We All are Jedi

If you have seen "Men Who Stare at Goats" you know what I'm talking about.

When I was young my grandmother used to say,

"It's just a mental attitude that makes mankind plod
It's just a mental attitude that takes mankind to God!"

She was born in 1888 in Philadelphia but raised in Scotland after their family home burned down when she was a child. She later returned to the U.S with her New Husband.

When I was little people in my church called us "Ascended Master Youth". Since this was way more than any living kid could entirely live up to this caused some problems. However, the one thing I got out of all this is: "Attitude is Everything!"
And if you really want to be an "Ascended Master Youth" or a "Jedi Master" or a "Kung Fu Master" or an "Aikido Master" then you first must start with an attitude.

The path to being a Master starts with the paradox of politeness, compassion, wisdom and ruthlessness. It is not the state of mind necessarily of an obedient slave but rather someone who knows his or her place in the universe but is self starting and knows immediately the moment to act entirely on his or her own.

This is Not a top down path but a path where the grass roots literally rule everything. It is not a pyramidal path but rather a "Completely spontaneous Path". It is a path that can come from anywhere and go to anywhere and still be a perfect path.

It is not for anyone to completely understand but you and God. And this is the paradox. Such a path is incredibly powerful. It is powerful in a completely unlimited way. Because in any given moment only you and God know what will happen next.

So, one both starts and ends with politeness, compassion, wisdom and ruthlessness. This is the nature of a Jedi.

"Men Who STare at Goats": the movie made me cry. As someone who came of age(I was 21 in 1969) during the late 60s and early 70s, there is an understanding of that time that I will carry forever in my bones. It is not a caricature that I might see on PBS on any of the other networks of what people think those times were. It is real people and real experiences and real dreams and real deaths of real people that I knew. None of it is a caricature. All the lives and deaths of the 1960s and 1970s are burned forever into the fabric of my soul. So, like I said, the movie made me cry because it reminded me of all the lives and deaths and all the people now gone away.