IMPORTANT POINTS OF PRACTICE

When practicing The Jedi Way, the following points may serve as general guidelines to derive maximum benefit from your practice and keep body, breath, and mind in the state of balance and functional harmony required to attune yourself with the Force.

General Points

1. Always practice in the three-stage format of warm-up, main practice and cool-down. The warm-up stage balances body, breath, and mind in preparation for the main practice of mobilizing and circulating the Force, and the cool-down stage relaxes your body. If you practice without adequate preliminary preparation, your system will not be properly balanced to work with the Force, and if you fail to take measures to relax your body, you lose much of the benefits of the exercise.
2. Make your practice an integral part of your daily routine, and practice regularly. If you only practice sporadically, your system will lose its synchronicity with the Force. Only with regular practice will you obtain the cumulative benefits, which The Jedi Way confers. Even if you only practice for 15 to 20 minutes, as long as you do it daily you will still realize the benefits, albeit at a slower rate then those who devote more time to practice.
3. The Jedi Way is not a 'magic bullet' that will immediately correct all problems, especially in an unbalanced lifestyle. It works best when practiced as an integral part of the overall healthcare system. This includes diet, a positive attitude towards life, emotional equilibrium, and other factors that support health and nurture life.
4. Don't bring the problems of your daily life into your practice, but do bring the results of your practice into your daily life. This will gradually solve all your problems and integrate all aspects of your life with your practice.

Points of Attention for the Body

1. The spine is the most important part of the body for Jedi practice. Known by some as the 'stairway to heaven', it serves as a conduit for the Force to flow from the lower body to the upper body and brain. It's the central pillar of balance for the entire torso and head and the conductor of nerve signals from brain to body. For best results in practice, the spine should always be kept erect and in straight alignment with the neck and head, with the buttocks tucked in a bit to reduce the curvature in the lower spin. Try to keep the spine flexible and responsive to synchronized movement with the rest of the body by relaxing the muscles along the spine and keeping the vertebrae evenly aligned. Limbering and loosening the spine is one of the main purposes of the warm-up stage of practice.
2. The tensest part of the human body is usually the shoulders and neck area. Tension here blocks the free flow of the Force up from the spine into the head. Try to keep the shoulders loose and the neck muscles relaxed throughout a session of Jedi practice, even if that requires you to take a short break and perform one of the shoulder-loosening warm-up exercises.

Points of Attention for the Mind

1. Turn mental attention and sensory perception inwards. Rather then listening to external sounds, listen to your breath and heart. Don't let external sights and sounds distract your attention during a practice session.
2. Silence the mind by turning off your 'internal dialogue'. This does not mean the cessation of thoughts and feelings, which continue to appear and dissolve on their own accord. Just stop talking to yourself about particular thoughts, and instead let the stream of consciousness flow naturally in the background of your mind.
3. Set all problems and worries of daily life aside prior to a practice session. Emotional equilibrium is a basic prerequisite for success in practice.
4. Cultivate the 'Right Mind' for practice. This means having respect and confidence in your practice, but no preconceived notions about it, and no grand expectations regarding results.
5. Stay calm throughout your practice sessions, and try to bring that calmness into your daily life afterward. Cultivate calmness as a spiritual virtue, and your control over the Force will increase as a result.

Keep the mind focused on the body and the Force as points of reference throughout a practice session. Inevitably your mind will wander off in thoughts or external distraction, and whenever that happens, body and the Force lose their synchronicity. The moment you catch your mind paying attention to something else, simply apply intent to shift attention immediately back to body and the Force. The harmony of the body, Mind and the Force is the key to success in the Jedi practices.

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This is an adapted technique that is akin to Self Hypnosis...

The method is fairly simple and effective...

The only thing you need to do this is a length of string or yarn... Into which you tie 20 knots with around an equal amount of distance between each one... Close enough you can move the string by slipping your thumb down to the next Knot and slidding it forward....

With this simplistic counting device... when you lay down to goto sleep stretch out and get relaxed... then holding the string at the first knot... Begin repeating a simple helpful phrase. ((( Never use any sort of negative phrase or overly impoosiable phrase .... Such as I will sprout wings and fly... Or such things as.... Even though I am unsure of it... I will get better....)))

For the purpose of this excersise the Phrase you will want you to use is this

"" Everyday in everyway, I am becoming a better Jedi.""

The idea here is to say it softly while in the relaxed moments after your body has loosened it's muscles and with your eyes half closed..... Don't really focus on it... Just repeat it in a soft but audibale whisper... One time for each knot... Don't keep count in your head either... Let the string keep count for you..

"Control, control, you must learn control..."

Control is the key in any Jedi's life. Control of themselves must first be achieved if they are ever to control the force or someone else. This technique is in three parts, each must be completed before the next is begun. The first is concerned with clearing your mind, in effect controlling your thoughts. The second deals with the amount of time it takes to get your mind clear, while the third covers controlling your body. Each of these tasks will be ones that are practiced everyday of your life.

Part 1: Clearing your mind

This is a rather simple technique, yet difficult to describe or do. What you need to achieve through it is to stop any thoughts going through your mind at any one time. Your mind must be blank. To do this I can simply 'turn off' my mind, but it took a long to to achieve. I began this technique by visualising a blank screen in my head. That's all. Concentrate on the blackness and don't let anything else in. Think of nothing. In time other thoughts will try find their way in, but don't let them. You'll have to fight them back, but when you do, don't think about fighting back, that would mean your thinking of something. You have to just clear them from your mind. Once you can clear your mind for at least seven minutes, you should be ready to continue, but remember, you will need to practice this technique for the rest of your life.

Clearing your mind can help you in many areas. It will help in meditation and times when you need a clear head to think, like times of panic. It is also a good defense against people reading or probing your mind. If you're not thinking of something, then it make it a lot harder for them to enter your mind.

Part 2: Speed

It is important to be able to achive a clear state of mind, but when action is called for it is most important to quickly clear your mind. For example you may need to clear your mind as a defense. I think you would agree that you would want you mind clear ASAP, but if it takes you ten minutes to clear your mind, then it doesn't do you much good. At any one time you have thousands of thoughts going through your mind, in the next instant, you need to have your mind clear. That is how you know you have completed this task. To achive this, you must simply practice the first task, but instead of having your mind clear for a long time, work on the amount of time it takes to actually clear your mind. Practice, practice, practice is the key.

Part 3: Body Control

Another technique that is hard to teach. Like the previous one, it deals with a lot of will power. Your will power can be strengthened by the force by simply connecting with it and focusing on the task you want to achive. This technique is concerned with controlling any body movements or functions.

Remember, your mind controls your body, and from the previous tasks, you now control your mind, and therefor, your body. You simply have to control your mind and tell it NOT to do what it is going to do. The possibilities for this are endless. It can be used to stop pain, control balance, control muscle or reflexes. Any thing your body can do, can be controlled by this technique.

This is also a technique that will take a long time to master. I suggest keeping it in mind as you go about your daily business.

Heating and Cooling

Force Heat is a technique that is aimed at forming a heating sphere around the user, which would serve to protect him/her from harsh temperatures found in many environments. First, how does this sphere work?

Much as any heating device would. It uses the energy of the Force to fuel itself, thus creating heat in the fluid around the user's body. It works best with gaseous fluids as these are easiest to transmit heat to, and draw the least energy to do so. It works, albeit with lesser efficiency in liquids, and is almost totally useless on hard materials, due to the enormous amount of energy that is to be harnessed from the Force.

How to use this technique?

First make sure your mind and body are rested as to avoid any physical and mental distracton. When these conditions are met, proceed as follows:

1. Form an energy barrier around your body, approximately 10-20cm from your skin. It is good to visualize this barrier the color you associate with heat and fire. Make this barrier feel unbreakable and solid. This will help contain the Force energy you will be harnessing.
2. Once the barrier is complete and without any holes and/or weak spots in it, open yourself to the Force. Let it first fill you and flow through you. Once you are comfortable with the sensation, exude the flow of the Force through your body (arms, hands, entire body, whatever suits you) at the same time drawing more of it in, like a black hole that converts the Force into heat. There will be no damage to the Force, as it permeates many forms, including the thermal energy.
3. At this stage you must divide your mind. This is the most difficult part as it requires you to both draw from the Force AND exude the thermal energy into the field contained within your barrier. The barrier once set will remain there for an amount of time, or until deliberately broken, so you need not attend to it. Depending on the conditions of the environment you are in, it will take various amounts of time and energy to heat the air (or a fluid) to a comfortable level. Also remember that the barrier helps but is not 100% proof. Energy will be lost rapidly and will constantly need to be replaced. It all depends on your ability to draw from the Force.
4. When there is no more need for this technique, simply stop drawing/exuding energy. The temperature will drop sequentially, and if you disperse the barrier, it will simply vanish - returning to normal levels. This technique works well on stable conditions, while turbulent movements of the fluid you are in will make maintaining the whole effect that much harder. Yet it can be of great help when heat is needed and can protect well if there is shelter but no alternate source of heat. Remember, however that it requires great control over the Force and the best that can be expected is a rise of a few degrees Celsius, enough to prevent freezing, but not enough to offer substantiate comfort during low temperatures. Also important is the repeated practice. With repeated performing of this technique, the amount of time required will drop drastically, from a few minutes to a few seconds. The above technique can also be easily adapted to cool in hot weather.

Sphere of Responsibility

The Sphere of Responsiblity is one of the Jedi's most crucial abilities and one of his most crucial concepts to be understood. The Sphere shows a Jedi what all he is entrusted with by the Force. Some Jedi have asked exactly how far their responsibility goes to give aid. You see, as a Jedi, your Sphere serves this purpose. Anything inside the Sphere of Responsibility you can sense is something the Force is entrusting you to deal with. For example, say that you sphere stretches out in a 10 yard radius, and you are sitting in a classroom listening to your proffessor and you feel a fight going on in the room directly to your back. Now you can't very well get up and go break up the fight, and it probably wouldn't do too much good if you did. What you could do however is begin to smooth out the roiled emotions that cause all those disturbances in the Force. This will allow the people involved to think more clearly and more rationally. If you are capable of other abilities that should be used, you should use them. This gives you an idea of what you need to respond to. Now to the actual technique

The basic Jedi's Sphere of Responsiblity goes something like this. You must concentrate inside of yourself and find your center. Gather your internal Force energy in that center. Feel it compress into something about the size of a softball. Now expand the edges of the ball to encompass your body, but nothing outside. Imagine the inside being water. Once you can feel things within your body as such, then you can move on. Reach out to the Force outside your body. Infuse it with the Force that is inside of you and once more push the edges. This time let them extend in a spherical shape outside of your body. The trick with this is to find the point at which you can still sense everything inside, but if you expand it any further, then you will not be able to sense anything inside it anymore. Once you have found this edge, if you think you aren't channeling as much Force as you potentially could into the sphere then channel more into it and expand it. You might be able to get a few more inches this way. Now it isn't enough for me to simply explain how to do it, I will also explain how this works. As you already know, the Force you feel outside of yourself is the links between the internal Force that exists in all living things. The links in between all these living things are so numerous that they all become compressed into a veritable pool of energy all around you. When you expand your sphere from inside of yourself outside, your sphere will detect everything living inside itself, because the sphere is made of Force and therefore is connected to the living things. The sphere will also detect the non-living things because of the gap they leave in the Force. You may ask, "Well, if I am connected to all of these things, why can I not sense them innately?" The answer is such, some people can. Some people's inate connection is strong enough that they might have sensations of sensing something long before they undergo Jedi training. This is due to their connections through the Force. As a Jedi though, when you expand your sphere, the amount of your own internal energy that you have also in the sphere gives it a stronger connection with you allowing you to sense it better. Think of it this way. Let us say that your sphere is a giant glass orb, in which you sit in the center. You fill it up with your energy, which we will say is salt. When you pour the outside Force into it as well (which will be represented by water), you get salt-water. Well the higher the concentration of your energy is present the better the sensing is inside of it. So if you expand it to double the distance it was when you were just using your internal energy, then you have half as much of your own energy in it, so therefore you can only sense half as well. Your energy becomes diluted in the outside energy, making your personal connection to everything inside the sphere diluted. As your Jedi skills increase the shear amount of energy you have inside of you will increase allowing your sphere to enlarge, encompassing more and also symbolizing your Jedi responsiblities expanding with your abilites. This also ensures that any responsiblities that are laid onto you, you can handle. So if you are ever feeling like you are buckling under the load, just take heart in the fact that the Force considers you worthy of the load and considers you capable of bearing it all. And so it will aid you in all you do......