We need to understand that darkness tends to overbalance. Its purpose is domination. Its purpose is power. This is why evil people go after power: they feel powerless! They must rely on the evil to empower them, rather than looking within and finding what is not dark to empower themselves with.
The Light Side is not about the good guys winning all the time—though that does tend to need to be the case, when the bad guys are trying to overbalance things. The path of the Light Side is about balance. It’s about being good, but not really expecting others to need to be; yet encouraging goodness where possible. It’s never actually about criticising people for choosing bad things—after all, everyone is learning, and choosing the wrong things is quite instructive if we don’t know any better.
So those who seek to use the light of what is good to destroy others are actually utilizing a tool of the Dark Side. Our aim isn’t just to beat the darkness down, but to fill it with light so that evil has no place to hide. We only stop evil when evil comes a-knockin’ … and then our job is to kick its ass. But only when there is a need. The rest of the time, the little evils that people do are usually a matter of incompetence. So we let those exist as a part of our own instruction. It is wise to learn from our own experiences; wiser still to learn from the experiences of others.
Tool 1: Emotional Integration
Emotional integration is one of these tools which helps us to find a calm center. Within us, darkness hides all manner of evil; we must train ourselves to peer unafraid into the darkest parts of ourselves and defeat the evil which lurks there, so that we can be useful instruments of the Force.
If we’re drowning in the negative all the time, it might be because we’re rejecting it. And it might be that we’re just incompetent at dealing with it. A Jedi’s duty is to be a beacon of light for others; not to force anyone to have light that they don’t want. We lead by example only, and never try to force anyone toward something that they’re not ready for.
But this isn’t some mystical bullshit. Emotions have a real and measurable impact on us. They impact our psychological and emotional health, our ability to deal with people, and the capacity to think clearly about what it is that happens in the reactive medium of emotions that forms the subtext of our interactions with each other. As human beings, we can’t see our own impact much of the time. Emotional integration training allows us to comprehend that to a far greater degree than average. And it’s one of our many tools of light.
Tool 2: The Force
Another tool is the tool of energy manipulation. Some people don’t believe that we actually have an effect on the universe just by willing it to be so. But we can, and you can do it right now.
First, understand there isn’t any actual magic to this. It’s a well-established fact that the observer effect causes small changes in the quantum world. As we learn and experiment with this, we begin to grow and understand the literal truth of that. The “Double-Slit” quantum physics experiment has shown over and over again the observer effect, and the way that it works.
But just because science supports an idea, that doesn’t mean science accepts it. Science has a hard time with anything it can’t measure. But in the realm of reason, spiritual matters rely on the results obtained. We might not understand everything about the inner workings of a car to drive; nor the inner workings of the Force to influence it.
The Force existed before time was time. Before the universe. Before nature itself. And by definition, that makes it superior to nature, thus supernatural. But it is not God. It is not what created the universe. It is an energy field. It creates life; life creates it. It is the power of symbiosis itself: the power of being unified with all things in the universe.
The Force is also a chaotic power, unpredictable and dangerous at times. But it follows strict rules about how it works at the same time. And if we can discern these rules, we can use them to effect change in the universe.
Tool 3: Willpower
Willpower is just the power of choice. But choice is how we live. It’s how we obtain the path to destiny. It is the substance of free will. And without choice, we can neither learn the intelligence of emotional integration, nor discover the ways of influencing the path of the universe through using the Force.
We can’t be free of choice. Even deciding not to choose is a choice. We can’t choose everything. Choice is not control. But it is a power that allows us to move with or against destiny.
And that’s the role of a Jedi: be the eye of the storm, face the darkness with the power of the Force, and choose.