Inside a man’s heart lies good and evil. Evil is tempting as it gives us a sense of power, dominance, vengeance, control, anarchy, and ruthlessness. However, it’s the path of the coward. On the other hand, self-control, reason, and compassion are traits which are far harder to master but they are worth the effort in the long run. Nevertheless, there’s no peace without suffering and there’s no strong man born without a past of suffering. Confidence and resilience are mastered when we push ourselves through hard situations consistently and endure the pain in the present moment to prepare ourselves for the coming chaos. This is usually noticed when we exercise daily. We voluntarily push ourselves and feel pain knowing that it is building endurance for the future.
Anakin’s decent to the dark side
I am going to use the character Anakin to go over the fundamentals of the Jedi Philosophy which is influenced by Buddhism and Stoicism. Anakin was the chosen one in Star Wars. He was very skillful and could have been the best Jedi ever. However, as he faced challenges, he turned bitter, resentful, and full of hatred. The death of his mother, attachment in his romantic life and the fear of abandonment turned him into the Darth Vader. The story of Anakin teaches us that life can take the best of us and destroy us by creating certain situations. We need to be ready for such things. Life has taught me that good and bad things happen to both good and bad people. There’s no guarantee that if you do good things, good things will always happen to you. In my experience, while trying to do the best things for others, things got worse at times. However, what really keeps me going? It’s not really results but knowing that my intent was right. The next paragraphs will be about the attitude we need to develop to survive the chaos of life, inspired from Star Wars.
Detachment sets us free
Attachment is sometimes justified as genuine caring of the other person. However, is this really the case? Attachment makes us a slave of the other person and blurs our vision. Attachment sometimes doesn’t allow us to see reality as it is and not let us know that we might be manipulated by the other person. Detachment is a value that we need to cultivate through practice and Master Yoda teaches in the Star Wars that we need to be ready to lose the thing we are most afraid of losing and we should visualize losing this thing every day. Stoics like me like running the worse things in our heads so that we build mental fortitude and see things as the way they are. There’s no hiding from the pain. See things as they are. Let life burn you completely so that you can be reborn.
Equanimity is the key but not the end goal
George Lucas views himself as a progressive Buddhist and I believe he took this concept from Buddhism. Equanimity, in a Buddhist sense, means to treat all aspects of life the same way. When good things happen, rejoice, and know that they won’t last. When bad things happen, take them boldly and know that they won’t last too. More suffering happens when we push away bad moments and try to cling to good moments. Moments are just the way they are. I’d say that this aspect is linked to detachment in a sense that with detachment, we can really see things with equanimity. However, this is not the end of the practice. We need to live a life of honour while practising equanimity. Stoics called it a life of virtues. The Buddhists had their eightfold path. Jedis have their moral compass, sense of justice and fairness. It was about doing the right thing and being a good human being.
Fear leads to darkness
Fear leads to anger and anger leads to hatred. In this way, fear leads to darkness and once we are there, we may get stuck for a long time. Hence, it’s very important to practise living mindfully so that we are constantly aware of our emotions and view them with detachment. When the emotions are too strong, then we can actively pursue something like sports so that we can be regenerated. If we stay in this dark phase for too long, it starts to consume us, eating us in the inside and making us lose all our good traits just like it did with Anakin. Hence, awareness is very important.
Cowards are those follow the dark side
Yoda famously said that Cowards follow the dark side. What he means by that is it’s very easy to get carried by anger, greed and ignorance and do damage to oneself and others. It’s harder to live a life of self-control, compassion and discipline and cowards will choose the easiest way rather than the harder one.
It’s easy to fall into one of the traps but the whole point of writing this article is a reminder that I still battle these inner demons and I wanted to share them with you. May the force be with you.
Lots of love,
Geerish.
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