"Only A Sith Deals In Absolutes"

“If you aren’t with me, then you’re my enemy!” screams Annakin Skywalker, filled with pain twisted into rage by the Sith lord Palpatine. To which Obi-Wan the Jedi master replies: “Only a Sith deals in absolutes.”

The teaching he was trying to transmit was that in the Intelligence of the Jedi, there is always nuance. No living being, nor any of the creations of the Force, can simply be reduced to a label. This is why the “Sith” Kylo Ren’s parents (Princess Leia and Hans Solo) insist on calling him his birth name: Ben. They carry with them the gnosis he is still their little boy, not only a Sith. Their Jedi intelligence realizes there is still the Love of the Force within him, even if he is harnessing the Power of the dark side of the Force. And in the final moments, his parents were right. Kylo Ren became Ben, and sacrificed his own life for the sake of Love. Just like Annakin, after a hell of a career being Darth Vader, destroyer of worlds, ultimately returns to Annakin for the sake of Love.

But there is something interesting about what Obi-Wan said… It is an absolute! If we give the writers the grace of assuming that they were aware of this, then what does it mean? My hypothesis is that it means that Obi Wan is speaking from the part of him that is a Sith. He is fighting his friend, his beloved student, and perhaps in that moment of pain and betrayal, the Sith that is inside every Jedi was activated. Because if we look at the Star Wars mythos as a sacred text, it is clear that contained within the Jedi is a Sith (Annakin to Darth Vader) and within every Sith is a Jedi (Kylo Ren to Ben). This is a deep spiritual teaching, summed up by the Sanskrit phrase “Tat tvam asi”, which translates as “I am that too”. Another way to say this comes from the Sufi poet Rumi, “You are not a drop in the ocean, you are the ocean in a drop.” What this means is that there is nothing that exists ‘out there’ which you can’t find within yourself. It is up to us which unique combination of the archetypal energies of the Force within that we want to activate. I write a lot about this in my upcoming book, You vs. Anti-You, which is all about the battle that takes place within.

Let’s move out of the Star Wars universe and ground this philosophy in our own terrestrial world, so we can witness the effects of dealing in absolutes, and the degradation that comes from labeling. Let’s think about the lovable sea otter. This creature shows incredible humanesque bonding practices like holding hands, and the sentimental quality of keeping a favorite pebble in an underarm pocket. What cute aquatic angels!

Except sea otters are also known to rape baby seals, holding them underwater until they die, then continuing to have sex with them post-mortem.

So Sith Intelligence could say that an otter is a murderous serial rapist necrophiliac. Which is true, but partial. Because sea otters are also seemingly lovable creatures. Which is also true, but partial.

So which is it? Both and more. They are aquatic angels, and murderous serial rapist necrophiliacs, and just simply a creation of the Force that exists beyond labels entirely. This is what Jedi Intelligence (JI) understands. Where the Sith Intelligence (SI) would see only contradiction, and absolutes, JI would see a world filled with paradox and nuance. The problem with SI is that when you just take a partial truth, and make it the absolute truth, then it would be easy to see how people in the throes of moral authority could be instigated into starting the Great Otter War. Where one side is screaming “Kill them all!”. And the other side saying, “Protect them at all cost!” Sound familiar?

Any time you reduce someone (or something) to a label, you negate some aspect of who and what they are. Soren Kierkegaard pointed to this in his famous quote “Once you label me, you negate me.”

The labeling of people, a practice in absolutism, precedes most of the great atrocities of our sordid human history. If you were a ‘witch’ or a ‘heretic’ you got drowned or burned alive. Or worse. I saw the tools used in the dungeons of the Inquisition.

Propagandized labeling also precedes virtually every war, and act of colonization. I won’t even write all the names that have been used to describe our African kin, our indigenous kin, the Vietnamese fighters, or our Arabian kin. This labeling process is what allows the moral permission to kill, torture, murder, another type of people. It is what Charles Eisenstein calls ‘othering’, which reaches its full fruition in the form of dehumanization.

This is why I spoke out so vehemently against both sides I witnessed doing this during the pandemic. Not only sharply criticizing the labels cast upon those who loosely followed my own way of thinking (domestic terrorist, conspiracy theorist, etc) but also against the reciprocal inverse which was to call those following the mainstream narrative ‘sheep’. Because guess what sheep and terrorists have in common? They are fair game to be slaughtered.

While it may have seemed pretty banal, what is particularly interesting and dangerous about using the word ‘sheep’ to describe a person, is that it quite literally meets the criteria for dehumanization. David Livingstone Smith, a philosopher and scholar with a particular focus on dehumanization wrote “It’s important to define and describe dehumanization, because it’s what opens the door for cruelty and genocide.”

And yet it’s not that hard to understand dehumanization. At the simplest level it is turning something human, into something less than human. And the consequences are dire.

Brené Brown wrote, “Dehumanizing always starts with language, often followed by images. We see this throughout history. During the Holocaust, Nazis described Jews as Untermenschen—subhuman. They called Jews rats and depicted them as disease-carrying rodents in everything from military pamphlets to children’s books. Hutus involved in the Rwanda genocide called Tutsis cockroaches. Serbs called Bosnians aliens. Slave owners throughout history considered slaves subhuman animals.”

I will consider the point sufficiently made about the dangers of labeling a race, class, or creed of people based on some criteria. But what about if it is just one person? Well, one of the problems that all inmates who are released from prison have to deal with as they return to look for jobs, is that if you go to jail for thievery, Sith Intelligence (SI) will always consider you a thief. If you lie, you are a liar. If you kill, you are a killer. These partial truths, freezing a person in the frame of their worst moment. So even though all acts should be acknowledged, and there is good reason for our justice system (as broken as it is), no one is ever just a label. They have a holy name their mother gave to them, just like Ben. It is our task as stewards of the more beautiful world to come, to fully re-humanize all people–always leaving open the possibility for evolution and redemption.

This is the one of the greatest gifts that Yeshua offered the collective consciousness. He was the antithesis of labeling to negate. He saw the humanity and love in all children of God. Despite receiving stark criticism from the establishment for welcoming the ‘deplorables’ or ‘untouchables’ into his flock, he continued to do so. He repeatedly cautioned against forms of absolute judgment and always held open the possibility for repentance and redemption. In other words: transformation.

And yet, I am not making the claim of a moral relativist. A moral relativist is one that says morality itself is a contrivance, a fictional story, so who is to say what is right or wrong? To which I reply: A mugging is not the same as masturbation. Smoking cannabis is not the same as smoking someone with a 357 magnum for kissing your ex-girlfriend. One justifiably should have judicial consequences, and the other should not. So where does that put my morality? Somewhere between Yahweh and Yeshua.

Yahweh looked out at the people of Sodom and thought ‘buttfuckers, all of you. Die a fiery death.’ That’s an SI extremist way of thinking. Yeshua, while also not so fond of hedonic sexuality, would have likely traveled through Sodom offering teachings and blessings. So what is somewhere between Yahweh and Yeshua? That’s the question for all of us to answer instance by instance, respecting the unique nuance of each situation. But in the end it boils down to this:

Only the one without sin, should cast the first stone. And if I come home and I find you violently attacking my family I’m gonna use whatever projectile necessary to protect those I love.

How do I resolve that apparent contradiction? Because it’s not actually a contradiction, it’s a paradox. Yeshua is speaking from the higher dimensional consciousness of the Kingdom of Heaven. This is a consciousness beyond even that of Jedi Intelligence (JI). Because remember, Jedis still use light sabers. At the end of the day, Yeshua is ultimately showing a different way than participating in absolutist judgment. I agree with him. And I’m asserting my right as a protector, to protect those that I love right here in our dimension using the principle of minimum effective force.

Speaking to my own experience, after the podcast covering my unconventional relationship structure, I experienced both fair criticism and unnecessary praise. That’s to be expected. Hall of Fame skier Bode Miller once told me that after every race you can expect people to both criticize things about you that aren’t your fault, and ‘pump your tires’ beyond the credit you deserve. The only thing surprising to me was the level of wrath. There were hundreds of people commenting and liking comments from people praying that I would forever be barren, and unable to have children. Why? They had reached their absolute judgment, and in their anti-Christic passion they now felt empowered to pray for the denial of what will surely be the greatest joy of my life, my children. If you are one of those who participated in that, I absolutely forgive you. You aren’t invited for dinner, but that’s discretion, not judgment. That distinction is important, and one of the key topics in my next book You vs. Anti-You.

Also, it is important to know that prayers for some calamity to befall another is not a prayer, it is a curse. And if you get into the game of casting the stones of curses unto others, you are propagating Sith Intelligence. This is not going to lead to a More Beautiful World for our children. Because remember the words of Yeshua: For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again - Matthew 7.2. Judgment is always a karmic recursive loop, with only one way out. Stop judging others.

I’m so grateful to live in the time, and civilization I am living in. I can be a Jew who loves Jesus. I can love more than one partner, and no-one in jackboots is going to come busting down my door. If I was born 500 years ago, it surely would have been flames licking at my feet, not comments and flaccid curses on a Youtube page. We have at least made that much progress in most of the world, even if no one will release that damn Epsein list. Which in my mind is a far bigger problem than people even realize. But that’s a topic for another essay.

There can be no doubt that we all have a lot of work to do to clean up the consciousness of humanity. It starts by deeply looking in the mirror, and forgiving and then transforming what we see. It’s all in there. Sith, Jedi, sea otter, ascended master. What we ultimately express, is up to us.

While some experts disagree with this, I believe that Sith Intelligence is far more dangerous than Artificial Intelligence. The existential risk of AI for our humanity is most dangerous when weaponized by SI. If harnessed by JI, it could be a powerful force for abundance and virtue.

As long as Sith Intelligence remains on our plane, we will always be vulnerable to wanton violence and destruction. The return of the Jedi is a necessary bridge to get us to Yeshua’s Kingdom of Heaven. Hoka!