je'daii technical skills, the temple of Anil Kesh straddles the cliffs of the Chasm with such strength that the violent force storms constantly raging below do not affect the temples structural integrity. Above her she sees Master Quan-Jang, the Human overseer of the temple. The time has come for her orientation to prepare for her trip into the chaos below.Personal Log – Entry IIIThe Temple of Science is my next stop as a Journeyer. Je'daii who study within the halls of Anil Kesh seek to learn the mysteries of the Force through the application of science, and now I shall do the same. Its halls contain many laboratories, libraries and study rooms but also the lower floors are dedicated to the hangar bays. From these bays drones and other equipment are dropped into the chasm so that experiments can be run. It is also the place from which journeyers are dropped into the chasm after an intense orientation to prepare them for the rigors of the force storms there. This is why I am here, to experience this. Each journeyer that enters the chasm returns with a different and unique experience. Many describe it as deeply spiritual and I think this is why it’s such an important part of our time here. We each need to decide if we are to follow faith or science in our lives. The two are mutually exclusive. Science demands the presentation of evidence before a premise is accepted while faith allows for belief without any evidence at all. Because of this, faith becomes an irrational system and one that we should avoid at all cost. And yet many do not. I have searched… I have tried… I have struggled… and yet, this is just something that has always baffled me.
Logic versus Faith and FallacyWhat is "The Force"? Well the answers to this vary as much as there are individuals in this universe. It has been described as everything from human connection to a supernatural energy field to the generated energy of life itself. But what if there is no such thing as this distinct energy field called "The Force" and people have just convinced themselves it is real without justification? In actuality The Force has never been independently, objectively verified or proven to exist by any conventional scientific means. The lack of evidence of the force leaves us with only one logical conclusion. That the experience of and belief in “The Force” as a distinct energy field that exists outside of our reality is a wholly subjective experience based on faith and justified by fallacy. But why is this important? Why should we care if people erroneously believe in something there is no evidence for? Well I care because I care about truth. And believing something based on faith has an issue, it is unjustified belief. Any belief you hold on faith cannot be verified one way or the other as true or not and so faith becomes an irrational system to base belief on. Because of this one can use faith to come to any number of invalid or incorrect conclusions. Fallacy works in this same way. A fallacious argument is reasoning that is evaluated as logically incorrect which in turn negates the reasonable validity of that argument and exposes it as unsound. It is simply a mistaken belief that is based on an erroneous claim. Because of these ideas, beliefs based on faith and fallacy are flawed thinking and this is not only detrimental it is dangerous. I will speak more on this later but for now let’s take just one example. In medicine placebos are a popular subject. It’s a known phenomenon that one can have a belief that Placebos are helpful and sometimes they can even make you think you feel better. But just because it made you feel better subjectively does not mean it does for others or that it actually did anything to help what was actually wrong with you. In fact many people do not get its therapeutic effects and as a medicine it is completely ineffective in actually curing anything. If you were actually sick wouldn't you rather put your belief in something that was justifiable and objectively proven effective rather than a faith base subjective claim that was ultimately not true and could potentially kill you? Because of this, in our pursuit for truth, we must abandon faith and fallacy in favor of logic. At best, without independently verifiable evidence, this should universally leave the concept of “The Force” as nothing more than a perception of personal experience. Something that exists, only in the mind of the individual that they use to justify subjective meaning. And yet people still continue to believe in its existence as a discrete energy field that can be tapped into by the human mind and manipulated towards good or evil ends. But this only serves to keep us from true enlightenment because if one insists on holding onto even one such irrational position by claiming they are justified in maintaining beliefs that are not reasonable, there is really no common ground from which further productive discourse can be had by us as a species. It stagnates growth and only serves to abandon the pursuit of truth in favor of superstition. TheoryI want to explore the term “theory” in particular at Anil Kesh. The debate between critical thinkers and people of faith rages over things like the “Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection” or in politics the left arguing with the right over the “Theory of Climate Change”. These are just two examples but these sorts of debates rage over an entire multitude of topics. Often times people will say, “well it’s just a theory”, so it can’t mean much right? Well this couldn’t be farther from the truth when it comes to scientific terms. Ultimately when it comes to these pursuits, spiritual, scientific or what have you, we are in the search for truth. We must realize though, that this will never be an ultimate truth because as entities imbedded into this reality that is something we can never achieve. This is because to even exist as creatures that can’t know everything we must make some presuppositions about our reality. The first is that this reality does actually exist as we perceive it and the second is that we can learn things beyond that about it. And in this pursuit, complex and challenging ideas are often times not easy to grasp or comprehend. Given this, one might ask if there are different levels of truth. Are some truths truer than others? This may be a question for philosophers that in the end we can never answer as well. However one thing is for sure, in the pursuit of these truths, science is the best tool we have for understanding how the universe works and theory in this context is the epitome of this truth. In common everyday language the term “Theory” is understood to mean something opposed to a fact. It is used as a possible explanation of a phenomenon but lacking evidence to back it up. This is not how the term theory is used in scientific terms however. In these terms a theory is the height of understanding of a phenomenon and is based on proven facts and explanations of those facts. Scientists use facts and hypotheses to arrive at Theories. Keep in mind that theories are also different than Laws. It might be best to better define all these terms at this point. Facts are observations about the world around us. From these facts we consider different explanations for the observation. These become hypotheses, which is a proposed explanation for the phenomenon that is made as a starting point for further investigation. This is not something that is proven, it’s something that is tested. When these are tested the ones that are wrong are eliminated and the one that is confirmed as a possible explanation for something is kept. From this point other hypotheses can be tested in a never ending process of confirmation. When enough hypotheses have been collected and confirmed surrounding a specific phenomenon they are turned into a Theory. A theory is a well substantiated explanation derived from repeated testing and confirmation through observation and experiment. It is the way we know something works based on collected evidence and all the hypotheses that have been successfully put to the test. From this we can make predictions not only about the way things are in the universe but for things we don’t know yet. For these things we don’t know we can predict how they will function. However this is still different than a law. A law is a detailed description of how something happens. Mathematics is most often used in this sort of description. If you were to take Gravity for example. It is both a law and a Theory. The law of gravitation describes exactly how two objects will attract each other using mathematical formulas, but it doesn’t describe what is happening or why. This takes a “Theory” of Gravity. People often ask why so much weight is put on this process, especially since ideas like these theories could change tomorrow. They claim that the perceived fuzziness of science takes a certain faith to accept that is no different than a faith in a Deity or a life force energy field – both of which have never been observed and there is no evidence for. Well this is simply not true. Faith does not come into the scientific process. The goal of science is to devise frameworks that describe how things work; to truly understand why things are the way they are right now which allows us to discern how things will be in the future. If we can learn to trust that process over unfounded belief or superstition, that future will be a very bright one. Critical ThinkingCritical thinking is one of the most important things we can ever learn to do in this life. Unfortunately it’s also one of the things most people never master effectively. One might wonder why this is. Is it just that people are stupid or lack the proper education or access to the proper information or are they just naturally gullible? Possibly, but I think as we look across the expanse of human experience we instead find that no single cause can be easily identified as the reason people do not think critically. Often times it is character traits outside of these that allow people to bypass logic in their thinking. Every year thousands of people are sucked in by pyramid schemes. Others succumb to fantastical ideas like the possibility of free energy in a universe governed by the laws of thermal dynamics which dictates that such a thing can’t exist. But the impossibility of such ideas still does not discourage people from being seduced by the idea that they might be able to “get something for nothing”. It’s baffling how people allow themselves to be deceived by such things. Take the prolific world of the medium for example. These people make some of the most amazing claims imaginable. Things like the ability to speak to the dead, or to predict natural disaster, even foretell the date of the end of the world. And even though all these things can be easily shown to be nothing more than cold reading, or chance guesses or even outright failure in prediction people still flock to these people and give them their money and believe their claims. Others accept pseudo-scientific claims that physics can be used to tell the future or they believe in conspiracy theories such as the UFO phenomenon. Many of the people that fall into these sorts of belief systems are victims of something called groupthink. Groupthink is used by people to set themselves apart from the larger crowd. It makes them feel special as they find value in belonging to a select “in-group” that possess some secret knowledge or special insight into the way the world works and the rest of humanity is just blind to the truth. This is a proven occurrence in humanity. Experiments have been make where groups of people were asked questions about a subject. Nine of ten people world knowingly give an obvious wrong answer to the question. The tenth person, not knowing the other nine had answered incorrectly on purpose, would invariably also give that same wrong answer, even though the answer was obviously incorrect. This is a clear demonstration of our innate desire for social conformity. This is an example of making an illogical leap in faith to a conclusion not in evidence. This sort of thinking would be akin to observing the beauty and wonder of nature but then making the leap in faith that it could only have been created by an intelligent mind. But where did that intelligent mind come from? It becomes an infinite regression that can only be stopped by the fallacy of special pleading. These are illogical conclusions not in evidence. When it comes to the need for explanations like this it’s better to instead use what is known as Occam’s razor. It states that all things being equal in any given situation the simplest solution is usually the correct one. This means we don’t have to concoct supernatural solutions for natural evolutions. It’s better to conclude that natural means most likely produce natural ends. What’s even more astounding is that such things can be easily debunked. Take auras for example. People make the claim that they can see and feel auras, which are supposed to be our “energetic bodies” that exist outside our natural bodies. And using these abilities they can effect healing in people through mechanisms such as touch therapy, also known as Reike. The problem is that these claims have been proven to be categorically false. What’s more, it was proven by a 9 year old critical thinker named Emily Rosa. Emily is the youngest person to ever have a research paper published in a peer reviewed medical journal. Emily did this by setting up an experiment where she invited as many practitioners as she could find to place their hand through small hole in a cardboard wall and see if they could actually feel or sense another’s aura on the other side. The results of this experiment was even less than the law of averages for chance guessing. Basically this is a multimillion dollar industry that was debunked by a girl and a piece of cardboard. Proving that age is also not a factor in the ability to critically think or not. Nor is a lot of formal education or sophisticated equipment required. Often times a counter point make to these arguments is why does it matter what people think? Why not just let them think what they want? Once again it’s because failures in critical thinking can lead not only to erroneous conclusions about the nature of our reality but it can also be dangerous. There have actually been efforts in our public school systems to ban critical thinking and allow pseudo sciences to be taught like intelligent design. When people do not ask enough questions about something that looks too good to be true they often times end up losing their money. Men like Jim Jones come along and convince people that all sorts of nefarious conspiracies are abounding in their lives. Of course the final result of that was he convinced his followers that he could take them directly to heaven and over 900 people drank cyanide and died. Parents have decided that vaccines are poison and as a result stop immunizing their children. The result of this is the return of once eradicated childhood diseases such as measles. People spend millions of dollars on homeopathic medicines, whose philosophy states that the smaller the dose of the medication the more effective it is. In other words people believe that something that contains 0° medicine is 100° effective in curing the ailment. Or course when you present people with the raw evidence that discredits these things they will claim it’s been fabricated by government conspiracy and those outside the circle of knowledge are simply dupes of the system. It’s for these reasons that it is vitally important to always teach these critical thinking skills to the generations that come after us.
The ChasmI have walked the Chasm. It has changed me. In my time there it has revealed to me the dangers a Je’daii can face in this life as she moves through it. The danger of falling off the path of balance to either just the light or dark aspects of The Force. Yes, it is just as easy to be tempted by the light as it is the dark and both are rife with corruption and decay. The easy target in this idea is the dark side – the side of the Sith. People are quick to embrace what they would call positive emotions and shun negative emotions. They connect acts and emotions such as violence, and anger and decay with the dark side and they consider these things to be bad or evil. But when used correctly they are not bad things. These things are just energy, no different than any other energetic attribute. It is in how that energy is utilized that makes the difference. And yes unbounded rage and fury and hate can be destructive when it is not tempered by emotions such as calm and amiability and love. In order to successfully embrace our “dark” emotions we also have to be willing to embrace our “light” emotions. When done in this way embracing the dark is not a bad thing. The less intuitive aspect is in falling to the singular temptations of the light side – the side of the Jedi. It lulls one who professes to the title into this false sense of serenity. They feel that by taking this title under the false guise of “championing for good” they are somehow automatically better prepared for the rigors of life, superiorly equipped to react to stressful situations and more adept at helping others in need. None of this is true and these ideas only lead to a self-inflated ego with little or nothing to actually back it up. These individuals call themselves apprentice, knight, master and pastor and they find comfort in them. But these titles are not real. They are just hollow shells and they only serve to bind them together in a useless doctrine that is as ultimately meaningless as the concepts that define them. What they fail to realize is that we are born alone. We live and die alone. This journey is ours alone. Of course we make connection with others following a similar path from time to time and we can secure a certain solace in that compassion but ultimately the responsibility and experience is ours alone. There is no actual thing such as the light side or the dark side and they are not in contention with one another in some ultimate war of good and evil. To give in to unsubstantiated claims such as this, that one can suppress evil or good within themselves, or that an esoteric energy field controls our actions or sustains our life force, is to give in to psychosis. None of these things should be entertained as existing until they have been unequivocally shown to exist. Until then there is only the process of experience and that experience is corporeal. For some this journey into the chasm reveals to them a supernatural connection. It is the idea that “The Force” is an esoteric or otherwise subtle energy field that is outside the 4 quantum forces of nature and is an emergent property of physical life itself. This would be analogous to our consciousness being an emergent property of the function of our physical brains. Something not quite fully explained by science. However both of these ideas fall completely into the realm of faith. There is no way to investigate this and no evidence of their existence outside the natural. That does not mean that one day we might find a way to prove such things exist. But until that time I must relegate my belief in the force to one thing. Simply a poetic label we assign to the emotion we feel and the beauty we derive from our perceived connection to each other and this universe. I think this is the true balance that the Chasm teaches. One should deny nothing but also not accept anything without valid logical reason.
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Post by Kyrin Wyldstar on May 30, 2018 18:29:42 GMT
Healing is a walk alone. Others can be there and listen, but you will walk alone down your own path, at your own pace with your sheared-off pain, your raw wounds, your denial, anger and bitter loss. You will come to your own peace… hopefully, but it will be on your own and in your own time. - Cathy lamb
Temple of Healing
A rectangular stone island juts from the deep ocean of Tython. The smooth steep walls rise out of the sea and finish in a flat base. Atop that base rests several uniform platforms that form a gray-green step pyramid structure. The culmination of this structure is a blue crystalline tower that tops the pyramid. Below, triangular extensions extend out from each corner of the island that host defensive laser cannons. Eight smaller pyramids with their own blue towers also ring the central building and portions also extended underwater. This massive manmade structure serves as the foundation of the healing temple of Mahara Kesh.
A small boat rocks back and forth in the pounding surf as it slowly approaches the temple. A small female form sits in the middle of the craft. Her clothing is soaked through and she shivers slightly as a chilling wind gusts over her. However, she quickly recovers and resumes rowing her way closer. As she finally reaches the edge of the island she sees a small mooring point that hosts a step structure that rises up to the platform above. Her hair whips in the wind as she looks up. Above her she sees the mated Selkath couple of Naro and Calleh who serve as the Temple Masters of Mahara Kesh. They are watching from above, patiently awaiting her arrival. Personal Log – Entry IVHealing is a process each of us must undertake in a solitary fashion. While support or counseling or medical intervention can provide tertiary provision for this process they can do nothing to actually enact or progress the process itself. As a consequence I don’t consider people like doctors to be “healers” as much as just Biological Engineers. For example they can set a bone in the same way a building engineer could repair a building but in the case of the bone this only sets the environment as an optimal one for the body to heal. However that act does not heal the body itself, only the individual can do this part.
Personal HealingThe term healing literally means “to make whole”. This is the process of restoring one’s mind or body to a state of health from an otherwise unbalanced, diseased or damaged condition. But one can heal without being cured. From the moment we are born we begin to take damage physically, emotionally, psychologically and spiritually. We have the ability to heal ourselves from this damage but often times this does not entail making us whole as in the sense of pristine or “as we were before”. The result of the healing process changes us and leaves scars in its wake. This means we can never return to what we once were, we can only ever move irrevocably forward. And in this process we have the power of choice to shape who we become, either for the better or for the worse. MINDWhat is perfect health when it comes to our physiological selves? Each of us are unique in our mental makeup and each of us have different strengths and weaknesses. Some are shy and some are outgoing, some are good at math and some are good at painting. Some suffer depression and some suffer mania. So what constitutes a good mental health? Is there a standard of perfection that we should strive for or are we each perfect in our own way as we were meant to be? In psychiatry and psychology, healing is the process by which neuroses and psychoses are resolved to the degree that the client is able to lead a normal or fulfilling existence without being overwhelmed by psychopathological phenomena. This process may involve psychotherapy, pharmaceutical treatment or alternative approaches such as traditional spiritual healing. We should always strive to know ourselves better and so we should take advantage of any of these methods freely. But in addition, following our passions is also one of the best ways we can accomplish this never ending task. We need to constantly identify those things in our lives that we want to achieve or accomplish or obtain in corporeal terms and then pursue those relentlessly. However I see the pursuit of these material things as only half the picture. Life is more than just a school of accomplishment through experience. It is also a school of philosophy. The corporeal becomes meaningless without the philosophy. According to Socrates “The unexamined life is not worth living.” That is not to say there is a universal or absolute philosophy but there is my philosophy and there is your philosophy. Each is subjective to us individually. To lack a philosophy relegates us to nothing more than an animals acting on instinct alone. It is instinct that just reacts to hunger and pursues its satiation without thought. I am an animal that is more than just instinct. I am sentient and conscious and aware of my surroundings and have empathy for other creatures. I want to know not only how to do things, how to satisfy hunger but what drives me to satisfy hunger and why I need that in my particular way. I need to constantly challenge myself to find a better way. BODYWith physical damage or disease suffered by an organism, healing involves the repair of living tissue, organs and the biological system as a whole and resumption of normal functioning. It is the process by which the cells in the body regenerate and repair to reduce the size of a damaged or necrotic area and replace it with new living tissue. This is a physical process but there is also a mental process in this as well. Attitude affects will and will changes our reality. I am corporeal - flesh and blood and I have desires and wants and lusts and I pursue those without shame or remorse, but I am idea in mind as well. I am both, and I need to nurture both. Our times of reflection in intellect are what make us more efficient at our pursuits but it is the experience of our pursuits that makes us stronger. I want to remain unpredictable, impossible to catch, wary and able to adapt to my surroundings at all times. I want to constantly hone those skills to make me more effectual. That is how I remain on top and it takes the constant challenge of new, unfamiliar experience to do that. This is just as effective internally as well as externally. If we don’t have a strong mind we will never have a strong body. I am well aware of the lie of the protagonist in these things as well. I have seen both sides and I understand that one man’s evil is another's good. Soldiers on opposite sides of a war both consider the other side evil. Who is right? Neither side because in the end there is no such thing as good or evil. There are just actions, constructive or destructive. Neither one holds a place in heaven or hell because neither place exists. In this concept I need to realize that survival is paramount. I will do what it takes to survive and thrive internally and externally in my environment. No sacrifice is too great in this pursuit. One of my favorite TV shows turns this on its head - Sons of Anarchy. This is a show where the "bad guys" actually become the heroes of the story and the "good guys" are "evil" and need to be defeated. They live in a world where anarchy is a way of life outside the social norms of society. But does that really make it evil? No, just different. But I find it so fascinating that the vanillas will watch such a show and never equate the idea that they are rooting for their socially programed idea of "bad guys" to the reality of the situation. They are oblivious, I never want to be oblivious. SPIRITThere is no such thing as failure unless we give up trying. We are faced with constant challenge and often time’s circumstances outside our comfort zone. But they are not things we should fear the failure in facing. We need to build the confidence to know how to achieve with excellence. And if for some reason we do not succeed we will know the reason why. It is in this idea that failure becomes as much a part of life as success and should be viewed without shame. The abilities that facilitate this are both inborn and created; just built in as well as shaped honed and carved from raw material. It is our perception of failure that is the issue. That needs to be eradicated and we need to come to a place where we know through spirit that the only failure is the abandonment of the pursuit of our path. My standard is extreme and I have met few others that have ever lived up to my expectations. I require that standard of myself but I have had to lower that standard for others as it just seems something none in my circles can achieve. It used to cause me great frustration and conflict. However as I have gotten older I have learned to temper that response because in the end the only person I need to hold responsible in that regard is myself. I have recognized that others just don't have the drive that I do. So in that sense, even my failures are at a level of others successes. But that’s just me. It applies to no one else as long as they never give up. Near my work there is a bridge I walk over that spans a set of rail road tracks. I eat my lunch there often times or linger after work and when a train comes by I stand at the edge of that bridge and take in the immense power of those engines! I love that feeling of raw energy so much. The smell of diesel and their sheer might as they unstoppably rumble by beneath me, effortlessly pulling an unimaginable load with that deep thundering purr of immense force. I adore those engines as that power vibrates in my deep core beneath my stomach. It’s intoxicating because it wells up in me the power I possess in myself to accomplish anything I set my mind to! The power in those engines, reflected in me, reminds me that my angst coupled with my drive make me a unique individual. A combination of the light and the dark. This is my spirit and no others – my unique combination. Each of us have our own philosophy and approach to life. I don't view any as right or wrong, just different. Mine is effective for me and it is only the times I abandon that that I find myself in danger. Beyond that, it’s not my focus. It is the experience that I want. To take every chance to interact with others of my kind, seize every opportunity and take every chance and never fear failure in any of this. When this is done, unreserved with the spirit of perseverance in any pursuit taken on, one of two things is the result – victory or wisdom. Metaphysical HealingThis area of healing has to do with manipulating subtle energy fields thought to exist called Prana, Mana or Chi. I have come to believe that this sort of work is not about the manipulation of esoteric energy fields either part of this realm or removed from it. Rather it’s about a confidence in will to effect a desired outcome in self or others through the modification of state of mind. I too am one of those logical people with a highly scientific background and even though I have approached this work over the years with an open mind I have failed to find any evidence that such a field exists that can be manipulated in any way. Now I am not saying it does not exist. What I am saying is there is no proof it exists and in the absence of that proof there are simpler explanations for the effects we do observe. (Occam’s razor and all) Energy does not exist without something to contain it. At the most basic level, force particles have this job in our universe. If this subtle energy field were a part of the natural universe then it should also be a measurable phenomenon that operates on natural law just like any other form of energy and thus its effects should be able to be consistently reproduced under controlled laboratory conditions. After centuries of exploration not a single consistent reproducible effect has ever been shown to be viable. There has never been a consistent hypothesis as to this field’s function that could be falsified under controlled testing. This is pretty strong evidence against its existence in the natural realm. The next best explanation would be that this field does not exist in the natural realm at all but as some “substance” (i.e. subtle energy field) in a realm outside the natural – the supernatural. But if this is the case what method does this “supernatural field” use to interact with the natural? What force contains this field? If this field exists but has no interaction with the natural then it becomes superfluous. If whatever force contains this energy field has the capability to enter the natural realm and interact with our universe just as any other force particle, then it just becomes a part of the natural at that point and we are right back at having no proof of its existence. If for some reason this energy field operates outside of natural law in a way incomprehensible to us then that is no different than magic and the entire basis of our reality becomes meaningless. Given these ideas, what I have come to understand is that when energy work is performed it’s not about moving an “energy substance”, either natural or supernatural, from one body to another. Rather it’s about the ability to change “state of mind” of self or others in accordance with will and thus effect desired change. We do this every single day. When someone gives words of encouragement to another they are affecting positive change. When a bully demeans or intimidates another person they are affecting negative change. Benefit can be gained and damage can be done but the source of these things is not the worker of the discipline through the manipulation of ethereal forces. Instead it’s the belief of the recipient. Belief is one of the most powerful tools we have. It is the method that facilitates change in the state of mind and it is the single vehicle that “energy work” has to cause change in accordance with will. To put it poetically, belief is the “force particle” that conducts “esoteric energy”. If we can come to believe in ourselves we can manifest anything. In kind, if we have the confidence of will to make others believe, that is a very powerful tool. Belief in another and what they are telling you is true facilitates connection and alters states of mind in the recipient. And this does work both ways, towards the positive or the negative. This is the very psychology of belief but it also means that we will never be able to effect anyone that has a lack of belief or change anything if we have a lack of belief in ourselves no matter how much we “call to the Gods” or work to manipulate implied “subtle forces”. We are a species that is aware of not only our own mortality but also of our connection to one another. That connection is facilitated through a single creation in the big bang and furthered through the evolution of our species from common descent. We are all literally made up of the same star dust. This is no more profoundly demonstrated than by the idea that the exact same ratio of elements we find in nature is the same ratio we find in our bodies. There is a divine majesty in this knowledge that we can recognize. The mysteries of the origins of our reality and why we exist at all are profound enough. We don’t need to invent another layer on top of this in so called “subtle energy” as a key to the control of nature. The reality is that we have no control. We are not a special case in nature, either immanent or transcendent, that has been granted divine power over her forces. And if this were a naturally occurring ability we should see this capability in a multitude of other species. And yet we do not. This is because we, like them, are just along for the ride as an immanent part of the process. When we comprehend this we can find necessity in connection and we can derive power from agreement and cooperation. Because of these qualities we do not have to come together in made up symbolic acts such as Reiki. Instead we just need to provide encouragement and support to others by the force of our wills in positive thinking. This in turn will manifest a change in the state of mind of its recipients. Positive states of mind such as this create hope and the awareness that we are not alone in this life which in turn relieves stress. These are some of the most basic building blocks to begin healing and this is the essence of “The Force” itself. Not some mysterious energy field to be manipulated but that mystical component of existence and its emergent property of consciousness that can only be interactively experienced. To me this is energy work, this is true healing. DeathAs a species we have always been afraid of the dark. And death is the ultimate darkness, that all-consuming storm lurking in the night. Some are content to stay in the light in attempts to avoid the storm, paralyzed by the fear. But that is not true for others. It is not true for me. It is my need to conquer that fear. That is what drives me forward. My fascination with the dark drives me to see what’s there. Anything less than this pursuit is stagnation and eventual consummation in death. It is not the avoidance of the storm that stays that inevitability. It is actually the full on attack of the darkness and the conquering of the fear that gives peace. The pursuit of discerning what is there, and not fearing that but knowing the inevitability of the ultimate darkness and embracing that. We need to realize that the storm somewhere in the darkness is a lie. It’s not real because we are that storm. I want to be that only storm. My pains and my victories, both will drive that. That ebb and flow are irrelevant. The eventual build to excellence is the goal. I will be the only perfect storm. That is my destiny, how I get there is my journey. The darkness creates that urgency. An urgency to live, experience as much as possible and to achieve. Because once that darkness takes us those opportunities are gone forever. Death is one of those things in our lives that we will all day have to face and even more so experience ourselves one day. Because of this inevitability, death is the one thing that should drive our urgency to accomplish. We only have a finite amount of time in this life and to waste that time is tragic. It’s up to each individual as to how that time is spent. So carefully consider that and then act. And afterwards, have no regrets.
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Post by Kyrin Wyldstar on May 30, 2018 18:47:31 GMT
Art is the last form of Magick that exists…
Temple of Arts
On the southern coast near a temperate forest on the continent of Masara sits a low lying temple. Consisting of four identical buildings made of tan stone and red roofs, the structures surrounds an open courtyard with a large circular pool of water at its center. This is Bodhi, the temple of the Arts of the Je’daii order of Tython. Bodhi focuses on teaching its students to understand the manifestations of the Force through the arts such as writing, public speaking, calligraphy, dancing, drawing, sculpture, cooking, music, and theater.
A Je’dii journeyer walks the beach line that runs parallel to the temple. The waves lick at her boots and the salt spray of the surf lightly dampens her body armor. She looks out into the water as she walks steadily forward. The sun, even though low on the horizon, is still able to warm her face. As she comes in line with the temple she turns from the beach and heads toward a grassy knoll that rises above her at the edge of the dunes. Beyond that is the temple. In the distance a lone door swings open on the side of the structure. At its threshold appears the temple facilities master, a human male called Jake Fenn. He patiently awaits her arrival. Personal Log – Entry VAs a species we will never know anything with absolute certainty. However we can know things objectively about our reality. We use science to do this. However there is another side to our lives. That side is our subjective experience of reality. I think this experience manifests most profoundly in art. There is no right or wrong in art. It is here that we connect on a visceral and emotional level with one another. During my time at this temple I set about trying to define my idea of what it means to be an artist. As I began to contemplate this I realized that each and every one of us is an artist. We do this not only through painting, writing, singing, athletics or any other such discipline you could think of but we actually do art through the very interpretation of our subjective experience of reality. The beauty of this elucidation becomes magic itself.
Art is MagickEvery spiritual awakening I thought I had experienced in my life ultimately proved to be a false one. I have spent much of my life in their pursuit. Moving from paradigm to paradigm, through dogma and doctrine, mentor after mentor that promised greatness. Every single one a failure in the end. That is until I started studying the art of Magick. I began this journey twelve years ago. I left any form of traditional religion and began studying magic, the art and science of causing change in conformity with will. It was the latest path I undertook in search of spiritual enlightenment. But over those 12 years or so enlightenment still eluded me. That is until I began studying here and I finally realized that Art is Magick. Now it is not the dogma or the doctrine or the title or even the philosophy of this place that showed me this reality of my nature. It was actually through the study of myself using the lens of some of the world’s greatest art in the form of mythology that I began to realize the answers were not out there somewhere but inside me. For me, this was the first honest and lasting awakening I have ever experienced. It taught me that spirituality, just like artistic expression, is not something to do but something to be. To borrow from the Tao, any enlightening that can be explained is not true enlightening - and the same goes for “endarkening”. To claim to know anything is a false claim. In fact I could only begin to know anything when I finally admitted I knew nothing. And just as much as I am connected to everything I am also in competition with it. Nature loves me unconditionally but it has no problem also destroying me. It is indifferent to my plight in this way and as much as I should be in harmony with nature I am also in a never ending struggle against its inevitabilities – that ultimate and final one being death. And when that happens she will reabsorb my essence without even noticing my demise. Until then my quest is to be the most productive person I can be, take on every challenge without fear, live as richly as I can, embrace those connections I experience, feel as much as I can, embrace the pain and the joy, and never stop searching for the answers I know I will never find because that is the journey. To me that is what "being awake" is about. It is through science that we find out who and what we are but it is through the magick of art that we find out why we are. Anything that is not empirical, that involves emotion and subjective interpretation, is magick. Language being this most basic form. And in that regard you have to always be very careful as to what you speak to others. People make judgements about you based on these dialogues and no matter what you intended, if that communication is unclear, you become to them what they perceive you to be. People don’t understand this power because most don’t understand what magick actually is. In its earliest descriptions magick was referred to as “The Art”. I think this can be literally interpreted. Magick is art and whether that be music, writing, sculpture, speaking or any other form of expression it is all magick. Art like magick is the science of manipulating symbols, words or images to achieve changes in consciousness. The very language of magick talks as much about writing or art as it does about perceived supernatural events. The very grimoire of a witch, where spells are recorded, is simply an elaborate term for grammar. To cast a spell is simply to manipulate words in an attempt to change people’s consciousness. This is why a writer or an artist or a public speaker is the closest thing to a modern day shaman we have. All modern culture has risen from ancient tradition. In these ancient traditions the realms of science and art were both in the realm of the shaman, the healer or the medicine man. They were once perceived as having great power and influence. Now those that understand the true nuances of magic have been relegated to the fringes and replaced by cheap entertainment. That power is now being used by advertisers to manipulate and tranquilize our culture rather than shape a truly spiritual experience in people. Mediums like television where inane jingles and exploitation of the senses are broadcast everywhere and can cause everyone to be thinking the same words and having the same trivial thoughts all at the same time. This is magic put to sordid use so that its facilitators may evoke a profit. There is an incredibly large linguistic component to magick. Writers and people who have command of words are respected and feared. Some of the greatest linguists in history have commanded great power and had influence over staggering amounts of people. The Malleus Maleficarum, or the Hammer of Witches, is one of the best known and the most important treatise on witchcraft ever written. It was a bestseller, second only to the Bible in terms of sales for almost 200 years and laid the foundations for the belief in the evil nature of women as witches, who were subsequently tortured and put to death. The oral power that Adolf Hitler had in his speeches to polarize an entire nation and bring the planet to a state of world war was unprecedented. These are but a few examples of the misuse of this powerful magic. If these things are not evidence of the power of art to change consciousness in others I don’t know what is. People today consider most forms of art as simple entertainment. They are not seen as transformative forces that have the potential to change a human being, to change an entire society. It is not the job of the artist to give the audience what the audience wants though. If that audience knew what they needed then they would not be the audience, they would be the artists. Instead the role of the artist is to give the audience what they need. Because of this I believe art and magick to truly be interchangeable and art is the medium in which magical ideas are expressed. These ideas can bring about great change for good or for worse depending on the goals of the magical artist. We all partake in this magical manipulation, whether we openly pursue a form of art or we are going for an interview for a job. In that job interview you are using magic in the form of the art of selling yourself to a potential employer. The idea is to overwhelm the senses of your target and influence them in such a way as to effect a change in consciousness in them so that you are remembered in a positive light and thus improve your changes to be hired for the job. I believe it’s the most important thing in my life to always be my authentic or true self. And when we are doing the will of our true self we are inevitably doing the will of the universe. This is the idea that every individual is actually a part of the whole of creation and created to be just as they are and as long as they are fulfilling that potential then it is impossible to do anything wrong. Part of this concept includes the idea that the supernatural, Gods and Demons and the like exists only as a creation of the human mind. There they exist as archetypes in all their grandeur and monstrosity as aspects of the Self. It is this search for Self that we undertake as the great work in exploring our spirituality. This is the thing that is inside of us, behind the body, the intellect, our dreams, thoughts and opinions. This is the single most important thing that we can ever attain, the knowledge of our Self. And yet there are a staggering amount of people that not only never seek this knowledge of self but actually actively pursue its destruction. The desire to wipe out that awareness becomes the goal because it’s too much of a responsibility. It is an avoidance of having to accept and live with the pain of life. Instead they self-medicate with alcohol and drugs and meaningless entertainment to disconnect themselves from their higher self so they don’t have to be accountable for its continual prosperity or demise. Ancient pagan traditions understood these concepts and they embraced them. However somewhere along the line this sort magical thinking started to go wrong. I believe that began with the monotheistic traditions. Before these traditions it was common to believe that everything in nature was sacred. That every tree, rock, animal etc all had their own unique essence and could perhaps even be communicated with. People were in harmony with the natural order in this way. Every person had knowledge of and access to this universal connectedness. In this sort of society shamans acted only as disseminators of information and enactors of special skills such as healing etc. However over time these rolls became formalized into a priest cast that become intermediaries between the people and the divine. These casts took on the power of the Gods and instructed people in the worship of the Gods. They became the only means to interact with those Gods. These priests inserted themselves between the worshiper and the object of worship. In effect they became the intercessors between humans and their higher Self. A sort of middle manager between the humanity and the divine itself that humanity is seeking. In effect humanity has lost its direct connection to the godhead within. To try and express the entirety of creation in terms of a single indivisible entity, a single symbol, from which everything came seems the height of strangeness to me. Instead I see the universe not in terms of a single note but more of an entire language, a single body but consisting of many sounds and symbols. And every sound or symbol of that language is a personification of a Deity or an Archetype. Using this language we each construct and express nuances, shades and subtleties of meaning and ideas. Each one is unique in that expression and we share that with others through our art and our interaction. This becomes the very act of creating magick itself. My forms of MagickWhat is spirituality? Where does it come from and why does it remain such an important part of our lives? There seem to be three dimensions to spirituality that make it especially relevant to exploring its intersection with artistic expression. First, spirituality is a search for meaning in life. By cultivating a sense of meaning, spirituality can provide an orientation to our lives, a set of values to live by, a sense of direction, and a basis for hope. Second, spirituality can help us to develop a relationship to mystery. In our search for meaning we discover the idea that there are aspects of our reality beyond the limits of our capacity to even begin to describe in language. Third, spirituality is about transformation. In our search for meaning and relationship to mystery, spiritual traditions provide a means to more deeply enter into this search through a set of practices or disciplines. This facilitates a way for us to cultivate a more intentional pursuit of our spirituality and help us shape our lives around the meaning and mystery we are discovering through this commitment. On this journey of discovery we are constantly taking in knowledge and experience from external sources. This sort of knowledge allows us to interact with our world and with others we encounter. This gaining of intelligence and experience is one that flows from outside our selves inward. But this is not the only flow we experience. The second flow is one that travels from deep within and flows outward to the external world. As we move through life the inward flow is constantly growing but the outward flow is already complete within us. This is the Divine within us that we strive to interpret and translate. We are not static creatures but ones of constant change so this is a continual process of utilizing the inward flow to help us interpret the outward flow. Some of the mechanisms we use to help us interpret our universe are inspiration and creativity. Inspiration seems to be a component of the flow inward and creativity a component of the flow outward. Inspiration comes from Latin and it means "to breathe into" and refers to an unconscious formation of a creative conception that can then be manifest as an artistic endeavor. The Greek’s believed that inspiration came from the muses, as well as the gods Apollo and Dionysus. Similarly, in the Ancient Norse religions, inspiration derived from Gods such as Odin. Many poets attributed inspiration to the idea that the poet’s soul was attuned to the “divine or mystical winds” as thus able to receive inspiring visions. Jung's theory of inspiration suggests that an artist is one who was attuned to racial memory which were posited memories, feelings, and ideas inherited from our ancestors as part of a "collective unconscious". Within these memories were encoded the archetypes of the human mind. These all refer to flows from our outward environment, including our ancestry, inward. It is the beauty and mystery we find in the external universe through our experience that drives this. Creativity, on the other hand, is derived from the Divine that is intrinsic within our personal nature. It is a powerful shaping force in our lives; that intangible human capacity of a transcendent nature that moves us beyond ourselves. It is the process of bringing something new into being. Something that did not exist before; an idea, a new arrangement, a painting, a story. Jung believed the natural language for the psyche is one primarily of image and only secondarily do we move to conceptual thought. These internal images are links to unlived lives and flashes of concepts indescribable in terms of language. In our attempts to interpret and define these images we are moved toward outwardly conveying them. We do this in a myriad of symbolic ways as expressions of our most authentic selves so that we may reveal deeper meanings in our lives. This creativity is most readily recognized in traditional forms of art but in actuality it really encompasses the whole of our lives. Every act in which we “make special” can be a creative one. In primitive society’s spirituality was not something that was driven by events but instead something to be lived on a daily basis. Life was revered and every act was an act of the divine so it was important to always acknowledge the sacredness in even the most mundane undertakings. They lived the concept that artistic expression was an integral part of the very essence of life. This was expressed as cave paintings, rituals designed to help with fertility, or hunting, or crop growth, as well as forms like herbology for healing. Sacred pictures, sacred symbols, sacred dances, chants, hymns and tunes have been used in rituals, in places of worship, and as aids to prayer and meditation in attempts to gain connection to the Divine. In the personality of the tribe-magician, the priest and the artist were joined and they had direct relations with natural forces and daily or seasonal events. In these societies art, spirituality and life itself were all deeply intertwined and no act was taken without this in mind. In our more modern society much of this ancient connection between life and art has been masked or ignored. But none the less, artistic expression continues to cover almost every aspect of our lives. The simple act of consciously taking up a recognized art form such as painting or music or woodworking is only one aspect of our artistic selves. It seems to me that, just as in ancient societies, forms of art in our modern day societies can also include communication, social interaction, ritual, worship and personal connection. If one were to define art at this level it could be described as the communication of the individual with his sense of existence and the ensuing exploration of the myriad of deep secrets that emanate from the very source of everything. The artist becomes a mediator between that source and the receiver. The theme of this art work, technique, style, or expression become the means for communication with the artist’s audience For me, just as our ancient ancestors, living a deeply spiritual life is not about enacting a prescribed set of rituals on a Sunday and yet having no awareness of the sacredness of the rest of my life. It is about living every aspect of my life in a sacred manner and being aware that my every action is a form of art. This is the difference between looking for reward from action verses the reward of acting as the best version of yourself. Like art, truly living your spirituality is largely about process rather than product. A prominent metaphor for our spirituality is “the journey”. This suggests a sense of constant movement and progression. In effect it is the upwards spiral of constant transformation within ourselves. We never fully arrive at a destination but we are always unfolding and discovering new aspects of who we are and what it means to be alive. Our spiritual selves are an aspect of our reality that are in a constant process of integration with the other aspects of our lives. This allows us to find meaning in not only our chosen mediums but allows us to bring a form of artistic expression to all aspect of our lives. Solve et coagula, In order to construct, first one must destroy. These principles can be applied to almost anything in culture. Ancient cultures had direct and continuous relationships with their Gods. They viewed magick as a natural part of the universe itself. With the age of reason this began to wane. Our original way of seeing ourselves and the world around us as sacred things that each had its indwelling essence was replaced with empirical logic and materialism. Anything beyond that became the realm of the fantastical. While the age of reason bought a many great benefits it was at the sacrifice of the sacred. The physical material world began to be seen as the be-all end-all of existence where we were creatures that had no spiritual dimension. The mysticism was stripped away and everything was explained through physical and chemical and natural force processes. And while I believe in those mechanisms of nature I also believe there is something more to our existence. Our consciousness and our emotions are proof enough of that for me. I don’t believe in a supernatural dimension where external entities run wild but I do believe in an internal dimension where our archetypes play, live out their lives and express their desires through artistic expression in what can be defined as nothing less that true magick! There is a wildness deep in the heart of humanity. It is a place where hero’s may be remembered but legends will never die. The Jedi speak of the hero but I see something deeper. I want to connect with that wildness deep inside. I want to express it, embrace it, and become it. I want to be that legend. That is my path. That is the only journey I’m willing to undertake. Anything less is meaningless.
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Post by Kyrin Wyldstar on May 30, 2018 19:04:37 GMT
A true martial artist is the balanced integration of warrior and sage. She is a person of peace but also carries the ability and resolve to destroy when called upon.
Temple of Martial Arts
Deep in the heart of the Ice Giant Range a massive temple sits. Carved from the sandstone of the slope and peak of a massive mountain, the temple specializes in martial arts and weapon combat techniques for young Je’daii journeyers. The building consists of two large structures built into the side of the mountain, each with flat tops and sides that slanted downward. A cylindrical tower rises on the right side of the temple proper overlooking open courtyards where combat training takes place. Further up the mountain's slope buttresses and cliffs of smooth stone have been shaped. On this structure, windows and balconies dotting the surface of the mountain can be seen. A waterfall runs down the exterior of the mountain through the temple and an incredibly long staircase runs from the plains below to the top of the temple, concealing caves beneath where bubbling magma lakes provide heat for the structure. This is Stav Kesh, the Temple of Martial Arts.
A dark form ascends the seemingly never ending staircase. She is wrapped from head to toe in heavy clothing. The cold wind bites at her exposed face and chapped cheeks. Crusts of ice dangle from her fur lined collar and the exposed locks of long black hair that have found their way outside of her hooded head. She pauses for only a moment to look up towards the end of the stairs. Almost there now. At the top awaits her master, the Zabrak Kin'ade, who will teach her the Je’daii martial art of Alchaka. She moves forward again, step by step. Her legs, as strong and firm as tree trunks, strain under their mission. But she will not stop until she reaches the top.Personal Log – Entry VIMartial arts are not about physical power. I did not come here seeking power, at least in the traditional sense, implying authority or control. I know a lot of people seek power in an effort to control their environment but that is wasted effort. Because in the end all we can truly control is ourselves. Having mastery of ourselves in this way is the only true power. It is only through this ever vigilant and prepared control of ourselves that we can affect our environment. Sometimes this is through direct influence facilitated by respect or fear but most often it’s done through subtle manipulation enabled by submission or collaboration. Preparing ourselves for such interactions is the key. This happens in a myriad of ways. Being vigilant of our surroundings and sensitive to others wants and needs. But also always having a strong defensive posture and taking care of ourselves, staying in shape and eating well. Always taking every chance for new learning and new encounters. Challenging ourselves at every opportunity. When we prepare ourselves in these ways the unknown becomes something not to fear but to embrace. This is power. When we possess power in this way people recognize it and intuitively bend to its will. It implies a natural leadership that people respond to.
The Martial Arts – The Way of AlchakaThe Way of Alchaka is a rigorous series of highly personal, often times repetitive exercises, forms and Kata using both physical and mental disciplines. Consisting of personally built routines performed in complex positions with sometimes dizzying movements spaced between the positions, these meditations as they are called, when correctly done, are designed to leave the practitioner on the brink of exhaustion. The purpose of the Alchaka technique is to clear the mind, strengthen the body and attune the spirit to the manifestation of the Force as they see it. These practices are considered an advanced form of Moving Meditation. Each Kamikeedi student is required to study several disciplines and several weapons in this practice and then meld specific techniques and practices that speak to them into a personal Martial Arts form. This is the Way of the Alchaka. As a base, at least 3 forms must be studied as well as 3 weapons. Any combination can be studied but the three most common weapons include the Sword (light saber), the Nunchakus, and the Escrima fighting sticks. Below are the disciplines I have chosen that make up my “Way of Alchaka”. Tae Kwon DoTaekwondo is a Korean martial art, characterized by its emphasis on head-height kicks, jumping and spinning kicks, and fast kicking techniques. To facilitate fast, turning kicks, taekwondo generally adopts stances that are narrower and taller than the broader, wide stances used by martial arts such as karate. The tradeoff of decreased stability is believed to be worth the commensurate increase in agility. Taekwondo translates literally to stomp, fist, way or discipline. Interpreted this way it translates to “The Way of the Fist and the Foot”. Taekwondo is characterized by its emphasis on head-height kicks, jumping and spinning kicks, and fast kicking techniques. The emphasis on speed and agility is a defining characteristic of taekwondo. A relax/strike principle for taekwondo is also advocated. Between blocks, kicks, and strikes the practitioner should relax the body, then tense the muscles only while performing the technique. It is believed that the relax/strike principle increases the power of the technique, by conserving the body's energy. Koryo GumdoKoryo Gumdo is a Korean style sword martial art whose methods practiced today have been evolved through the years by swordsmanship in Korea. It is the first sword form I ever studied and part of my study included adopting many of these ancient forms into light saber katas, eventually evolving them into an aspect of the 7 Jedi forms. Korean Gumdo itself has evolved into a distinct style through the adoption of many philosophies and methodologies that existed in Korea and nearby surrounding countries over the course of millennia. In Korea, martial arts in general are thought to have developed as a result of internal conflicts and repeated attacks from neighboring countries of China and Japan. So in an attempt to unite and stop foreign invaders, the various tribes at the time formed alliances. These alliances ultimately resulted in the development of the three Kingdoms of Silla, Kokuryu and Paekche. This time of unification was known as the Koryo Dynasty. The military of these three kingdoms taught and trained their soldiers and officers in different aspects of martial arts including both unarmed and armed combat methods. Some of these methods included unarmed forms such as Subak, Taekyeon, Tang soo and armed combat methods of Gumdo, Goong dong and Bong sul. Part of their training also included battlefield strategies. The Muye’ Jebo and the Muye’ Dobo Tongji were both ancient Korean war manuals that were written for this type of military training. Each kingdom had a system of warrior philsophy. Koguryo kingdom had their Ssabori warriors that embraced the Way of the Warrior. The Silla Kingdom had the Hwa Rang or The Flowering Youth. And the Paekche kingdom had The Chulgi or Iron horsemen. Many of these Korean concepts were introduced and adopted throughout the ages from neighboring countries. There is evidence in Korea dating back to 70 BC of sword making techniques that are used in the Japanese samurai sword for example. Around 600 A.D. the Koryo dynasty evolved into that basis of what is known today as Korea. The martial arts of the three kingdoms enjoyed great popularity and prestige during this time. This lasted until the Yi Dynasty overthrew the Koryo Dynasty in 1392. During this new dynasty period, the martial arts fell into decline. Confucism replaced Buddhism and warriors were banished as the practice of the martial arts became forbidden. The Arts replaced the practice of combat training and so many took refuge in Buddhist temples where they practiced in secret, handing down the skills from father to son, teacher to student. It was not until the Japanese invaded Korea in 1910 that this once again changed. The Yi Dynasty came to an end with the Japanese occupation and Japan began the systematic destruction of the Korean culture. It became illegal to teach Korean history. A revisionist history was written by the Japanese which replaced traditional subject matter and was taught in public schools. Korean martial arts were banished completely and so Gumdo was replaced with Japanese Kendo. However with the end of World War II Korea was once again liberated and so retook control of its own martial arts. Forms such as Tae Kwon Do, a form that focuses on the ballistic arts by utilizing blocking, kicking and punching, resurged and the sword form of Gumdo/Kumdo became the predominant sword art of Korea. Gomaru-Ryu Modal ArtsGomaru-Ryu Modal Arts are a family of five traditional Japanese martial arts that encompass the full range of martial arts skills. Each of the Modal Arts focuses on a different set of martial arts skills. Striking, grappling, throws, body manipulation, swordsmanship, breath and body control, and weapons. Gomaru Ryu Kenpo is the study of empty handed striking techniques. It is characterized by high speed hand strikes and low destructive kicks. The techniques make use of vital point targeting, bone breaks, joint locks and dislocations, and fast combinations to create an effective system of self-defense. Gomaru Ryu Kobujutsu is the study of a wide variety of weapons. This includes primarily traditional Japanese weapons used by the merchant and farmer classes of Japan to defend themselves. Since they were not legally allowed to own swords or other arms this tradition comes from the use of sticks, walking staffs, and farm implements. Some of the weapons included in the art are fighting sticks, batons, accessory and flexible weapons such as the war fan or the chain and edged weapons such as the sword. Gomaru Ryu Bukendo is study of the Katana and other weapons of the Samurai. Bukendo translated means “Way of the Marital Sword”. This is different than the more popular Kendo because this form teaches actual combat technique versus Kendo that is more of a sparring style. Skills include learning to master combat distance, footwork, and timing in this traditional study of one of the greatest weapons in history. Gomaru Ryu Aikijujitsu is the study of grappling and body manipulation techniques where one learns to take an opponent’s strength and turn it against them. Through the use of joint locks, joint dislocation, body manipulation, throws, and ground fighting techniques practitioners take control of attacker in a flash and quickly disable or force the attacker into submission. It uses both large flowing movements and smaller sharp transitions to create an effective system of self-defense. Gomaru Ryu Gojukido is an internal and personal conditioning martial art. It is a meditative practice that uses controlled and fluid motions to teach breath control, balance control, and precise movement to improve health, focus, balance, strength, range of motion and mental well-being. These techniques have similarities to other internal martial arts such as Tai Chi and physical practices such as Yoga. Tasumaru Ryu Bujutsu teaches that each of the five Modal Arts represents an individual component of martial arts skills. Each art is one individual piece of a whole. Bujutsu brings all of the components of the Modal Arts back together and teaches the universal nature of different martial arts skills. The practitioner must study at least one modal art for a year before they can participate in this holistic martial. Code of the WarriorThe term “Warrior” is not used simply to describe every combatant who has taken up arms and has fought, fights now or will fight against an enemy. Instead we need to hold this noble term in higher esteem and apply it not only to those who fight in physical conflict but also necessarily meet other important criteria. These traits are less tangible, but also ultimately more significant than simply having engaged a foe on the battlefield. Before we call any individual a warrior or any collection of belligerents a culture of warriors, we should first ask why they fight, how they fight, what brings them honor, and what brings them shame. The answers to these questions will reveal whether or not they have a true warrior’s code. I treat the codes I describe below as I treat my Martial Arts. Each one is but part of an encompassing philosophy, one in which no dogma exists in and of itself as a complete article. Instead it is the duty of the Warrior to study as many forms as possible and incorporate individual pieces into their personal philosophy. This method teaches not only independence but also facilitates the evolution a highly personalized worldview code that contains no illegitimate components and speaks to the individual absolutely and completely. Just like all aspects of our lives this will be a living breathing evolving code that can be incorporated not only into acts of physical combat but also when facing any challenge in our lives in which conflict is a component. In this idea we must strive to always be true to self. Having achieved this means we fearlessly pursue any desire with unbounded fever. Each of these codes I describe below and many others have served as components to build my Kamikeedi Creed and Tenets. Koryo GumdoThe Spirit of the Koryo Gumdo warrior is one in which they wield their sword for honor and country. There are 5 Tenet’s the warrior lives by. “Cheung” is Love for your country. “Hew” is having filial piety for ones parents. “Yeah” is the respect for ones elders. “Liee” is the maintaining of honor and virtue in all things. And “Shin” is always striving for justice in any pursuit. The philosophy of the Koryo Warrior is simple and straight forward. Always maintain faithful loyalty to a cause, government, a person or duty. Have piety, loyalty and devotion to parents and family. Always be courteous, polite, kind and civil. Fight for lawful justice and be impartial and honest. These will bring truth to your path. Be faithful, a true believer in others and be loyal truthful and Sincere in your dealings with them. Always be learning. High intelligence gives one the ability to gather information and respond quickly and perceptively. Hold virtue in high regard. Uphold good moral qualities, strive for the right actions, thinking and rectitude. Always maintain physical soundness. Keep the body strong and agile. We practice Koryo Gumdo to discipline the mind and body, to cultivate our physical strength and develop a strong spirit, to develop unlimited abilities and to be a positive influence in society. Koryo Gumdo is a fundamental exercise to gain power and strength for quickness and agility. It develops motor skill and martial arts skill and it teaches a code of honor. We learn to cope with dangerous situations in an orthodox manner because improves concentration skills through use of the sword by training the mind to think calmly and logically. We become able to problem solve and overcome challenges in this way. Training in Koryo Gumdo is not something to be taken lightly because when we practice, perfection is the goal! We maintain complete focus, a calm state of freedom from turmoil and agitation. We build confidence, self-absurdness and boldness. We develop courage, the ability to conquer fear and despair. We strive for perseverance, the unwavering drive to continue in spite of difficulties. Self-discipline becomes our center, we believe in ourselves and keep control of ourselves and acting and doing things because you know they need to be done. Always keeping in mind that success is the goal. We focus on that goal and never let it waver from our concentration. Mental training, like the study of Zen, has no theories. It is an inner knowing that has no stated dogma. BushidoIn relation to my Modal Arts training in Japanese tradition I have studied the code of the Samurai or Bushido. Bushido is the code of honor and morals developed by the Japanese Samurai. It is actually a collective term for the many codes of honor and ideals that dictated the samurai way of life. Bushido means “The Way of Warrior” and stresses a combination of sincerity, frugality, loyalty, martial arts mastery, and honor until death. Bushido was born from Neo-Confucianism texts, while also being influenced by Shinto and Zen Buddhism, allowing the violent existence of the samurai to be tempered by wisdom and serenity. Bushido varied dramatically over time, and across the geographic and socio-economic backgrounds and some versions include compassion for those of lower station. Other versions of this warrior philosophy covered methods of raising children, appearance, and grooming. All of these facets were seen as part of one's constant preparation for death, to die a good death with one's honor intact. The core of this code is typified by 8 virtues:1. Righteousness (gi) - Be acutely honest throughout your dealings with all people. Believe in justice, not from other people, but from yourself. To the true warrior, all points of view are deeply considered regarding honesty, justice and integrity. Warriors make a full commitment to their decisions. 2. Heroic Courage (yū) - Hiding like a turtle in a shell is not living at all. A true warrior must have heroic courage. It is absolutely risky. It is living life completely, fully and wonderfully. Heroic courage is not blind. It is intelligent and strong. 3. Benevolence, Compassion ( jin) - Through intense training and hard work the true warrior becomes quick and strong. They are not as most people. They develop a power that must be used for good. They have compassion. They help their fellow men at every opportunity. If an opportunity does not arise, they go out of their way to find one. 4. Respect (rei) - True warriors have no reason to be cruel. They do not need to prove their strength. Warriors are not only respected for their strength in battle, but also by their dealings with others. The true strength of a warrior becomes apparent during difficult times. 5. Integrity (makoto) - When warriors say that they will perform an action, it is as good as done. Nothing will stop them from completing what they say they will do. They do not have to 'give their word'. They do not have to 'promise'. Speaking and doing are the same action. 6. Honor (meiyo) - Warriors have only one judge of honor and character, and this is themselves. Decisions they make and how these decisions are carried out are a reflection of whom they truly are. You cannot hide from yourself. 7. Duty and Loyalty (chūgi) - Warriors are responsible for everything that they have done and everything that they have said, and all of the consequences that follow. They are immensely loyal to all of those in their care. To everyone that they are responsible for, they remain fiercely true. 8. Self-Control ( jisei) - The ability to regulate one's emotions, thoughts, and behavior in the face of temptations and impulses. USMCMy time as a United States Marine was an experience that has shaped the rest of my life. It taught me what courage, discipline, perseverance, will and loyalty truly are. These are the tenets that have allowed me to accomplish some of the most amazing things I have ever undertaken in my life. The Marines are an elite warrior class like no other on this planet. And the philosophy they instill in each individual that challenges its gauntlet and survives is unmatched. This is something that will serve me well the rest of my life. During my time in the Marines I attained an NCO rank. In this position I was accountable for the wellbeing of 12 fifty million dollar fighter attack aircraft. Part of my duty included being a Collateral Duty Inspector. I was responsible for the inspection of maintenance and ensured the aircraft were safe for flight. I was also responsible for a squad of Marines that were defending their nation from enemies both foreign and domestic. Part of this responsibility also included a year in a combat arena when I participated in during Desert Storm. I was literally responsible not only for some of the most complex military equipment in existence but also the very lives of those aircraft pilots and the Marines in my charge. This is an incredible amount of responsibility for a young 25 year old. Many do not rise to meet this challenge and most will never see this level of responsibility their entire lives. This sort of capability to lead, to both balance the lives of others but also accomplish the mission is not something that can be taught. It has to already exist there, inside you, and then it can only be honed by fire and experience and never relenting in the face of adversity. Following this formula produces wisdom. It is the only way it can be forged. By putting yourself out there, facing that darkness but never showing fear, and always moving forward. CREED of the USMCThis is my rifle. There are many like it, but this one is mine. My rifle is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I must master my life. Without me, my rifle is useless. Without my rifle, I am useless. I must fire my rifle true. I must shoot straighter than my enemy who is trying to kill me. I must shoot him before he shoots me. I will… My rifle and I know that what counts in war is not the rounds we fire, the noise of our burst, nor the smoke we make. We know that it is the hits that count. We will hit… My rifle is human, even as I, because it is my life. Thus, I will learn it as a brother. I will learn its weaknesses, its strength, its parts, its accessories, its sights and its barrel. I will keep my rifle clean and ready, even as I am clean and ready. We will become part of each other. We will… Before God, I swear this creed. My rifle and I are the defenders of my country. We are the masters of our enemy. We are the saviors of my life. So be it, until victory is America's and there is no enemy, but peace!KamikeediYou have decided that I am a wolf among the sheep. That I don’t deserve to be in this place. Maybe this is true, but where are you? I walk a path where success may seem unlikely, victory improbable and that may be. But if this journey were for everyone I would not want it. Victory comes in many forms but defeat only comes in surrender. You stand there and you point to your own limitations and boundaries while proclaiming they should also be mine. But that’s the funny thing about personal boundaries. They really only exist where each of us individually place them. I place mine… behind me. You love to make things unnecessarily complicated. There is a reason for that. Its fear, fear of the unknown, fear of the cold, fear of being bested. Instead of walking into the darkness you cower by the fire, clinging to the majority and creating reasons why it’s too hard, too tough. You spend your time constructing distractions and making up excuses. You have not been able to face that fact that, in reality, there is no hard and there is no easy. There is only the goal and the price that must be paid. Your eyes watch me, observing from a distance, wondering just maybe, if you could possibly be brave enough to do what I do. All the while never realizing that the darkness actually cannot be avoided. All that each of us really have control over, is how we confront it when it arrives, either on our terms or its terms. And it is your own indecision, frozen in fear, that allows it to consume you as it desires. There is a saying. The wolf need not concern herself with the opinions of the sheep. Those that cower by the flame and watch and admire are also the first to judge and criticize, to condemn. But listening to that rhetoric only serves to contradict the very spirit inside that gives the wolf her power, her strength. Her ascent is menacing because she is not like everyone else. She dares to be different and that is threatening to the herd. There will always be points in my life where the cliffs rise above me, the forest hinders my way and others tell me no, that I’m wrong. Perfect… perfect because this is my home, my unspoiled place. My “right now” that I revel in. Not a place of doubt but a place of passion. My promise to self to reach that summit unfolding before my very eyes as each second passes. This is my truth, this is my reality. Embracing what makes me different, not suppressing it. I fight for my separation from the herd by walking steadily into what most fight to avoid. I do this in pursuit of a return most only dare to dream of. As far as I’m concerned you can either do the same or spend your life wishing that you did. Sheep stay within the confines of what they know, angry at those who dare to venture out, who want more. Yet they are angrier at themselves for staying right where they are, avoiding the fight, even running from it. Wolves know this is all there is, one chance, one opportunity. And they mean to take it. You call me manipulative, fine with me. But before you pass judgement, look hard at your reflection and then ask yourself, what are you? Admit to that truth and then live with it accordingly
The Code and what we practiceKamikeedi do not follow rigorous mental disciplines of emotional control or suppression. We do not hide our emotions. Instead we tend to revel in them, capable of both intense compassion and deep loving devotion but also fanatical ferocity and viciousness. We are characterized as passionate, cunning, and opportunistic. Kamikeedi don’t repress their natural passionate urges. However this is not a way of life of unrestrained conflict as many outside our order have concluded. In reality Kamikeedi are deeply obsessive about the challenge itself and the inherent conflict that ensues in that is approached with a controlled cunning in celebration of the hunt itself. As a clan, the Kamikeedi as generally thought of as treacherous. But they are actually quite honorable in their thinking and this reputation stems only from their philosophy of accomplishment at all cost. Part of this behavior is influenced by the belief in the Kamikeedi Code which is a written upwelling of the Kamikeedi concept of honor. This is not purely a warrior-like concept but also a reflection of accomplishments made by the individual in relation to self, family and Clan. We celebrate rather than repress our instinctual, passionate emotions and consider defending our passions as well as our own personal honor of foremost importance. Part of this belief includes the concept of "Fight to the Death" which is a concept in which the greatest sacrifice any Kamikeedi can make in the pursuit of passion is death. This form of passion has no limits. It can range from outright military combat to the protection of those less able to a completely personal pursuit. In these pursuits we embrace a concept of “never surrendering” no matter how many setbacks are experienced because the only true defeat is in giving up. Kamikeedi believe in the concept of the true self. This philosophy says that as long as the individual remains honest and true in their passions they can do no wrong according to the universe. We have a complete loyalty to the clan as well and place them before others. ShintoThe philosophy of the Kamikeedi also pulls heavily from the ways of Shinto. The earliest Japanese writings do not refer to Shinto as a unified religion, but rather to a collection of native beliefs and mythology. It is this philosophy that the Kamikeedi viewpoint is patterned after. The personal incorporation of a diverse array of beliefs and practices that speak to the individual without the reliance on the collective. The word Shinto means “Way of the Gods”. This is along the same pattern as many of the martial arts I have studied and I consider this the spiritual component of the Warriors path. It is not comprised of a discrete unchanging dogma but one of discovering a personal path of meaning through philosophical study. This can take a myriad of directions but the basic core of this pursuit is the personal discovery and exploration of the underlying energy that drives the phenomena of reality.
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Post by Kyrin Wyldstar on May 30, 2018 19:30:37 GMT
I have always worn strength and darkness equally well, I am half exquisite Artemis and half magnificent Hel
Temple of Force Skills
Located among the dunes of the Silent Desert there exists a series of caverns. The entrance to these caverns seem to be encased in an invisible protective barrier that protect it from the shifting sands that are moved ceaselessly by a hot dry wind. Four spires erupt from the surface of the ground and surround this entrance. A massive technological diamond shaped structure seems to float weightlessly above this entrance and is encompassed within these spires. In the stillness of this desert oasis Je’daii students focus on improving their mental endurance and strength as well as sensory skills with The Force. This is the temple known as Qigong Kesh.
A cloaked figure rises over a massive sand dune. The cloak whips back and forth in the violent wind as she moves steadily forward. The darkened googles she is wearing catches a glint of the sun and the sound of her breath through her protective mask is carried away by the wind. With each step her boots sink into the sand, making even the simple act of walking a challenge. But this does not deter her pace toward her goal, the temple that rests serenely before her in quiet solitude, somehow free of the torrential wind and shifting sand. As she looks on what she sees excites her and quickens her pace even further. The figure of Master Miarta Sek, the Sith overseer of this temple. Personal Log – Entry VII“The Force” is simply a poetic label we assign to the emotion we feel and the beauty we derive from our perceived connections to reality. It can be interpreted in natural terms that encompass aspects of the very laws of the universe. Those aspects being the very idea that we are all evolved from a single ancient form of life that emerged from a set of elements created out of the same stardust that emerged into existence in a single event called the big bang. We are literally the stuff of stars and the ratios of elements we find in the universe are the same ratios we find in ourselves. There is something we find beautiful in that. All existence is energy and energy is just energy. It has no opinions and it is not aware of itself nor does it feel. It is us as humans that feel… that experience. And in this no act we undertake can be called good or evil but simply human. We are capable of the greatest of constructive acts and the most shattering of destructive acts. What many miss in this however, is that both are still acts of creation.
The ForceWhat is a spiritual experience? If we have a spiritual experience we would think that in order for that experience to be real the thing we are experiencing would also have to be real, right? For a Christian that would be the Abrahamic God and for a Pagan that would be "Goddess" and for a Je’daii it would be “The Force”. But are those things really separate things? It would seem the height of impracticality that reality would be infested with an infinite set of “spiritual elements” to experience, all with different messages and interactions. And so I think we can conclude by the principle of Occam’s razor that given both possibilities, this complication of many things would not be true and that, in fact we are just experiencing different incarnations of a single entity or phenomenon. This embodiment, if it exists, must have definite properties and characteristics. So why is there so much disparity when it comes to our personal interpretation of spiritual experience? It would seem that if this manifestation exists we would be able to come to a concrete consensus about it. Since we cannot the only conclusion we can draw is that it does not exist as a thing. Deity/Goddess/Force/the spiritual experience does not exist as an entity or an energy field or any other myriad of manifest things we can imagine. Instead the spiritual encounter, The Force, exists only as a personal experience that we feel as real but does not really exist outside our perceptions as a component of reality. The Force is not an external entity with a will nor is it an energy field. It is an experience… and we are its energy field. The Force is something transcendent of physical reality and yet also immanent throughout that reality. We do not draw power from it. It is actually created by the power we generate internally. My concept of The Force is one in which I cooperate with it, shape it, bend it to my will, imbue it with my essence and then bask in that return. In order to do that I must act with intent to shape my path, even in the face of adversity. For me “The Force” is not a passive force that I allow to flow through me but an active force I generate and then draw from and shape as a means to an end. In doing this it does not give me essence but takes of mine, which is returned to me magnified in kind for the sacrifice I gave. This process must be an organic interaction of symbiosis with our natural universe. To try and artificially shape it or mold or manipulate it through artificial systems of control like the suppression of emotion is futile because we are bound by its grasp in the ultimate paradox of free will and fate. There in the underlying fabric of space time it intertwines these two aspects of our reality that can never be broken apart. We are free to choose our path but only within the determination of that fate it has in store for us because in the end The Force always determines our destiny. Any attempt to circumnavigate that only brings us closer to our doom. We walk the path of our choice but only within the boundaries set by the universe for we can never escape our own mortality. So for that short time we have in this universe why not revel in the entire range of emotion we are gifted instead of trying to deny those pleasures and those pains? This is only the way The Force wants it to be!! We spend our lives pretending the shadows on the wall are our reality. We have mapped the entire electromagnetic spectrum from the universe itself down to the plank distance. We have quantified and qualified the forces of nature. We have harnessed these forces and have told ourselves that we are the masters of the universe. Somehow each day we convince ourselves that we are in control because we can manipulate these shadows of reality, change them or blend them and we delight in the power we tell ourselves we have. But all the while we are fooling ourselves. The true power does not lie in harnessing the shadow and our manipulation of them is futile because in the end we are at the will and whim of a force of nature far greater than we can ever begin to imagine. It is our arrogance that blinds us to this fact. We fail to understand that we are not nature’s masters nor our own masters and we never will be. Only when we stop focusing on the shadows and truly seek both extremes of our nature will we know the true power of creation. Only then will we appreciate that we are truly powerless. The Force is Creatrix, womb longing with desire to conceive. The Force is Spark, pursuer engorged with the desire to set the flame. The Force is a wanton lover, warm and yearning, caressing the deepest desire from my soul. The Force is a cruel paramour, tracing icy tendrils down my spine before encasing my throat in an icy grip of death. It delights in both ecstasy and misery without regard for either. To truly feel its power is to reluctantly give myself in gentle submission to the beauty of the rose while simultaneously experiencing the intoxicating pain of the thorn as it deeply pierces. It is not an experience that I can gain with knowledge or training or by exercising control. It is something I can only gain by letting go of consequences and allowing myself unbridled passion for the moment alone. That journey will reveal many things. Some I will delight in and others I will not. However I need not fear those things of the dark for they are as much a part of me as the light. In fact without both I would have no concept of self. This journey lays bare the knowledge that I must become an enigma unto myself. I spend my live trying to define that thing inside me that is indefinable. I ask, “Who am I?” The answer I am returned, “I am two sides of an unbalanced coin, one light and one dark. I only get to exist on one side or the other.” It’s an answer most don’t question as they scurry toward the light. They even harbor relief; feigning no need to ponder beyond that boundary. But I ask what might lie beyond those self-erected walls? On the surface, it seems that to ponder this, is to commit myself to certain doom. For it is forbidden to unravel that mystery without giving myself to the unknown dark… but of what am I truly afraid? The war wages both within and without. Those cursed with the blight of unbounded, overwhelming logic envy those that display their dark and messy passions so easily. For isn’t it true that all things of passion and emotion and desire are born in the deep black fires of darkness? Like a fever it burns and consumes in an orgiastic fervor, leaving its victim stripped and bare before the masses. Cold logic and emotional control know nothing of this. It listens only to the rational voice when dealing with emotion. Yet curiously, as it watches, it sees the experience of being stripped of logic and lain shamelessly open, to revel in one’s own ardor, a seemingly enjoyable one. So logic sits on the edge of the dark and wonders what it would be like to delight in that whimsy. How enticing it is to think of surrendering one’s self to that temptation. Maybe just one toe dipped into that silky, seductive essence would be enough to quell a voracious curiosity? But no… even that simple indiscretion would leave one on a singular path. Like a drug addict craving more. Deeper and deeper would one delve into that unholy pit, allowing that passion to take just a bit more each time. That slick, black spirit would caress and seduce until one brazenly gives themselves entirely over to the warm, enticing touch; no longer caring, even begging it to consume thine soul for the return to permit just one more taste. For the logical this can never be allowed to come to pass. It leads only to ruin… and when the Dark Lord calls His herd, the fear one would find them self among that number is great. So the struggle to remain ever vigilant against the dark path ensues. It takes a steadfast will - albeit one born of fear. But I see the fear is a lie meant to keep me from the fulfillment of my destiny. As desire wages war against fear, those walls are weakened inside me. They crumble like the burning loins of a young lover moved past the point of reason. Swollen and soaked in desire I arch and plead to be breached. It is a powerful and overwhelming feeling of yearning and want of that freedom! In the pitch black night I awaken, drenched in sweat. Grinding against the bed sheets, aching for that invasion of flesh and spirit. A desperate begging cry out into the night – “Please!.. Please grant me that release!!” Writhing lewdly there in the pitch black, the darkness comes, revealing itself, allowing me to slide over that edge. Gasps of relief come and I know that it is simply my duty, even my fate to give myself over. With that intoxicatingly carnal release of pleasure the revelation comes - the stability of the universe depends on balance. Why should my journey be any different? Or is this simply a justification to relieve a tortured mind? Maybe, but still I cannot escape the reality that there can be no steadfast, rational light without an uncontrollable, bewitching, gorgeous, black dark. And that dark fire needs to feed, it needs to burn. For it is alive and it must consume. I must simply become its willing sacrifice. I will burn with it. This is the journey to The Force, the path I traveled - down the rabbit hole I went and encountered the personification that is Force incarnate. And in turn that phenomenon introduced me to Force ubiquitous… Temptation but fear - rebellion but shame; these are the elements of a superficial life. A life before enveloping myself entirely into that perfect balance that birthed the universe. My surrender to this concept revealed to me these raging forces of logic and emotion within are but a perfect mirror, reflecting the true nature of things without; that they are not rivals but kin, born of the same blood. The understanding comes that to release myself fully does not spell my own destruction. I must shed the trepidation and the indignity imposed by others to find that warm, inviting place beneath the Moon as well as the Sun with the entirety of creation by my side. It is a place without judgment, a place where the heart cannot be wrong. It is a place of revelation. Here the preconceived notions of absolute “light of good” or “dark of evil” do not exist. For I came to realize they are really the same thing, and I search no more… Breast lain bare, Heaving, willful eagerness Clutch of blood red rose Engorged, dripping wanton desire, Prick of a thorn, Gasp of ecstatic pleasure, Dagger plunged home, Slaking unbridled lustTo live life unrestrained in this way, never fearing the unknown, embracing the mysterious, is to experience the entirety of The Force. So what does it mean to truly know The Force? It is to know that, in any act, I am the alter of creation and renewal for the progression of all!!
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Post by Kyrin Wyldstar on Jun 4, 2018 17:54:47 GMT
Where there is desire, There is gonna be a flame Where there is a flame, Someone's bound to get burned But just because it burns, Doesn't mean you're gonna die You've gotta get up and try try try -Pink
Temple of Knowledge
Located on the western Tythos Ridge, which is nestled into the embrace of a gently-sloping mountain range, rests a massive, fortress like temple structure. The temple is constructed from the remains of a much older temple of unknown origin that fell into ruin centuries before. It is made of four large square towers of painted stone. Each tower is carved in such a way as to create large geodesic circles in the faces of the walls that look inward and the structure is accessible only by two narrow trails winding up the mountain. This place serves as a meeting place and a vast repository of knowledge and wisdom that has been passed down through many generations. This is the great temple of Kaleth, the Temple of Knowledge.
A small female figure can be seen moving through the fog on the main trail to the temple. The trail, known as Elarian, is narrow and winding. With each footfall the girl’s hooded cloak, now worn with frayed edges from travels, gingerly brushes the edge of the trail. Beneath that edge is a sheer precipice that disappears into darkness. One misplaced step could spell doom for the traveler. But she displays no fear as she nimbly moves along the path. As she moves up the slope, a flash of lightening erupts from the sky and strikes the ground near the top of the mountain. The light of the strike reflects in the travelers piercing yellow eyes. It also reveals the presence of another, if only for a moment, near the top of the trail. It is the Twi’lek Master Kora Ryo, the temple's overseer, waiting patiently for her arrival. Personal Log – Entry VIIIThe Academy Temple is about information and data and facts and rote learning. However, this temple, of Knowledge, is not about book learning. This place is about awareness, comprehension, realization and experience. It is about wisdom! When we study the force we are actually just studying ourselves, because we are the force. There is nothing external to this study… we have no super powers, we just have ourselves. That is The Force - The human condition itself.
THE SEARCH FOR MEANINGPeople call themselves Jedi and they use terms like “The Force” and they say when they became Jedi they began to be in tune with The Force. My question is, what is The Force? If people truly believe this thing exists and that others call it by a myriad of other names like Christ or chi or mana or subtle energy or life force then how did adopting a name suddenly “tune you” to it? If it is an immanent part of them, why were they not turned to it before the title? Even more importantly how is it that two people “tuned” to it still come to completely different conclusions on many aspects of reality? I think this is because people are very good at deception. And self-deception is something we are all experts at. We lie to ourselves every day about stuff because we are scared to face the truth. We find security blankets in made up concepts and wrap ourselves in them so we don’t have to face that truth. In this case that truth is that Jediism does not really exist and it never has. Religious paradigms like this carve humanity into sections instead of focusing on integration. How much death and destruction and suffering and fracturing of denominations has come about as a result of Christianity? Now the Christians hate the Muslims and the Protestants hate Catholics and the Catholics hate the Mormons. And for what? All because they interpret a 2000 year old book differently. What would happen if they got rid of those books and the titles those institutions they are built around and instead concentrated on just being humans all focused on the work of learning to live on this planet together? The truth would be revealed that none of these dogmas or systems are real and there is no such thing as magical or mystical secrets to self-improvement. The stark reality is that no institution or paradigm or dogma or God or spiritual master that promises to protect you or guide you or teach you the secrets to esoteric mystical knowledge will ever make your life "better". The only path to self-improvement that exists is just living life each day the best we can and grinding that out over and over, day by day, moment by moment. People have trouble waking up to this though and so religion becomes a facade of refuge to hide within so they don't have to face the darkness in their lives. They invent preternatural spiritualties and concocted paradigms and put themselves into these paradigms so they can assign themselves labels like Christian or Jedi and convince others that they are special in some way because they possess extraordinary paranormal knowledge not available to the masses. And people fall for these things because they are looking for something in their lives, some magical solution that will provide all the answers to the questions in their lives. They research ancient wisdom and dusty texts and so called holy books and scriptures and doctrines and join internet temples where fake masters sell you on their cheap and flimsy dogmas. But do these people find what they are looking for? They can pretend they do but in actuality they are fooling themselves. This is because as much as any of us tries to convince ourselves we have found the answer or become something special, the answers really don’t lie in any of those limiting systems of control. It’s not until you realize this, that you need to shed all those and instead finally see that you need to focus inward and not outward, that you can find true enlightenment. By relying only on the self and choosing to do that work, we find not the answers in ourselves, but peace in the questions. And when that happens the need for the protective shells of any paradigm drops away. Knowledge is different than experience. The decision to do the work begins with the search for knowledge and that search becomes experience. And if we don’t give up, the comprehension of the combination of the two evolves into wisdom. The experience of gaining the wisdom in the revelation of the futility of the paradigm is how we make our lives better. But moments of revelation are different still than transformations. A revelation must still be acted upon in order to be significant, to become transformation. A person accepts Christ into their hearts through repentance and suddenly they are “born again”. All their sins are expunged from their records, all in an instant. For Jedi, the very act in the ceremony of knighthood is no different. Suddenly through that simple act a Jedi becomes worthy in the eyes of a temple to guide and teach and lead others where before they were not. People will say one was not a Christian because they didn’t know Christ and then one became a Christian and was transformed into a new being. One was not a knight because one did not know the force and then one became a Knight and was transformed into someone worthy of teaching the ways of the force. But these are not transformation nor are they revelation because they are infected with elitism and separatist philosophy. A revelation is a moment in time that reveals universal truth, not one stigmatized by a specific dogma. On the other hand a transformation is a never ending process. This process contains many revelations, each building on the last until we can finally free ourselves from the paradigms of control. One must continually work towards the ideals of the wisdom earned in order to undergo transformation. And transformation brings unification. But if we stop at any moment and conclude the journey is over we have become lost. Because the journey is never over. Becoming Christian or Knight is not a destination. The journeyer has just begun wandering aimlessly in circles. And when this happens the wisdom thought to be achieved was never truly comprehended. It was only pretended to be known and as a result, stagnation in the endless transformative fight for wisdom will occur. And that will be easily recognizable in their character. None of us are prefect. We’re not meant to be. How boring that would be. So this process is not about striving for perfection. Instead we just need to strive for “good enough” in the things we do. And in that endeavor there is no “goal of maturity”. To regret any actions as a result of a perceived deficiency in character is something I find contradictive. I see it as conflating regret in actions with shame in who you are. Sure, have regret for your actions and use that to make better choices going forward but never have shame in those actions because that experience is what got you to where you are now. One more step in a never ending battle up that mountain. If you had not had that you would never have grown. It is the churn of the chaos of our lives and it is necessary. This is the progression of transformation. To say you have lived badly is an impossible thing to say as long as you never give up that fight for transformation. If the fight is sincere you are who you need to be when you need to be it. In other words how do you live badly? Is the corner puzzle piece of reality “better” than the piece in the center with no smooth edges? I don’t believe in living badly or goodly. I believe in just living and living is always better than not living no matter what’s going on or what consequences may come. THE NORTH STAR OF THE JOURNEYWhen it comes to the Je’daii and in particular the philosophy of the Kamikeedi specifically what is the true meaning of being “Grey”. In the first place there is no such thing as a “Grey Jedi” just as there is no such thing as a Grey Sith. These are contradictions in terms and anyone that claims these titles is missing the point. The followers of the middle path are just Grey, nothing more. Concepts like mother destroyer and father creator, light and dark, good and evil, right and wrong holds no meaning for a Grey follower. These are skewed and limited dualistic worldviews we do not acknowledge. There are no absolutes in the reality of a Grey follower such as this, there are only nuances or aspects of one ultimate reality and to try and divide that into dual houses is meaningless. The Grey strive to encompass not only the light but also the blackness, not only in themselves but in nature as a whole. They embrace the extremes of both sides in breaking these old dualistic stereotypes. While many see a distinction between the light and the dark, the Grey sees no distinction. The goal is to free themselves from any system of control and in that find freedom. That freedom includes not only freedom from moral systems but freedom from any system of control. This takes into account even controls like selfishness or indifference for example, as well. It is in these ideas a follower of the middle way can be just as driven in the aspects of compassion as much as by ruthlessness. The difference being the freedom to choose what best suits their pursuits at will. Most Grey adherents do not conform to a single doctrine. This is too stifling for a grey follower. The most prolific in the path follow a fluid creed and the path encourages each journeyer to write their own code that perfectly suites them alone. Their philosophy is not a middle path between two extremes. It is an embracing of both extremes equally. Many fear so called negative emotions. They want to shun or control what they would call the dark aspects of their personalities like hate and fear and anger and regulate or tightly control positive ones like love. This is not an issue for a Grey follower. Grey do not view emotions as positive or negative and they don’t limit themselves in any undertaking. A Grey force user will dynamically embrace attachment of any ideal or emotion for power. This power is not over others but over self. Their entire journey is about pushing every bound, exploring every facet of their psyche. It is about achieving the impossible. The grey let their environment be what it wants to be and then takes advantage of that. This is a more natural state to exist in and it’s harder to achieve than trying to enforce any artificial systems of control. These artificial systems are subject to unnatural resistance because that is not the way we evolved to function. Instead we were meant to achieve symbiosis with our environment and achieve goals without undue or unnatural resistance by taking advantage of our evolutionary traits such as emotion. Greys see every emotion not as good or bad but as violent or passive. And every emotion contains both these potentials. It is not the emotion itself that gives it this potential, it is the use of the emotion. In this idea Greys see love as having the potential for greatest constructive purposes but also for the greatest of destructive purposes. Hate and anger, all of the emotions are the same way and so grey embrace all emotion and use all to their greatest potential because grey understand that no matter whether any act we undertake is constructive or destructive, both are still acts of creation. It is this mastery that we strive for, that is the truly impossible goal! We embrace pain and suffering as necessary and the most effective paths to growth. It’s not about fixing or avoiding the damage in our lives, it’s about the damage itself. Those damaged spots become the strongest part of our lives. Just like a broken bone becomes stronger at the break over time. It’s still damaged, still scarred still gone through that trauma but is now even better equipped than before. For a follower of the Grey path it’s not love that is going to save humanity. It’s us that needs to save love in spite of the indifference of nature! That is the mission and in order to do that we need our pain and our scars and our damage because those things become our armor in the fight! This is not the middle road of mediocrity or avoidance. It is the veering off the road into the uncharted wilderness to conquer every fear and make it our bitch! That is the impossible journey! The Kamikeedi philosophy sees each path as each having their own “North Star” so to speak, that they will follow. In this, one does not choose a path. They already are the embodiment of that path because of who they are as a being. The trick is to figure out who that person is inside each of us and which attributes we carry as sacred. For the Jedi that North Star is Compassion and Honor. They have a strong sense of duty to a cause or service to others. For the Grey that North Star is Freedom. They follow their own whims and avoid rules and traditions. Their own desire for freedom determines any decisions of morality. For the Sith their North Star is Passion. They have no use for rules and believe moral systems are a lie. The pursuit of their passion is undertaken regardless of the lives of others and it is a pursuit they will chase until there is victory or death. So yes one can write a code that strays so far from the Grey path that it may invalidate everything I have taught here. But that only really means they have drifted so far from the North Star of the Grey that they have taken up the north star of another path and in this, they are no longer really grey anyway and they never truly were. Ultimately, no path is wrong, just different. KNOWLEDGE OF THE FORCEIf we are to consider "The Force" as an actual existent “thing” (i.e. something that has properties) there has to also exist truth about its nature. And as well, those that have not found those truths, can have misconceptions about that nature. But as each one individually “progresses” they will acquire experience through time and with enough effort will eventually come to find common components in a collection of singularly discernible, universal truths. This would be the thing that binds all together, the search for that truth. These are truths that cannot be taught to you by another, only revealed to each seeker as they are able to fathom them through the undertaking of the journey itself from within. Take a concept such as quantum mechanics compared to Newtonian physics. The quantum world is an underlying fabric of our Newtonian reality and to try to understand why it works will boggle the mind. This is also the nature of “The Force” in relation to the human condition. But the enigma in the search for the meaning of these relationships is where things get a bit paradoxical. Because, like quantum mechanics, the deeper we delve into the mysteries of The Force the more we begin to comprehend that its mysteries are not meant to be intuitively understood. This is the very enigma of existence. We ask ourselves “why are we here” and “what is our purpose?” What does it mean to be human? There are no set answers for these questions. They are not meant to be quantized in this way. It’s the search that matters, not the knowledge. Like the Tao, the second you try to cast “The Force” into a role, as soon as you put a label on it, as soon as you name it and give it attributes by virtue of your investment, you take away all its power and it becomes nothing more than an event – The Force loses that immanent spiritual revelation and becomes simply a material occurrence. It’s the collapse of that quantum wave state into a finite position. Through this process we realize “The Force” is not something to be observed or harnessed. It is just to be experienced. There are endless layers to this interaction. How deeply down the rabbit hole one wants to delve is a decision each of us must make on our individual paths. Some will achieve more than others. It does not make anyone’s comprehension at any point in time wrong per say, maybe just less correct than it could be, if you will. And as we travel down that rabbit hole in our struggle to define what realities true nature is, we may find ourselves debating and discussing endlessly. But that’s ok, it is just our limited monkey brain trying to decipher the answer to a riddle that in fact, none of us will ever truly comprehend. That is the paradox! We each carry our personal and limited grasp of “The Force”; a specific aspect or two that we have gleaned from time in communion with it. But we can only ever hold a small sliver of what it truly encompasses. And grasping that idea through the struggle to build a deliberate and dedicated unity, an intentional relationship with “The Force” that also must entail a surrender to its power and mystery, is the key. And when we finally realize this, that we can truly know nothing, is when our journey actually begins. Everything else is just preparation for that journey.
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Post by Kyrin Wyldstar on Aug 16, 2018 14:54:35 GMT
“Your life is not something that is given to you or brought to you or that you deserve. It is something you must fight for, something you must earn. So be more than rich, or famous or happy, Be great, carry no regrets and have a kick ass time!”
“Technology is the fruit of Science Whatever Anil Kesh can imagine Vur Tepe can make real."
Temple of The Forge
A massive metal and stone structure rests on the lip of the active caldera along the Tythos Ridge. The temple itself, a rust-colored ziggurat, rests on four sheer support walls and is crowned with several barrel-shaped smokestacks that belch smoke created from the fires of the forges within. Located at the base of an active volcano, the internal structure forms an interior dome which harnesses the heat from the flowing lava to power the forges of fire as the students practice their craft. A monument to the art of metallurgy, this is a place of study where students learn the ways of the Force through the construction of tools and weapons. Within the halls of this temple, known as Vur Tepe, the Je'daii concentrate on practical applications; focusing on the processes in which the Force could be applied to create or improve physical things. They learn to imbue both their Tachi and their mind with the Force and make each extraordinarily strong and razor sharp.
A lone journeyer moves through the molten lava flows. She gingerly traverses the treacherous path as a hot wind whips her cloak backward. Hood thrown back, her yellow eyes seem to glow even brighter in this dark and foreboding place. Steam rises from her boots as she treks onward, warry not to stand too long in one place for fear the very soles of her footwear may melt into the smoldering muck beneath her feet. As the edge of her cloak touches the ground it becomes singed, but she pays it no mind. She has a single purpose, to reach the temple and the Jedaii master awaiting her arrival. He is a Cathar called Tem Madog, Vur Tepe’s overseer who calmly watches and awaits her arrival as the base of the temple.Personal Log – Entry IXOne concept I have always found particularly interesting is humanities continual attempt to classify aspects of our being into categories, light and dark, good and evil and so forth. I have never found much use for such classifications as I came to the conclusion a long time ago that every aspect of who we are is a necessary and functional part of our makeup. Given this notion, how can anything that we “are” or we experience be classified as “bad” and in need of suppression or eradication? If I had not experienced every event I have in my life, both good and bad, I would not be who I am today. I think instead it is not the presence of seemingly malevolent aspects of our nature that give rise to “evil” but our processing of these things out of balance with the rest of our makeup that causes undue suffering. That concept has been brought home even more profoundly than any other time in my life during my journey through these temples. This is especially true of this temple, The Forge. Its very name implies Coal and Fire, The blackest of black and the lightest of light combined with force to form the weapon of the Sword. I am that Sword, formed of light and dark through conflict. I have become accomplished in doling out the most violent intrusion as well as providing the greatest of securities.
THE MINDThe mind is the most powerful weapon one can possess. Everything one will ever accomplish begins in the mind. Classically speaking "Magic” is the Science and Art of causing change to occur in conformity with will. This is simply the creation or manifesting of something physical or tangible out of something intangible. This intangible factor begins in the mind as desire, will or need. But if you cannot concretely define what it is you want, it remains esoteric and therefore you cannot manifest, refine, practice or improve that thing. Even such apparently subjective concepts as "more confidence" can be measured, if one defines what "more confidence" actually looks like. This is done by establishing a set of criteria for its measurement and then a concrete process for its improvement. These details must be fleshed out or the goal of “more confidence” will never be achieved. Once the criteria is set it must then be acted upon by the individual by the taking of ownership over self and enacting physical change. These goals also need to remain personal and not the understanding of others or society in general. When one thinks in terms of what everyone else is doing, it either naturally imposes limits on what one is able to do or it creates frustration in the individual from perceptions of inadequacy or superiority. Yes, this process functions both ways. Not only should one not accept external standards but they should also never impose their personal standards onto others. Never speak for others, only speak in terms of self. Thinking in terms of “we” is naturally limiting. “We” implies an average and average is not a goal to strive for. Theories about a group can be entertained, but one must keep in mind that one can only “know” something definitely of self. So one should only think in terms of who they are as an individual. In doing this, their potential becomes unlimited because it unbinds them from artificial external standards. All that needs to be accomplished at this point is the work. For example, let's say one were trying to adopt the habit of writing more. The worst thing they could do would be to look at the average daily word count for most authors. Slightly better, would be to try and match the word count of 1-2 writers that were personally admired. With both, one would be putting an artificial limit on accomplishment. One may not be able to achieve the number or one may be able to achieve much greater than the number. In either case an artificial limit is set. The better goal would be to ask “How much I can write”. Decide how much one personally seeks to improve and then strive to hit and even exceed that number every day through grind and persistence. That way potential is unlimited. The only thing holding you back and the only benchmark to measure against, is yourself. The key here is taking on the work to physically manifest the concepts of the mind regardless of constraints. Those ideas remain meaningless without the work, the effort and pain and sacrifice to bring those ideas into the world, Relying on false paradigms such as the concept of Karma, a made-up sense of universal justice or self-entitlement, to just manifest your desires in life is folly. That is not to say there is not a spiritual component to happiness. The goals we strive for are very much empirical in nature but the process in obtaining those goals can often times be esoteric. By esoteric I don’t mean supernatural or occultist, I mean obscure or mysterious and even hidden. There are a myriad of processes that can be deployed in the pursuit of any given goal and depending on how those are deployed one will either be successful or not successful in achieving their goals in an empirical sense. Discovering those processes and deploying the correct ones for the proper situation is as much a factor in success or failure as anything. If you want to get stronger but you hate to lift weights you are doomed to failure. Instead find the process to increase strength that you have passion about. These processes are about knowing the self. They entail the management of emotion and belief both in ourselves and in others. In fact every decision ever made will always have a component of emotion and belief in it. Because of this they are messy and often times not driven by logic. The key is picking the correct process for the situation by successfully reading the dynamics of the environment in that situation and then invoking the best process to ensure success. This is an esoteric art as much as it is a science because not everyone has the ability to read a situation successfully. Everyone has different talents and different skill levels. Emotions cloud judgement and belief can be biased. One must know their natural talents in order to better develop their skill and one must master the ability to constantly self-monitor their internal engine of desire for accuracy and one must constantly evaluate beliefs for bias. The “I will never be as good as “X”” being a prominent one. One must also have a solid grasp on what is permissible and what is not. What are one’s personal boundaries? How far one is willing to go and what consequences is one willing to accept for the accomplishment of that goal. This is what fascinates me and this is what I study. Why do people use mechanisms that lead them to false conclusions and why do people prefer to delude themselves into false beliefs rather than search for truth. I think it’s because people want to see the world as they would prefer it to be and not as it actually is. They carry an overinflated sense of self-importance. If you ask any individual if they think they are above average the answer will invariably be yes. This is a cognitive bias built into the human psyche. None of us are above average, but we are all unique. The trick is to seek out that bias and destroy it to discover what you are truly good at, truly passionate about. And then pursue that relentlessly. Anything less than this is just wasted effort. THE BODYSTRENGTH I have spoken extensively about the need for training the body in the Martial Arts temple. This temple is designed to refine the philosophical aspects of that pursuit. I am a perfectionist and I am OCD and that combination drives me to be "achieving" every single second of my life. The first thing I ask myself when I wake up in the morning is "what is the plan for today?" I concoct that plan in my mind to best fulfill every second with maximum effort and efficiently, even down to the point of mapping out my route to complete errands so that my path is the most time saving. If I'm not doing something, executing some process every second, it makes me nervous. To not be accomplishing in this way to me is laziness and that equates to weakness. I don’t accept defeat easily and I don’t like things out of my control. I think I can do more and so I push myself harder. I have a very linear thought process. My mind thinks in logic and not emotion. Emotion is messy and all over the place and not my natural state of being. So what I find in myself is that I tend to just execute programs like a machine in need of controlling her environment because when I control the environment I have the perception that things are easier or work better. I feel if I can just force every aspect of my environment to my will through sheer strength things will be perfect. But this quickly becomes an untenable situation because I’m trying to control every aspect of my environment when most things are actually outside my ability to control. The natural consequence to all this is that I often times burn myself out. I go so hard for so long that I end up crashing. My friends see this and are constantly trying to get me to slow down. They tell me that I'm a tank that just goes and goes until I finally break down. Its wasted effort, inefficient use of my strength. Over time I have realized that I can’t control these things, I can only control myself, my actions and perceptions. I need to stop and slow down sometimes, get that routine maintenance done by doing nothing on occasion and be ok with that. I need to stop burying my emotions and listen to them, experience them more fully. Life is not an efficient machine, it’s a messy process and I need to recognize that. I have lived my life in this state of maximum effort, every second of my day filled with concerted determination in every endeavor. I constantly asked myself “can I do more” and the answer was always yes. But what I have learned is that this may not be the best question to ask because I often find myself unbalanced. I had convinced myself that my drive is for the best. That by pushing myself I was achieving everything I could, that I was strong. What I really needed to be doing was not living this way but striving to achieve a better balance in my life. This is true strength. Not only putting in the effort but also the ability to tell myself “no” sometimes. Developing the ability to know when to let go. This is the idea of not striving for quantity of work but quality of work. When I can do this I can shape my reality to what I want it to be without using a means of artificial control or causing burnout. It becomes effortless effort. This is empowerment, this is strength. POWER Attempting to control every aspect of my environment is wasted effort because in the end all I can truly control is myself. Having mastery of myself in this way is the only true power. It is only through this ever vigilant and prepared control of myself that I can affect my environment. Sometimes this is through direct influence facilitated by respect or fear but most often it’s done through subtle manipulation enabled by submission or collaboration. Preparing myself for such interactions is the key. This happens in a myriad of ways. Being vigilant of my surroundings and sensitive not only to others wants and needs but mine as well. Always having a strong defensive posture and taking care of myself, staying in shape and eating well. Always taking every chance for new learning and new encounters. Challenging myself at every opportunity. When I prepare myself in these ways the unknown becomes something not to fear but to embrace. This is power. When I possess power in this way people recognize it and intuitively bend to its will. It implies a natural leadership that people respond to. I have always been driven to achieve and about 10 years ago I found myself having worked up into a good job in which I was a group leader and I was in a marriage of a few years. I was also an angry, brooding person. At the time I did not know why I was this way, I had just accepted the fact that this was my personality and this was my life. I considered most people at my work to be inept and I would argue with bosses and colleagues about process and procedure all the time. My spouse was bipolar and had an issue with prescription drugs and we fought a lot because of this. But these things never deterred me. I thought if I could just get these people in my life to listen to reason and do the things I was telling them to do at a level I felt they should be doing them, then things would improve for them and for myself. And when they didn’t I was incredulous at the level of incompetence they displayed. Instead of taking my advice, what I saw begin to happen was I started to be passed over for bonuses or promotions and my spouse began to have affairs and would disappear for entire nights. And I fell into a depression. This sort of thing went on for a few years until one day I snapped. My level of frustration and depression reached a peak and I decided I could not take it anymore. I walked away from it all. I left my job and took a contract position where I could work as I pleased and I left my spouse and we eventually divorced. Over the next year I did a lot of contemplating about how my life had progressed. What I finally came to was the idea that I had been desperately trying to control my environment. Not only that but I had been using brute force techniques to do this. I spent a lot of time in direct confrontation. Screaming, demanding, threatening, coercing and convincing to no avail. And as a result these things had all failed in my life. During this time I also met my best friend. We spent many long hours talking about life and philosophy. With her help slowly over time I began to realize that the power I had so sought to wield could never be gained by demonstrations of force. That in fact I had no control over anything in my life except myself and if I ever wanted any sort of power in my life that I didn’t need to change my environment, I needed to change myself. And so I began to transform my life. Instead of complaining about things at work I began to take responsibility for them and leadership roles in fixing them. In my relationships I stopped telling my friends and family how they could improve this or that and just let them be who they wanted to be. I began to support them and nurture them and cater to their wants and desires. I began a life of cooperation and not confrontation, submission not domination and only exercising control on a very limited basis at appropriate times. And guess what, everything changed! I had learned the true meaning of power. Power is not about domination or control or force. It’s not about maniacal laughter in the face of your cowering enemy. The epiphany of this philosophy came home to me one night during a conversation with my, afore mentioned, best friend. I was lamenting about how I was just not a dominant and forceful person and I needed to realize that. That my life would not be what I wanted it to be because of this. I told her that I was not like she was. I saw her as strong and full of the greatest of power. And what she told me stunned me into silence. She said that she saw me that way as well. It was not because I had tried to control her that she saw me this way but because I had nurtured her in ways I never even realized. When I wanted something from her I had learned to influence her in subtle ways to get what I wanted but I also gave unconditionally and encouraged her unconditionally as well. And it was those traits I had begun to naturally gift her with as a result of our conversations and my introspective searching that had given me that power over her. This is what I had been craving in my life. I had power and did not even realize it and I submitted to power willingly without ever noticing any ill effects. This is true power and from that time on this is the use of power that I have strived to perfect. As a result my life has been irrevocably changed. I am no longer that angry dark brooding individual but one that now experience true joy in life. Sure I have ups and downs like anyone, sometimes happy and sometimes sad but the underlying joy is ever present. The power of that feeling is the greatest power one could ever experience. THE ENVIRONMENTTHE HEART OF THE FORGE - Kamikeedi Principles to Strive For Life itself is warfare. It is spend in the pursuit of objectives, gaining as much ground as possible before death overtakes us. Any pursuit of a goal begins with planning. With good planning one can calculate the chance for victory over her adversary, whether that adversary is a physical goal or a mental accomplishment. It defines the idea that one’s source of strength and effectiveness is in unity and organization and perseverance in working a plan, not in blind, brute force. But all the planning in the world is meaningless without action. Momentum is a powerful tool in this. When opportunities come in the environment they must be seized and then defended relentlessly until such time as one achieves the ability to advance the goal. If one desires something in life there is no choice but to engage. In this, the need for flexibility in the tactics and maneuvers through different situations, terrains and territories can’t be more stressed. One must be ever vigilant and constantly evaluating intentions. Situations and stages of a campaign and the specific resources that may be needed to successfully conquer must be well known and effectively rehearsed. Kamikeedi are not born, they are formed in fire, refined as steel by hammer and sharpened through opposition. Through any worthy campaign there are principles Kamikeedi live by. These principles are a synopsis of the journey, the fight. They are described here as a nine Sanctums. 1. Sanctum of Fear - Anxiety is an inability to reach resolution. It arises from the fear of an imagined, unknown or poorly defined threat. It is the source of hesitation, indecisiveness and ineffectiveness in the pursuit of goals. Instead of succumbing to fear or anxiety when faced with it, challenge it. Ask “what is the worst/best thing that could happen” and then break down the solution to each question to achieve the desire, step by step. In doing this it will become clear that there is confidence in preparation and anxiety will disappear. 2. Sanctum of Motivation - Develop the ability to recognize any opportunity no matter how unconventional. The basis for this is courage. Courage is enacted by saying “Yes”. Yes, I will go to that gathering, Yes, I will take on that task/goal or Yes, I will lead that group. There is a kernel of enormous value in everything we experience, especially things that are frustrating, unpleasant or challenging. This is where opportunity hides and this is where the courage to seek them out is vital. Once opportunity is realized this is the time to make detailed precise goals that can be measured and a battle plan to achieve that goal. 3. Sanctum of Passion - Passion begins in the mind. Passion provides a sense of freedom when doing something that one values. It gives you a reason to keep learning and to work toward mastery. It gives purpose to life and it often has a satisfying physical aspect. This action will naturally develop physical strength but also develops mental strength as well as strength of character. It gives meaningful structure to your time. It makes the world a richer place. When you’re in pain it can actually be a refuge, a distraction, a solace. In this pursuit it’s vitally important to identify true passions, not the passions one “wishes” they had. Following false passion will ultimately lead to failure. 4. Sanctum of Will - No opportunity is seized or goal achieved without action. The plan is set but all the positive thinking and dreaming in the world is not going to get you what you want. Believing in the pseudoscience of movies like “What the Bleep Do We Know” or “The Secret” will get you no closer to a goal than the toaster on your kitchen counter. You can’t tune into the “feeling resonance” to think your way to a bigger bank balance, a nicer car, a bigger house and a better partner because the universe doesn’t care about what you want. If you want it then action is required! Physical and mental effort, pain and sacrifice. 5. Sanctum of Strength - Never sacrifice one sense to heighten another. Don’t pluck out an eye to attune hearing, self-maiming is not a path to power. In other words don’t suppress emotion or any element of life that strength is drawn from. These elements include things such as health, a support network in friends and family, the vision of what is being accomplished, and curiosity. The link between health and productivity is self-evident. Sacrifices of time will have to be made but should not be to the detriment of an inner circle. Don’t let negativity or criticism diminish your vision. Be adaptable but committed. Always consider the impossible and flesh out complex ideas. 6. Sanctum of Perseverance - Don’t let perfect get in the way of good. This is the idea that being so focused on being perfect robs us of our efforts to progress at all. The Pareto principle is a component of this concept. It states that 80% of effort only contributes to 20% of a task while the remaining 20% of effort will contribute to 80% of the task. Achieving absolute perfection is impossible and increasing effort to try and achieve perfection only results in diminishing returns and further activity becomes increasingly inefficient. So be ok with “Good” because before you realize it, it will be great! 7. Sanctum of Power - Get rid of the things in life that no longer serve. This goes for material possessions as well as physiological baggage. Fear is the driving factor that creates the belief these things are still needed. Belongings, situations, and relationships become security blankets placed strategically to ignore and avoid the pain of eliminating these useless things that are dragging down personal growth. Identify them and take on the conflict to eradicate them. This will naturally open up space to pursue true passions. 8. Sanctum of Sacrifice - Know the true value of the things that do still serve. One may consider the new Jaguar in the driveway their most important possession. But lose control of that car on a mountain road and consider how fast that car will be sacrificed to keep from sliding over a cliff. What if a shark attacked and grabbed your arm. Would you be able to cut that arm off to save your life before the shark drug you to the depths or would you just quietly accept your fate? This is the nature of sacrifice for passion. How far are you willing to go to get what you desire? 9. Sanctum of Victory – Victory and defeat are each of the same price. Defeat is not failure. Failure only comes in never having tried. In finding victory, strength and speed are required to develop greater power. Power is the ability to generate as much force as possible as quickly as possible. Greater power provides a stronger mind, stronger body, better awareness of environment and the necessary means for the desired ends. This is the primary weapon utilized to secure victory! THE WEAPONIn the end all of these things are meaningless without the ability to manifest real physical results. There is a lot of people out there constantly trying to improve themselves by looking for the one change in their lives that’s going make their dreams come true. On top of that there’s a lot of self-help gurus, hyperactive motivational speakers and self-appointed modern Zen Jedi warriors, that are trying to sell the “one thing” or the “9 steps” or the “enlightened path” or “the secret” that’s going to unlock ones human potential and fulfill their dreams so they can live a perfectly fulfilled life, or a life others told them they should be living according to a false universal law or that they feel they deserve to live just by right of birth. But in the end, the words Self-help or self-management or self-improvement are meaningless. The truth is there is no one thing, and you are owed nothing in life. There is no quick path and there are no shortcuts. Meditation won’t get you there, or a drug or organic lifestyle of selflessness or a super food or a plea for societal equality. Getting better is not a hack or a single change or a secret or something that will happen if you wish hard enough or stomp your foot emphatically enough. Getting better is a personal campaign. It is a daily, weekly, hourly physical fight, not some spiritual or esoteric struggle for enlightenment. And that fight does not stop! It’s a fight against weakness and against temptation and against laziness and a fight to overcome fear. It’s a campaign of discipline. It’s a campaign of hard work and dedication. It’s waking up early and going to bed late and grinding out every second in between. And doing this every single day. So you want to get better? Self-improve? You want to be rich? Have a nice house? A beautiful car? Gorgeous wife? Amazing career? Accomplished hobbies? Awesome volunteer life? Stop looking for a short cut and go find your discipline. Find your guts and your passion and your drive and find your will! It is only in finding these things that you will ever find your freedom! The weapon used to shred life is “hard work”! I have spoken here about accomplishment and part of my time here at this temple must include some aspect of that as well. Being a forge, it is natural that weapons are formed here. I have always had a desire to work in fire and steel and wood. And so I have accomplished that here as well.
The forge I built so that I may shape steel. The knife I have made out of fire and steel and wood using that forge. The Forge is a place where one learns to follow through with ideas and enact physical action to bring about change. It is a place where bodies are molded, minds are sharpened and leadership is enacted. The point to the forge is to teach that it does not matter what it is in life that one finds important, whether that be service to others or money of the pursuit of a dream. Have no shame in anything you find passion in, and then go out and do it, go out and get it with unbounded vigor.
This is the final test I have undergone before becoming a Je’daii-Kamikeedi Ranger. Once a Journeyer completes their blade (or other forged symbol of their dedication) it is relinquished until such time as they can travel back to their point of origin to undergo the Ranger initiation ceremony upon which they are presented with the blade, emblazoned on one side by the journiers personal sigil and the other with the sigil of the Kamikeedi, to be worn as a symbol of their dedication to the Je’daii way of life.
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Post by Kyrin Wyldstar on Sept 10, 2018 21:34:07 GMT
Pain and struggle are inevitable. I don’t get to choose if I get hurt in this world, but I do have a say in how I face it. When I am put to the test I will not falter. I will breathe in my courage and exhale my fear. And when it is done I will know that the cracks in my armor do not mean I am broken, but stronger. And having made it through the fire, I understand I am not what happens to me, but what I choose to become.
Final Initiation Ceremony
A great dark pyramid stands in the distance. The structure is almost invisible against an ever present mantle of purple and black storm clouds. Only the intermittent flashes of brilliant lightening set the structure apart from the chaos of the storm swirling in the distance. The ragged streaks of energy reveal the pyramid to be absolutely smooth and impossibly opaque except for the sharp smooth sliver edges and a capstone, consisting of smoked glass. It’s an ancient structure and yet still possesses the unmistakable attributes of having been constructed through the means of a highly advanced technology.
A lone female figure emerges on the horizon and begins moving raptly toward the massive structure. She is still dressed in the style of her warrior-monk clan that she wore when she left this place, many, many moons ago. Although now her attire, once polished and new, is showing the evidence of her intensely challenging trials, traveling through each Je’daii temple as a Journeyer. Her grey, full length cloak is now ashen and tattered at the edges, the once seek, black combat armor worn, scratched and dulled and her boots deeply eroded and scuffed.
But in spite of this, her yellow eyes seem to shine even brighter than before she left on her journey. As she peers out from her hooded cloak her eyes pierce the darkness even more brilliantly than the Tachi worn at her side, now even more fiercely honed and polished than ever. As she reaches the side of the structure a brilliant white lightning strike flashes off the pyramid. A door that was not there before seems to open out of nothing. And she slowly walks inside. She knows she is home and as she crosses the threshold she whispers only to herself once again,
“I am wrath… and I am tranquility… I am my own authority… I am The Force...”
Personal Log – Entry XExcitement building – hot and panting That churn of uncertainty in the pit of my stomach The clash – the ache, consuming and sweet Slick with desire, glistening, dripping – I steady my grip Moving, thrusting forward - always forward Heaviness from above – pressing me down – submissive surrender A single tear of frustration rolls down my cheek – I won’t give in Fingers interlocked, laboring, fighting – the need building inside Urgent yearning – struggle of domination Arching, pushing, driving – every muscle taut and screaming The hunt for stalked prey – eyes lock, raw desire Gasping, moaning, whimpering – the longing almost overwhelming Want turns to need – growl of abandon – so close Grinding, bucking, straining - finally sliding over that edge Howl of release – lurching, shuddering, jerking - conquest achieved Trembling, shaking, quivering – completely spent as passion slowly subsides What next? I want to do it again!
THE CEREMONYThe initiation into the Je’daii Order as a Ranger is a ceremonial tradition upheld as sacred in the highest regard. It is a rite of passage symbolizing the transition of a Journeyer Apprentice into a full-fledged member of the Order. The ceremony entails verifying the Journeyer has completed their studies at each of the Great Temples of Tython to the satisfaction of their masters and a final test to ensure the journeyer is worthy of the title Ranger. Upon completion of these requirements the Journeyer must then commit themselves through solemn vow to the safeguarding of the freedom of humanity with any and all means available unto them up to and including the sacrifice of their own life. The initiation is performed by the High Priestess of the Order alongside several other Rangers as well as each of the Temple Masters. The participants gather in a circle around a lit brazier and under the full moons of Tython. Let the Ceremony begin… THE TESTHP: We gather here for initiation of Kyrin Wyldstar into the order of the Je’daii Kamikeedi Guild. Let the test begin. Temple Masters, each please let be known Kyrin’s station within your respective temples. HP: Ruhr the Wookie, master of The Temple Academy, Padawan Kesh, is recognized… Ruhr roars a great growl of approval, “raahhwwww huu, hu.” (Translation: Kyrin’s trials are passed at Padawan Kesh) HP: Ketu the human, master of Temple Balance, Akar Kesh, is recognized… Ketu speaks into the circle, “Kyrin’s trials are passed at Akar Kesh”. HP: Quan-Jang the human, master of Temple Science, Anil Kesh, is recognized… Quan-Jang speaks boldly, “Kyrin’s trials are passed at Anil Kesh”. HP: Naro and Calleh the Selkath mates, masters of Temple Healing, Mahara Kesh, are recognized… The pair speak in perfect unison, “Kyrin’s trials are passed at Mahara Kesh”. HP: Jake Fen the human, master of Temple Arts, Bodhi, is recognized… Jake replies in soft yet deliberate tones, “Kyrin’s trials are passed at Bodhi”. HP; Kin'ade the Zabrak, master of Temple Martial Arts, Stav Kesh, is recognized… Kin’ade speaks with a lisp like undertone, “Kyrinth’s trialth are pathed at Shtav Kesh”. HP: Miarta Sek the Sith, master of Temple Force Skills, Qigong Kesh, is recognized… Miarta speaks with great enthusiasm, “Kyrin’s trails are passed at Qigong Kesh with honors!” HP: Kora Ryo the Twi’lek, master of Temple Knowledge, Kaleth, is recognized… Kora replies in a deep rumbling voice, “Kryin’s trials are passed at Kaleth”. HP: Tem Madog the Cathar, master of Temple Forge, Vur Tepe, is recognized… Tem replies in melodious mewling tones, “Kyrins trials are exceedingly passed at Vur Tepe!” HP: “Very well, we shall proceed. Kyrin Wyldstar, Tell us what you have learned about yourself during your time as a Journeyer.” Kyrin: When I began this journey it was not that I did not know who I was. But I did have a fear of who I needed to become. And that is the struggle I had to work past so that I could evolve. This journey has taught me the necessity of extreme ownership in the desire to discover passion, purpose, and power. That this idea goes beyond simple motivation. In fact it’s much more than that. It's a way of life. It showed me that the masters and mentors have nothing to offer me and no possession to give me that I can’t go out and get for myself. I no longer see the masters and mentors as something to worship or revere without question. For me they no longer possess that secret I seek. They are simply examples. Something to aspire to. This is because that secret I seek does not lie within them, it lies within me. And they serve only as a tool that I work side by side with to help me to discover that which already lies inside me. This whole idea of mentorship and “peer review” is nothing but a clever distraction devised and brilliantly disguised as a compelling pursuit of approval. It’s an accomplished strategy crafted to suck individuals in and make them chase some false ideal. However in succumbing to this pursuit they are also distracted from their true goal, that of truly being an individual. It’s the ultimate test. The Student either learns to break free of this paradigm and become their own sovereign entity or they waste their time wallowing in their own disgusting muck, chasing a dream that does not actually exist. In reality the masters are fulfilling their purpose to make Rangers, but not in any obvious or transparent way. They are just being what they are meant to be and nothing else. To hate a master for this would be like hating the lion for chasing and killing the gazelle. The lion is only doing what its nature tells it to do and so are the masters. Those that succumb to malice or hate of them have failed the test. As a true Ranger I see no need to afford them this nor would it be desired. I simply take any form of external validation or critique as I take fear. I accept it, process it by taking from it what I desire and then allow it to pass through me, possibly having been made the better or not but still undeterred either way from my passion. Most may never face the real possibility of imminent death staring them in the face. Either the event is not present in their lives or they run from the contemplation. But it is that very thing that is the most freeing. Staring the abyss in the face – hitting rock bottom – that starkness of facing that oblivion removes the shackles of society. From this point I realize I can go anywhere, be anything, do anything. It caused me to realize that might does not make right. It only creates the prevailing culture. And that culture can be shaped to my will. Compassion is a cruel paramour. One which truly manifests in the hardest of decisions. Firing an underperforming employee so she might find a position better suited, facilitating the death of a loved one at the end of their life to end suffering or not investing energy into things that will never produce such as a single sided friendship. These are the elements of compassion that most will never understand. Unconditional love does not mean my loved one gets to do or be whatever they want and I will still love and accept them. True love means I care enough to tell them they are fucked up. And then if they don’t accept that and adjust or if they end the relationship, that is a choice they made and it is not my issue, it is theirs. But either way, I do not have to suffer their stupidity. Specialness, like trust, is earned not inherent. I learned that if I want to improve something I must take the time to practice it. And my desire will drive me to set that time aside. I will always live my priorities first and those things I do consistently make time for become my passions. And if I do not set that time aside it’s really not a priority and I need to be honest with myself in this. It’s not that I can’t find the time to do something. I just don’t consider it high enough a priority to make the time. And when this happens I am not hard on myself or beat myself up. I no longer use phrases like “should have”. Take exercising for example. If I am finding that I don’t have enough time to work out, it’s not that I “should have” worked out. Instead I am truthful with myself and say “I don’t want to change my body enough to make the time to work out”. And I will be ok with that. It is only when I stop defending myself or making excuses not only to others, but especially to myself, that I truly find peace and belief in my path.
THE CREEDHP: Having passed the test, Speak before me now, Kyrin Wyldstar, The Creed of Initiation… HP: "Where others seek truth, remember there is no right or wrong decision…” Kyrin: "Only the choices we make and the consequences we endure." HP: "Where others see absolute moral standards, we know..." Kyrin: "Personal freedom is the only true law that abides" HP: "Out of the dark, or out of the light, we work to serve our passions…” Kyrin: “As a Je’daii Kamikeedi Ranger, my bond will not be broken!”
THE BRANDINGHP: Kyrin Wyldstar, prepare yourself for the branding.
(*I expose my breast over my heart as the High Priestess removes a red hot brand from the fire. The brand contains the sigil of the Kamikeedi Guild and it is placed on my skin over my heart, forever marking me as a Kamikeedi Ranger.
Once that is completed the brand is then used to mark the hilt of my Tachi, forever branding it as well as the weapon of a Kamikeedi Ranger.*)
As this is done the HP speaks: The vessel holds the feminine waters of creation below When she is met by the masculine wings of fire from above The womb of earth is formed, the cosmic egg of life From this, a divinely chosen few will take up the sword of air To defend freedom for self and those that cant -
All in the circle exclaim:
We are Je’daii!!
(*Once completed, the branding iron is returned to the fire and then each one in the circle greets me in turn by striking the new brand with their hand and then embracing me*)HP: It is done, Welcome Ranger Kryin!
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