Become the Force

Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.

Yoda, Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace

If intelligence – and by that I mean curiosity – is the qualification or prerequisite for Jediism, becoming aware of the power of your thoughts to create your reality is the foundation stone or starting point. The journey begins with one step and thought control is that first step. Not taking responsibility for your thoughts allows fear to get the upper hand and when fear has the upper hand you attract negative situations, experiences and people into your life.

This sounds like positive thinking but it is far more expansive and profound than that. It is understanding what your thoughts are and how to take charge of them so you become a living embodiment of the infinite power and potential of the Force.

The power of thought to create your reality and connect you to the living life Force is something I have felt many times in my own life.

THINKING AHEAD

I guess I’m lucky in that I have always been aware of the potential of my thoughts or thinking to shape my life and what I attract into it. I have always sensed that I am not entirely at the mercy of external events or a helpless victim of circumstances. My parents and teachers may have been worried about me, with my Star Wars obsessions and strange, antisocial behaviour, but I was choosing to live my life on my own terms. I wasn’t able to conform to the expectations of others. In my mind I trusted that somehow all would fall into place and self-understanding would manifest if I simply put my energy into doing what I loved.

After leaving school I continued to educate myself and absorb as much as I could about religion, spirituality, science and the search for life’s meaning. I composed songs for my band, despite not being able to read music, and performed locally in clubs and pubs. I had but one agenda and that was to be creative, and ultimately to use that creativity to energize and inspire others. Perhaps this desire to create has something to do with my Asperger’s, which was still undiagnosed at the time. I have – and still have – this overwhelming urge to ooze creativity 24/7. I need very little sleep. If I’m not creative or learning something new I don’t feel alive. I always have to be doing lots of things. If I’m not busy I am more susceptible to meltdowns. Keeping my mind active, constantly learning and creating, is my way of being and I’m aware that not everybody reacts to life like that.

From the outside looking in, I must have seemed like a young drifter without any formal qualifications, or a rebel without a cause, but that transition period in my life from schoolboy to young adult made complete sense to me – I was learning, growing and finding out who I was. There was no urge within me to settle for security. There was only one road for me and that was the road less travelled as it offered constant stimulation and opportunities to evolve. I trusted the universe would support my creativity, and support me it did.

All along I knew that everything in my life was leading me towards a greater purpose. I wasn’t sure what that purpose was but I never panicked because I knew that all I needed to do was let my creativity flourish and the universe would guide me. I trusted that the universe would send me the right person or the right circumstances or the right insight to take me to where I needed to be, in other words help me fulfil my purpose. That is exactly what the universe did.

ANSWER NOTED BUT NOT COUNTED

I was first alerted to the Jedi census phenomenon in early 2001 by a family friend who told me about a worldwide email campaign urging people to write Jedi or Jedi Knight as their answer to the religion classification question in their country’s census. My friend knew that I was a Star Wars obsessive and that this would definitely appeal to me. They were right. The census phenomenon did more than appeal to me. It inspired and enlightened me. I may not have been aware of it at the time as I wasn’t yet 16 but it sowed a seed in my mind and in my heart.

In the coming months and following years I watched the census phenomenon with increasing interest. It made me think about how brilliantly an online community could fuel people power and rock the establishment boat. I was fully aware that some declared themselves Jedi on the census as a joke. However, I also knew that there were many people, myself included, who didn’t think it was a laughing matter at all but a genuine expression of spiritual curiosity and identity.

The forces that be (government officials) took note of “Jedi Knight” as a religious choice on the forms but did not count it. This felt wrong to me as it certainly deserved acknowledgement and investigation as to why people were doing this. People were listing Jedi for a reason. I did some research and found that there had been early signs of people declaring themselves Jedi on the census but nothing like the thousands that did so in 2001. Perhaps this was to do with the dawning of the new millennium and the unfounded fears surrounding computers crashing because of the Y2K bug. Or perhaps it was simply because The Phantom Menace hit cinemas in 1999 bringing Star Wars nostalgically back into people’s minds and hearts 16 years after the release of Return of the Jedi.

For whatever reason, in the years that followed the 2001 census, it gradually became clear to me that people were crying out for some kind of ethical and spiritual framework but established religion was losing its relevance. It was also clear beyond doubt to me that the internet was going to be a powerful force in everyone’s lives. It was certainly a powerful force in my life. I felt completely at home online, establishing myself as a popular figure on Myspace (an early social networking site, similar to Facebook) in 2005. I knew social media had the potential to reach more people than any religious leader and an online community might just be the ideal medium for a spiritual message that was modern, relevant, engaging and empowering.

THE BIGGER PICTURE

In 2006, aged 19, I felt energized as never before. I’d just returned from a mind-opening world peace music tour with my band and my desire to understand the meaning of life was as strong as ever. To make ends meet I got a job in a hardware store stocking shelves in the middle of the night. That job was perfect as I function best when there is quiet and peace, and a minimum of noise, smells, lights and interaction. I also enjoyed the task of creating order out of chaos when stacking. It didn’t feel dull to me but calming. As synchronicity would have it, I worked alongside a guy who I’ll call “Paul” who was a Star Wars fan, and who, like me, had also been researching different spiritual and life philosophies, such as Buddhism. What are the chances of that? The law of attraction was at work in my life.

The similarity in our thinking was uncanny as Paul was as much in love with the Jedi message in Star Wars as I was. He was vaguely thinking about finding ways to expand the spiritual message online outside the movies, and talking to him made me realize that since the age of 11, I had also found links and connections, and seen strong parallels with the notion of the living life Force in all religions and spiritual traditions. The Force was clearly the missing link, the uniting factor or key to the bigger spiritual picture.

The 2001 Jedi census phenomenon raised the very real possibility in my mind of Jediism becoming a genuine religion or spiritual movement but after that it is hard to pinpoint exactly when I began to form the rudiments of Jediist ideology as my entire life seemed to have been building towards that destiny. What I do know is that from the age of 20 I was filled with a sense of direction and purpose regarding the establishment of Jediism that may have been lacking before.

I saw clearly in my mind the potential of Jediism to awaken a generation of people in a way that religion or the New Age movement never could. I shared my vision with my new friend and he was very taken by the idea and wanted to help me formulate a website as a springboard to promote my ideology. It very much felt that, because I was now actively thinking about starting a movement, the universe was actively pushing the right person and the opportunity towards me.

Time and time again in my life what I have been thinking about I have drawn towards me. Above all, I think my desire to be creative was the magnet for the universe. I was euphoric when I researched and gathered together material for Jediism. My thoughts were always ones of infinite possibility and potential, and thoughts like these have tremendous power. I simply didn’t focus on the negatives. My mind didn’t give negativity a chance to take root. Research can often feel quite mundane and serious, but for me it was the opposite, and I believe my relentless positivity about Jediism helped push things in the right direction for me.

To this day I still get wildly excited about Jediism, and the law of attraction ensures that this is what the universe reflects back to me. Hand on heart, from the moment I started to formulate a structured approach to Jediism – create a movement, as it were – although there have been a few detours, there has been no looking back.

The Force was clearly the missing link, the key to the bigger spiritual picture.

TO BE OR NOT TO BE

Creating a website for the Church of Jediism in 2007 felt like a completely natural thing for me to do for several reasons. First of all, from a very young age Star Wars had given me a sense of completeness and belonging I couldn’t find anywhere else, and by the age of 20 it became obvious to me that the concept of the Force really was a solid foundation for spirituality. Alongside my out-of-this-world Star Wars obsession, I was born into the millennial generation, a generation thought to be more liberal in its approach to politics, marked by an increased use and familiarity with communications, media and digital technologies.

If you believe in the concept of the indigo child – a child born “an old soul” or wise before their time who is also a peacemaker and an educator – then that might describe me. It is often said that such star children have strikingly blue eyes that have the ability to look into people’s souls, and I certainly have very blue eyes. It is also often said that star children have Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) or are on the autism spectrum. That’s me again, and in addition to ADD I was also born with dyslexia and Asperger’s. Prior to my diagnosis, my inability to understand why I was “weird” and so unlike my peers led me to an intense exploration of all the world’s religious, philosophical and spiritual belief systems. I wanted to understand myself and find answers to the meaning of life.

When all is said and done, I don’t truly know why I felt called to found a new spiritual movement but that is exactly what I did. I didn’t want that act of rebellion and creativity on the 2001 census to disappear without a trace. Something spiritually empowering had happened then and I wanted to preserve it. In some countries the Jediist movement actually overtook major world religions, such as Buddhism, in popularity, with the most spectacular example being New Zealand, where Jediism was second only in popularity to Christianity. Clearly there was something important going on and this didn’t just deserve to be understood, it deserved to be counted. It deserved a voice. Nobody else was putting themselves forward so I figured it might as well be me.

THE INDIGO CHILD

According to New Age thinking, indigo children, also referred to as star children, are thought to be born with innate psychic powers or highly developed intuition and creativity. The idea dates back to the 1970s and is based on the writings of a parapsychologist and psychic called Nancy Ann Tappe. In 1982 she published a book called Understanding your Life through Colour in which she stated that from the mid-1960s onwards she noticed more and more children being born with indigo auras. Her synaesthesia enabled her to see these subtle energy or radiation fields surrounding a person and their colours. The idea of indigo children became popular in the late 1990s and early 2000s with the release of several books and films and related material.

There has been no scientific research study to give authority or credibility to the idea but many parents who have children with learning issues or who are on the autism spectrum believe their children may have indigo characteristics. Tappe also noted that one type of indigo child (the interdimensional child) may have the potential to lead new religious or spiritual movements.

THREE WISHES

Was there a moment along the way when I knew that all my research was leading towards Jediism? Yes, but there was not just one “ah ha” moment – there were three and they all clustered together in 2007, my twenty-first year!

Although reading was a time-consuming ordeal because of my dyslexia, I found a way to listen to books with audio recordings or family and friends reading to me, and I eagerly sought out a huge library of spiritual, religious and philosophical texts to help me understand the meaning of life. But over time it very much felt as if I knew what the book was going to say before I listened to it. In other words, nothing felt new or “wow” and I was constantly searching for that “wow” book.

As often happens, the universe sent the right material to me through a series of coincidences. (I do believe that coincidence, or to use its spiritual term “synchronicity”, is the language the Force speaks.) I needed dental treatment from a specialist and interestingly that was the last time I have ever needed serious dental work. For that treatment I had to travel to a new area I hadn’t been to before. It was going to be quite a time-consuming procedure and so to relax me I was given a sedative. I had some time to kill and right next door to the specialist was a secondhand bookshop in the final days of its closing-down sale. I went inside hoping to find a book to inspire me and I came across two books that truly stood out. One was Making Time by Steve Taylor and the other was Carl Rider’s book called Your Psychic Power about boosting intuition and enriching psychic ability. I remember feeling drawn to both these fantastic resources and thinking if I hadn’t been in this unfamiliar place at this time and in such a relaxed state I would never have gone into this shop.

When I read Taylor’s book it was like a lightning bolt of understanding and awareness. He was talking about how we perceive time and how we distort it and don’t understand it. I had been thinking a lot about how we can control time, speed it up or slow it down with our thoughts or perception. It was another piece of the jigsaw for me. Rider’s psychic development book was an epiphany as it normalized the paranormal by showing that our most powerful mode of thought is intuition and this sixth sense is as natural as all our other senses. Centuries ago our intuition was more developed, as we needed it to sense danger, but technology has dulled our intuition. This trend can be reversed with simple daily meditation and intuition-development exercises to improve psychic awareness.

Around the same time my cousin Jo recommended a book to me and reading it triggered my second ”ah ha” moment. The book was Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol. I’m not really one for fiction and although Dan Brown has interesting ideas he certainly wasn’t on my must-read list. If Jo hadn’t been seriously ill with cancer at the time I wouldn’t normally have read it but I needed to read it because I had such deep love and respect for her. I’m grateful because it drew my attention to noetic science for the first time and inspired me to do my own research.

I discovered that noetic means “inner knowing or experience”. Noetic science is a field of academic research that brings objective scientific tools and techniques together with subjective inner knowing to study the full range of human experiences. In other words, it is a meeting ground between science and spirit.

The term noetic science was coined in 1973 when the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS) was founded by Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell, who two years earlier had become the sixth man to walk on the moon. Mitchell experienced a profound sense of universal connectedness on his return home that led him to conclude that reality is more complex, subtle and mysterious than conventional science had led him to believe. It was impossible for me to ignore the strong parallels with the Force here. Mitchell believed that a deeper understanding of consciousness (or our inner space which includes thoughts, feelings, dreams and so on) could lead to a new and expanded understanding of reality in which objective and subjective, outer and inner, are understood as co-equal aspects of the miracle of our being.

My study of noetic sciences led me to a mountain of incredible scientific research and one experiment that stood out immediately was the rice experiment by Dr Emoto, who’s best known for his experiments with water. If you aren’t familiar with his rice experiment you need to be. It was a simple mindover-matter technique that was tested independently by various people all over the world in 1998. In this experiment, Dr Emoto sealed cooked rice in three jars. The first jar was given to schoolchildren who were instructed to say pleasant words to it and think happy things. The second jar was also given to schoolchildren, but they were instructed to say cruel and hateful words to it. The third jar was set aside and ignored. After a few weeks, the rice in the first jar looked fresh, and the rice in the second and third looked mouldy and rotten – showing that the way we think and speak can have a huge influence, and even ignoring something can have devastating consequences

You could say the results were simply random but for me the experiment was a strong metaphor for how thoughts can determine our reality. I followed it up by investigating other noetic studies or consciousness research. I knew I was on to something. I couldn’t understand why all this mindblowing research was buried in scientific journals and not required general reading or taught in schools. Part of the problem was the language and terminology used. It was dry, overly academic and unengaging and wouldn’t speak to the general reader. I knew I could help change that by finding engaging and relevant ways to bring profound noetic research to a wider audience.

It is often said that good things come in threes and the final shift in gear arrived when all the pieces of the puzzle came together in one blindingly beautiful moment. At the time the information was in my head and ready to explode. I often walk down to the beach near my house for some time out to feel at one with the world. I typically skateboard there and listen to the lapping of the waves. One morning I remember sitting there drinking in the beauty of the universe and all of a sudden there was this dramatic and urgent sense of calling. That is the only way to describe it.

Something higher and greater than myself was telling me without words, just through intense thoughts and feelings, that I had to push forward and found Jediism. I had to do something and I had to do it now. I had to do something amazing to help and inspire people. Something fantastic that nobody had ever done before. All doubts were gone and they were just replaced with a quiet certainty that I had to do it and I still have that feeling today. It has never gone away. It is what defines me. It is the power of the Force telling me I’m on the right path but I have to do more.

I had felt this sense of spiritual calling before in my late teens but it had been gentler and very much a calling to start something, even though I wasn’t quite sure what that something should be. Now it was telling me it was time to get going, to stop thinking and start doing. It was my road to Damascus moment. Jediism was about to be born.

BUT WHAT ARE THOUGHTS?

In the chapters that follow I’ll talk about that extraordinary adventure and how I managed to work through the many challenges along the way, but now it is time to return to the theme of this chapter now – your thoughts.

There is a scientific explanation for how thoughts originate in the brain and travel through the body, but from a spiritual perspective a thought is a manifestation of energy that creates what you experience or perceive.

According to Buddhism your reality is a reflection of what your mind projects. “I think therefore I am,” or to reference again the words of Qui-Gon Jinn from The Phantom Menace, “Your focus determines your reality.” This basically means that the universe exists because you do and because of what you think. Think about it. How do you know the universe exists when you are asleep? You don’t. The universe is only available to you through your awareness and your thoughts. You are important. Without you the universe you experience would not exist.

You need to understand how absolutely crucial your thoughts are. What you think is what you will experience. Everything is energy, even your thoughts, and your thoughts are the energy that connects you to the living life Force.

You also need to understand that, just as positive thoughts can attract positive things into your life, negative thoughts can do the same. The foundation stone of all negative thought and suffering, both physical and emotional, is fear. That is why we need to be responsible with our thoughts and not be pulled to the dark side by fear. The way to challenge fear is to balance it with love. Contrary to popular opinion the opposite of love isn’t hate, and the opposite of fear isn’t courage. The opposite of love is fear because fear is the total absence of love.

Your thoughts are the energy that connects you to the living life Force.

It is impossible to eliminate fear totally because fear is an unconscious response when we are faced with any kind of threat or danger. While we can’t control that unconscious survival instinct we can ensure that we don’t allow it to continue to dictate our words and actions. Fear doesn’t have to become a way of life and make us a magnet for negative experiences, because we always have a conscious choice about whether we indulge it or not.

Personal thought control is therefore not about ignoring or denying the reality of fear but recognizing or knowing what it is, becoming aware of it, and then observing and detaching yourself from it. It is about turning away from fear and choosing love instead, and drawing positive situations and people to you through that loving choice. It is connecting to the power of the Force through your loving thoughts, and using the Force to harness the energies of the universe to manifest your deepest desires and attract the life you have always wanted. It is training your thought processes to strengthen your connection to the Force and ensure that your thoughts, intentions, words and actions are all in perfect harmony.

In essence, it is creating the universe of your dreams with your thoughts and living that dream. It is not just you connecting to the Force but you becoming the Force.

LESSON TWO: THOUGHTFUL LIVING

Read silently or, better still for the energizing and ritualizing impact, read out loud to yourself the following teaching and then incorporate the practical suggestions into your daily life. Making a commitment to those suggestions is essential otherwise this book is nothing but ideas and words. Too many people get stuck in the “thinking about it” stage but never find the courage or the discipline to do anything about their grand ideas. A Jediist has courage; a Jediist has self-discipline; and a Jediist will also live or embody what he or she believes. If you are to evolve into a Jediist you must move from theory to action as soon as possible. You must both be and do. There is no “I could” or “I might”.

The Second Teaching on the Force

It is a blessing to have your absolute attention. May what you read or hear now help you to focus your thoughts on the power of the Force within you and all around you to create the universe of your dreams.

What consumes your mind controls your mind and what controls your mind creates the universe you inhabit. Devote your mental energy to anxiety, hate, anger and other negative vibrations and that is what will manifest in all areas of your life. Inspire your mind with positive and happy thoughts and that is what will follow you.

A Jediist understands the principle of “like seeks like” and takes great care with his or her thoughts, knowing that they are the building blocks of the reality he or she will experience. We all have involuntary negative thoughts we cannot avoid but we can choose to think in a positive way and in so doing change our world in a heartbeat.

A Jediist can never eliminate the darkness entirely. Indeed he or she must never seek that goal because negative thoughts can teach us a great deal about ourselves and help us identify areas in our lives that we need to work on and resolve. For example, if something someone says or does makes you angry, try to figure out why. Are you attracting that person into your life because they have something to teach you about yourself that you are denying? Or is the universe drawing this person to you because it wants you to take positive action and turn a wrong into a right? A Jediist will find ways to understand the reason for negativity manifesting in his or her life and grow from it into a wiser and more profound person.

Every single negative thought can be transformed. The secret is to understand that you are not your thoughts. “I think therefore I am” does not mean your thoughts define you. Rather it means that your thoughts create what you will experience. You are more than your thoughts. You are an eternal conscious being and your consciousness is not what you are thinking about. Your consciousness is the part of you that can see the bigger picture and observe your thoughts. It is the part of you that connects you to the living life Force. A Jediist does not seek their identity from their thoughts because they know that they are not their thoughts. They know they can rise above their thoughts and take control of them to attract into their lives what they need and want.

With this powerful self-awareness a true Jediist is always aware that he or she must take great care with their thoughts. So from this day forward always listen to your thoughts. Monitor them. Learn from them. Take control of them. Transform darkness into light and create miracles with your mind.

Hold this prayer close to your mind, heart and spirit at all times.

A Jediist does not seek their identity from their thoughts because they know that they are not their thoughts.

A JEDIIST PRAYER FOR AWARENESS

May the Force grant me the serenity to observe my thoughts. May the Force grant me the courage to understand my thoughts and the wisdom to know the difference between what thoughts connect me to the darkness and what thoughts connect me to the light.

May the Force inspire me to live one thought at a time and enjoy one moment at a time. May the Force help me accept this life for what it is and that darkness is sometimes needed to reveal the light. May I trust that the Force will guide my thoughts and that happiness, peace and fulfilment can all be mine if I always choose love, peace, harmony and the light.

Take a moment of reflection now to gather your thoughts and energize them with positive and loving intentions towards yourself and others. Then continue the adventure of your life always aware of your thoughts and how each one creates your reality.

THOUGHTFUL LIVING GUIDELINES

1. Find your books

I’ve mentioned two books – Making Time by Steve Taylor and Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol – that truly changed my mind. I urge you to check these books out, but don’t stop there, as you are unique. Just because those books opened my mind and incentivized me does not necessarily mean they will open yours. Your task now is to find your own mindblowing book. Visit a bookshop or a library and spend some time browsing. Not a second of that time will be wasted and the more time you hang out in bookshops the more your intuition will guide you to the perfect book. Even better seek out a secondhand bookshop. There are often out-of-print gems there waiting for you to adopt them. Your life-changing book can be either non-fiction or fiction. It doesn’t matter. The important thing is that it changes your mind or your thinking in some dramatic way or offers you a refreshing new perspective. And don’t stop at finding that one life-changing book. Become an expert book hunter. Amaze your friends and family with your unusual reading choices. Remember, a Jediist always seeks to pass on helpful or mind-opening information to others. That is the Jediist way. We educate ourselves and then we teach others.

2. Daily thought check points

Every morning when you wake up, and every evening before you go to bed, and as many times as you can during the day, take a moment to do a thought check. Stop what you are doing and take a good long look at your thoughts. What is going through your mind? Write it down if you can. Then reflect on what those thoughts, both negative and positive ones, are trying to teach you. Embrace what you cannot ignore. Become an expert on your own thought processes. Know yourself. It is the beginning of wisdom.

3. Declare your intentions

At least once a week direct your thoughts entirely to what you want to manifest in your life. Declare your intentions to the universe. Write them down and put what you have written in a secret location or even bury it. This isn’t a magic spell, it is simply making your intentions clear, and research shows nothing helps you do that more than the act of writing it down.

The idea of focused thinking having power (which for those who are religious can be translated as prayer, but if you don’t like that association you can use other words such as intention, meditation or visualization) has been studied scientifically, and the message of a positive attitude improving lives both physically and emotionally is clear. It is impossible to know exactly how this works but for a Jediist it is about the power of the Force giving you back what you give out. It could be compared to throwing a ball into the air. You know it will fall back at some point. In other words what you expect to happen or focus your thoughts on will manifest in your life in some way.

You don’t need to go on bended knee to pray. All you need to do is raise the power of your thoughts to attract what you want into your life. Believe in your thoughts when you have them. Put energy and colour into them. Don’t just think them, feel them happening, see them happening with your thoughts, daydreams and dreams.

Be as specific as you can but do also be realistic. For example, if you’ve always wanted to be a surgeon but haven’t been to medical school no amount of self-belief will make that possible. You could, however, train to be a paramedic or do a psychology course to teach you how the mind works. You can take small steps first and find ways to live your dreams that are achievable.

Remember, declaring your intentions to the universe and believing or expecting them to happen isn’t something you should do for a few minutes but your entire day. In other words, throughout the day focus your intention on what you want to happen and believe it will. Don’t beg the universe for what you want or hope for it; from now on, operate under the assumption that what you want is going to or has already happened. For example, if you want to lose weight tell yourself you are losing weight and choose healthier food in response to that reality you are creating with your thoughts. This is a huge leap for your mind to take but the more you tell yourself that you are already living your dreams, the more your mind will be programmed for success.

There is a very real difference between hoping and believing. Hoping is positive thinking. Believing is expecting positive outcomes. Your beliefs have great power and to quote the mighty comic book writer Stan Lee, ”with great power comes great responsibility”.

What you pay attention to with your thoughts and feelings can manifest into your daily life. Knowing this, be extremely careful what you believe in, because it will manifest in one form or another. Sometimes not in ways you expect but manifest it will.

4. Unlearn

One of the reasons why changing your thoughts isn’t always easy or doesn’t seem to attract success is because your previous thoughts have a powerful momentum. It takes time and patience to create a new reality for yourself. The mark of a Jediist is patience. They see the finish line but they are aware of the journey to get there and they savour that journey.

We live in a world where everything is instant and quick fix and the tendency is to quit as soon as we don’t get the results we want. It really isn’t logical to think that after a week of visualizing a new life for ourselves we can change the overwhelming momentum of your habitual thoughts that you have been having your entire life. Remember in the original Star Wars trilogy it took a long time for Yoda to train Luke and to help him unlearn all that he had learned.

So you need to approach this with a long-term and not a short-term mindset. You need to know that immediate results aren’t likely but if you stick with your training – as Luke did – you will eventually defeat the powers of negativity and darkness with your newfound awareness and light. You need to cultivate what every Jediist Master possesses in abundance: patience. In time you will wear down your old negative thoughts and replace them with a shiny new mindset.

5. Raise your voice

A defining feature of negative thoughts is that they create confusion, tiredness and feelings of incompleteness. By contrast, focused intention and positive thought brings feelings of calm, energy and completeness. We’ll tackle emotional intelligence later in the book but for now be aware that your thoughts typically manifest themselves through your feelings. If you are feeling low, chances are your thought patterns are dragging you down. One way to feel better is to elevate your thoughts to higher and greater things, and the best way to do that is to ask yourself one of these three questions:

• “What have I got to be grateful for today?”

• “What can I do to help others today?”

• “How can I make the world a better place today?”

6. Make time

As you get older, your sense of time rushing by seems to increase, because when you are a child all your experiences are new, but as you age, things become routine and you don’t notice time passing. You can’t control time, but you can change your perception of the way you experience it with your thoughts. If you often feel life is rushing past, try to make sure that every day you experience something new. Make an effort to expose your mind to as much newness as possible: new information, new words, new ideas, new hobbies and so on. Hopefully the newness of this book and the concepts introduced in it will slow down time.

Being mindful of the present moment can also slow down time. Instead of focusing on chatter about the past, the future or other distractions, try to give your attention to what you are currently experiencing. For example, if you go for a walk notice the shape of the clouds, or if you are cooking, focus your attention on the smell and colour of the food rather than churning over all the things you need to do tomorrow. Be aware of the now.

In many ways what I’m asking you to do is to stop your thoughts and become aware of the right now and your experience of it instead of the many directions your thoughts take you in. In this way you will be expanding time from the inside. You will be making time.

7. Be still

Meditation is not something complicated only monks, Buddhists or New Age hippies do. It’s actually a really simple and natural way to clear your mind so you can return to your daily life revitalized and with a more detached perspective. Here’s a simple way to clear your mind and improve your focus you can use anytime, anywhere:

Find a place where there is a minimum of noise. Sit or lie down and get relaxed and comfortable, but not so comfortable that you fall asleep. Set a timer for the amount of time you have to meditate. I suggest two minutes at first and then build up from there to ten minutes. Put your hands on your stomach, close your eyes and listen to your breathing. Don’t try to control your breathing, just observe it. Now as you exhale, picture an ocean wave breaking gently on the sand. As you inhale, visualize it going back into the sea. With each exhale and inhale watch the waves go in and out, and make your breath the soundtrack that sets the pace. Your mind will wander and when it does just bring yourself back to the sound of your breathing and the images of the waves.

8. Talk to yourself

Self-doubt draws you to the dark side of the Force because it tells you that you aren’t good enough, or you don’t know what you want, or that you can’t do something – but I want to tell you something crucial here. None of this negative self-criticism is true or real, but because you think it is real you give it the power of negative intention which then manifests in your life. Remember nothing in your life is real unless you think it so. You need to re-programme your inner voice so it raises you up and doesn’t pull you down.

Here’s a simple trick that works for me: the next time you catch yourself being critical of yourself, simply hold the image of a candle flame in your mind and watch it burning away all that negative self-chatter.

9. A new mantra

Believing something is possible is how to make it manifest in your life. From now on, know that you are capable of being extraordinary. We’ve all read inspiring stories about people who have beaten the odds or achieved remarkable things when people had written them off. All those people are human just like you. The only difference is that in their minds they focused their intention and saw themselves living their dreams.

The mantra in their mind is “I can do it”. Make that your Jediist mantra from this day onwards along with “nothing is impossible”, “there is no try”, “become the Force” or “I am a Force to be reckoned with”.

I AM A JEDIIST

Dr Julia Mossbridge, MA, PhD (www.mossbridgeinstitute.com) is a neuroscientist and director of the innovations lab at the Institute of Noetic Science (www.noetic.org). Dr Mossbridge is also a Jediist Master trainer. She talks about the joy of playing with thoughts and references her pioneering work in schools to engage more students in maths, science, engineering and technology.

Growing up, every time I would run with a loose jacket or an umbrella, I’d feel the “lift” as I’d run and I would try to perfect the power of this lift to the point where I could actually fly. Of course, it never worked, but in the meantime I learned a lot about physics. More importantly, I learned about the joy of playing with your mind, the sheer delight in what you can discover and uncover and create – but this is what is generally not mentioned in school. A tragedy, because it is the same thing that motivates great scientists, mathematicians, engineers and technologists to do what they do.

In every one of the Star Wars films, it is apparent that science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) disciplines are key to Jedi training. Just as apparent is the importance of understanding internal dynamics in oneself and others. In fact, I argue, when I am speaking to groups and helping to build new STEM programmes, that being a great STEM leader requires great internal awareness.

Here’s why. If we ignore the vast influence of our thoughts and emotions on the work we do, we will easily fail at making important inventions and discoveries. Ignoring or not being aware of the importance of random intuitions, thoughts and dreams you have because they don’t seem logical means you miss out on the very things that many Nobel laureates in the sciences have pointed to as their inspiration. Recording thoughts, dreams and intuitions can give you creative insight that far surpasses your analytical abilities.

I believe the solution is to teach about the truth of STEM fields as they really are. These are some of the most beautiful and joyful mental activities that humans have ever created. And as mental activities, they must necessarily include acknowledgement and exploration of thoughts, dreams and emotions.

I suggest, for instance, including in STEM homework and lab notebooks one page of reporting and exploration on inner space for every page of discovery and invention about the outer world. It can be very useful for students to write down their thoughts, fears, intuitions, excitements, and concerns about every step.

Replacing the current scientific method with this union between inner and external observation is what I call “the Jedi scientific method” and a passion of mine. Whether you are a student or not I hope you take it upon yourself to see how this point of view works for you. To develop the inner and outer discovery processes at the same rate – that is a Jedi mind trick that was clearly mastered by the best Jedi, and was clearly the downfall of the worst.

Every day you wake up, the entire universe is reborn with your thoughts. Make sure the universe you give birth to in your mind’s eye is a beautiful one.

Daniel M. Jones