Patience
The serene mind hears more than the cluttered one.
There is an ever-so-delicate trait of a true Jedi that escapes so many – the will, strength, and mental focus to wait until the best time to act and the most opportune time to move. Without this trait, a Jedi cannot gain the focus he or she needs to remain on the path of the light.
Patience.
As you may remember from earlier, the Jedi Alliance was once (and for a long time) a strong order. Back when the Jedi Alliance first started, we were on a new planet in the Sirius System. We had built a wonderful temple and training dojo and had places for people to stay as well.
There was one individual who came to us at the beginning of the alliance, and may have even been a part of the Jedi Honor (one of two groups that joined to form the alliance). He earned the respect of the Masters, the Knights, and all the others. He ran training sessions for all, and was quite adept at saber combat. He was one of our finer knights, and was one of my good friends.
One of the things that irked some of us was that he often asked about his status as a Knight and if he was ever considered for the Council. Back then, earning the title of Master was not easy, and usually meant great responsibility on the council. Not that it is easy now, but then again there were not as many orders and leadership positions as there are now.
This man was all but a Master a couple times, except that each time we were about to honor him, he inquired yet again about his promotion just before the ceremony. The Council just could not see fit to grant him this right. Sir Lance seemingly popped under pressure and went berserk. He attacked our Jedi, attacked and verbally abused the Masters, and completely set out to hurt the image of the Jedi Alliance. It was as if a trigger was set off by not getting promoted. So while he was patient most of the time, he did not stick to this Jedi quality and it cost him and others their lives.
Sirius was a great place, but we outgrew it. So we moved on to New Holstice. A large temple consumed most of our lands, with other structures about for various purposes. This was about the time we began talks with the Jedi Masters order. New Holstice was the breeding ground for many Jedi who have remained True Jedi today.
There were several other people, unnamed in this tome, that have had a lack of patience, although some of them turned their lives around to more serene and calm ways. We were strong in the Jedi Alliance – a council of 7 or 8, even 1 or 2 non-council Masters that server as advisors, we had begun talks with Jedi Masters as I mentioned, and we were strong in unity.
However, people do not always see things clearly. Some of the Knights became antsy and formed a Knight’s Council so they could meet and discuss issues with the padawans and training. They even selected a representative that would soon sit in on our Council meetings.
But that was not enough. The Knights began to want more control and more powers. They wanted to be able to admit Jedi hopefuls on their own. They wanted to be able to bend the rules to teach more than one padawan at a time (which was a big faux pas back then), or to manage their own class structures. We wanted to see initiative out of our Knights and we were happy for it. But there were just too many requests for control.
One of the complaints was that we did not listen. And actually many said that I was running things myself without even listening to my fellow Masters. But to show that we could work with everyone and their requests, we met with the Knights and worked through a lot of these issues. We listened and made a stern decision on a pressing matter (that of 100% RP zoning, where one should roleplay all the time and not hold non-Star Wars related discussions or events at any time). That was a month or two before the Jedi Alliance fell, and thus things seemed copasetic for that time period. However, I and others knew that there was still a desire for more power.
Many of those Knights tried to form their own orders when we fell, and one succeeded for a time. But if you think about it, at the time of this writing, the only two orders to survive from those days were one that already existed and one that grew out of the ashes of the alliance.
If I had to choose regret from those days it would be that I spent so much time organizing that I did not always see what was going on around me. As the voice and coordinator of the Council, I was always kept busy keeping things running.
I loved running the alliance. I was the balance beam for us… not in that I ran everything or dictated everything. But in the fact that I ran meetings and scheduled things. I was the public voice of the Council. And I thoroughly enjoyed all of it.
However, after the fall and all the bad words and bad conversations and malevolent tidings from many, I had to get away. I went into hiding for quite some time.
Throughout my sabbatical, I kept feeling the tug of the Force, as I had my entire life. Eventually, I came back and joined one of the orders as more of an historical figurehead. I briefly tried to work with Master Christoph to bring the three major orders – KOTOR, NOJ, and Unity – together as they once had been. However, they all had their own ideologies on how things should go and be run.
I try to be optimistic, but I was not so at that time. Uniting the Jedi could very well be an impossibility ever again in the SL Galaxy. This plagued my meditations for quite some time.
Ossus came around eventually and there were the NOJ and Jedi Guardians of Peace orders standing. I still could not find my place. I excelled at organizing things and yet there was nothing to organize. No one wanted to work together and no one wanted an old Jedi, with Old Republic traditions and ideals, ranting in their fresh new orders.
One day I had an epiphany, though. I wandered for quite a time until that day. And while I shared that epiphany with a few masters, including my friend Master Leonardis, I was the first to act on it (or to have the opportunity to act on it). I went to the farthest reaches of the Galaxy, finding the planet of Anoth, with its strong ties to the Force, and I built a structure. This structure would hold vast amounts of knowledge, and would be the new home of the Great Library.
And thus after many years, I found my purpose in the Force. I would hold and spread and gather and organize the knowledge of our Galaxy, at Anoth and later Ossus (the original home of the Great Library). Without patience and guidance and focus in the Force, my destiny would not have been revealed, and people would not have a place to come to study.
There is an ever-so-delicate trait of a true Jedi that escapes so many – the will, strength, and mental focus to wait until the best time to act and the most opportune time to move. Without this trait, a Jedi cannot gain the focus he or she needs to remain on the path of the light.
Patience.
As you may remember from earlier, the Jedi Alliance was once (and for a long time) a strong order. Back when the Jedi Alliance first started, we were on a new planet in the Sirius System. We had built a wonderful temple and training dojo and had places for people to stay as well.
There was one individual who came to us at the beginning of the alliance, and may have even been a part of the Jedi Honor (one of two groups that joined to form the alliance). He earned the respect of the Masters, the Knights, and all the others. He ran training sessions for all, and was quite adept at saber combat. He was one of our finer knights, and was one of my good friends.
One of the things that irked some of us was that he often asked about his status as a Knight and if he was ever considered for the Council. Back then, earning the title of Master was not easy, and usually meant great responsibility on the council. Not that it is easy now, but then again there were not as many orders and leadership positions as there are now.
This man was all but a Master a couple times, except that each time we were about to honor him, he inquired yet again about his promotion just before the ceremony. The Council just could not see fit to grant him this right. Sir Lance seemingly popped under pressure and went berserk. He attacked our Jedi, attacked and verbally abused the Masters, and completely set out to hurt the image of the Jedi Alliance. It was as if a trigger was set off by not getting promoted. So while he was patient most of the time, he did not stick to this Jedi quality and it cost him and others their lives.
Sirius was a great place, but we outgrew it. So we moved on to New Holstice. A large temple consumed most of our lands, with other structures about for various purposes. This was about the time we began talks with the Jedi Masters order. New Holstice was the breeding ground for many Jedi who have remained True Jedi today.
There were several other people, unnamed in this tome, that have had a lack of patience, although some of them turned their lives around to more serene and calm ways. We were strong in the Jedi Alliance – a council of 7 or 8, even 1 or 2 non-council Masters that server as advisors, we had begun talks with Jedi Masters as I mentioned, and we were strong in unity.
However, people do not always see things clearly. Some of the Knights became antsy and formed a Knight’s Council so they could meet and discuss issues with the padawans and training. They even selected a representative that would soon sit in on our Council meetings.
But that was not enough. The Knights began to want more control and more powers. They wanted to be able to admit Jedi hopefuls on their own. They wanted to be able to bend the rules to teach more than one padawan at a time (which was a big faux pas back then), or to manage their own class structures. We wanted to see initiative out of our Knights and we were happy for it. But there were just too many requests for control.
One of the complaints was that we did not listen. And actually many said that I was running things myself without even listening to my fellow Masters. But to show that we could work with everyone and their requests, we met with the Knights and worked through a lot of these issues. We listened and made a stern decision on a pressing matter (that of 100% RP zoning, where one should roleplay all the time and not hold non-Star Wars related discussions or events at any time). That was a month or two before the Jedi Alliance fell, and thus things seemed copasetic for that time period. However, I and others knew that there was still a desire for more power.
Many of those Knights tried to form their own orders when we fell, and one succeeded for a time. But if you think about it, at the time of this writing, the only two orders to survive from those days were one that already existed and one that grew out of the ashes of the alliance.
If I had to choose regret from those days it would be that I spent so much time organizing that I did not always see what was going on around me. As the voice and coordinator of the Council, I was always kept busy keeping things running.
I loved running the alliance. I was the balance beam for us… not in that I ran everything or dictated everything. But in the fact that I ran meetings and scheduled things. I was the public voice of the Council. And I thoroughly enjoyed all of it.
However, after the fall and all the bad words and bad conversations and malevolent tidings from many, I had to get away. I went into hiding for quite some time.
Throughout my sabbatical, I kept feeling the tug of the Force, as I had my entire life. Eventually, I came back and joined one of the orders as more of an historical figurehead. I briefly tried to work with Master Christoph to bring the three major orders – KOTOR, NOJ, and Unity – together as they once had been. However, they all had their own ideologies on how things should go and be run.
I try to be optimistic, but I was not so at that time. Uniting the Jedi could very well be an impossibility ever again in the SL Galaxy. This plagued my meditations for quite some time.
Ossus came around eventually and there were the NOJ and Jedi Guardians of Peace orders standing. I still could not find my place. I excelled at organizing things and yet there was nothing to organize. No one wanted to work together and no one wanted an old Jedi, with Old Republic traditions and ideals, ranting in their fresh new orders.
One day I had an epiphany, though. I wandered for quite a time until that day. And while I shared that epiphany with a few masters, including my friend Master Leonardis, I was the first to act on it (or to have the opportunity to act on it). I went to the farthest reaches of the Galaxy, finding the planet of Anoth, with its strong ties to the Force, and I built a structure. This structure would hold vast amounts of knowledge, and would be the new home of the Great Library.
And thus after many years, I found my purpose in the Force. I would hold and spread and gather and organize the knowledge of our Galaxy, at Anoth and later Ossus (the original home of the Great Library). Without patience and guidance and focus in the Force, my destiny would not have been revealed, and people would not have a place to come to study.