~Emotions and how we each view them, embrace or reject them; have learned control or are controlled by them. Always of interest to me. Why and how were some uplifted while others were cast down? Why do some human beings attempt to live without them when they are intrinsic to our being human? I once read a line from a Buddhist text that said, roughtly: "You cannot transcend your ego if you've never developed one or come to understand what one is and its effects. Two people may be without ego; the first having never developed much of one and the second having transcended theirs--they are in utterly differently places spiritually".

~Take anger, driven by fear, yes, but it can still keep you alive. Come to understand its true nature and you can use the energetic pattern of anger without the fear driven, uncontrolled aspect. Take love, a blissful state...until it goes sour on you. Then it can turn into the most destructive force known. Come to understand the true nature of love and you will find its universal, limitless seed that connects to all living forms and never falters, never sours.

~There are those like the Sith, who would use their stronger passions for their own gain as they see it and those like the Jedi, who are routinely encouraged to "search your feelings" and "use the Force" (I prefer *follow* the Force) while being admonished that "fear leads to the Dark Side". Emotions all. While reviewing these holochrons left with me, I see how Ankakin Skywalker 'appeared' to fall to the Dark Side by following what many would call his baser instincts because they did not cooincide with the Jedi/Republic views. Yet, by searching his feelings and following where he felt the Force was leading him, he did indeed fullfil his destiny as the Chosen One, brought balance to the Force--as manifested through a particular ideology as the Living Force is never 'out of balance'--and ultimately destroyed the Sith. He had to become a Sith to be the only one strong enough and close enough to the Emporer to kill him. It was also the suffering of his father that added to young Luke's own strength and resolve, that turned him from an angry child into a man of compassion and love as he endured much to 'save' his father. As was it his father's lesson reflecting in the metal of both Anakin and Luke's lost right hands, a potentially similar path into pain and darkness, that saved Luke from possibly falling. Quite a tangle for wee mortals :)

~My late master, Qui-gon Jinn, once told me: "Try to live without judgement, for you don't know what the Living Force will bring your way for your highest good; you don't know enough yet to be able to recognize the form. Just be in the moment."

Aiki Jorin-ne'
Padawan of the Living Force