---
layout: post
title: Taoism & The Force
author: Steven
date: 2003-12-25 08:21:11
categories: 
- Musings
tags: 
- musings
featured_image: https://www.stevenjaycohen.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/wsi-imageoptim-mac-keyboard.jpg
---

	Another post to MysteryTribe:

	

	Have you noticed that it is "easier" to be against something than to be for something?

	

	It's easier to be against the war (as an example), than to be for peaceful negotiation.

	

	So much rhetoric is shaped to exclude and by that exclusion define what one is against...

	

	Let's look at what's really behind all of this politic stuff that makes people uncomfortable. Let's examine the energy and intention behind it all.

	

	Let's take a page from Star Wars and define this all in terms of the Force (I am choosing to use the Force because of its Taoist and Buddhist undertones, please feel free to correct or expand upon whatever I bring up. I hope in using Star Wars, which is so much a part of the mythology of our culture, we can find a common talking point):

	

	To be against something is to muster anger and ambivalence toward it. You may be against something based on fear, aversion, disgust, or alienation (among other things). All of these emotions would seem to emerge from dark places within us. So, it is probably fair to say that these are food of the Dark Side.

	

	To be for something is to support it, to believe in it, to nurture it, to understand its benefit in the world (among other things). And, using the same logic, and paradigm, these emotions come from a more hopeful -- or Light place within us.

	

	Right now, I hear Yoda saying something like, "Once you start down the Dark Path, forever will it control your destiny."

	

	But, please notice that Luke, our hero here, is a different breed of Jedi from his ancestors. Luke is about bringing the dark and light together. After all they are not 2 Forces, they are 2 sides of THE FORCE. Remember, Luke is berated by Yoda, "Control! Control! You must learn control!" And, at the end of Return of the Jedi, once the Emperor has seem Luke use his hate and strike out, Luke himself steps back to the Middle Path.

	

	So, whether we talk about Luke finding a way between that of Yoda and The Emperor, or we talk in terms of Rudolf Steiner's view of Christ as finding a path between Lucifer and Ahriman, we are talking about a middle way. And, the middle way must be closer to the truth because it does not seek to exclude either view. It tries to incorporate them both.

	

	So, politics on MysteryTribe? What does this have to do with the posts that inspired it?

	

	Well, all I ask is that people try to look beyond the surface and try to find the true inner issues and meanings inside what they wish to share.

	

	I look back at that... "all I ask"... that's a lot.

	

	What do you all think?