While I also believe the Jedi is a sort of jack of all trades, my reasons are different. I think most people are still looking at this from their physical perspective and missing the big picture.
The Jedi’s first goal is to become a whole person. In the Jedi community we hear a lot about training the body. That’s an important thing to do because the health of our body affects every other part of our self. But it’s not enough. We hear about training our mind, which is also important. We can learn a lot about ourselves and others and reduce a lot of the dysfunction in our life simply through awareness of the problem, but it is also not enough. We even hear about training our energy body, the non-physical influences on our body and mind that we address through various energy exercises, and even that isn’t enough. Because what is most missing throughout the community, and what has been missing throughout it’s history, is the spirit.
Our spirit is the part of us that is all knowing, all loving, and eternal. It is always connected and always aware. It is our wisdom. Sure, there is some talk of it from time to time. But I have yet to see within the Jedi community people getting to the heart of the matter. Our beliefs as humans are based upon myths of our origins, who we really are, and what we are capable of. We have forgotten or refuse to believe that we are divine in nature, that we are always connected with something larger, whether that is called the Force, God, the Universe, or Life, it doesn’t matter. We are always connected. The feeling and belief that we are not is the primary cause of suffering and dysfunction in our world today, and has been for centuries.
These beliefs are why we behave the way we do. All of our behaviors are due to beliefs we hold about all sorts of things. We do attempt to get to some of this through personal development training. But I have to be honest, that only scratches the surface. As long as it remains a mental exercise instead of a soul exercise, it will only scratch the surface. And we will always have the behavioral conflicts within our selves and the Jedi community. Look around and you’ll see that those behaviors and beliefs are why we haven’t gone anywhere as a community, and why we won’t grow much beyond where we are.
The Jedi community, while speaking of balance, has never been balanced. This is because the majority of the leaders do not understand the true importance of spiritual development, or were afraid to speak up and face the detractors.
I’ve spent my life working on all these various aspects of life. I’ve trained my body physically through years in martial arts and the Marine Corps. I learned a lot from that, and I think everyone can learn from pushing their body a bit more than they think is possible. I’ve trained my mind constantly, not only in science but in the arts, trying to balance the parts of my brain. Without having a strong knowledge base you’re going to limit what you can understand in life. And I’ve trained my energy body, though not as much as I would like. I’ve certainly seen the benefit of that as my own skills and abilities begin to show themselves. But none of those things brought deep, lasting change in my life. It was the spiritual development I’ve been pursuing for the past few years that accelerated my growth to levels I didn’t realize was possible. Sure, there are techniques for everything, but it’s like putting a bandaid on a bullet wound - it only helps for a short time. Our beliefs are usually ingrained so deeply that it takes an equally powerful tool to get to them.
I realized the other night that, while I’ve believed this for years, I had allowed the Jedi community to push these beliefs to the back of my mind as I sought to make as many people happy as I could. In doing so I lost sight of my purpose in this community. You see, the more you develop yourself spiritually, the more you can help others. I’ve counseled countless people online and off. Over the years I’ve noticed I can see the source of their discomfort more easily and find the right way to address the issue so they can start to heal themselves. Everyone already has everything they need within them to be a whole, joyous person, but they have forgotten and need a little help seeing the tools available.
Bringing this back to the jack of all trades thing, the more you know, the more you have to draw on when you’re helping someone. I can’t remember all the times I pulled out some seemingly random piece of information or technique to suggest to a person. I’m sure Phoenix remembers them more than I do, since lately he’s been the recipient of the many tools in my tool belt. But it’s because of my many varied experiences that I can help a variety of people. Sure, I’m stumped often as well, but I know I have a long way to go. 
In the coming week or so I’m going to do my best to expand upon this spiritual development and what it is a Jedi needs to learn to begin their spiritual training. The focus isn’t to bring them to what I know, but to bring them to their own deeper truths. This is where wounds heal. This is where we draw our strength and find our deepest wisdom.
Before I forget, I wanted to address what might be brought up by some, that the Jedi are not religious in the fiction. I have two views on that. The first is that, in a deeply spiritual culture, it’s rarely discussed as a separate thing. Instead it is so interconnected with their belief system and life that it’s everywhere - unified just as we are unified with all of the Force. So after centuries, there’s no reason why we would see separate spiritual discussions as a general occurrence. Secondly, this is still fiction written by people who are not spiritually aware to the level that they could include it. However, even without that, they certainly hit on some key concepts just through the mythology. But you certainly don’t expect a guidebook to spirituality in a series of books spanning so many authors and time frames. This is where I say we learn from the fiction, but realize it’s limitations. Perhaps this is why spirituality has been the most ignored aspect of training in the Jedi community?
It seems to me as if the Jedi training has been approached from the bottom up, rather than top down. We start with the physical, our experience and understanding of our life here in the myths of humanity and try to expand from there. But that’s building a foundation on falsehoods, or on sand as the proverbs goes. Instead, we have to come from our higher self, our deep wisdom, our spirit. That’s the only way we can move beyond where we are today.
