Become the Force

If you strike me down I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.

Obi-Wan Kenobi, Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope

Jediism isn’t just about training your mind, it is also about following the beat of your heart.

The love in your heart is eternal and is the part of you that is one with the Force or living life energy that exists within and all around you. To demonstrate the awesome power of the heart, ponder this: when you die nobody remembers what you said or did but they will remember how you made them feel. That is why Obi-Wan tells Darth Vader that when he dies he will rise more powerful because he knows his loving energy will join the Force and be with Luke at all times guiding and inspiring his heart – an invisible loving presence infinitely more powerful than his human form.

If there is no love in your heart you will never be in tune with the Force. It is only when mind and heart are in harmony that you are a magnet for the light. In my own life I have repeatedly found that thoughts alone aren’t enough and it is only when my thoughts and deeds are heartfelt that good things happen, weaknesses are turned into strengths, setbacks into stepping stones.

ALL HEART

If you know anything about Asperger’s you will know that emotional intelligence is not my strong point. I’m a logical person. I can understand and reprogram my thoughts. However, feelings are different. The heart is unpredictable by its very nature and can’t be controlled or even at times understand. You can’t fake feelings, you just feel them and sometimes you feel them for absolutely no reason. Many times in my life I have been at a loss to understand and explain my feelings, and the tension and frustration of that triggers irrational meltdowns where I lash out physically.

Given the emphasis I have put here on the importance of the heart in Jediism, you can see that the universe handed me my greatest challenge from the moment I was born. My dream is to found a new spiritual movement that hopes to awaken a generation of people’s hearts to the potential within and around them. But don’t psychologists tell us that people with Asperger’s struggle with expressing their feelings?

I truly believe that I have Asperger’s for a reason. If I hadn’t had Asperger’s I might have taken my feelings for granted or not paid enough attention to the theme of love inspiring or guiding others coming up time and time again in every religious and spiritual tradition I studied. My desire to try to understand this thing called love helped me discover the true meaning of life and how love connects us to the Force in a way that thoughts never can. Love, of course, is right up there as a central theme in every Star Wars movie with Han and Leia setting the gold standard.

Just as I found a way to read widely through audio tapes despite my dyslexia, I found a way to connect with and express my heart despite my Asperger’s. The way I found was Jediism. My first love was Star Wars and I expressed my love for the Star Wars universe by founding a spiritual movement that could truly help others follow their hearts and lead meaningful lives.

DID YOU KNOW?

George Lucas loved the Samurai films that featured the epic battles and intense physical and mental training of the Samurai warriors during the Edo period (1603–1868). He particularly loved Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai (1954) and in 1980, right after the colossal success of Star Wars, he produced Kurosawa’s Kagemusha, a typically grand medieval epic. These films are classed as period dramas and the word for period drama in Japanese is jidgaigeki. Indeed, it’s possible George Lucas drew inspiration from this word when he called his spiritual warriors in the Star Wars movies Jedi.

Of course, I’m saying all this in hindsight and at the time I wasn’t aware of what I was doing, and didn’t even know I had Asperger’s, but I can clearly see now that through creating and founding Jediism I followed my heart. If I hadn’t had Asperger’s I sometimes wonder if I would have had the burning desire to pour my love into creating something that would enable me to express my heart. Of course, it’s impossible to say what I might have done with my life without Asperger’s, as I am who I am, but what I do know is that the heart must find a way to sing, whether a person has autism or not. The way I found was through my obsession for a movie franchise. In short, founding Jediism was my act of love.

I expressed my love for the Star Wars universe by founding a spiritual movement that could truly help not just me but others to follow their hearts and lead meaningful lives.

EARLY REACTION

Another seemingly insurmountable obstacle for me to overcome in the early days of the church was the inevitable opposition and criticism. Early reaction was largely positive and curious but there were also voices telling me to abandon the Force. These voices never came from inside my head but they certainly did from friends, the media, religious groups, educators, comments posted online and so on.

Here’s a snapshot:

“You’re crazy.”

“Who do you think you are?”

“Why can’t you just grow up?”

“It’s a movie, Daniel. It’s fiction, not a way of life.”

After my road to Damascus moment on the beach when I just knew that the universe was calling out to me to found Jediism, there were many harsh critics who told me I needed to put away my lightsaber and grow up. Indeed, giving up on my dream of Jediism becoming a global force of love and kindness was by far the easiest thing to do. I don’t enjoy being called “odd” or “deluded” because of my love for Star Wars and belief in the power of the Force but perhaps again Asperger’s was my salvation as criticism doesn’t typically get to me. I’m naturally thick-skinned. For me criticism is just data that I can either use or discard. I realize now that is quite an unusual quality. I see how others doubt themselves when faced with criticism but any criticism I got just made me want to spread the word about Jediism even more.

During this time my family had by now accepted that unusual was always going to be the norm for me and Jediism was here to stay. My biggest ally was always my brother Barney, who worked closely with me to found the church in 2007. Barney and I worked long hours setting up a basic website, answering emails, creating and distributing leaflets and information online, and promoting Jediism in person as much as we could. Visits to the website went from the hundreds to the thousands rapidly. I advertised the church on Myspace and it was fairly easy to spread the word there.

When handing out church leaflets in my local area, people’s reactions ranged from delight and interest, to shock and surprise, to anger and disbelief, but more often than not our leaflets were greeted with a smile. For me just a smile was response enough as I truly believe religion and spirituality should place a stronger emphasis on the importance of joy. Humour can be the greatest teacher sometimes and a life without laughter is a life not lived. That’s why I am always absolutely fine to have my photograph taken complete with lightsaber and cloak or even a Stormtrooper or two lurking in the background. These images make people smile!

SILVER FLICKERS

Of course, we had our critics, but the initial response after founding the Church of Jediism online was encouraging, proving that people are drawn to what comes from the heart. In much the same way that when you are doing things that don’t come from your heart you feel uncertain, I knew Jediism was meant to be. I just had this absolute, unshakable and calm conviction. I also started to get this bizarre silver flicker in the corner of my left eye whenever I needed to make an important decision about the church.

The silver flicker first happened when I decided to use my experience of the music and entertainment industry and my contacts with journalists to put together a press release. I knew how to play the media game. I didn’t really care how I got exposure but I wanted everybody to know about Jediism, and so I thought up an attention-grabbing headline: “Two brothers from Wales found the Church of Jediism” with the tagline “We have lightsabers and everything”. The tagline was to make them think, “Wow, we have to read this entertaining and fun feature”. As soon as I had mailed out the press pack I got a silver flicker in my left eye. It wasn’t painful or distressing in any way and I just assumed I had looked into a light bulb or something bright for too long as it faded away after ten minutes.

A few days after sending the press pack I got a phone call from the Sun saying they wanted to run a midweek story. They said they would photograph me in my cloak and with a lightsaber and talk about Yoda, even though in my press pack I had included information about the philosophies of Jediism being inspired by the concept of the Force and not defined by Star Wars. I didn’t mind, as this was a great start. I had got media interest from perhaps the largest tabloid newspaper in the UK at the time. This was good news for Jediism.

One thing that I had told myself before I started this journey was that I would say yes to whatever interest came my way, even if that interest was perhaps not coming from a place of understanding. If you do something from love, opportunities tend to come your way and lead to other opportunities. No matter how I got the message out, I promised myself I would do it. I needed to make Jediism a talking point.

Once I told the Sun I was happy to do the feature I didn’t get the silver flicker! What I did get was silence as they didn’t get back in touch, but then the next day I got a call from the Star on Sunday saying they would like to run a piece. Having not heard from the Sun or signed any agreement with them I didn’t feel bound in any way. It felt a bit like a step down, as the Star’s circulation was not as big as the Sun’s, and a weekend not as great a slot to publish as during the week, but I got that silver flicker again. I went ahead and did the feature and the photoshoot for the Star.

On 27 March 2008 we hit a Sunday tabloid complete with lightsabers.

It was beyond exciting. I remember buying the papers with Barney and thinking we needed to get home quickly because the phone would never stop ringing. The website might even crash. We rushed home and waited, and waited and waited…

I couldn’t understand it. The feature was such an obvious talking point but hours went by and there was absolutely nothing. We hadn’t told our family because we wanted to surprise them with it. They had no idea I was in a Sunday tabloid. It was still silent at 10 o’clock that evening and seemed likely to stay that way as we had not got one email, text, call or message, not even from my friends. I remember kicking the walls in frustration. Did nobody buy the Star? I had been building up to this point since I founded the church with Barney the previous year and poured my love into it, but for reasons unknown the universe wasn’t responding.

We waited and hoped until 1 or 2 o’clock in the morning and the silence felt heavier than before. Then close to 3am, as we were drifting off to sleep, we heard an email ping in. I rushed to read it. It was from someone in the United States who said he loved our feature and we should keep going as we were really cool. He also said he had only seen the feature because of an RSS newsfeed that alerted him every time Jediism was in the news. Of course, just reaching one person meant a great deal but hardly what we had hoped for or dreamed about. Clearly global domination for Jediism was on hold!

Despite the disappointment and frustration, my love for Jediism shone brighter than ever. The thought of abandoning the cause did not cross my mind once. I just decided to write the Star feature off as a bad idea and get back to work tomorrow trying a different path. In my mind there are no mistakes or failures, just setbacks and lessons we can learn from them. Then, as I was about to fall asleep, it happened again. There was that silver flicker.

IT’S TIME

The next morning around 8 o’clock I was fast asleep when Barney bounded into the room shouting my name and telling me to get up. I stumbled out of bed and looked outside. Our house was surrounded by press.

To prove to myself I wasn’t dreaming I took photos and filmed the crazy scene. I looked at my phone and it was crowded with messages and missed calls from every tabloid, TV and radio station you can think of. The BBC was on the phone, and people from chat show Richard & Judy and ITN were on hold, along with several BBC radio stations. It seemed endless. What was going on? It took a while to process but everybody had waited until it was Monday morning. Perhaps because the feature had the word “church” in it they mistakenly thought my Sunday was sacred, or perhaps they just didn’t want to work at the weekend. I have no idea.

I didn’t really have time to reflect on it all because as soon as I got dressed I was doing interviews. I didn’t eat breakfast or any meal that day. No time. I just drank water. All the media seemed to be there wanting to talk to us. I can’t even explain how crazy it was but we didn’t stop the round of live interviews until the early hours of the morning, when we were on Australian news radio. It was the most bizarre day of my life.

This media frenzy, with appearances on TV and radio and interviews for magazines and newspapers, continued for a solid four months. It died down a little after that but there was still a steady stream of interest from the media, with the highpoints being TV appearances on Fox News, Good Morning Australia and Good Morning America and a feature in Time magazine on 22 May 2008, entitled: “Star Wars is my Co-Pilot”. The feature was written to mark the 31st anniversary of Star Wars, and to celebrate that date on 25 May they made the decision to interview me.

During this period I felt so jubilant about the astonishing media interest and good wishes streaming in that I decided to adopt my Jediist Master name, Morda Hehol. Assigning myself a name signified my commitment to and confidence in a new life and a new way in faith in Jediism. I’m often asked what my name means but this is something very personal. The power of the name is that only I know its true meaning, just as I am the only person who can ever truly know myself.

2008 certainly was the right time and right place for the initial launch of Jediism as an online community of spiritual seekers. All this incredible interest was a direct response from the universe to the love poured into creating Jediism. My brother and I had put so much passion into it and asked the universe to guide us and give this movement wings, and this is exactly what the universe did.

The power of my Jediist Master name is that only I know its true meaning, just as I am the only person who can ever truly know myself.

WHAT IS LOVE?

In the next chapter you’ll see how the universe continued to respond to Jediism and the movement gathered even further momentum, moving from hundreds to thousands of followers, but for now let’s return to the theme of this chapter: matters of love, life and death.

Love is that overwhelming feeling you have of euphoria or connection to yourself and everyone and everything in the universe. It is infinite creativity and the positive energy or light side of the Force. It is also what defines our life and our death and gives both meaning.

This life is an amazing opportunity to experience love in all its many wonderful forms. We should never take life for granted. It is a blessing. Life, however, is just a snapshot of our efforts to be creative. Death, on the other hand, is infinite creativity and possibility. Let me explain this concept further with reference to my own life.

Around the time Jediism was getting all this attention my cousin Jo was dying. I was extremely fond of her and admired her greatly. Her illness and death were stark reminders to me that in the midst of life we are in death and every single day, every single moment, is precious. Knowing she was fading fast, even though my diary was packed, my priority was finding time to see her. She was a Buddhist at heart, and a bit of a wild child or free spirit, but she loved everything about Jediism. Before she died she joined the church and I truly feel that her spirit is still around me today. She is one with the Force now and I often sense her. I dream about her too. Nothing dramatic happens in those dreams. We just spend time together as we did when she was alive but I find those dreams very reassuring.

I’ve had other dreams about departed loved ones and they all confirm my belief that death is not the end. The most vivid dream I had was one about my departed grandfather. He was quite poorly when he passed but in my dream he was fit and energetic, and tap dancing. He also spoke to me very clearly when I told him he should be dead. He looked at me sternly and said that he could see the future. I think he was reminding me that in eternal consciousness past, present and future merge. Time is not linear.

Life and death are in effect the same thing. So when Obi-Wan says he will become “more powerful” in death, what he means is that when he is alive he can only do things limited by his human form. When he dies his consciousness or loving spirit becomes part of the infinite, creative consciousness and potential of the universe. He becomes the eternal life Force and can promote love and positivity in a way he couldn’t before. Indeed in the movies Obi-Wan’s spirit does continue to guide Luke after his death. By contrast, if someone has lived their lives filled with negativity and selfishly tried to bend the Force or natural order to their will or goals (as Anakin does in Revenge of the Sith when he attempts to prevent Padme from dying) the Force won’t accept anything that isn’t released with good intention or from the heart. In this sense, love, compassion and kindness are your tickets to eternity and hatred your passport to oblivion.

To sum up, love is what gives our lives meaning and connects us to the Force. When we die after living a life of love and good intention, we pass that loving energy that was once charging around and through our bodies into the universal life Force. We forever help the happiness of life. We have become eternal in the Force.

The Force will not accept anything that isn’t released with good intention or from the heart.

LESSON THREE: HEARTFELT 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 Third Teaching on the Force

What a blessing your loving energy is! May what your heart absorbs from hearing or reading these words draw all that is loving and positive towards you so that the Force grows strong from deep within you and all around you.

Love is the true measure of a Jediist. It is the reason, meaning and the fuel behind everything. Nothing you can ever say, do, or possess has any value for the universe unless the motivation behind it is love. Love is what gives the Force within you and all around you its power. Knowing that nothing matters apart from love, it is easier to understand what the meaning of your life here on Earth is. It is to find your meaning through love.

The word love is used in so many different ways. You love your family. You love your dog. You love music. You love movies. You love cake. You love running. The Greeks understood that the word love can mean different things depending on the context, so they had different words for different kinds of love. There is eros for romantic love, philos for friendship and agape for spiritual or unconditional love, love that is a conscious choice. It is in this kind of agape pure love that a Jediist finds his or her meaning.

A Jediist makes the choice to feel love and compassion for everyone and everything in the universe. Sometimes this isn’t easy. For example, it is hard to feel love for someone who has been cruel or unkind, but a Jediist will make the choice to feel compassion and try to understand that this person is coming from a place of darkness and torment. They have turned away from the light. Making this loving choice not to fuel the darkness by greeting evil with evil will bring great strength to the Jediist and disarm and disorientate the enemy. A Jediist defeats darkness not by retaliating but by strengthening the light.

Nothing is stronger or more powerful than a Jediist whose life is inspired by the power of love. A Jediist who follows where the love within guides him or her will find that the universe responds to their heartfelt intentions by sending blessings and endless opportunities. The character traits or personality of a Jediist should embody what love is. Love is patient, so a Jediist is patient. In the same way a Jediist is kind. A Jediist does not envy or boast. A Jediist is not proud or rude or self-seeking, and neither are they easily angered or hold grudges.

Jediists turn away from the darkness and rejoice in the light. They protect and help others, in particular the vulnerable, whenever they can. They choose to focus on what is positive and to believe in the goodness of people until proven otherwise and they always trust the Force. Last, but by no means least, they never stop loving even when things don’t seem to go to plan and in the face of rejection or opposition. They persevere because love is unconditional and a choice that they make because they know that without making this choice they are not a true Jediist.

If you are struggling to choose unconditional love, chances are it is because you are not giving unconditional love to yourself. This sounds selfish but it is not. You can’t give to others what you don’t have yourself, so loving yourself is your starting point as a Jediist. As this teaching draws to a close make this moment a fresh start for you. Forgive yourself for any perceived weaknesses you have and focus on your strengths. Recognize that the power of the living life Force flows through you and that you are a totally unique miracle. There will never be another Jediist like you on this planet again. Celebrate who you are because you are unrepeatable, and if you simply make the choice to be guided by love from this day forward you are powerful beyond measure.

Say this Jediist declaration out loud:

I am a Jediist. I am patient. I am kind. I do not envy. I do not boast. I am not rude or self-seeking or easily angered. I do not hold grudges. I turn away from the darkness and rejoice in the light. I protect and help others and, however many setbacks I encounter, I focus on the good in myself and others. I never stop trusting, hoping and believing in the supreme power of love. I am a Jediist.

With this declaration commit yourself to the Force and from this day forward may you be forever inspired and guided by the light of love within you. How will you know when love is guiding you? You will know because your first impulse will be to share your love and help others in any way you can. You will know because you will be blessed with the most precious of all gifts in this life – spontaneous feelings of creativity and joy for no reason other than because you are alive and connecting to the Force through your heart.

A JEDIIST PRAYER FOR ETERNAL LOVE

May the love within you guide you and strengthen the power of the Force for all eternity. May you know that if there was a bond of love between two people, death does not exist because love is eternal. If a loved one dies, mourn their physical passing but in the words of that well-known Mary Frye meditation, which Jediism endorses, don’t weep beside their graves or memorials. They are not there. They are not gone. They are in the wind that blows, in the gentle snow and showers of rain. They are in the fields and flowers. They are in the sunrise and sunset and the passing clouds and the light of the moon. They are in the stars. They are in the birds that sing. They are in moments of quiet bliss. They are in everything that is lovely and heartfelt. So do not weep beside their graves or memorials. They are not there. They have not gone. They have become the Force and the Force is eternally alive within and all around you.

LIVING WITH LOVE GUIDELINES

1. Read a heartfelt book

Three books stand out for me when it comes to books that celebrate the beauty and power of the heart to shape your destiny. The first is called The Path to Love: Spiritual Strategies for Healing by Deepak Chopra. The inspiration and practical advice this book offers is timeless as it takes you by the hand and guides you though the process of learning how to love yourself and others. Equally inspirational is James Smith’s You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit. This book shows that who and what we devote our energies to shapes our hearts and thus our lives. The final book is The Power of the Heart: Finding Your True Purpose in Life by Baptist de Pape; the title of the book is self-explanatory.

2. Live in the now

The best way to connect with your heart is to live in the now. The power of the present moment is in the power of your heart and of being aware that it beats. All the answers are in your heart, and the more you think of your heart as one eternal present moment, the better you can connect to the voice of your heart.

Your heart speaks to you in two ways: through your feelings, of course, but also through the way it beats. Recent scientific research has shown that when you feel positive and loving, your heart beats in a calm way, indicating that your heart and your body are in harmony. Obviously, hate, fear and negativity have the opposite effect. So when you connect with and listen to your heart in the present moment and feel the love, you are mentally, physically and spirituality at one with the Force.

So find as many ways as you can to connect with your heart in the present. Seize the moment – right now. You don’t necessarily have to do important or great things. A heartfelt life is often about those precious moments of laughter, love and light that give life a glow, rather than major events. It is about mindfully watching a glorious sunrise, or glimpsing the magic of a rainbow, or an enchanting moonlit night. It is a walk in the park, the hug of a loved one, dancing in the rain, or a good conversation or book. It is about all those things which appear trivial but put together create a beautiful life.

3. Follow your heart

Follow your heart wherever it goes. Don’t think that you will lose your way. The heart instinctively or intuitively seeks the light and will guide you there. To see the world through the vision of your heart, close your eyes right now and open them. See love coming from yourself and everything. Even if you see things that are dirty or sad or conflicted, see love trying to find a way in. Make a choice to shift your perspective or perception from one of fear to one of love. I’m asking you to do this because it will show you that so many of the problems we face in our lives are because we try to seek love outside ourselves rather than start from within. You don’t need to seek love, because your heart is love already. Your beating heart can always choose love in any moment.

4. Look into your own eyes

You will have noticed that the last exercise asked you to begin by seeing love coming from within yourself. If you struggle with that concept, this exercise might be able to help.

At least once a day from now on find some time on your own with a mirror and just stand there. Look at yourself for a few seconds. Rarely do we really look deep into our own eyes so don’t worry if you feel uncomfortable at first. That’s totally normal.

After a few moments whisper or say out loud to yourself – maintaining that eye contact – “I love you” and then say your full name. So I would say, “I love you Daniel M. Jones.” You will feel absurd at first, but give it a try and notice the energy rush after you have said it. Notice any feelings, negative and positive, that you have about yourself and then let them go and move on with your day.

You will feel ridiculous doing this at first but give it a try every day for at least a few weeks and it will soon become a habit, or better still a sacred ritual. The world will feel a much more loving and accepting place towards you, but in fact it’s your thinking about yourself that has changed the world around you. Remember, the previous chapter was all about your thoughts becoming your reality, so the more loving thoughts you have within, the more loving the outside world will be towards you.

5. Trust your heart

Following your heart isn’t quite the same as trusting your heart. Following your heart will take you to where you need to be, or show you what your potential is, but trusting your heart is pouring love into what you think, say and do. The universe responds to what comes from the heart. To help you trust your heart, here are a couple of suggestions.

Wisdom from the heart will never make you feel anxious or diminished. It will feel calm and empowered. There will be a sense of “just knowing” that doesn’t require long drawnout explanations. Wisdom that comes from the place of fear will be quite the opposite. It will put you down and conjure up worst-case scenarios in your mind. There will be endless chatter and explanations in your head. If you feel that you can’t get to a place of peace and calm, that is because you aren’t tuning into and connecting to your heart. The meditation and mindfulness techniques in this book on pages 58–9 will help you find that calm centre you need.

If you are drawn to a more technological option you might want to check out an amazing app designed by Jediist Master Dr Julia Mossbridge called Choice Compass at www.choicecompass.com. This app is fairly easy to use and records the beating of your heart to help you make the right choices. You think about a choice you want to make for a set period of time and then for another set period of time you think about not making that decision. The app will record your heartbeat and tell you what your heart wants you to do.

Remember, when your heart is full of love you have become one with the Force. So, listen carefully to the beat of your heart because that is the Force working within you. Even if you are in pain, tune into your heart for inspiration and guidance – it truly does know what is right for you.

6. Reach out

You will know when your heart is flowing with the power of love and connecting you to the Force because your natural instinct will be to help others. Helping others becomes an expression of your heart. You will begin to see that we are all interconnected by the Force and that the suffering of others is your own suffering. Reaching out and helping others for no reason than because you feel love and empathy for your fellow human beings is the way of the Jediist.

Small acts – such as holding a door open for the person behind, or asking someone how they are before a conversation begins and then actually listening to what they say, or simply smiling and saying thank you – are just as significant as doing volunteer work or donating to charity if you haven’t the time or money for that. For example, once I found some cash on the floor in a supermarket and handed it in to the desk. They looked at me as if I had ten heads but I didn’t want to take the cash in case it was truly a big deal to the person who had lost it. Perhaps it was to pay for some vital medication? Perhaps it was the final instalment of their rent they had worked hard to earn? I was told that if nobody claimed it in six weeks the money would be mine and they asked for my name and address. Somebody did claim the money because I was never contacted, so in my heart I know I did the right thing by that person. I also hope my act of compassion inspired that person to behave in the same way if they were faced with a similar situation.

Acts of love, and of compassion and kindness, which are both byproducts of love, don’t just inspire and comfort the recipient. There is a wider effect on anyone who observes or hears about it. Think about it. It makes you feel good, doesn’t it, when you see a teenager give up their seat for an elderly person? You feel there is hope for human nature and you are more likely to be compassionate to someone during your day.

In this way one simple act of loving kindness is contagious. It has a ripple effect, bringing light into people’s hearts and the universe, one person at a time, starting with you. A crucial part of Jediist training is helping others, not just now and again but every single day. There are no half measures. A Jediist is always a light and a guide to others. They dedicate their lives to becoming a force of love, kindness and compassion in the universe. A Jediist knows that they don’t need to wait another moment before starting to improve the world.

I AM A JEDIIST

Legendary science fiction artist, internationally renowned for his paintings of the cosmos, Michael David Ward (michaeldavidward.com) has created commemorative Star Wars works for LucasArts and Paramount Studios and is Jediist Master of art for the Church of Jediism. He also designed the stunning cover for this book. Here he talks about what the Force means to him and how it pertains to love, life and death.

When the sensational movie Star Wars was first introduced to the world in 1977, we felt a tremor in the collective human psyche. And even though most didn’t know it at the time, we had been introduced to a deep metaphysical truth, that while it seemed contemporary, it had in fact been discovered and understood ages ago by many enlightened seekers exploring the ontological nature of reality and our own being. That truth, as it was described to us by the iconic character Obi-Wan, was referred to as the “Force”.

But what is the Force, and why is it significant to us as humans, and how does it pertain to the most existential and meaningful aspects of our lives such as love, life, and ultimately, death?

Obi-Wan described the Force as “an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us, penetrates us, and binds the galaxy together.” When pondering this description, one might make the observation that it might also be used to describe another important property of ontology – consciousness. In fact, I believe that the Force and consciousness are one and the same thing; an intelligent, organized, energetic potential. Not only are they fundamental to all living things but, surprisingly, what science is discovering about them holds the key to understanding the nature of reality itself.

We have been taught all of our lives – and our everyday experience seems to support it – that we live in a physical universe; that everything is made of matter. This is referred to as “Materialism”, a tenet derived from the Greek philosopher Democritus – who, over two thousand years ago, coined the word “atom”, which he used to describe the constituent physical particles that comprised matter. But other philosophers from Greece and India put forth another view of the world around us, which is generally referred to as “Idealism”. This view attributed our reality as that conjured up within a mental landscape, or a conscious mind in which forms and ideas reside, ones we construe or interpret to be physical things; in other words, the world and universe in which we find ourselves. In this view, one might also say, the constituent material of reality, the ground-state of being, is not matter, but consciousness, or the Force, out of which all things arise.

Of course, these two views appear antithetical to one another. Either reality is made up of physical stuff, or it is a kind of dream within a larger mind, like philosophies such as Buddhism also describe. Shockingly, quantum physics has revealed empirical evidence that particles at the quantum level not only appear empty, but they exist as wave probabilities, as statistical information, until they are measured or observed; a kind of virtual reality! This cannot help but bring up a famous philosophical question: “If a tree falls in a forest and there’s no one there to hear it, does it make a sound?” Well, according to quantum physics, without an observer, not only will there be no sound, but perhaps not even a tree or a forest. Such is the power and significance of consciousness, or the Force.

Legendary physicist Max Planck, the father of quantum physics, demonstrated the general misconception we have of matter and the atom, which was once regarded as its most fundamental particle: “As a man who has devoted his whole life to the most clear-headed science, to the study of matter, I can tell you as a result of my research about atoms this much: There is no matter as such. All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particle of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together. We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious [...] mind. This mind is the matrix of all matter.”

Max Planck had presciently used the word “Force” as it relates to material reality long before there was a Star Wars! But it was the brilliant mind of George Lucas that astutely emblazoned this profound insight onto our psyches that we have now discovered to be a profound truth of existence.

Applying this perspective and understanding to the questions of love, life and death, we may now consider that this Force, this ocean of awareness, is the medium in which we as material beings are being precipitated, or expressed, much in the same way that the effect of observation at the quantum level collapses the wave-state of infinite potential into individual points in space/time that we call particles. And considering that the Force is fundamental, eternal and is the fabric that comprises and connects all things, then we may also infer that we too are fundamental, eternal and interconnected; as above, so below.

Life is but one form that the Force takes on out of infinite possibilities, and love is the sense of wholeness and interconnectedness that life experiences as an attribute of the Force matrix. And finally, death – a transition from one form to another – is merely an illusion as perceived within the misconception of materialism, for we now know that consciousness, or the Force, are who and what we truly are; timeless and eternal.

Even though your heart is on your left it is always right. Listen to it. Follow it. Always think, say and do loving things.

Daniel M. Jones