On the Jedi Code

There is no emotion, there is peace.
There is no ignorance, there is knowledge.
There is no passion, there is serenity.
There is no chaos, there is harmony.
There is no death, there is the Force.

The Force surrounds us and penetrates us. the Force binds the galaxy together. All living beings in space and time, and indeed space and time itself, are subject to the ebb and flow of the Force throughout the stars.There are those who can feel the Force's whispers, and are able to answer back. Such beings sensitive to the Force are born with a duty: to protect and preserve all life, as products of the Living and Unifying Force. From that duty we, the Jedi Order, emerge. We serve all life, and by extension, we serve the Force itself. The Force is the fount and sustainer of all life, and yet cannot be described as "living" itself.

The Force simply is.

Yet the Jedi, the servants of the Force, do not "simply" exist as the Force does. Our purpose is the precursor and the hypothesis of our existence. We live to serve. Service defines us, and in turn guides and influences our growth and existence in the galaxy. All other allegiances and attachments recede into oblivion when counterpointed with the service to the galaxy. In perfect service, we at once lose our identities within the larger whole of the Order and galaxy at large, and we maintain our identity within the great tapestry of the Force.

--There is no emotion, there is peace.
Limited by the restraints of our material bodies and our inherited psychological barriers, we are prone to allow emotions overtake our logic and even our instincts. We feel emotion because we, even the greates Jedi most learned in the force, feel fear. Happiness and joy are sweetly felt and urge the Jedi to seek these feelings again and in greater intensity. Sadness, desire, and anger are all prompted by fear of loss or the unknown future. All emotions do is to distract the Jedi from his tasks of compassion, preservation, and protection. Conditional love and emotional attachment are among the most dangerous, for the Jedi who practices such is gradually blinded to the needs of the galaxy by his own attachment to another individual-- he sacrifces his mission, his purpose, for the sake of singular gratification. No matter how deeply he professes to "love" this one being, he is in effect betraying his command to love all life.

The chief end of a Jedi's journey into the Force is the gradual shedding of the physcial and mental chains that limit his ability to serve life. By letting go of distracting emotions that cloud judgment and influence decision, the Jedi sees the galaxy as the galaxy is-- without any clouding of the lenses. Emotions are illusions-- they confer no strength of their own, as the Sith claim, nor do they somehow augment the light side-- the Light needs no augmentation, and the full measure of its power is manifested in the loss of self to service. To become fully one with the Force. When submerged in the will of the Force, letting go of the bindings that keep his flight detained, the Jedi understands true peace and tranquility, for such is the Force's nature.

--There is no ignorance, there is knowledge.
The Force is infinite. No being, no civiliation after eons of study, will ever understand the totality of the will of the Force. The will of the Force is mysterious and inscrutable, and any conclusions about its nature will prove more and more incorrect with every passing day. Jedi are occasionally granted visions of what time-bound beings consider "the future," but such premonitions are rare, and limited in scope. The Jedi is fully aware of his individual ignorance of the totality of the Force, and that humble realization blots the shadow of hubris from their minds as they continue in their work. The Sith err fundamentally in proclaiming their mastery of the dark side of the Force, but their proclamations are as a raindrop crowning himself Lord of the thunderstorms.To proclaim mastery is to limit one's sojourn in the Force, and thus deprive onself even more keenly of the "mastery" he so professes to achieve.

Yet the Force is not so mysterious as to discourage study-- far from it, the Force grants the Jedi enough wisdom for the Order to search ever deeper, truly understanding the depths of mercy and stewardship that the Force has called us to uphold. Through study, through knowledge, we perpetuate our existence, and when our existence is perpetuated, then the tenets of the light side are strengthened and perserved. In our humility, we gain knowledge enough to clearly discern the nature of existence itself, and through that clarity, our mission is ever more underscored.

--There is no passion, there is serenity.
The Sith rage about, seeking to mark the galaxy with their fooprint, not caring whether that print is the ruin of countless civilizations or the suffering of innumerable beings. The Sith, blinded by their delusions of autonomous will and freedom, would bring about the destruction of the galaxy, if only they could somehow survive. And the central, immovable reason for the depravity of the Sith lies in one single emotion: fear. From their fear, the Sith molds and twists the resulting passion into a delusion capable of touching the Force, violating its purpose. They rage about, seeking to spread their fear and hate to others, and in so doing, convince the galaxy of their power.Passion, and especially the passion born from the Sith, is an illusion.

The Sith fear, and not only do they fear, but they fear that which should not be feared in the first place. They fear the dangers of the galaxy, the dangers contingent with existence, and in that sense, fear life itself. The Jedi understands the dangers of the galaxy in a way that a Sith could never comprehend, and thus understands the truth undergirding existence-- life and death are simply states of being, and pain is illusory, brought on by the limits of our physical form. There is nothing to fear, and nothing that truly threatens our existence. The Jedi understand this, and in internalizing the inherent serenity of the galaxy, derive unbounded power from it.

--There is no chaos, there is harmony.
The Sith thesis is one in which all beings are in conflict: a galaxy at war. All beings strive with one another for dominance, and only the truly strong survive to crush and dominate all resistance. Wars are fought and beings suffer and die: that is simply the way of things. In seeking rulership over the galaxy, the Sith tell themselves that they are simply participating in the galaxy's natural functions, and that we, the Jedi, are simply ignoring the real state of things.

There is no chaos. The Force, as mentioned earlier, binds all life together in a great network of life, death, and renewal that the Sith vision is pitably myopic in comparison. Life is made, taken, and given to another. Predators kill and eat prey, but in their way sustain the environment in which more prey will be created in place of the one slain. One animal kills to ensure the survival and birth of many more to come. The Living Force is inexorable-- death cannot stop its processes, and the methods it pursues to fulfill its will are orderly, predictable, and harmonious. The Jedi perserve and nurture this harmony, protecting it from any attempt to hinder or harm the order binding all things.

There is no death, there is the Force.
The Sith, above all, are consumed with the fear of death and their loss of identity. The greatest, most nefarious Dark Lord lies awakeat night, dreading his own mortality. They can see no way of preserving their selves after their mortal forms have withered away. This hopelessness, this desperation, fuels their anger, and twists their anger into hate for all other living beings. From their fear, they shape delusions that they alone should be free from the cycle of life-- the natural order of things. They detach their identities from the framework of existence itself and set it high above all others. In their darkness and the terror of death, the old Sith Lords built grim monuments and tombs on Korriban, and even now plumb the unspeakable depths of the dark side, all for the chance of avoiding death. Yet there is a sad, sad irony in all this. To preserve his, the Sith would twist and corrupt everything it touches, even himself. In order to gain strength to challenge death, he would pour corruption into his very being until one can easily see the rot eating away at him from within. To flee death, a Sith slowly becomes the instrument of his own destruction. The Sith Order cannot exist in perpetuity. Hate, ambition, and greed are fundamentally negative and destructive, and to construct an institution built on destruction is to ensure its inevitably collapse.

The fear of death comes from an excessive attachment to the self. To love one's self to such and extent as to willfully abrogate the bounds of nature with the Force is the essence of the dark side. To that end, Jedi actively seek the complete and utter abandonment of self in service to the Order, and to the Force. Our identity is nothing in the face of the galaxy at large, and to sacrifice ourselves completely to the Order is a mandate demanded by the Force itself. Our identity becomes the Jedi Order. While we retain our individual forms, we cease to think of ourselves as individuals. Instead, we are the Jedi. We are the guardians of the light. Through this complete abandonment of self, we avoid the self-immolation ensured by the Sith teachings, and after our mortal bodies fade away, we retain our identities within the larger Force. Brought about by our serene acceptance of the Force's will, our selves are preserved through the transition of life to death, thereby achieveing the immortality that thr Sith so desperately crave-- and can never achieve.

To be Jedi is to serve. One cannot do any more, and no obligation is greater.

From the records of Master Doran Koon, a Jedi during the Cold War between the Sith Empire and the Galactic Republic, ca. 3,653 BBY.