1 August 2012
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Instructions
Welcome back, and welcome to our corner of the forum! For your first assignment:I'd like you to reflect on your time here and summarise your development so far. I know this has been recorded to some extent in your journal but it's good to look back over a period of time to see what advances have been made.
Summary
It has only been two months since I came here, but it feels like forever since I have started the journey. I do not know why it feels like this, but I believe as the journey goes on, perhaps the days go slower so that I can enjoy them. When I first arrived, it was with a singular purpose, find a religion to replace my own which I had become disillusioned with the day I joined. Just simply thinking about all of the work I had put into the church over the past five years and how they did not bother to respect at least the knowledge that I had. I literally felt so downtrodden. I remember what I was doing the very day I joined and how it felt. I was at school and we had just finished a test in one of my classes so I was out in the lobby waiting for my ride home when I picked up my iPad and started searching for “Jedi Churches in San Diego”. It took some searching, but I found the site located in the United Kingdom and then after some searching found the Texas address. Alright, so it was not an actual building and it was not in San Diego, but the forum looked nice. What immediately attracted me were the Initiate Studies. In my mind I was like “You mean to tell me that I can LEARN to become a Jedi?” From that point on I was hooked. I began the process to become a Jedi that day.
I am probably wrong, but I believe the first person I connected with was Mello. He is called my “wonder twin” because the two of us could be in chat at completely different times of the day, find a knight or master, and ask the exact same question. I remember when Hellisforhorses joined. My first impression was “what a name!” Mello, Hell and I used to have a ball complaining about some of the parts of the Initiates Program (McTaggart and Watts). When I found the audio version of Watts “The Book” angels started singing that “Hallelujah” song in my head, because I’m telling you I could literally read a chapter of that book, close the book and forget the whole thing. Friends are what helped me make it through the Initiate Program.
When I finished the Initiate Program, I think I gave myself three or four days to wait before I got impatient. By that time I had meant MJ Hannigan off site through skype for an empath class. I found his class interesting and decided that THIS was the type of teaching I wanted. This one-on-one sort of laid back way of doing things. I also labored under the false information that I would have to wait eight months for a master. To me that was eight months without learning. I also wanted to learn Reiki and I knew a person needed to wait for Knighthood to do so. He said he would teach me independently and I was thrilled. I posted in my journal that I had given leaving TOTJO a lot of thought. In reality, I had not. I had not even asked for clarification on any of the assumptions I was making.
I left TOTJO to study under Hannigan and the next day met some cool people on the panel for his show. Maybe I met the people before leaving TOTJO. Oh, yes I did. These people, who are great acquaintances, explained to me the difference between a Jediist and a Jedi Realist. Honestly, I think the two distinctions are splitting hairs, but to each his or her own. Somehow, during that conversation I was convinced that TOTJO was not authentic. The conversation had not even finished before I wrote that journal entry.
Without going into much detail, I will simply say that I found Hannigan teaching method to be lacking. I went to IJRS to try and augment my training with him and began speaking with Jax, the principal of the Academy. I had just begun the Introduction Course when she asked me to do a very odd assignment. She wanted to know what TOTJO was doing right that made them so popular and active. Unfortunately at that time, I had fallen into downing TOTJO for its inadequacies. I believe it was because I wanted to fit in for the most part, at first. As time went on, I really began to believe what I was saying. It is a coward’s move to say I was influenced, pressured, spurred into action, by others. I am a grown woman of twenty-six years. I will admit I had a moment of weakness, but it was my weakness, they did not put it on me. I believe Jax picked up on that and assigned me the paper. It is here for your viewing: What Temple of the Jedi Order Does Right.docx - docs.google.com/document/d/1Omw69Rj639Dm...LlbsPeCCPpdOOdY/edit
When I did the paper, I realized what I had been missing at TOTJO. It is not even something I can describe. I could not put it into words in the paper Jax asked me to write. The things on the paper may be what draw people here, but it is the people here that make people stay.
I remember right after the Ohio Gathering, I was complaining to War Beauty about having trouble on my path. She asked me a very simple question “What do you want?” I remember I linked a video to her:
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She told me that if I wanted this lifestyle, I should live it, simple. The question still remained for me HOW to do it. I believe it was at that time also that I began reading the Darth Bane trilogy of Star Wars. I realized that all of the quotes I was highlighting I had heard or seen somewhere. I thought to myself “why am I reading star wars books for wisdom? There are or were real people who said these things that inspired the author to include them. These sayings are not new.” I thought to myself “I’ll find all of the star wars pearls of wisdom and find analogous pearls of wisdom in more well known books. Now, where is there a large repository of books that I might find useful in this task? TOTJO. Then it CLICKED for me. TOTJO was not bad or wrong or inadequate because it did not base its teachings on Star Wars. They had moved in the direction I was going long before I had. By then of course, I had decided I did not need a new religion, but a greater respect for my own. What I needed was a lifestyle. That is when I turned to IJRS.
I had been to IJRS before, but I had never felt led to complete any of the assignments. A little over a week ago I started to do them, and then, like I said, the paper from Jax changed my whole perspective on the Jedi Path and my life and learning at TOTJO.
Reflection
Looking over my journal in the past few days, I find myself examining the truths in the assignments, but I find that I am disconnected. I feel like more scholar than Jedi. Some time in the future, I may have to take a look at the lessons of the IP again. After all there is no rush really. I want to see what it is like looking at them again having grown up a bit in the past two months.
I believe my greatest period of learning occurred outside of TOTJO. When I finished the IP, if you would have asked me if I was ready for a master I would’ve said yes. The truth is I was not. There are a couple of lessons I needed to learn first
1. To direct my own study. 2. To find my own truth. 3. To find the right “site” for my path. 4. To search out a thing before assuming and committing
If I had the opportunity, I would do it again. I would chose to learn those lessons that exact way. These are not something one can learn from a book, but they are required. They must be learned by experience. The important thing is that I needed to be fully present. I needed to feel at that time that this was my truth; that this was the path I needed to be on. I needed to have those learning experiences.
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