HOW YOUR PHILOSOPHERS ATTAINED THE TRUTH AND ABSOLUTE SCIENCE IN YOUR HISTORY: ANCIENT-MEDIEVAL-MODERN-AND-POSTMODERN

HOW YOUR PHILOSOPHERS ATTAINED THE TRUTH AND ABSOLUTE SCIENCE IN YOUR HISTORY: ANCIENT-MEDIEVAL-MODERN-AND-POSTMODERN

I: HISTORY—How your own Jedi attained THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE FORCE, the Truth, and the POINT

INTRODUCTION

§45

The TRUTH, my Padawan, is the knowledge that Reality is absolutely ONE. Reality is Consciousness or Thought. Reality is a UNITY. A UNITY of Opposites in which Consciousness trumps Matter while containing Matter within itself as utterly dissolved. This One Reality is The FORCE.

§46

HISTORY on your beautiful planet is nothing but the Truth or the Force becoming aware of itself. Thus History is nothing but the becoming of the JEDI ORDER.

§47

There are TWO ways or forms in which Reality’s SELF-knowledge is achieved—by Philosophy/Science and by Religion/Spirituality. The former, as Thought, has DISCURSIVE or CONCEPTUAL knowledge of the Force, whereas the latter, as Consciousness, has INTUITIVE knowledge of the Force. Thought is the essence and inner core of Consciousness. Therefore, what Religion calls Consciousness (or Spirit), Philosophy calls Thought or the Concept. So, as your Jedi Hegel correctly states, “THE CONCEPT IS EVERYTHING,” or the One Absolute Reality is THOUGHT. And Thought is the UNIVERSAL (ALL-GEMEINE), which is seen and known by Reason alone, not by the Senses, and is ALL-encompassing.

§48

The following gives a summary of your planet’s HISTORY and its meaning (see chart on p. 31) which will be fully explained in the four major sections that follow:

[CHART: Ancient, (A) Medieval, Modern (B), (- Negative) Postmodern (+ Positive) (C)]

Noble Jedi, notice that the Truth, the Point, the Unity-of-opposites, the One Reality (as a dotted circle) is THERE from the very beginning of your History, although not yet known and individualized—THIS is the sole purpose of your History. The Truth knows itself first in Religion (A), as Consciousness-Intuitive, then in Philosophy-Science (B), as Thought-Discursive-Scientific, then finally by your whole planet (C), as Thought and Consciousness, the glorious JEDI ORDER fully realized.

Also notice that since time is not real, History takes place and unfolds in the ETERNAL PRESENT. Therefore the actualization of the Truth is timeless or INSTANTANEOUS.

“Religion proclaims earlier in time what Spirit (the Force) is, but only Science is its true knowledge of itself.” HEGEL

“For us believing physicists the distinction between past, present, and future is ONLY AN ILLUSION.” EINSTEIN

§49

Philosophy/Science is the most detailed and comprehensive form of the KNOWLEDGE OF THE FORCE. So our main focus will be on your history of philosophy, which ends with Jedi Science, rather than on the history of your religions or your political states.

§50

In this connection there are THREE points to be made:

(1) The ARCHE. Philosophy’s goal is to become SCIENCE (or Knowledge). That is, “philosophy,” as the love or pursuit of Knowledge ENDS when Knowledge/Science is found—which occurred on your planet in your Modern Period. Philosophy proper began in ancient Greece, though there were stirrings in earlier periods. As your Greeks correctly defined it, “philosophy” is nothing but the search for the ARCHE—for the Truth or the Force, the eternal principle, cause and source of all things. More exactly philosophy is the Truth’s or the Force’s search for ITSELF. The Arche is ultimately THOUGHT or the UNIVERSAL as that which comprehends a multiplicity—indeed ALL THINGS—within itself.

(2) The history of philosophy begins with an OBJECTIVE ARCHE and ends with a SUBJECTIVE ARCHE. An “Objective Arche” (Force, Truth, Principle) is one that is OUTSIDE the knower, while a “Subjective Arche” is INSIDE the knower and is Consciousness or Thought itself. In your Ancient and Medieval Periods there are only OBJECTIVE Arche’s, while in your Modern Period, beginning with Descartes, a SUBJECTIVE Arche makes its appearance.

(3) Philosophy’s—Reason’s or thinking’s—primary activity and impulse, given that UNITY is the Truth, is to BRING THE MANIFOLD or the infinite multiplicity found in experience INTO UNITY and into a single SYSTEM in which all parts are interconnected and form a whole of knowledge, that is, of SELF-knowledge.

—Also, given that the goal of both Philosophy and Education is an INVERSION from the Visible to the Invisible, from the Many to the One True Reality, in our Review of your philosophies we will be looking for the teaching that CONSCIOUSNESS or THOUGHT is Reality or Being.

§51

OVERVIEW: The Force’s or Truth’s knowledge of itself begins in your Ancient period with your Thales and Parmenides and their Objective Arche’s of “Water” and “Being”—which are Universals that bring everything into a single UNITY, and with Plato, with his Divided Line and “two worlds” distinction, and Aristotle, with the Force as “self-thinking Thought.” Then in your Medieval period the knowledge of the Force is first achieved in Religion, whose Arche however is still an “objective” one and is called “God,” with the two sides of the Force remaining separate (+|-). Then in your Modern period a Subjective Arche is discovered in Descartes’ famous MEDITATIONS ON FIRST PHILOSOPHY, namely Consciousness, and finally the “Absolute I” or Concept is uncovered by your “A-Team,” Jedi Kant-Fichte-Schelling and especially Hegel, and Jedi Science—the SELF-knowledge of the Force and the end of your planet’s History—is achieved. The purpose of the Postmodern period of your History is simply to take or educate all of your peoples into the Jedi Order and the Knowledge of the Force.

“The Whole HAD to unfold itself through the pain of History.” SCHELLING

“With Absolute Knowledge History has come to an end.” HEGEL

In essence, the history of philosophy is nothing but the progressive development and realization of the TRUTH—of Jedi Science and the Knowledge of the Force; from simple to fully elaborated. In your history of philosophy we will just be highlighting your main figures and their central ideas.

THE ANCIENT PERIOD

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THALES (or the Force active in Thales’ thinking) overcomes the multiplicity and reaches Unity by his Arche “Water.” “ALL THINGS ARE WATER.” This means that (1) although the senses seem to indicate that a multiplicity of different types of things exists, in reality the many things are all forms of ONE thing, Water. Hence Reality is One, not many. (2) Hence there are two viewpoints: that of the Senses, correlated with Appearance/Illusion, and that of Reason, correlated with Reality/Truth. (3) Moreover “Water,” the Arche, what truly exists, is a UNIVERSAL, something perceived or known by Reason (thought) alone—not by the Senses, which can perceive only SINGULARS or singular items. Also Thales’ Arche is an “objective” one or a Not-I, as existing outside and other than the I, and not a “subjective” one.

Of course Thales’ discovery and doctrine that “ALL THINGS ARE WATER” was not without an intuition or direct experience of this UNITY as its foundation, similar to the one related by your Eastern Swami Vivekananda who writes: “In this state of SAMADHI all differences between ‘I’ and ‘Brahman’ [the Arche] go away, everything is reduced to unity, like the WATER of the Infinite Ocean—WATER EVERYWHERE, NOTHING ELSE EXISTS.” (RAMAKRISHNA AS WE SAW HIM, 1990, p. 70; also cf. Plato’s famous Seventh Letter).

§53

PARMENIDES. Here the Force or One, operative within Parmenides, offers the first reasoned argument in the history of philosophy for a position or truth-claim—namely that What Is is ONE BEING. Hence Parmenides’ Arche is called “the One” or “Being.” Here again the senses lie or deceive while Reason alone reveals the Truth. His premise or principle is: “WHAT IS, IS, AND CAN ALONE BE SAID OR THOUGHT; WHAT IS NOT, IS NOT, AND CANNOT BE SAID OR THOUGHT.” In this way Parmenides proves that Reality is absolutely One and without parts and also timeless. (1) If What Is were divisible or had parts then there must exist a space, that is a “nothing,” between the parts. But by his principle, “nothing” cannot be said or thought.

“The present is the only thing that has no end.” SCHRÖDINGER

“Time is abolished with the realization of the Truth … which is the movement of the circle that presupposes its beginning and reaches it only at the end.” HEGEL

Thus What Is, Reality, cannot be divided into parts, hence must be absolutely ONE. (2) It also follows that there is no such thing as “time,” as the past or future. For what will be … IS NOT, hence cannot be said or thought, and must be ruled out. Likewise what was … IS NOT, hence must also be ruled out. Therefore only IS or the Present can be said or thought, hence alone IS or exists—that is, the ETERNAL Present or Now. As your Jedi Hegel says, “Eternity will not be, nor has it been. IT IS.” And as quantum physics founder Erwin Schrödinger affirms: “The present is the only thing that has no end.”

One defect of Parmenides is that he did not deduce or explain the Many, the sense-world, change, and becoming—what Plato will refer to as “the Cave.”

§54

HERACLITUS. His Arche, the Truth about the Many and underlying everything, is “Becoming” (or fire). “PANTA RE” or “EVERYTHING FLOWS.” “YOU CANNOT STEP TWICE INTO THE SAME STREAM.” With this principle Heraclitus begins to do justice to the world of change, becoming, the senses and the many—and to the principle of POLARITY, the unity of opposites as well. Reality exhibits ceaseless becoming, nothing is fixed or abides — EVERYTHING, each thing or determination, turns into its opposite, which it contains within itself—that is, everything but the Arche-principle-Truth itself, namely “Becoming.” For as THE Truth it REMAINS THE SAME and, moreover, is itself a UNIVERSAL, grasped by Reason alone and not by the senses.

§55

Your JEDI PLATO is perhaps your most important Jedi Philosopher who was the first to define the program and task of philosophy for all future thinkers in his famous “Divided Line.” The Line shows that the one Goal of life is EDUCATION or INVERSION into the Truth, the Arche, the Universal, the Force, which he called “the GOOD” … and “Inversion” having the meaning of TRANSCENDING YOUR SENSES IN ORDER TO CONTACT TRUE REALITY—that is, turning from the Visible to the Invisible, from the Senses and Sense objects viewed as reality to Reason (consciousness and thought) and its objects viewed as Reality. Following his teacher Socrates, Plato gave primary importance to definitions and Universals, the unchanging true realities (Forms-Ideas) lying at the base of all experience and the singulars of sense and knowable by Reason alone. In Plato’s words: “[Padawan, be ever mindful of the distinction] between the multiplicity of things that we call good or beautiful or whatever it may be and, on the other hand, Goodness itself or Beauty itself and so on. Corresponding to each of these sets of many things, we postulate a single Form or real essence … Further, the many things can be seen, but are not objects of rational thought; whereas the Forms are objects of thought, but invisible [THE REPUBLIC, vi. 507].”

“The entire Soul must be TURNED AWAY FROM THIS CHANGING WORLD OF THE SENSES until its eye, Reason, can bear to contemplate Reality and the supreme splendor of the Good.” PLATO

§56

For Plato EDUCATION as revealed by his Divided Line and Cave Allegory consists in the following three-stage process (See Diagram below [in Book]):

[1] We start in (-) the sense-world (the Cave) as “lovers of sights and sounds,” believing sense-things and the many to be true reality and the only reality; and thus because of our pursuit and attachment to perishable sense objects it is impossible to become One, Just or Right (DIKAIOSUNE), for Plato the goal of life.

[2] Then we realize that there is another domain of reality, TRUE REALITY (the Cave, the world of changing sense-objects, is now recognized as “meaningless illusion” [REPUBLIC, vii. 515]). This is a domain of Universals or Forms, invisible to the senses but not to Reason or Thought. Here resides the GOOD or Absolute Reality (in truth it is Parmenides’ ONE), the supreme Universal containing ALL Universals within itself; the GOOD is the source/cause of these as well as of the entire sense-world and its objects. The Goal and Task of True Education is therefore an INVERSION process, from the Senses (-) as Real to Thought (+) as Real—a process of literally “dying to the senses.” The Task is to cease loving and attaching yourself to false sense-objects, and to begin loving the Truth, true Reality, and the Universals of Reason. The Goal is now to awaken and perfect your Reason so it is ultimately able to behold and achieve direct contact with the GOOD (the FORCE) AND ULTIMATELY MERGE WITH IT.

“The true lover of knowledge strives towards Reality and the Good with a passion that will not faint or fail until he has ENTERED INTO UNION WITH IT [WITH THE FORCE].” PLATO

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[3] Here you have achieved the Goal, have united the two worlds (±), and are ONE with the GOOD, immortal and indestructible, just like it is. It is to be observed that Plato himself never attained to the Goal because (1) he had an inadequate understanding of POLARITY and hence kept (+) and (-) apart—indeed for Plato the Body was a “prison house” and the ultimate goal was for the Soul to be permanently separated from both the Body and the (-) sense-world. (2) The GOOD for Plato was also an “Objective” First Principle/Arche and not a “Subjective” one; he did not know that the Truth was totally accessible to him and that the GOOD was in fact CONSCIOUSNESS itself—what the Jedi Moderns Kant and Fichte will name the “Transcendental Unity of Apperception (or Self-consciousness)” and the “Absolute I”—hence of the same nature and substance AS HIS OWN CONSCIOUSNESS; this belief resulted in an irremediable SEPARATION between himself and the GOOD (the Arche, Eternal, “Divine”). (3) Also, in terms of the goal of Philosophy and History—namely, the Knowledge of the Force, the Jedi SCIENCE of the Whole—Plato did not DERIVE or EXPLAIN the two sides of the Whole, the (+) INNER and the (-) OUTER and all of their aspects, FROM HIS FIRST PRINCIPLE, THE GOOD. Plato’s disciple Aristotle went a long way to remedy this but even he did not accomplish what was required, only your Moderns did.

§58

Your JEDI ARISTOTLE made major advances on Plato and Jedi Science. For example, he developed all the major fields of scientific inquiry (physics, biology, psychology, ethics, political science, metaphysics and logic), and his ACTIVE Universals and form/matter hylomorphic principles had greater explanatory power than Plato’s PASSIVE Universals, and permitted a closer UNITY of (+) and (-). Moreover he achieved a superior Arche in his UNMOVED MOVER whose essence is “the Thought that thinks itself” throughout all eternity. As Aristotle writes:

“And thinking in itself deals with that which is best in itself, and that which is thinking in the fullest sense with that which is best in the fullest sense. And THOUGHT THINKS ON ITSELF because it shares the nature of the object of thought; for it becomes an object of thought in coming into contact with and thinking its objects, so that THOUGHT AND OBJECT OF THOUGHT ARE THE SAME … Therefore the possession rather than the receptivity is the DIVINE ELEMENT which thought seems to contain, and the act of contemplation is what is most pleasant and best. If, then, God is always in that good state in which we sometimes are, this compels our wonder; and if in a better this compels it yet more. And God IS in a better state. And life also belongs to God; for the actuality of thought is life, and God is that actuality; and God’s self-dependent actuality is life most good and eternal. We say therefore that God is a living being, eternal, most good, so that life and duration continuous and eternal belong to God. For this IS God.” METAPHYSICS, xii.7.

Aristotle’s defects are: (1) He placed his Arche, self-thinking Thought, outside and SEPARATE from himself rather than WITHIN himself—and never reduced the multiplicity of individual separate substances to Unity and One Reality. (2) He also failed to articulate the content or moments of this eternal Thinking which is absolute Reality and the Force itself. Hence, Aristotle (the Force within him) did not achieve Jedi Science and show, for example, the interconnections of all fields of study and their subject matter and how their respective universals are fluid and derivable from his Arche, self-thinking Thought (i.e. from LOGIC or the LOGOS). And as with Plato Aristotle also had an inadequate understanding of Polarity and the unity of opposites, the key principle of Science.

§59

In passing we will just mention the Roman schools of philosophy, Stoicism, Skepticism, and Epicureanism, which offered methods of this-worldly salvation, and the more important of the Neo-Platonists, Plotinus and Proclus, who achieved a higher development of Plato’s philosophy and the Knowledge of the Force by correctly articulating the process of the One Absolute into the three stages/spheres of Logic, Nature, and Mind or Spirit, in a general but incomplete fashion. Their main defect is this—the neo-Platonists were aware of the Force (the Good, Absolute), but the Force was not yet AWARE OF ITSELF. They had the “such,” the universal, but not its connection or unity with the “this,” the individual or CONCRETE, ACTUAL SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. This lack will first get remedied in another sphere than philosophy, namely, Religion, and only later in Modern Philosophy.

§60

My Padawan we thus leave your Ancient Period with the Truth, the self-knowledge of the Force still unattained—the two sides of the Force are not unified, and consciousness or thought is still not known to be infinite and all Reality.

THE MEDIEVAL PERIOD

§61

Thus there was a need to exit your Ancient World and enter another historical period because the UNITY-of-Opposites, (+) and (-), and the Force’s Knowledge of Itself was not yet achieved. Be mindful noble Padawan that each period of your planet’s History is NECESSARY—in order to reach the glorious goal of the Jedi Order. It was in the sphere of RELIGION and Faith, as opposed to PHILOSOPHY and Reason, that the Truth first awakened; and awakened AS INTUITIVE and CONSCIOUSNESS and not yet as DISCURSIVE, as scientific Thought or the Concept. This UNITY first occurred with the shift from polytheism to monotheism when PLATO’S GOOD had morphed into the “GOD” of your religions, which became the new Principle or Arche of all things. Your word “re-ligion” itself, noble Reader, indicates the Truth as the “unity of opposites.” That is, the purpose of re-ligion is to “re-connect” or unify (“LIGARE”) the opposites or extremes God and man into ONE thing, called “God-man,” “Geist” (by HEGEL), “Superman” (by NIETZSCHE), and our own, “Jedi.” All true religions contain this principle and truth as their core and the Christian religion’s concept of the “God-man” is perhaps the unity of opposite’s clearest expression. Here in the “God-man” (Christ) for example, we have the UNITY which the neo-platonists lacked of the “such” (the Universal, Father-God) AND the “this” (the Individual, actual I or Self of self-consciousness).

§62

This is why the dominant religion of the second, Medieval period of your History, reflected in its theology, is Christianity. Thus in the consciousness of Christ, for example, we have the knowledge of the Force as the UNITY of opposites, the ONE Consciousness and POINT. But because religion as such expresses the Truth in picture language, the UNITY falls apart into “two worlds,” which characterizes the entire period; and hence the need for another period, the Modern, to overcome the duality and separation that still remains.

Further, as noted, a major advance of your Medievals was from polytheism to monotheism. For the Greeks, Romans, and others there were MANY gods (hence each was FINITE) and, since a “god” equals an Arche, MANY Arche or Forces, not just “one.” This situation ended with the Medievals and hence the Arche or Force became universally accepted as only ONE, which was a great advance. And soon it was realized that the ONE God MUST ALSO BE INFINITE—a second major advance, something that the Greeks and Ancients did not know. Then later, with your Jedi Spinoza, it was seen that for God, the One, to BE “infinite” meant that NO other beings besides the One could exist; everything else (man, nature, galaxies) could only be “aspects” of and WITHIN the One God, the One Infinite all-encompassing Arche.

Also important is that since in its concept Religion implies that all men are EQUAL or the same in relation to God, what necessarily resulted was the end of SLAVERY, a practice that was commonplace among the Greeks, Romans, and other peoples.

§63

Thus the salvation, healing and liberation which it is religion’s purpose to provide, can only occur when there is no longer a “separation” between God (the Force, Reality, Truth) and “humanity” or yourselves, when the two sides are ABSOLUTELY ONE— which happens with the EXPERIENCE of Union with God, with the Force knowing itself in you and as you. Unfortunately the UNION that was achieved in the major monotheistic religions was inadequate and fell apart, resulting in the One Reality’s split into TWO WORLDS (the here and the beyond), which had to be repaired in the NEXT period of your planet’s History. The “union” was inadequate mainly because of the FORM in which the Truth was expressed and communicated—the Form of a “revelation” in imagery, picture-thinking, and narrative stories and understood as coming from an “outside” source, not an “internal” one. This left the Truth in a form that was not UNIVERSALLY communicable and acceptable to all persons, allowing for multiple and conflicting interpretations.

§64

So what resulted was not the UNITY of Heaven and Earth, God and Wo/Man, human and divine, sacred and secular, eternity and time, but instead their SEPARATION and DIS-UNITY, which characterized the entire period. In particular, salvation and healing were promised to occur not NOW but in a state AFTER death, in “another world,” a “heavenly beyond,” far removed in time and space from this Present world—something which absolutely contradicted the Truth (±). As your Jedi NIETZSCHE says, though religion does indeed contain the Truth of the union of opposites IT HAS BEEN MISUNDERSTOOD — a misunderstanding which persists to this day. For example he writes that

“Only we free spirits have the principles for understanding something that nineteen centuries have misunderstood …. Mankind lies on its knees before the exact opposite of what was the origin and meaning of the evangel; in the concept of “church” it has pronounced holy precisely what the “bringer of the glad tidings” (Jesus) felt to be BENEATH and BEHIND himself; there can be no greater world-historical irony … And what is the GOSPEL? Simply this, that THERE ARE NO LONGER ANY OPPOSITES … Thus Jesus has abolished guilt and sin, and any distance separating Man from God … and he lived this unity with God AS his glad tidings.”

§65

HOWEVER though it was true that institutional mainstream religions, clergy and laity alike, were involved in the error of the Dark Side and the SEPARATION of God and Man, Heaven and Earth, and suffered as a consequence, the same cannot be said of the founders of these religions and their mystics and saints, all of whom knew the Truth. For example:

CHRISTIANITY: “I and the father [God] will make our dwelling in you” (John 14:23). “I live, yet not I, but Christ [God] lives in me” (Gal. 2:20). “As he [Christ or God] is, so are we in this world” (1John 4:17). “Everyone that is perfect (or whole) shall be just as his Master [Christ or God]” (Luke 6:40). “The kingdom of God [or God] is (not will be) within you (it is NOW, and it’s not outside you in another world)” (Luke 17:21). “We share the divine nature [hence are divine]” (2Peter 1:4). “Be ye perfect [whole, complete], even as your father in heaven [God] is perfect [Be like God]” (Matt. 5:48). “I [God] said you are gods and goddesses [Elohim]” (John 10:34). “May they be One as we are One, I in them, thou in me” (John 17:23). MEISTER ECKHART, Catholic Mystic, “The eye with which I see God is the same eye with which God sees me, my eye and God’s eye are one and the same eye.”

JUDAISM: “Let us [God] make man in our own image” (Gen. 1:26). “And God formed man of the dust of the ground, and BREATHED into his nostrils the BREATH of life; and man became a living soul [i.e., God’s breath or consciousness and man’s ARE ONE AND THE SAME]” (Gen. 2:7). “You are the temple of the living God” (Jer. 31:33). “Be ye holy, even as I [God] am holy [Be like God]” (Lev. 19:2). “I [God] said you are gods and goddesses [Elohim]” (Psalms 82:6). See also the KABBALAH and the writings of MICHAEL BERG, ISRAEL BEN ELIEZER, the HASIDISM, and ISAAC LURIA.

ISLAM: “When I [God] love him, I become his Ear through which he hears, his Eye with which he sees, his Hand with which he grasps, and his Foot with which he walks (there is no separation, only Union)” (Hadith, An-Nawawi 38). “He who knows himself knows his Lord (Allah)” (Hadith). “I am The Truth” (AL-HALLAJ, 16th c. Sufi Mystic). “To attain the ‘I am God’ state is the goal of creation” (MEHER BABA).

HINDUISM: “Atman [your true self] is Brahman [God].” “THAT which is the finest essence—this whole world has THAT as its Self. THAT is Reality. THAT is the Self. THAT THOU ART [TAT TWAM ASI]” (Chandogya Upanishad 6.8.7). “The truth is that you are ALWAYS UNITED with the Lord. But you must know this” (Svetasvatara Upanishad 1.12). “The wise man, freed from name and form, attains the Supreme Being, the Self-luminous, the Infinite. He who knows Brahman becomes Brahman” (Mundaka Upanishad 3.2.9).

SIKHISM: “Now are for us no entanglements or snares, Nor a bit of egoism left. Now is ALL DISTANCE ANNULLED, nor are curtains drawn BETWEEN US. Thou art mine, I Thine [God and yourself are One]” (Adi Granth, Bilaval, M.5, p. 821).

BUDDHISM. “Awakening or enlightenment is the goal … and it is here and now: for samsara and nirvana are One.”

§66

Moreover, in this period true Philosophy did not exist for Theology dominated the schools and men’s minds. Philosophy was not free because you had to accept certain doctrines of the Church, Synagogue, and Temple as beyond question and then reason on the basis of these. There were however notable Jedi theologians during this period—AUGUSTINE, AQUINAS, MAIMONIDES, AVICENNA (Ibn Sina) and AVERROES—however even they were not able to entirely free themselves from the error of the Dark Side and separateness and clearly express the Unity of the Truth. Free thought and Philosophy re-appeared only with the close of the Medieval Period, after the Renaissance and Reformation had run their course and the rebirth of the “sciences” with COPERNICUS, GALILEO, and NEWTON had commenced. Only after this “clearing away” did true Philosophy re-commence with your Jedi DESCARTES.

§67

What specifically had to happen was the following. (1) Given the principle and purpose of re-ligion is the unity of God and Man (as Jedi) and Heaven and Earth (as the Jedi Order), because this Unity and Truth was expressed in inadequate picture-language the Unity fell apart into Two worlds, and this had to be overcome. In other words the Arche of the medievals was known as “God”—understood as a “transcendent” personal Being with consciousness, etc—and the goal of life was to attain knowledge of and union with this God. But the problem was that this God was erroneously pictured as an “Objective” Arche that existed both outside yourselves and the universe; hence as located in a “different” world from the present one, God (the Arche) became INACCESSIBLE. This made total unification and healing impossible. Also the clergy—who possessed an inadequate “picture-version” of the Truth—looked askance at individuals who claimed to be ONE with God and hence divine, rigorously maintaining a strict SEPARATION between the two. (2) Therefore the dual separation between God and Man, Heaven and Earth, the Present World and the Beyond (the NOT Here and Now) had to be transcended and abolished and their Unity realized. Faith had to be replaced or supplemented by Reason and the Truth had to take another UNIVERSAL FORM. Specifically, a new “Subjective” Arche had to appear—and it did, with the discovery of the identity of Consciousness and Being.

“The FORM OF PICTURE- THINKING is the specific mode in which Spirit, in the [religious] community, becomes aware of itself … [it is] defective in that spiritual Being is still burdened with an UNRECONCILED SPLIT INTO A HERE AND A BEYOND.” HEGEL

§68

Hence much like Plato and others the Medievals and Religion took the (+) Inner-Conscious side of the Force and SEPARATED it from the Force’s (-) Outer, Objective and Present side, placing it, in the form of “God” and “Heaven,” in ANOTHER WORLD; which turns out to be unthinkable as the A-Team discovered, for YOU CANNOT ABSTRACT FROM THE “I” or think a “thing in itself” or a being completely OUT OF RELATION with thought or consciousness. Thus the “other world” of Religion is and can only be HERE … and NOW.

THE MODERN PERIOD

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The goal of your History, the Knowledge of the Force or the Force’s Knowledge of Itself, was achieved in your Modern Period. Here it became clear that the Arche or Principle of all things, the (+) side of the Whole or Divided Line, was not “Objective” but rather “Subjective.” This Subjective Arche was in fact CONSCIOUSNESS itself (or the CONCEPT), into which all previous Arche—Water, the One, the GOOD, even religion’s “transcendent other-worldly God”— returned as into their sole Truth. It was your Jedi Descartes who BEGAN the shift to the True Arche—with a Finite I or Consciousness—and his successors, “The A-Team,” who COMPLETED it with an Absolute I or Consciousness or the Concept, and the necessary derivation of all things from it resulting in JEDI SCIENCE, the Force’s Knowledge of Itself. As a result the Medieval world’s SEPARATION into two worlds, (+) and (-), came to an end and their ABSOLUTE UNITY was realized—albeit only in philosophy, not yet in the whole world, the Task of the next Postmodern period of your planet’s history.

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How it happened: First, THE PRIMACY OF CONSCIOUSNESS WAS REALIZED; that is, the primacy of Thought, the Pure I, and the INNER over Objects, Matter, the World, and the OUTER. Consciousness/Thought AND Being were one, but initially realized as only a “finite I”—for God and the world were posited OUTSIDE consciousness or the “Cogito.” Then when it was realized that it is impossible to transcend the circle of your consciousness, that NOTHING existed “outside” this circle, the A-Team was able to realize the “Absolute I” or Concept; and Polarity (or Dialectic), the method of Science, was finally perfected. What occurred, in a word, was that the Medieval’s Arche “God” became transposed from “transcenDENT” to “transcenDENTAL,” that is, from existing OUTSIDE consciousness to existing Apriori and WITHIN consciousness.

§71

JEDI RENÉ DESCARTES. The discovery that the Arche, the Force, and true Reality is CONSCIOUSNESS (and implicitly Concept) began to be made by your Descartes in his ground-breaking 1641 MEDITATIONS ON FIRST PHILOSOPHY with his famous “turn to the subject” away from the object and his “COGITO ERGO SUM,” “I think, therefore I AM,” which expresses the UNITY of thought and being. This discovery will lead ultimately to the A-Team’s realization that THOUGHT, the I, the CONCEPT, is everything or all Reality. At the core of Descartes’ discovery is the twin realization that (1) in terms of experience it is CONSCIOUSNESS THAT IS FIRST AND NOT THE WORLD OR OBJECTS and (2) that CONSCIOUSNESS IS BEING OR TRUE REALITY. The way that he came to the realization that Consciousness, his own Subject or I, is Reality and may ultimately be the Arche and ground of all things can be understood as follows. Descartes’ goal in the MEDITATIONS was to find something ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN on which all knowledge could be based—especially the new mathematical “sciences” of nature then emerging, a la Newton, Galileo, and Boyle. To achieve this he began DOUBTING everything he formerly believed to be true, realizing that whatever was able to survive this “doubting” must be ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN. In his FIRST MEDITATION Descartes doubted everything that his 5 Senses, the (-) and the Cave, told him was true, including all sciences based on the Senses such as physics, astronomy, and medicine, and hence his own Body, sense organs, eyes and ears.

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Descartes realized that since he was not able to distinguish his waking state from his dreaming state it is quite possible that right now, as he is writing his MEDITATIONS—and as you noble Jedi are reading this HANDBOOK—he is dreaming. And if this were true then all of the above can be doubted. Nothing his senses report can be absolutely CERTAIN or REAL. It is in his SECOND MEDITATION that Descartes achieves his goal and makes his incredible discovery. This happens when he directs his universal doubt against himself, against the one who is doing the doubting. Descartes realizes that he cannot doubt HIS OWN EXISTENCE precisely because HE MUST EXIST IN ORDER TO DOUBT IT. Hence, the one thing that is absolutely certain is that HE EXISTS. “I think—doubt, sense, dream, am CONSCIOUS — therefore I AM, I EXIST” (compare, “Before Abraham was, I AM,” and similar statements of other Jedi). What this means is that CONSCIOUSNESS and BEING (REALITY) are INSEPARABLE or ONE. If you are CONSCIOUS or are CONSCIOUSNESS then you have a reality, a being, which cannot be removed, destroyed, or negated.

§73

Further, be mindful that Descartes, like Plato and other Jedi, was acutely aware of the absolute need to “break with the senses” and move to Reason in order to reach the Truth. For he says e.g.: “I will close my eyes, stop my ears/senses … and see what I am and know.” This revelation and Truth of who and what Descartes really is, is called the “COGITO” or “I think,” and is short for “Cogito ergo sum” and all it implies. It is also very important to know that the “I” that Descartes discovered alone exists and is certain is not the PARTICULAR INDIVIDUAL, “P.I.” or the Ego called “Rene Descartes” but rather the UNIVERSAL INDIVIDUAL, “U.I.,” the Pure Consciousness or the “Absolute I” (a la Fichte) that is the same for and in everyone; this will be discussed further below.

§74

Now, that consciousness is FIRST and not the world also means that the world and all objects that Descartes experienced and previously thought to exist “outside” or INDEPENDENTLY of himself, are now known instead to exist INSIDE himself—inside the circle of his Cogito, Mind or Consciousness. The “Before and After Diagram” below will illuminate this all-crucial point [in Book]:

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A. BEFORE the MEDITATIONS and his famous discovery all the objects Descartes perceived—the house, tree, star—were taken or viewed as existing “outside” himself. He was oblivious of their necessary relation to his “I” or consciousness—the perceiver. This is the “Common or Normal View,” which completely ignores the presence of the “I” or consciousness. Here, the world or OUTER aspect of the Force has Being, whereas “I” and the INNER do not (or have minimal being). I am “in” the world, one (insignificant) object among myriad others. The world and its objects are regarded as existing outside me, independently of me—they are there, are true beings, whether I am there or not.

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B. AFTER discovering the COGITO, Descartes realized that these perceivable Objects were really “inside” himself, were so MANY MODIFICATIONS OF HIS MIND OR PERCEPTION OR CONSCIOUSNESS, and merely IDEAS within his consciousness, within the INNER circle of his COGITO. For they were one and all Objects FOR HIM, each one was in relationship with his “I” or consciousness. This is the “True View,” which recognizes the ineliminable presence of the “I” or consciousness. But then it is realized that the world “I” see and its objects—the window, trees, stars—are not such beings as I have imagined—THINGS existing “outside” and independently of me. Rather, they are all RELATIVE or conditioned beings, AS relative to my “I” or consciousness. And since my consciousness bathes and pervades all of them, they are no longer “things” but IDEAS, so many denizens or contents of my consciousness. What follows therefore is that “I AM NOT IN THE WORLD,” rather “THE WORLD IS IN ME.” This means, as later Jedi-philosophers discovered, that consciousness as such is NOT in the world or universe of space, time and matter at all but rather OUTSIDE it—inhabiting what has been called by your Jedi Kant and others the domain of the “Apriori,” pure, or transcenDENTAL, as opposed to a transcenDENT, indeed inconceivable and non-existent domain.

§77

The primacy of consciousness and the Subject over the Object and World can easily be grasped by noticing that when I am in the act of describing a painting to you, say your PICASSO’S “GIRL BEFORE A MIRROR,” I am in fact not describing the painting ITSELF but rather only and always MY AWARENESS OF THE PAINTING. There are two things present: the object, and the awareness of the object (or THAT I know, and WHAT I know). Most people attend to the one, the object, but are oblivious of the other, THE AWARENESS—which alone is primary and true; the former does not exist as such or is only an “abstraction” from the latter. Therefore it is simply impossible to ignore, “abstract from” or bypass my “I” or consciousness so as to have before myself just the object, without the object’s ALSO being in relation to or “in” my consciousness. It follows that at all times (and since my earliest childhood) I am only aware of my consciousness as modified thus and so—and not of the sky, sunset, tree, or house, as objects in their own right. These latter objects are really my second or “mediate” objects, they are THERE only in and through my consciousness, my “immediate” object.

§78

Thus right now as I, OBI-WAN, look at this book and the things around me, I am really and in truth looking at MY CONSCIOUSNESS—and not at an independent world outside me. All that I see is INSIDE me. Therefore, what is there, hence what IS, is CONSCIOUSNESS—colored or modified this way or that. The key point is that because these objects—sensuous, material, extended—exist IN and not APART from my consciousness, they thereby forfeit their independence and status as true self-existent beings. They have only a “being-for-another (for a consciousness)” but not a “being-for-themselves”; they are “conditioned” and not “unconditioned.”

All these Jedi-truths are obtained merely by a shift from a focus on “objects”—this pen, glass, picture—to a focus on THE KNOWING and KNOWER of these objects.

§79

Let us further develop this important point illustrated by the “Before and After” Diagram above—namely, that Descartes’ Subject, “I,” or consciousness is FIRST (or presupposed), while the world or objects are SECOND. It can be simply expressed as: NO SUBJECT, NO OBJECT. Here is another example: Realize that when you enter your New York City harbor on a cruise ship, it is not true that you see “the Statue of Liberty.” Rather what you see is YOUR OWN CONSCIOUSNESS OF THE STATUE OF LIBERTY. “I AM and I see the Statue of Liberty as IN my consciousness.” THIS is the complete picture. As we said above, normal or “Cave” consciousness habitually “abstracts from” or ignores ITSELF—the Subject, its existence (“I AM”), AND ITS OWN ACT OF PERCEIVING, SEEING, EXPERIENCING—and focuses only on the “Object” it experiences, in this case “the Statue of Liberty.” As your Jedi Husserl says, most people are “lost in the World, in the Object,” and totally dominated, overwhelmed and controlled by it (cf., heteronomy v. autonomy, and outer—v. inner-directedness). In fact as we have noted, True Education involves nothing but TRANSCENDING this type of (“realist”) consciousness and mind-set and “standing it on its head”—realizing that in truth there is no such thing as “the World or Object as such,” rather only “the World or Object IN and FOR a Consciousness”— which, expressed differently, is precisely THE UNITY OF SUBJECTIVITY AND OBJECTIVITY.” This means it is ultimately CONSCIOUSNESS that is all reality and embraces the physical world within itself, and not the reverse.

§80

Descartes’ successors will say: “You cannot abstract from your I” and reach an object INDEPENDENTLY of your I (Fichte), and, “The I think [Cogito] must accompany every one of my presentations or perceptions” (Kant). The following thought-experiment will further bring home this all-crucial point: Pretend right now that you are dreaming or are in a dream. Hence your hands, body, the OBJECTS that surround you in the room, the sky, meadow, stars, and so on, ALL EXIST ONLY WITHIN YOUR DREAM—that is, within your Self, your mind, your consciousness or Cogito. NOW suddenly switch to your WAKING state where you are no longer dreaming and hence all you see is “real”—and Realize that: THE SAME THING STILL HOLDS TRUE. Namely, that all you see around you exists ONLY WITHIN YOUR CONSCIOUSNESS (CF. YOUR DREAM)—or, you are just experiencing YOUR OWN PERCEPTIONS, which as such are “yours” (and not “mine”), are within you, are YOU (i.e., the True You, not the “egoic you”). Further, that these objects you see around you ALSO have an existence OUTSIDE of you—THIS you do not and cannot directly see or know. It is an inference only, a mere belief.

§81

As you can now see one of the big questions is (and this is the reason for the question mark in B. in the “Before and After Diagram” above): “Is there anything at all that exists outside of my consciousness, outside the circle of my experience, and disconnected from my I; a so-called “THING-IN-ITSELF”?”

“I thought I perceived things OUTSIDE of myself … but this belief was mistaken.” MEDITATION THREE. DESCARTES

“Nothing is known which does not fall WITHIN EXPERIENCE.” HEGEL

In the end Descartes believed there was— namely, that the real physical world (colorless, odorless, “atomic,” etc) DID exist outside this circle, and the traditional “transcendent” God of religion as well (Descartes was a Catholic). Hence, because of this answer that he gave to the question it can be said that Descartes achieved only a FINITE I, and not an ABSOLUTE I. That is, for Descartes consciousness (and thought) is reality, but it is not ALL reality and INFINITE. So with Descartes the One Infinite Consciousness or the Force did not yet come to a full knowledge of Itself. But this was the beginning of the end of this realization—which happened when it was clearly seen to be impossible for “beings” to exist OUTSIDE of consciousness, or out of relation to consciousness, to the I, and to the “I think.”

§82

Before we leave Descartes the Reader should also be mindful that the “I” whose existence is absolutely certain is not the “P.I.” or Descartes’ EMPIRICAL Ego, but rather his PURE R TRANSCENDENTAL I. We can be certain of this because Descartes reaches this I-certainty ONLY AFTER he doubts and sets aside the whole sense-world, his Body, parents, France, etc—and “abstracts” (or “subtracts”) from everything. He eliminates in thought everything, the whole universe, in order to get to the “PURE I,” later to be known as the “Absolute I.” Notice especially that this “I” MUST be the same as my “I” AND your “I” AND everyone’s “I.” This is true because of Descartes’ characterization of his two substances and their natures, namely THOUGHT—which is conscious, unextended, indivisible, and not in space and time; and EXTENSION (space or matter)—which is unconscious, extended and divisible. Thus since MY Pure I/Thought and YOUR Pure I are BOTH OUTSIDE the Universe/Extension (or the (-), the Cave) it follows that (1) there can be no “distance” (or space) between them, and (2) as removed from the empirical (sense) and matter altogether, THERE IS NOTHING TO DISTINGUISH THEM. Therefore they must COINCIDE and be one and the same. Hence, we have before us the “Absolute I,” the basis for the UNITY of all your peoples that is the solution to your world’s problems.

§83

It will therefore prove absolutely important in all that follows, noble Reader, to recognize that there are “two” kinds or aspects of consciousness. (1) PURE consciousness, which is “pure” in that it is related only to itself, not to any objects; and it is universal and absolute, the same as REASON ITSELF. And (2) EMPIRICAL consciousness, which is NOT “pure” in that it IS related to objects other than consciousness; thus it is particular and relative, and known generally as the “ego.” The key is that there is ONLY ONE pure consciousness (“ABSOLUTE I”) that we all share in common—while there is an indefinite number of EMPIRICAL consciousnesses or egos (P.I.’s), which all have their source or origin in the “Absolute I.” It is this ONE pure consciousness which is the main concern of the Jedi philosophers and which we have been discussing, AND NOT THE “EGO.” We will in fact see that becoming a Jedi is essentially an affair of transforming your empirical consciousness or ego into a pure consciousness—but in such a way that your empirical consciousness and hence INDIVIDUALITY is retained.

§84

Thus in conclusion, (1) Descartes realized that all that he perceived was in relationship with and INSIDE himself, his I or Consciousness, and not OUTSIDE or independent of himself; that it was IMPOSSIBLE to get outside the Cogito. (2) However he still posited Beings (a Thing in itself, the world, God) OUTSIDE of the Cogito. He did not know that THIS WAS IMPOSSIBLE, that “God,” the Arche was WITHIN himself, as the Absolute I. (3) Descartes also lacked POLARITY, and therefore Thought AND Extension/Matter were absolutely exclusive and non-unifiable; and he was not able to resolve the contradiction implied by his positing of three substances, two finite ones and one infinite one; and lastly he did not derive everything from his first principle (the Cogito with its “clear and distinct perceptions”). Also notice that the reason Descartes held that Sense-objects were unreal appearances was because as such they are only “ideas” in the mind and thus CONDITIONED by the I or consciousness.

§85

It will be also be helpful if we briefly REVIEW the transition from your Medieval Period and its defect to your Modern Period and the need for correcting the defect. Thus, the defect of the Medieval standpoint was three-fold and was due to the FORM of the Solution—the Unity (±)—as presented in religion. (1) The two worlds or sides of the Force were SEPARATED and a way had to be found to keep them PERMANENTLY together and from coming apart again (namely, via Reason and Polarity); and (2) The (+) second world, in truth a world of CONSCIOUSNESS and fully PRESENT and ONE with the (-) present sense/ material world, was a world created by and existing only in IMAGINATION but regarded as REAL, a duplicate of THIS world, and peopled by a “transcendent” God and heaven, which really are HERE AND NOW (but in a different dimension; thus we Jedi are NOT saying there is no such thing as what your religions understand as “God” and “Heaven”).

“The GEIST had to come down out of the Middle Ages’ intellectual world and quicken its abstract element with the actual Self … its essence had to be guided into self- consciousness.” HEGEL

(3) Also the Medieval’s Arche, “God” (+), was located in the “beyond” and defined as NOT HERE. It had to be brought down and found WITHIN yourselves, as your Jedi Hegel states in his PHENOMENOLOGY.

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Now the way the collapse and unity of the two sides (of the Force) and the transference of the Arche from outside to inside yourselves as effected was by Descartes COGITO and the ultimate realization by his followers that you cannot escape the COGITO and “this world” (-)—something which forces you into THIS present world in order to find the Arche/God here WITHIN yourselves and your own consciousness. However as we noted Descartes did not see this— that you cannot escape the COGITO and that there is no “Thing in itself”—and as a result posited (+) entities OUTSIDE the Cogito. Descartes then only attained to a “Finite I” and hence never reached the UNITY that is the goal of philosophy—and the ABSOLUTE and Absolute Jedi Science.

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[Interlude] THE CONTINENTAL RATIONALISTS. In addition to Descartes there were two other major rationalist philosophers. JEDI SPINOZA, who in his ETHICS recognized Descartes’ error of positing 2 finite substances (Thought and Extension) and 1 infinite substance (God); a contradiction which he corrected by positing only One Infinite Substance (God or Nature), with Thought and Matter as attributes of the One Substance (not substances themselves); also called “the One and All” (HEN KAI PAN), the all-comprehensive UNIVERSAL, which is an important advance. And although Spinoza did indeed UNIFY thought and extension, (+) and (-), IN GOD, his God, Arche, the Force, was only Substance and “Object,” and not Consciousness and “Subject,” i.e. a SUBJECTIVE first principle. He also downplayed INDIVIDUALITY and did not give it its proper due.—And JEDI LEIBNIZ, who in his MONADOLOGY posited an infinite plurality of “windowless” Monads, self-enclosed “island universes” or Cogitos, with no connection or commerce among them. Leibniz did correct Spinoza’s lack of Individuality, but in an equally one-sided way; that is, no Universality or unity obtained among the Monads.

THE BRITISH EMPIRICISTS, LOCKE, BERKELEY, and HUME, believed that all knowledge comes from sense-experience and not Reason. It was KANT, a disciple of LEIBNIZ, who began the process of unifying the two, Rationalism and Empiricism, although initially in an inadequate way.

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The A-TEAM: KANT-FICHTE-SCHELLING-HEGEL. “A” stands for “the Absolute,” which means that only One thing exists, namely, “the Force.” Thus it was the A-Team who finally attained the Absolute I and the Concept and the Force’s Knowledge of Itself as JEDI SCIENCE. The Systems of all four Jedi offer versions of Jedi Science or the Knowledge of the Force, but the System of Hegel is the most complete and comprehensive. Here we will highlight a few features of each, with special focus on the Absolute I or Concept.

ON THE ABSOLUTE I

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First I will explain how your A-Team discovered the Absolute I in three steps, briefly give SCHELLING’S proof of it, and indicate some of its features.

(1) Once we see that it is IMPOSSIBLE to transcend the Cogito or Consciousness, that there is NOTHING outside consciousness (no “Thing in itself,” no transcenDENT Force/God/1st Principle) …
(2) We then immediately see that the 1st Principle/Force/ Ground of everything MUST BE WITHIN OURSELVES, OUR CONSCIOUSNESS. This is because (i) it cannot be Matter/Objects—these are nothing (have only “Being for another,” are not self-aware; are only “ideas” in me, “appearances” as conditioned by consciousness), and (ii) there can be no transcenDENT “God” OUTSIDE us (outside consciousness, the Cogito)—this is impossible. Therefore (iii) it can only be WITHIN OURSELVES—as an ABSOLUTE I, SUBJECT OR CONSCIOUSNESS.

(3) What follows from the existence of an ABSOLUTE I is the Knowledge of the Force (±). That is,

a) As “absolute” it is not relative or related to anything else—to an Object or Other—but only to Itself (that is, it is not a “relative” or “finite” I): the ABSOLUTE I is hence a principle of ABSOLUTE FREEDOM. Thus in relating to (-) matter/the objective world (which is NOTHING in itself) it is relating only to ITSELF—that is, it is INFINITE and ALL REALITY … in that it “sees itself in its Object.”
b) Hence, the SEPARATION of (+) and (-)—or “consciousness OF an object/matter”—must be an ILLUSION.
c) Hence: THERE IS ONLY THE ABSOLUTE I … AND NOTHING ELSE (and we all share it: THE ONE CONSCIOUSNESS).
d) And the Absolute I = Absolute Knowledge = the UNITY of Subjectivity and Objectivity = The FORCE knowing Itself as All Reality, as the Whole—the POINT. Moreover, the Absolute I is transcendental or Apriori and hence entirely outside space and time and the physical universe, and thus in the Center of everything—and it is the basis of all Healing and all Power.

YOUR JEDI SCHELLING’S PROOF OF THE “ABSOLUTE I”

“THE ABSOLUTE I IS INFINITE, absolute power, contains all reality, is unconditioned, eternal and outside of time, the only substance, and is absolute bliss (as I = not I).”
“Two DEPENDENT things require an INDEPENDENT thing to exist”

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My noble Padawan, the following simple yet devastating logic à la Schelling will show you what ALONE has true Being and is absolute or is THE Absolute, and clearly reveal that beneath your “empirical” self you have a PURE/ABSOLUTE SELF—shared by all selves:

(1) Normal experience demands an absolute or unconditioned GROUND in order to be. By “normal experience” I mean that of “the finite/conditioned/empirical subject or I IN RELATION TO the finite/conditioned object or world”; where subject and object are CONDITIONED by each other, hence neither being UNCONDITIONED.

(2) HOWEVER it is evident that this situation is IMPOSSIBLE and cannot be UNLESS at the same time something “unconditioned” (self-existent or absolute) exists, for conditioned beings do not have their existence THROUGH THEMSELVES and cannot maintain it by themselves, they are contingent and DEPENDENT ON AN OTHER.

(3) Now, this unconditioned being that MUST EXIST for experience to be possible, must either be on the side of the OBJECT—as an “absolute Object or Not-I” (e.g. Matter or God)—or on that of the SUBJECT—as an “absolute Subject or I”: THERE IS NO THIRD POSSIBILITY. Since an absolute Object MUST be ruled out there must then be an ABSOLUTE SUBJECT OR I AS THE GROUND OF EXPERIENCE. The former (no absolute object) is so because “one cannot abstract from or eliminate the I,” and this rules out the possibility of there being an “object” that is “absolute” or NOT RELATIVE TO an other (to an I)—not to mention that an “object” as a “Being-for-another” has no true Being and = 0.

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This reveals something even more remarkable, my Padawan. For the conclusion is NOT that there is an “absolute I” that supports and makes possible experience (or “being-in-the-world”) AND THUS IMPLYING THAT THREE THINGS EXIST, viz., an absolute I, a finite I and a finite object. No. Rather the absolute I or PURE SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS is ALL THAT IS and EXHAUSTS ALL OF REALITY. Indeed what has been demonstrated is that the “finite I/finite object situation” is a completely false and untenable one, an ILLUSION or DECEPTION, a condition from which one is to be released via true education (as your PLATO has pointed out).

“You may give me a thousand revelations of an absolute causality outside of myself … [but] my capacity even to assume an ABSOLUTE OBJECT would presuppose that I had first abolished myself as a believing subject!” SCHELLING

Thus education—to put this in a different way—is the process whereby the “conscious” aspect of the universe/ whole overcomes the “unconscious” part and appropriates to itself all the “being” the unconscious part was initially believed to contain. That is, normal or “dogmatist” consciousness views the whole of reality as apportioned between ourselves, the conscious part, and everything else, the unconscious or material part, which is (held to be) far more extensive than its counterpart. However, the incredible truth that Jedi Reason (or so-called “idealism/criticism”) reveals is that ALL THE “BEING” BELIEVED TO PERTAIN TO THIS VAST UNCONSCIOUS DOMAIN OF MATTER/OBJECT, SINCE IT HAS ONLY A “BEING-FOR-ANOTHER,” IS AN ILLUSION OR = 0; and note that I did not say that THIS DOMAIN is an illusion, but that THE BEING OF this domain is an illusion. The result is that only the Conscious side IS; THE UNCONSCIOUS side, stripped of its being (qua Being), having utterly vanished and been reduced to THE CONSCIOUS side. Thus and in truth, “ONLY THE ONE CONSCIOUSNESS IS.”

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Further important corollaries of this are: (i) this unconditioned absolute I/pure Self or God-Self is ETERNAL or always existed, hence CONSCIOUSNESS AS SUCH, as Jedi Fichte and others say, had no beginning—and did not “begin” with your physical birth—and has no ending; and (ii) once you have passed beyond your empirical I and accessed your Pure I you find yourself IN OR AT THE BEGINNING OF ALL THINGS or in the Now, i.e. eternal Now or Present. Thus, you further realize that you ALWAYS existed and ALWAYS will exist, that you can ONLY be and never NOT be, and this is “Absolute Knowing,” the knowledge that your TRUE SELF is the Absolute itself, the Unconditioned. Hence as “eternal” you realize that you are above TIME, or rather that time itself is an ILLUSION since it pertains to and is sustained by the finite I/Not-I experience and situation (cf. Fichte EPW 434, Schelling STI 14). Indeed, after your successful regress to the Absolute I and your true Jedi Self it will become crystal clear to you that CONSCIOUSNESS AS SUCH IS NOT IN TIME.

§93

JEDI KANT. CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON, 1781.

(1) The TRANSCENDENTAL ANALYTIC. The birth and origin of “the Absolute I,” the One Infinite Consciousness or Self that alone exists and is all Reality occurs right here in Kant’s TRANSCENDENTAL DEDUCTION OF THE CATEGORIES, where Kant states that “the ‘I think’ [the COGITO of Descartes] accompanies all of my representations (thoughts and perceptions).” According to Kant the T.U.A.—“transcendental unity of apperception” or simply “Self-consciousness”—is SELF-GROUNDED and is ONE AND THE SAME in all representations. Further, it is “transcendental” and not “empirical.” That is to say, it is A PRIORI or PRIOR to all experience, which means that there is nothing to distinguish YOUR transcendental I (self or consciousness) from MINE. Hence it is ONE AND THE SAME in every self; or there is only ONE transcendental Self or Consciousness—as Kant’s disciple the Jedi Fichte says, “Any given self is itself the one ultimate substance (I 122)”—and hence we all share it; moreover, it is not in time.

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(2) Kant began the Method of scientific or absolute Knowing— which is a Knowing by Thinking via Concepts which contain the unity of Thought and Being, or Subject and Object: “I think the Concept of an Object.” That is, a Concept is the source of all Objectivity or Reality. However Kant hit on only 12 Concepts or Categories or Thought-Being unities, and did not deduce or derive them in a scientific manner.

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(3) The TRANSCENDENTAL AESTHETIC. With Kant’s teaching we also come closer to an “Absolute I” by his removing one of the two things Descartes posited as existing OUTSIDE his Cogito, which rendered it a “finite Cogito or I”—namely, the space-time-material world. That is, space and time for Kant are TRANSCENDENTAL or have their seat or source in us, and do not exist independently of ourselves/our mind or subject. As Kant writes, “If our subject be removed … space and time and all that they contain would vanish.”

§96

All that now remained outside the Cogito, or circle of our consciousness, is God, as a so-called “Thing in itself”—which is a thing or being totally out of relation with our I or thinking and to be contrasted with a “Thing for us,” which is anything that falls WITHIN our experience and IS in relation with our I and Concepts, for example, this book you are reading.

To avoid the charge of atheism by the censors and critics, Kant suggested there may indeed be a “Thing in itself”—but in fact his principles do not allow it. So strictly speaking there is no “Thing in itself” for Kant (it is even inconceivable, as his successors pointed out). Hence One Reality, an Absolute I, is indeed IMPLICITLY there in Kant’s doctrine, though not EXPLICITLY. Also for Kant Understanding (+) and Sensibility (-) were indeed united (as ±) but in an unclear way, and he did not possess an adequate understanding of Polarity (though an element of “triplicity” did appear in his table of categories).

§97

JEDI FICHTE. THE DOCTRINE OF SCIENCE, 1794.

(1) Fichte was the first to see clearly what Kant was implying with his T.U.A., and extracted it from Kant’s CRITIQUE and renamed it the “Absolute I,” making it the foundation of his “scientific” philosophy (WISSENSCHAFTSLEHRE) and his unique word for the Force; for according to Fichte, “THE ABSOLUTE I IS ALL THAT EVER WAS, IS, AND WILL BE.” However Fichte’s Absolute I was only Consciousness—and not Thought or the Concept, for both he and Schelling gave more primacy to (Intellectual) Intuition than to Thought.

“The thought of the THING-IN-ITSELF should have been dispensed with long ago simply by realizing that WE are the subject who thinks whatever it is we may be thinking, and thus that we can never encounter anything independent of us, SINCE EVERYTHING IS NECESSARILY RELATED TO OUR THINKING.” FICHTE

(2) Fichte clearly repudiated the “Thing in itself,” there being no such thing, since it is a non-thought and a self-contradiction. For example, “You cannot think what cannot be thought or what is supposed to be out of relation to your thought.” (3) Fichte was also the first to make an advance on the absolute Method of Jedi Science by giving a deduction of Kant’s categories or “Concepts of an Object/Not-I,” but the deduction was incomplete and omitted many essential concepts.

§98

JEDI SCHELLING. THE SYSTEM OF TRANSCENDENTAL IDEALISM, 1800.

(1) Fichte mishandled Nature (the (-) or Not-I) by not deducing or explaining its main forms. Schelling, a student of Fichte, supplied this lack by adding to Fichte’s DOCTRINE OF SCIENCE (OR MIND-CONSCIOUSNESS) a SCIENCE or PHILOSOPHY OF NATURE (OR MATTER). He was the first to define the One Reality that alone is both as “the Absolute” (the Force) and as the UNITY of the Subjective (+) and the Objective (-)—that is, as the UNITY of Spirit (Consciousness/ Mind) and Nature, or the Subjective SUBJECT/OBJECT (±) and the Objective SUBJECT/OBJECT (±). Spirit and Nature, the two sides of the Force, therefore both express and contain the Truth of Polarity (±), the unity of opposites.

(2) Thus Schelling did indeed have Polarity or the Unity of opposites, but he did not develop it adequately and offered as did Fichte an inadequate and incomplete deduction of the Concepts and Method of Scientific Knowing.

§99

JEDI HEGEL THE JEDI SYSTEM OF SCIENCE, 1807, 1817.

It was your Jedi Hegel (that is, the Truth or Force in him) who finally offered the best and most adequate version of Jedi SCIENCE, which in fact is nothing but the Truth’s Knowledge of itself … or the Force’s, Being’s, the Whole’s Self-Knowledge. As Hegel says at ENCYCLOPEDIA §574, “Philosophy, Jedi Science, is the Truth aware of itself, the self-knowing Truth (Idea or Force).”

(1) First, Hegel supplied an “Introduction” to Science (= Knowledge) which can commence only when the unity of Thinking and Being has been guaranteed, that is, with OBJECTIVE THOUGHT (or the ABSOLUTE CONCEPT). This is a Thought-Thinking or Concept which is able to penetrate and reveal the inner essence of any and every Object. To do this, we must first get out of Plato’s CAVE, the Dark Side of the Force, which implies there is a SEPARATION between ourselves (+) and what exists (-), Being-Truth-Reality, or between our Knowing and Thinking AND its Object. Such a “separation” would make Thinking only subjective and formal and capable of Knowing the Object only as it is FOR US, but not as it is IN ITSELF (= Absolute Knowing (±), the Knowledge of the Force). The “Introduction” to Science provides the proof that sense-objects (-) are in themselves NOTHING and that Consciousness/ Thinking or the “I” is EVERYTHING or ALL REALITY—that the OBJECT of consciousness is NOTHING per se, or is really Consciousness or the Concept itself. Thus the Concept is absolute FREEDOM because it is everything and has ITSELF in and as the essence of every Object.

§100

(2) Then Hegel added a SCIENCE OF LOGIC, which contains the Method of Absolute Knowing and in which he completed the deduction of all the essential Concepts (Universals, Thought-determinations) which make up the One Absolute Concept—which, as Hegel says, “IS EVERYTHING … [and whose] sole urge is to know and find itself IN EVERYTHING.” Then, using the Method of the Concept—the U-P-I or Unity of Thought (+) and Being (-) Principle—Hegel created and developed the SCIENCE OF NATURE and the SCIENCE OF JEDI (MIND-GEIST)— which we will discuss in more detail in the next Section.

§101

With this achievement the history of philosophy is at an end. The FORCE has now achieved complete scientific Knowledge of itself (attained first in Religion). Your HISTORY is now over or complete.

“The History of the World travels from East to West, for Europe is absolutely THE END OF HISTORY.” HEGEL

All that remains is for all of your people to know the Truth, to be EDUCATED into the Knowledge of the Force, as a Jedi and the Jedi Order, which already exists but is not known because of the Dark Side of the Force which currently rules your consciousness and planetary institutions. (For a more detailed account of How your Modern Jedi attained Jedi Science and the Knowledge of the Force see APPENDIX ONE).

THE POSTMODERN PERIOD (NEGATIVE & POSITIVE)

§102

Since your planet’s History has ended—as you now possess the Knowledge of the Force and Jedi Science—the only purpose that “History” (events in theory or praxis) can have after this, is that of EDUCATION … the education of all your people into the TRUTH, the Knowledge of the Force (by Science or Religion, as Discursive or Intuitive), so that all may benefit by it by becoming JEDI and experiencing the amazing JEDI ORDER. This will bring a permanent end to your perennial planetary crises, wars, hate, greed, poverty, disease and death. This “end-game” purpose on your planet is accomplished by a NEGATIVE DESTRUCTIVE Postmodern phase of (post-) History, followed by a POSITIVE CONSTRUCTIVE Postmodern phase.

§103

The FACT is that the majority of your people are in one “form” or another still living in the CAVE and the Dark Side, especially under both the religious form that characterized your Medieval Period and the current “scientism” form whereby people, scientist and layperson alike, are so immersed in Dark Side Materialism and the (-) Senses that they are unable to see the (+) complementary Light Side of the Force.—The following presents a capsule review of your HISTORY and its meaning (see chart on p. 31, in Book):

§104

Thus the first step is to overcome and negate this SEPARATION between yourselves AND “God” or the Force, Heaven AND Earth or the present HERE AND NOW world. THIS is the sole function of the postmodern NEGATIVE-DESTRUCTIVE “God is Dead”/nihilistic phase of your planet’s history. That is, the false far away, not HERE “God” and not HERE “Heaven” must be removed (by a so-called “death” of God), in order for the TRUE God and TRUE Heaven, as Here and Now and within or ONE with yourselves, to exist and be realized. The necessary destruction of the false “God” and transcendence began with the division of HEGEL’S disciples into Right wing THEISTS and Left wing ATHEISTS. It is important to realize that the advent of “atheism” and “atheists” is absolutely necessary for the realization of History’s goal. The major atheists are, DAVID STRAUSS, FEUERBACH, MARX, DARWIN, FREUD—AND FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE, who serves as the Bridge from negative to positive Postmodernity, that is, from the “God is dead” and NIHIListic phase, to the advent of the Superman (the new God = JEDI, the union of God and Man) and the Eternal Return (EWIGE WIEDERKUNFT = the JEDI ORDER, the union of Heaven and Earth). As your eminent theologian THOMAS ALTIZER pointedly observed:

“That reversal can be understood as occurring in the full sacrifice of the Godhead, for if that sacrifice is THE ABSOLUTE NEGATION OF ABSOLUTE TRANSCENDENCE, its inevitable consequence is the realization of the very opposite of that absolute transcendence, AN OPPOSITE WHICH IS ABSOLUTE IMMANENCE ITSELF, and an immanence only possible by way of the negation and reversal of absolute transcendence. The very advent of that immanence is inseparable from realization of the full and actual emptiness of absolute transcendence, an emptiness that is a truly alien emptiness, and one which is realized as THE NIHIL ITSELF …. This is that absolutely new totality which so fully dawns in Postmodernity.”

§105

What happened in brief was that the death of God (to NIHILism) and the absence of God and the “Holy” in your world created a VACUUM which at the right “time” becomes filled with the NEW GOD and NEW HEAVEN in unity with yourselves, as Jedi and the Jedi Order—the unity of opposites, of Eternity and Time, the Sacred and the Secular. This “time” is called “POSITIVE Postmodernity,” which occurred in the 1960s with your political revolution (civil rights and feminism) and metaphysical- or-knowledge revolution with the rediscovery of the “Absolute I” and the “New God within.” This Handbook will help your people shorten the period of pain and take you faster to the Goal of Positive Postmodernity, the JEDI ORDER.

“If it is the depths of the NIHIL which in our world have evoked the most ultimate call, that call is finally a call to JOY itself, or a call to that joy released by the apocalypse of God, an apocalypse of God only possible by way of THE DEATH OF GODHEAD itself.” ALTIZER

§106

Because of its importance in helping you to understand your present situation and place in History in the Becoming of the Jedi Order, I will now discuss this in greater depth.

NEGATIVE POSTMODERNITY: The end of History with the A-Team’s achievement of Jedi Science and the Force’s Knowledge of itself and the GOOD involved with it had to be universalized and experienced by your entire planet. This can only be accomplished by the NEGATION of your Old Paradigm which regarded God and Heaven as Beyond and not here—that is, in order as we said to make them HERE and ONLY Here. This necessarily led to a period of uncertainty, disorientation and meaninglessness and ushered in what has been called “nihilism,” and the “death of God”—which forces the move to the next and final period of your History. It is “final” because once everyone is brought into the Truth and a means has been put in place—namely the Jedi Educational-Cultural System—that enables all succeeding generations to come into the Truth, then there is nothing that remains to be done—except CELEBRATE.

POSITIVE POSTMODERNITY: It is only, as your Jedi Nietzsche has said, when the energies of the given generation are strong enough to collectively “invert” the old values—as is the case with your present generation—that nihilism can be confronted and effectively overcome and the new paradigm and the amazing Jedi Order realized. The historical turning-point that signaled the transition from negative to positive Postmodernity was the tumultuous decade of your 1960s. I will zero in on three things.

§107

(1) As said, since the END of history—the Force’s, Man’s, or Being’s HIGHEST consciousness—has ALREADY been attained in your planet’s Old World—in Re-ligion and then in your A-TEAM’S FICHTE-SCHELLING- AND-HEGEL—and since this is an achievement that is UNSURPASSABLE, it follows that ALL THAT CONSCIOUSNESS IN THE NEW WORLD CAN DO (AND NEED DO) IS REPEAT OR EQUAL THIS ACHIEVEMENT—namely, the RE-DISCOVERY of infinite subjectivity, the Absolute I, or “the God within” (but NOW on a universal or global scale). Of course a pre-condition for this Task is that the existentially felt NEED to do it be present. And this is something that can happen only in the third and last period of a world-historical Spirit’s (such as your America’s) development, viz., that of the “Cognitive” or “Intellectual” phase, when the Spirit quits the OUTER world and turns INWARD (“INSICH-GEHEN”) to contemplate its Deed and acquire Knowledge of Itself.

Thus it is that before the “Need” for Self-Knowledge can arise or BE FELT, the Spirit must develop itself OUTWARDLY, first, by re-fashioning nature in its own image (its initial “Agrarian” phase), and second, by consolidating itself e.g. by overcoming natural DIVISIONS within itself (e.g., your Civil War), and only then entering into History (and its “Military” phase) and taking on, overcoming, and assimilating the previous world-historical Spirit (viz., the Germanic) and its wealth and achievements. This “Intellectual” or knowledge-seeking period began, as mentioned, after the Second World War (the END of its Military phase; a view shared by your WILLIAM BARRETT and others).

§108

(2) It was the “counter-culture” of the (1950s and) 1960s that decisively inaugurated your History’s final process of the “negation of the negation” and History’s entry into AFFIRMATION, that is, the “total affirmation of ALL things,” namely The Jedi Order.

(Regarding the “negation of negation”: the “first negation” was the negation of the Old God and meaning that issued in “negative, nihilistic postmodernity;” the “second negation” is simply the act/activity of NEGATING THIS FIRST NEGATION AND ITS RESULT, viz., negative postmodernity and its MEANING—(AND VALUE-) LESSNESS; which results in the New God-Man unity (Jedi) and Heaven-Earth unity (the Jedi Order) and NEW MEANING— QUA Total Affirmation AND THE FINAL END of all negativism, negation and negativity—that positive postmodernity is to bring in.)

Now the “vanguard” of the counter-culture (the Force’s or Spirit’s SELF-AWARENESS) saw clearly that the Old Paradigm and its God-concepts, values, etc, were exhausted, obsolete, had been negated and were no longer sustaining and, further, that the materialist/ consumerist values that took their place (for an apparent lack of anything better) were vacuous and self-deceptive. Thus with unrestrained enthusiasm and absolute self-confidence your Spirit threw itself into the task of satisfying its Need for something higher, deeper and of true substance, namely, The Truth, the Absolute I, and the God Within.

§109

To answer this Need the Spirit drew readily from the SOURCES that were made available just for this purpose. Namely from
(i) the Arts—and music especially. In the “hippie” vanguard it was the BEATLES above all who were the principal Voice of the new Spirit and for the expression of both its pain and needs (cf., ELEANOR RIGBY) and Self-Revelations—it was the music of absolute freedom and ABSOLUTE I (e.g., “now that you know who you are, what do you want to be? Baby you’re a rich man too,” etc).
(ii) The Spiritual Literature (and marriage) of the East and West; especially the writings of e.g. ALAN WATTS and ALDOUS HUXLEY, and those of the Eastern “gurus” and “masters,” such as SRI AUROBINDO and MEHER BABA that appeared on every coffee table—all of them unmistakably containing and disseminating in their own way the Jedi Teaching and Truth that “WE ARE THE FORCE, THE ABSOLUTE, THE TRUTH ITSELF.”

(iii) Mind altering/ Consciousness expanding drugs, such as hashish, mescaline and LSD, which provided direct evidence and experience of “the God within” or an Absolute I or larger Self that underlay one’s “normal” isolated empirical self or “ego” (please note that we Jedi in no way intend to encourage the irresponsible use of these potentially extremely dangerous drugs and chemicals).

Lastly (iv) Philosophy itself. The new Spirit, with its insatiable thirst for Truth turned once again to the A-Team and especially your Jedi Hegel’s writings (long neglected because the Need for them was not yet present) and in high spirits slowly began applying itself to the difficult yet all-important task of penetrating their meaning and thereby raising itself to the level of the previous Spirit; thus it was only then that the “Hegel Society of America” could and did appear—i.e., after HEGEL’S total eclipse and banishment since the turn of the century by the hegemony of your “analytic” and “linguistic” (non-) philosophy.

§110

The decades after the 60s and the explosive advent of positive postmodernity, the 70s, 80s and 90s, were mainly “reactionary” for your Spirit needed to “recover from its excesses,” its quantum leap and abundance of revelations (the “shock” administered to your Old status quo), and adjust itself accordingly. It is, as your people say, a matter of “two steps forward and one step back.” The early 90s, with the CLINTON era, was the start of the next step forward, etc. The advent of the new millennium—and the year and symbol “2000”— had, and will continue to have, a positive renewing and energizing effect on your Spirit that is making its way into the Jedi Order and helping it in its NECESSARY transformational work, breaking through the sludge of ignorance and the Dark Side and illuminating the Jedi Order.

§111

In sum, the meaning of the present time is that you stand at a Crossroads or Juncture, at the unique point where the Old Order has already been “in and for itself” negated and, since your people cannot go BACK to it—for it cannot satisfy the needs of your Spirit—they are thus compelled to go FORWARDS. You are in the midst of negating this negation, i.e., of establishing the NEW IMMANENT MEANING that will replace the Old lost meaning and collectively bring in and realize the glorious Jedi Order, or what your religions call “Kingdom Come” and so forth. It will happen—and this is the way it always happens—first by a relatively small group and vanguard among your people reaching a “critical mass,” which will then lead to a “chain reaction” that will pave the way for the “instantaneous” global transformation and realization to occur. The MANDATE for your present age is therefore this: That your people do all that they can to hasten the process and arrive at the glorious goal as quickly as possible and thus with the least damage and trauma to your children and your brothers and sisters—your truly beloved, sacred and immortal race.