“There has been an awakening. Have you felt it?”
~ Snoke, The Force Awakens
The following Star Wars scenes and symbolism are used as pointers pointing to the experience of true Self, which is one of Peace, Happiness, and Love. As you overlook the common dualities presented in the Star Wars films, there are great aspects that point to the seeming “journey” of awakening that the mind must go through.
The dualities within the movie represent the Light (true Self) and the dark (the misidentification with the ego). They are portrayed as both equally real, and, therefore, fight each other to win. However, Non-Duality transcends duality through the recognition that only the Light is real, and all seeming darkness is but false appearances to be seen as false or illusion.
The following is presented as metaphors, as in the experience of true Self there is no Self that has slept or needs awakening.
Relaxing into the Intuitive Flow
“Something inside me has always been there…but now it’s awake, and I’m afraid. I don’t know what it is, or what to do with it, but I need help.” ~ Rey, The Last Jedi
While the mind seems to be misidentified with a false sense of self, everything seems to appear as fragmented. You seem to experience the ego’s doubt thoughts, conflicting emotions, and fearful perceptions. This is expressed through the biblical phrase, “For now we see through a glass, darkly.”
It is here one seems to take on the false identification with “the doer,” which always involves the body, actions, and a false sense of doing; “I am the person that has to do to awaken and become enlightened, or I have to be doing something to be worthy, admirable, productive, happy, peaceful” etc. The notion of this doer is a distraction away from being.
Through raising this false sense of self and one’s misidentification with it to doubt, through a form of inquiry or intuitive guidance and insight, one goes from being misidentified with the doer to being intuitively and inspirationally “done through.” When broken down, the word inspired becomes “in-spirit” or extending one’s true Self, and is a stepping-stone to pure Being or pure Stillness.
Symbolised by Rey, where she is shown relaxing into the Living Force, her actions then become fluid and without effort. So, too, do are you being guided to relax into the ever-present and natural, intuitive flow and Presence of Being, where all actions become inspired and intuitive and are recognised as effortless with a natural, involuntary ease.
Involuntary is the key word here. All action is an involuntary effect from either the true Self (Peace and Love) or misidentification with a false sense of self (fear and conflict), until the misidentification is seen as false and is forgotten entirely.
At first, there seems to be a dualistic notion of a person relaxing into something, until a recognition occurs that there is, indeed, no person but the Presence relaxing as or resting as Itself.
The Next Steps Are Always Given in the Moment
“Close your eyes, Feel it. The light. it’s always been there. It will guide you.” ~ Maz, The Force Awakens
To watch Rey’s Visions scene from “The Force Awakens”, CLICK HERE!
Awakening to the recognition of one’s essential nature entails a going through the seeming darkness to the Light of Being within. It can be a temptation of the false sense of self, termed as the ego, to believe that we need to stuff it back down in awareness as it arises.
All of this is an attempt to get rid of the seeming darkness that appears to be arising without actually letting it go. All that is really needed is the gentle observing of it without judgement as it arises in awareness, in which it is seen as false and therefore, dissolves in that instant it arises.
Along the seeming journey of awakening, the next steps will always be given in the moment. The reason why most are not given a long term plan of one’s seeming awakening is because, while one is misidentified with the false sense of self it will perceive its own seeming “undoing” as a threat, and will instantly have no interest and pull your attention away from it all together.
This is shown by Rey, where there is a massive resistance (“I’m never touching that thing again, I don’t want any part of this”) to following her destiny or calling, the yearning to know who she truly is and recognise her essential nature.
The false sense of self, being the denial of the present Stillness of Being, is always focused on the future plannings and anxieties or past regrets and how things “woulda, coulda, shoulda” been different; this is disguised under the many thoughts and subsequent feelings of only if I had this, done this differently, if they behaved differently, then I would be happy and peaceful and loving.
As the misidentification with the ego is raised to doubt, confusion and disorientation are often experienced as one shifts from the thought system of fear to the natural Presence of Being as loving Awareness; where everything one thought one knew seems to no longer work, allowing one to open to true humility of recognising that one truly knows nothing at all, and need intuitive help in all areas of one’s seeming experience.
The intuitive Presence or Light within will always guide one to the places that are to be travelled to, the people that are to be seen, and the words that are to be said for the purpose of one’s recognition of enlightenment. Through this intuitive guidance, visions, inspirations, feelings, and knowings will be experienced guiding one moment to moment to moment. Just like a GPS, it has no helpful use in telling you what is 5 minutes up the road when you do not need to know it yet.
All situations, properly perceived, become an opportunity for raising the false thoughts and concepts and the misidentification to them, in mind, to doubt so they can all be seen as false for the recognition of consistent peace of mind. All outcomes on the seeming journey will always be the outcome, either seen through the fearful lens of the ego or the non-judgemental Presence of One’s Being.
Trusting the Living Force
Jar Jar: where are we going?
Qui-Gon: don’t worry, the Force will guide us.
Watch The Phantom Menace scene here! or the guidance to Anakin scene here!
The fellow Jedi’s, at the time, were all about the current Council rules, codes, and traditional uses of looking to the future to see how to overcome the seeming enemy. Yet, Qui-Gon was always pointing to the present moment, to always being mindful of the Living Force that was only alive, present, and felt in the moment.
The Presence that Qui-Gon points to is one’s true Self and its intuitive guidance that is always with everyone, being All as the One Self, that guides all in seemingly undoing the misidentification with the false sense of self to the recognition of the Self that never slept.
This Living Presence within all is, at first, obscured in awareness by the false thoughts and beliefs of the seeming ego. These thoughts are always focused on an imagined future, where unreal anxieties and concerns seem to arise or on the past for the purpose of perpetuating regrets and guilt. Both of these reinforce the ego, as both are a denial of the Present Moment where the false sense of self does not exist—not that it existed at all.
In saying this, one does not need to go and find something or do something to be present. Who One Is as Presence is never not present. This is only seemingly obscured in awareness when one misidentifies with ego thoughts, emotions, and perceptions. All it takes to recognise Presence, if caught up in ego thoughts, is to calmly look upon what is arising. Then, recognise the falsity or illusory nature of these thoughts—that they are not your thoughts—and one rests back into Presence.
It is this Presence that provides guidance through intuitive means and directs the body for the purpose of extending Love, Peace and Joy which are sourced from one’s Being.
Qui-Gon very often stresses the importance of the Living Presence to his Padawan, Obi-Wan Kenobi. Stressing the importance to him that being mindful of the Living Force required him to keep his concentration on the here and now, rather than letting anxieties about the future come at the expense of the present moment.
Another clear example of total trust in the Living Force is demonstrated by Chirrut in Rogue One, where he is a living example of trust and fearlessness, with his reassuring presence always proclaiming nothing is out of order. Being blind, he relies solely upon intuitive prompts and guidance for every move.
“And I fear nothing, for all is as the Force wills it.“
~ Chirrut Îmwe, Rogue One
Going Beyond Pointers to One’s Self
“Time it is for you to look past a pile of old books. Wisdom they held, but that library contained nothing that the girl does not already possess.” ~ Yoda, The Last Jedi
Watch Yoda’s teaching scene with Luke HERE!
All who are called into the experience of consistent peace, the true Self, in most cases than not, will have some sort of teaching, process, or pathway that is used to help guide one in seeing the falsity of the misidentification with the ego.
While every single one of these teachings, processes, or pathways are only ever pointers to the recognition of Self, it can be very easy for the ego to suggest that you latch onto the stepping-stone pointer. Thus, turning it into a distraction away from Self, turning it into idolising people, rituals and traditions, and other inauthentic means of delaying one’s recognition of Self.
Whenever we hear the phrase, “The Truth can be found in this book, person, words, place, or object,” this is a clear sign that there is confusion arising around the finger pointing to the moon and the moon itself. The recognition of Self cannot be found in any book, person, thing, place, or object because all of these arise within the Self and can only point to the recognition of it.
The Self, which is ever-present this very instant, is only seemingly obscured in the misidentification with the ego. “Still looking to the horizon, never here-now, to the need in front of your nose,” says Yoda to Luke.
In the seeming misidentification with the ego the present experience of Peace, the Self that One already Is, is projected into a future attainment. All seeking, striving, and the self-improvement idea of needing to “learn more” to be peaceful or enlightened, in terms of past and future, is a distraction away from Your present Being.
When there is temptation to believe that one will never awaken, it can be a gentle reminder that the recognition of the true Self is but a recognition, and not some goal attained in the future. All the books and pointers were only ever pointing one within, only ever correcting a mistake, a misperception, in seeking one’s Being or one’s Source “externally” and in the future, where it never is. It is a present experience.
When one opens to intuitive guidance all the books and pointers can be laid aside. These intuitive means will guide one to everything that needs to be seen for the recognition of Self, yet these books and pointers are not the recognition itself.
In One’s Defenselessness All Safety Lies
Using the analogy of empty space in a room, Who One Is is like the empty space which is the room, which is before all activity such as thought, emotion, or perception and in which all activities appear in.
When seeming activity arises in the room, because the space in the room cannot see itself apart from itself—just as the light from a flashlight cannot shine back on itself to see itself—the space in the room seems to then misidentify with the activity appearing within the empty space. With this misidentification, it seems to forget through a seeming amnesia that it is the empty space in the room.
Forgetting the empty space is the empty space, and not essentially the activity appearing within the empty space, the empty space then seems to have the false idea that whatever happens to the activity within the space happens to itself. This is where the false ideas of attack and defense appear to arise. Attack and defense are only possible between a seeming separate appearance and another seeming separate appearance, as the space in the room cannot attack itself being one with itself.
In the misidentification with the activity appearing within the empty space in the room, if an object in the empty space appears sick the empty space thinks it is sick. If an object in the empty space is temporal and can die, the empty space thinks that it is temporal and fears its seeming death. If an object in the empty space is attacked, the empty space thinks it is being attacked.
Even though the separate objects within the empty space may be attacked, the real attack is the empty space misidentifying with the objects or activity appearing within the empty space. It is all a defense against the recognition of the empty space’s essential nature as the empty space.
What does the empty space in a room have to do at all to defend itself but recognise that it is the empty space, in which the idea of attack and defense become meaningless. The empty space always remains unchanged, unaffected, undisturbed, and unharmed by all of the activity arising in the empty space.
The empty space in the room now is always untouched by a desk, a chair, a tango, or a fight just as the true Self is always untouched and unharmed by any ego thought, emotion, and perception that arise within it.
In my defenselessness my safety lies.
Recognising True Self Beyond Form-identification
“Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter.” ~ Yoda
View Luke becoming one with the Force scene HERE!
View Ben Kenobi becoming one with the Force scene HERE!
View Yoda becoming one with the Force scene HERE!
The mind that seems to experience this world with the false notion of the ego, perceives itself as that I am limited to this form, this age, this occupation, this name; that I am this and I am that. All the goals offered by the false sense of self are always body or form focused: more money for the body, more comfort for the body, more freedom for the body, more pleasure for the body, all being based in duality trying to get more of the positive and less of the negative.
The analogy above gives us an image pointing to the recognition that you are: not essentially the activity appearing within the empty space, and that the activity appears within us—as the empty space—and, therefore, there is no separation or duality between anything. It is all one.
Through a form of inquiry along with intuitive guidance all these false ideas, as well as the misidentification to them, will arise within awareness to be seen as false or illusory. Through seeing the illusory as illusory is what seems to open one to the recognition of one’s true Self, that is forever present and beyond all form, in which all form seems to arise within.
Through this experiential recognition, not based on intellectual understanding which will then try to neglect and deny form, one is without a doubt that the Self One truly Is is unborn, eternal, nameless, and formless.
Being unborn It can never die, being eternal It cannot age, being nameless It does not create separation—as names are used to define one thing from—and being formless is forever safe and secure as That, in which all form seems to arise out of and in which seems to appear within.
With this recognition, all human qualities of form are ‘transcended’ and One recognising One Self as One with All That Is. This is symbolised by Luke, the separate identity, disappearing and becoming one with the Force—oneness of Self.
This was demonstrated two thousand years ago by, “I and my Father are one.” The body is laid aside to increase their helpfulness, recognising without a doubt that death is impossible. Symbolised in the films, they live on as unmanifested Spirit or Force Ghosts helping guide other Jedi to this recognition also.
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