To Be A Jedi: Part 4
To put it as simply as possible, the galaxy has much the same relationship with the Force as a group of notes does to the music itself.
The issue that has been discussed all along is how the individual note maintains any kind of identity when the melody has finally been struck. To answer this question, one can only turn to real life examples of those who have allegedly had such experiences. It is important to recall that myth only gives expression to these experiences once they have been had - they are poetic symbols, not the reality itself. This is the line in the sand between those who belong to a religion and those who actually experience one. This will be looked at first using the West as the reference, and then the East.
Two things are to be kept in mind. The first is that this is not about arguing the validity of mystical experience. The second is that this is dumbing down a widely varied and highly complex phenomenon more than anyone should ever be allowed to. Very generally speaking, mysticism is an experience in which the separate ego becomes immediately aware of its direct relationship with infinity where there was once space, and eternity where there was once time.
Though having a long mystical tradition, Western Christianity has often been at odds with such things, emphasizing as it does the dual nature of reality, as well as the sharp division between God and humanity. Those who do realize their intimate unity with the divine, such as St. John of the Cross or the mysterious author of the "dark cloud of unknowing," always do so skirting the edges of heresy.
Yet the non-duality emphasized in the East is scattered throughout the legacy of Christianity. For instance, in the Middle Ages it was not uncommon for Gothic painters to neglect signing their work, so strong was the sensation that the Holy Spirit was painting through them. And though this can be overstated, Joseph Campbell may have been quite right in identifying the fall in the Garden of Eden as not only a collapse into good and evil, but into oppositional thinking in general, including the strict duality between subject and object. When read from this admittedly unorthodox angle, the Bible does indeed hint at oneness. This oneness can be found in Isaiah’s vision of the lion and the lamb lying down together;
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