Do, or Do not!

There is a scene in one of my favorite movies when the moment I saw it my eyes were opened and I understood so much of what I was being told by so many that were older and wiser.

Growing up, we did not have a lot of money. In truth, we weren’t always certain where the next meal would come from. Despite having loving parents this can start to cause a line of thought that isn’t healthy and is probably more common, even though it may come from different reasons, than most would like to admit. The negative mind.

You want to do something but you’re told “we can’t.” in my case it was usually due to lack of funds. But after you hear that you can’t for so long you start to not only expect it but believe it. Outside influences shaped my reality.

One day I was mad and my Step-dad told me that I was angry because I was choosing to be angry. At the time I thought that was the stupidest thing I had ever heard! Of course I was angry… because (whatever it was) was pissing me off!

I saw the movie Empire Strikes Back as child, when it came out. I had the toys, and I played at being a Jedi. And smuggler. Han Solo was pretty awesome to a young poor kid. It wasn’t till I was older and watching the movie again that my eyes were opened. There is a scene when Luke is on Dagobah learning the ways of the Jedi from Master Yoda when Luke’s X-wing begins to sink in the swamp. Flabbergasted Luke exclaims, “we’ll never get it out now!”

Yoda, “So certain are you. Always with you what cannot be done. Hear you nothing that I say?”

Luke, “Master moving stones around is one thing, this is totally different!”

Yoda, “No! No different! Only different in your mind. You must unlearn what you have learned.”

Luke, “Alright, I’ll give it a try.”

Yoda, “No, do or do not. There is no try.”

Luke then tries to lift his X-wing and gives up after lifting it a little and explains that Yoda asks the impossible. Then Yoda picks it up and sets it on the beach and Luke exclaims, “I don’t believe it!”
Yoda, “that is why you fail.”


I don’t believe it. For those that have started the Individual Development Program you know that we begin to see how thoughts become actions or reality. Unlearning what we have learned… I for one will be the first to admit that I was taught the negative aspects or what could be. And that became what is. There are a series of events or steps that happen when thoughts or desires or fears become reality. But that is exactly how reality is shaped. The past becomes the present and the present becomes the future. What you believe will determine that. And when you attempt to shape how your life and/or you reality turns out, your beliefs will be a major player in that outcome.

My dads old 'Zen Karate' book talked about how we develop a habit of telling ourselves how to view things without even thinking about it, which we use to define what they mean to us, instead of actually looking at them with fresh curious and open eyes. It called them 'mental tapes'... things which the brain would play out over and over 'as' perception, rather then having a real open and engaged perception. The book I recall talked about identifying these mental tapes, improving them, creating new better ones or even just being aware of when they were playing and not being enslaved by them.

Those preconceptions and mental tapes all colour how we think on things... so I tend to feel that being attached to emotion in this defining way tends to create a smog of complexity which people use to justify all manner of contortions of anxiety and anger, blurring lines of causality and causing huge inefficiencies in processes change and perspective.

Too often people immerse themselves in their own self centered frame of reference I think, to the detriment to themselves and others. A light version of this might be where this is engineered for positive external effects causing inner conflict, while a dark version might be its used to engineer self motivation by casting everything as a shadow of self causing outer conflict. So maybe we can go one step further and dislocate our trajectories from our perspectives about self, future and others.... whether they be positive, negative or greyish blends of perspectives. Trust in the process by being the person running the process rather then being the process. Turn the targeting computer off and do what you've done a thousand times to womp rats on Tatooine