The Shadow of the Light
by: Jedi Kidohdin
"You will not grow if you sit in a beautiful flower garden, but you will grow if you are sick, if you are in pain, if you experience losses, and if you do not put your head in the sand. Take the pain as a gift to you with a very, very specific purpose." Elizabeth Kubler Ross
In Jediism 'the dark side of the Force' is not divorced from 'The Force' itself. Just by its name alone, 'the dark side OF THE FORCE' shows that it is a part of the Force. Many religions or faiths try to divorce 'the dark side' from their Supreme Being. Jediism doesn’t, and I think Jediism is more balanced and healthy because of that.
Jediism accepts and acknowledges that dark side is a part of us too. We have to resist it and fight it, but we should not deny it. Jediism teaches that we can defeat the dark side. We can beat this thing!
Someone might ask, why resist the dark side? Because the dark side is a ‘land grabber’, so to speak, and it will keep taking you in the direction away goodness, righteousness, peace and harmony, love and happiness, and the Positive Power, or The Force.
Why is there a dark side of the Force? Good question! There are many theories. The dark side is just a part of the plan.
I believe that 'the dark side' was put there to test us. We have to over come and pass the exams of the dark side before we can continue on with our higher spiritual evolution. We have to keep repeating those exams until we can defeat the dark side within ourselves.
How can the Force, which is all Goodness, Peace, Love and Joy, etc, allow a dark side to exist? Another good question with many theories!
In the first place, I believe that the material world and universe couldn’t exist without the dark side. The Force wants the material world to exist for various reasons. If you removed the dark side completely, then all the souls would return to their True Home, the higher Spiritual World, without learning the valuable lessons that they need to learn. The dark side is allowed to exist for this reason alone.
The Force wants each soul to learn, appreciate and understand something very important. I believe that the main lesson the Force wants us to learn is this:
That we will only be truly happy when we return to our original home with the Force. Another part of that lesson is to understand and appreciate what we will have with the Force once we do return there. How can we appreciate and understand goodness if there is no evil? Love if there is no hate? Peace if there is no conflict? Happiness if there is no sorrow? Light if there is no darkness? Without our experiences with the material world and the dark side, we would never have learned all these things.
One day, after we pass all of our necessary exams, we will return to our True Home with the Force, we will be extremely happy there, and we will appreciate what we have there too. Only then we will understand why we had to go through so much! MTFBWY!
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