Master Yoda Is Every Bit as Real as Jesus Christ
Master Yoda
That’s right. I said it, I said it, I said it! Master Yoda is every bit as real as Jesus Christ, and perhaps even more so. It doesn’t matter whether there is evidence that Jesus really existed in the flesh, or if he was really the son of God. He may have been real, or he may not have been.
Master Yoda, on the other hand, we know is a puppet controlled by people in the Star Wars movies. What makes Yoda so real is not his plastic existence, but the impact of his character and his words on an audience of millions and of all ages and walks of life. That’s not to say Jesus has not had an impact. To be sure he has, but in my humble opinion Yoda is hands down for clarity and realness.
Of course, if you listen closely to Master Yoda you will hear Buddhist teachings, the wisdom of Tao, sprinkled with a bit of Confucianism. Yoda is always composed, centered, and at peace within his own mind. “Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” Yoda and Buddha would get along well, but they wouldn’t sit around in idle chit-chat, they wouldn’t gossip. No, they would just be present, in the moment adding nothing, subtracting nothing.
“Do or do not… there is no try,” says Yoda to young Skywalker. After all, what is the point of trying if you are not going to do. You may as well do not in that case. We can’t argue with Yoda’s logic here. And when Luke gives up in frustration, and Yoda uses his mind to raise the fighter from the dark waters of the swamp, Luke exclaims, “I can’t believe it!” To which Yoda says, “And that is why you failed.” Yoda understands the power of belief and reminds us all how our minds can set us up for failure with mere thoughts.
When Luke is told to enter a dark cave, he asks Yoda, “What’s in there?” Yoda responds, “Only what you take with you?” This is a kernel of wisdom that takes a long time for many of us to understand. It doesn’t matter where you are going, what you are doing, or what you hope to gain, what you will find is only what you bring, what you take with you. Our responses come from our minds reacting to stimulus, that’s all. If you are full of fear, you will find things to be afraid of it. If you bring peace, you find peace. Yoda doesn’t go as far as to mention the law of attraction, but he does talk about the Force often.
The Force is simply what you decide it is whether that is God, pure energy, or consciousness. It doesn’t matter. The point is that we can give into negativity, or stay in tune with the positive. Anger, greed, fear, attachment always lead you into the “dark side.” Buddha called the dark side suffering or unhappiness. And it doesn’t take long to figure out that anger, greed, and attachment can make you miserable mighty fast.
Yoda emphasizes this point on his death bed, and like all great masters he has no fear of dying. “Death is a natural part of life,” says Yoda, “Rejoice for those around you who transform into the Force. Mourn them do not. Miss them do not. Attachment leads to jealously. The shadow of greed, that is.” Attachment is the big booger for most of us, and Yoda makes no bones about it, as neither does Buddha. Craving, the basis for attachment, leads to suffering. But neither Yoda or Buddha would expect you to take their word for it. You check it out for yourself the next time to feel craving or attachment arise. Does it make you happy? No. No one has found that craving leads to happiness. At least no one I’ve met yet.
My point in this is really that great masters don’t have to have had really existed, and just because a story didn’t really happen doesn’t mean the metaphor isn’t helpful. In all my Buddhist classes, I have been taught to examine the teachings for their truthfulness, not their historical authenticity. It’s doesn’t matter if there was really a man named Buddha who all these stories are based on, or if happenings in those stories didn’t really occur. With Buddhist teachings you can check the truthfulness, the point of the story for yourself by looking into your own mind and life. Ditto for the teachings of Yoda, or Lao-tzu, or Confucius. And you should be able to do the same with the teachings of Jesus Christ. But Yoda is real because their is life in the character, and authenticity in the teachings.
Testing teachings for yourself will tell you if a master ‘s teaching is truly real.
Grandkids listening to Yoda wisdom
July 25th, 2010 at 8:03 am
That was a pretty helpful perception for me personally
July 25th, 2010 at 5:10 pm
My first thought was why would Yoda have to be compared to Jesus Christ? Yoda is wisdom. Yoda is representing a wise old man… if the Yoda character had been female, she would not have been compared to Jesus Christ…she would have been the wise old crone. The character of Yoda, to me, represented the internal wisdom of our ancestors…the ones who have gone before us, the ones who know.