Jedi Immortality vs. Sith Immortality

In my Sunday School class today, we dicussed Jesus and Eternal Life. Now, I don't want to start a religious debate here, but one line in our lesson book really stuck out at me:

"It is better to conquer death than it is to cheat it."

It is human nature to want to cheat death and want to live on this Earth as long as possible.

It is divine nature that lets people believe that there is life beyond the grave, eternal life.

The Sith represent human nature, in all their beliefs and goals. They crave for power, prey upon the weak, and are in a quest to live forever in this life.

The Jedi, however, represent divine nature, in their beliefs and goals. They do not crave power (a true Jedi doesn't anyways), they help those who cannot help themselves, and the look forward to dying and becoming one with the Force.

Just something neat I noticed and wanted to share with you guys.

 

Yea that is neat. The Sith will spend their whole lives searching for a way to live longer, while the Jedi completly release themselves from their physical body which the sith hold on to so dearly and the Jedi get immortality.

 

It is human nature to want to cheat death and want to live on this Earth as long as possible.

This sparked some interest in me. Now most people would agree that the Jedi religion is the one most similar to eastern religions like Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism. One of the most important ideals of Taoists are to live a long life, thats probably why you always see the old asian karate masters. So one might say that Sith is like Taosim at least to some extent. I just find that to be an interesting irony.

It is divine nature that lets people believe that there is life beyond the grave, eternal life.

This leads me to the conclusion that Jedi is more like Buddhism, which focuses on inner peace with oneself and the eventual ability to gain eternal nirvanal enlightenment.

 

There are a lot of issues at stake. First Sith want power, and the only way to have power in terms of the Force is to remain a physical presence. When you die, you become one of the Force and are unable to wield the Force in such a way to give you power (with Ben, et al. as the exception here.) The Jedi don't seek power, they seek knowledge. They are trained to disregard material things. Yoda said that we are "luminous beings" not "this crude matter." A Jedi has no fear of death because death simply means eternal communion with that they love the most, the Force itself.

 

First Sith want power, and the only way to have power in terms of the Force is to remain a physical presence. When you die, you become one of the Force and are unable to wield the Force in such a way to give you power (with Ben, et al. as the exception here.)

No so. Ben is not an exception, the ideal achievement is to obtain what Ben, Yoda, Anakin, and (I pray for the next release) Qui-gon all obtained. The ability to retain both your conciousness, and your presence. If you notice in ROTJ, Ben is capable of pushing vines and jungle growth out of his way, and he also sits on a log. I don't think it is to show he has mass, but I think that posessing a physical body and retaining that body allows him a connection to the physical realm which allows him to use the force to interact with what is around him. So essentially, he's still moving things with the force, and the gesture he makes with his hand to move the vine away is simply for the benefit of the observer.


Here's my take on Jedi immortality versus sith immortality, as posted on another thread. The force spirit is a technique only the Jedi can posses, but the sith can perform a similar feat I believe. It's the ability that Sidious was talking about, only taking it one step further. They can influence their midichlorians to keep there bodies alive, and essentially they can "will" themselves to keep going. So the sith can achieve immortality by cheating death and prolonging their life. But, like all things Dark Side related, there's a catch. The catch is, it's an unnatural life, and it's a life that's not worth living. It's a life outside the natural order of things, and it's so wrong that the only reason one would choose to live such a life is because they fear death even more so.
The Jedi version is differnt because although it is achieving immortality/eternal conciousness, it is not actually cheating death, because in order to achieve it one actually has to die. Jedi immortality comes from absolute compassion and letting go of everything around you. Of being able to leave what is physical, what is unnecesary, and achieving a higher state of being.
So essentially a simple way to put it is, the sith view Death as just death, the Jedi view death as another part of life.

 

I like that...

so...it would be like...Jedis conquered death while Sith cheated it?

(I kinda see it like that )

 

No so. Ben is not an exception, the ideal achievement is to obtain what Ben, Yoda, Anakin, and (I pray for the next release) Qui-gon all obtained. The ability to retain both your conciousness, and your presence. If you notice in ROTJ, Ben is capable of pushing vines and jungle growth out of his way, and he also sits on a log. I don't think it is to show he has mass, but I think that posessing a physical body and retaining that body allows him a connection to the physical realm which allows him to use the force to interact with what is around him. So essentially, he's still moving things with the force, and the gesture he makes with his hand to move the vine away is simply for the benefit of the observer.

That was my point. I said Ben is an exception because, unlike other Jedi, he retains the ability to weild the Force after death. What I meant was that all Jedi, except those trained by Qui-Gon in retaining their identity, become one with the Force and cannot use their intellect to manipulate the Force.

 

What I like about Star Wars is that it doesn't give us any answers about the Force. Just like the characters in the films, the Force is a mystery.

Given that, I think we're blindsided by the fact we don't really understand the Force or the Sith. We assume the Sith just want power, but even the Jedi admit that they have never really figured out the Dark Side (Mace Windu claims this with his ...this will uncover the mystery of the Sith... quote). While Palpatine wanted power and an Empire, what did he ultimately want? Destroying the Rebellion was just a means to an end, so what was the end?

Perhaps, the Dark Side knows something we do not?

 

His end was just to rule his Empire for as long as he lives, which he wants to be a very long time, since Sith are attached to this life.

 

But how do you know that? That's just an educated assumption. We don't know what Palpatine ultimately wanted. Your answer seems convenient, but the Sith are, like Windu says, a mystery.