Ajunta Pall: Wandering Philosopher
Lettow is a world rarely visited. In Pall's day, it was divided into the humid lowlands which were characterized by their dense jungles and frequent monsoons, and the arid mountains and plateaus which were known for their high-altitude vegetation and beautiful icy crags. For thousands of years, Lettow was home to a variety if Force-using religious orders. These orders build their monasteries both in the jungles as well as in the highlands. It is unknown when these orders sprang up, but it has been hypothesized that they formed not long after the First Great Schism, (circa. 24,500 BBY) although their origins could date back to well before the Old Republic existed.
After the Legions of Lettow were defeated, their teachings fell into the hands of these orders. These teachings were collected into a series of four volumes called the Four Pustakas. As the Legions of Lettow collected massive amounts of information from other Force-using orders, the Pustakas contain teachings from all across the ancient Galaxy. Additionally, the Pustakas contain lengthy histories of the early Dark Jedi masters as well as their own teachings. This wealth of information is just as beneficial to scholars now as it would have been to Pall himself. In fact, in recent years, preserved copies serve scholars quite well in determining the history of ideas and the evolution of thought leading up to and after the Schism.
The Pustakas were thought to have been inspired by the Force itself and their wisdom served as the sacred texts of the hundreds of Force using orders that sprang up after the Schism. However, these Orders were extremely diverse in their teachings. Some were highly oriented towards the Dark Side, but others focused on nonviolence and Jedi-like emotional detachment. Others focused on keeping the balance between light and dark, and some used the Force as a meager tool without worrying about these higher ideologies. Still others had views that were so alien that they could not even be described as being on the same spectrum as the others. For example, the Sankiya Order focused entirely on manipulating the Unifying Force, being able to predict various possible futures and even displace objects through space. Meanwhile the Vaishashika school focused on the manipulation of light, sound, and perception. Then the Car'danta group strictly focused on aspects of the Physical Force, that is to say that they concentrated only upon skills that could be used to directly affect the physical environment. Pall became acquainted with and learned from all of these schools and more during his stay on Lettow, but the first order he visited was the Nya-ika. The Nya-ika an order that focused entirely on strict the Living Force. They were enthusiastic historians and as a result they believed in strict determinism believing that if one knows history, one can easily predict the future. The notable thing is that all schools had strong basing in the thought of the Pustakas. However, since all four Pustakas together contain almost ten million words, there is ample room for interpretation.
Pall landed on Lettow in around 6,916 BBY. Upon landing, he told his companions that they could either go on their own journey to discover the Force on Lettow, or they could leave him. They all decided to stay on Lettow, although they would split up, each learning from a different set of Force orders. They stayed on Lettow for over a year. Pall found the Nya-ika and sought to learn from them. At this point, information on the exact order of Pall's journey becomes murky. The Nya-ika asked that he abandon all signs of his offworlder status and so he left all material possessions on his ship. For the next year, he lived on Lettow like a native would. However, he did write down a series of philosophical scrolls on parchment and when he returned to his ship, he would often reference his experiences on Lettow, so historians are able to have some idea of his travels.
The Nya-ika taught him the history of their Order and the legends of the Legions of Lettow. Beyond history, they taught him to listen to the Will of the Living Force and to always act according to what it dictated. One of the main traditions of the Nya-ika that Pall took part in was the crafting of a plasma sword. These teachings were passed down from the Legions of Lettow. Pall went out into the mountain caves to find a crystal, he then took this crystal and through a complex process was able to fuse the crystal lattice with a steel blade, the two becoming one unity. Through this combined lattice, the Force flowed, and the blade would ignite in a nimbus of energy, much like the blade of a lightsaber. This sword appeared to be lined with silver and it glowed white-hot when wielded. Because of this, Pall carved a small insignia of a flame on the hilt and named it Brisingr, a name that meant 'flame.'
While Pall studiously listened to what they taught him, he had his own philosophical differences.
First off all, the Nya-ika taught that there was only one will, the Will of the Force. They believed that this Will was a type of mind that caused all else in the universe to act according to strict deterministic rules, thereby making human wills illusionary. They thought that the Will "... sees, thinks, hears. Without effort, the Force shakes all things by the thought of His mind." They believed that this Will was a mind like others that existed in the Force itself. In fact, every consciousness was really a manifestation of this one Will. This was manifest in one of their chants that went, "I am the consciousness, I am the Will, I am the Force." However, they believed that not every mind was equal. Some were aware of this fact and others were not. Occasionally during times of great fluctuation, the Will would even manifest as an avatar- someone who is able to gain total awareness and act on it.
Pall held the opposite view. He did not believe in any type of cosmic awareness on the part of the Force in and of itself. Instead, he believed in the power of human choice. For Pall, the Force did not have a mind. It's Will was simply how it acted based upon necessity on its part. He denied that this Will was conscious or voluntary, instead, it was as if the Force were a giant computer simply reacting to the input of trillions of sentient beings and the laws of the universe.
Another point of contention was that the Nya-ika were strict monists, that is to say, they believed everything to be a single unity. They believed that the past and future were one. They believed that all space and extension were illusionary and that the universe was a single unified whole. In their cosmology, nothing, that is the absence of being, could not exist, and so the universe was full existance. Since the universe was full existence, there was no way to differentiate one part from another, as that would imply a certain nothing exists between them. They identified this single unity as being the Force. For them, we perceive extension, time, and nothing, but these are all on our heads. They believed that the sentient mind was totally empty at first, and that in and of itself, the mind was 'nothing,' that is to say the 'self' was an illusion. Since the mind was was open and literally 'nothing,' the mind could perceive the universe as differentiated. This happened by the full existence of the Force being sliced into understandable pieces by a gullible mind, while the Force in and of itself was one.
Pall countered this belief by pointing out that if it is impossible for 'nothing' to exist, then the mind can't exist if the mind or self is 'nothing.' They responded that that was exactly their point. What sentient beings perceive to be their single self is really an illusion. Pall responded that this was nonsense, as he knew that he was a thinking being and so therefore he must exist to be fooled. They responded that what we know as 'thoughts' do not exist in the same way as other perceived objects. This is a complex but essential point. 'Thoughts' cannot be located in space. The actual thought themselves cannot be empirically found, only perceived. What one perceives as 'thoughts' are really just interactions between parts of the brain and the Force itself, that is to say, they are objects outside of the mind. Since 'thoughts' are only interactions between objects outside of the mind, and all external objects are really one reality, that is the Force, the self could only exist as nothing.
Pall was not sure how to launch an offense against this mind screw, so he changed his avenue of attack. The Nya-ika said that a mind simply uses nothing to slice the unity of the Force into multiplicity, but this is an illusion. Pall countered that if the Force, and by extent the universe, was full unity, that is to say undifferentiated, and the mind was nothing, or an illusion, it made no sense to say that one impressed a series of differentiated perceptions on another. This is again very complex, but essential to understanding Pall's mindset. Pall thought of it like this: if the universe was homogenous, and the mind was also homogeneous, then where can the patterns that their interactions create come from? One day, Pall held up a wooden spoon and asked if the spoon didn't exist, and the mind had no knowledge of the spoon before perceiving it, how could he witness a spoon's existence? They countered that his point would be the case if and only if there were only passive minds, but they said that there was an active mind.
They said that since the sentient mind was noting, it had no innate ideas and could only receive impressions. However, a completely active mind that already held these ideas would cause the sentient mind to differentiate the universe. Pall challenged that by their definition, a sentient mind could not have these ideas, and if so, where was this mind with fully innate ideas? They said that this mind was the Force itself. Therefore, they could achieve full unity between thought and matter while accounting for the differentiating of the universe as we perceive it. All is one, the Force, which is the only truly free Will. Of course Pall could not accept this. This started a huge debate on what is the Force as we perceive it. Is it the sum total of all reality, or is it simply another aspect of reality like gravity or electromagnetism?
In the end, Pall would not recant his beliefs and so he left over metaphysical differences. Pall traveled to many other orders learning as much as he could both about the ancient Legions of Lettow as well as well as about the various philosophical schools that sprang up after their fall. However, the teaching and arguments of the Nya-ika stuck with him. While he could not fully accept their positions, this thinking of the Force as a sum total of reality from which one could divine guidance would continue to vex Pall. Eventually, by seeking to understand this unity, Pall was able to make a breakthrough and finally see the Force in its entirety, a revelation which will be covered next chapter.
