Sphere of Responsibility. This one is going to be a bit different than our others. A lesson inspired by fiction, but set to a Force Technique/Lesson (from the old days). We will look at the Fictional Inspiration. We will look at the Force Lesson. And then we will look at the Jedi Living lesson which sort of goes back to the fiction. So what is a Jedi's sphere of responsibility?
Excerpt from I, Jedi by Michael A. Stackpole. An Exchange between Kam Solusar and Keiran Halcyon (respectively).
"You need to be able to push you sphere out larger and larger, and track the things inside it. If you don't know where you are and what you're doing, you're in deep trouble."
"Got it. Pilots refer to it as 'situational awareness.' If you can't track your own people and the enemy in a vape-brawl, you end up doing a burn-in on some world."
"That's exactly it. My father used to refer to it as a sphere of responsibility. He used to tell me as a Jedi that our sphere of responsibility was as big as the galaxy and the best Jedi could understand and sort out a whole star system."
We'll look at this a bit more later. Now onto the Jedi lesson of the Sphere of Responsibility. Unfortunately poor source citing as erased the exact author. Though a very similar technique was created by Jedi Walker for Jedi of the New Millennium. And if I remember correctly (which is like 30% accurate in this case), this was simply Jedi Walker's updated lesson he wrote later on. Again, very much inspired by the exchange above.
Jedi Living's Take:Sphere of Responsibility
What is it?
The Sphere of Responsibility is one of the Jedi's most crucial abilities and one of the most crucial concepts to be understood. The sphere shows a Jedi all that he is entrusted with by the Force. This is how a Jedi can know when he must act and when something is beyond his influence. Many Jedi wonder exactly how far their responsibility goes to give aid. The sphere serves this purpose. Anything inside the Sphere of Responsibility you can sense is something the Force is entrusting you to deal with. For example, say that your sphere stretches out in a 10 yard radius, and you are sitting in a classroom listening to your professor and you feel a fight going on in the room directly to your back. Now you can't very well get up and go break up the fight, and it probably wouldn't do too much good if you did. What you could do, however, is begin to smooth out the roiled emotions that cause all those disturbances in the Force. This will allow the people involved to think more clearly and more rationally. If you are capable of other abilities that should be used, you should use them. This gives you an idea of what you need to respond to. Now to the actual technique:
How do I do it?
The basic Jedi Sphere of Responsibility goes something like this: You must concentrate inside of yourself and find your center. Gather your internal Force energy in that center. Feel it compress into something about the size of a fist. Now expand the edges of the ball to encompass your body, but nothing outside. Imagine the inside being water. Once you can feel things within your body as such, then you can move on. Reach out to the Force outside your body. Infuse it with the Force that is inside of you and once more push the edges. This time let them extend in a spherical shape outside of your body. The trick with this is to find the point at which you can still sense everything inside, but if you expand it any further, then you will not be able to sense anything inside it anymore. Once you have found this edge, if you think you aren't channeling as much Force as you potentially could into the sphere, channel more into it and expand it. You might be able to get a few more inches this way. Now it isn't enough just knowing how to do it, you also need to know how it works.
How does it work?
The Force you feel outside of yourself is the links between the internal Force that exists in all living things. The links in between these living things are so numerous that they become compressed into a pool of energy around you. When you expand your sphere from inside of yourself to the outside, your sphere will detect everything living inside it, because the sphere is made of Force energy, and Force energy is in turn created by living things, and therefore is connected to all living things. The sphere will also detect the non-living things because of the gap they leave in the Force.
You may wonder why you cannot sense these connections innately. Well, some people can. You may even be one of those people, without having realized exactly what you were sensing. Some people's innate connection is strong enough that they might have sensations of sensing something long before they undergo Jedi training. This is due to their connection to the Force. As a Jedi, when you expand your sphere, the amount of your own internal energy that you have also in the sphere gives you a stronger connection to the Force, allowing you to sense it better.
Think of it this way. Let us say that your sphere is a giant glass orb, in which you sit in the center. You fill it up with your energy, which we will say is salt. When you pour the outside Force into it as well (which will be represented by water), you get salt-water. Well the higher the concentration of your energy is present the better the sensing is inside of it. So if you expand it to double the distance it was when you were just using your internal energy, then you have half as much of your own energy in it, so therefore you can only sense half as well. Your energy becomes diluted in the outside energy, making your personal connection to everything inside the sphere diluted. As your Jedi skills increase, the sheer amount of energy you have inside of you will increase. This allows your sphere to enlarge, encompassing more and also symbolizing your Jedi responsibilities expanding with your abilities. This also ensures that you can handle any responsibilities that are laid onto you. So if you are ever feeling like you are buckling under the load, just take heart in the fact that the Force considers you worthy of the load and considers you capable of bearing it all. And so it will aid you in all you do.
It is helpful to make note often of how far your Sphere extends, so you always know what you can do and what you need to do.
What I enjoy about the lesson above is the beginning part where it talks about basically limiting your responsibility. 10 yards isn't much for you to be responsible for. What a wonderful reminder for new Jedi. You are not responsible for creating the world. But our sphere of responsibility does go a bit further than a Force-Sensing technique written back in 1999.
This lesson is twofold. First you have the sphere of responsibility, this is basically what truly falls as your duty, your responsibility. If you buy a dog, because you really want a dog, no matter where you are, no matter what that dog does, it is always your responsibility. If you have a child, same thing, you chose that, it is your responsibility (to a certain point, obviously once they are capable of making reasonable decisions, they are then in control of their own life). This is your sphere of responsibility, it is there to remind you of your true duties. When you apply for a job, agree to do that job, that job and all its duties are your responsibility - congratulations.
Now this also helps in a very needed area for new Jedi as well. It is a reminder that you are not all-powerful. You are not responsible for the weather or things beyond your control. You are not responsible for the actions of others. Thus, they cannot guilt trip you with, "if you had been here" or "why didn't you do anything" trying to pass the blame. Something which I had a recent reminder. My best friend committed suicide. We hadn't talked in a little over month (not the first time, life just got busy that way for us, but we'd reconnect like no time had passed at all). Then he was gone and I was feeling done, because we were stabilizing elements in each other's lives. If I had been there..... I told someone of my friend's passing and their first remark was - "a shame you hadn't talked to him in awhile. You probably could have prevented it." This person basically just passed some of the blame to me and it made me realize I was doing the same thing. My friend could have easily reached out. He didn't have to kill himself. I was in no way in control of his choices. His action was not my responsibility. My loss to be sure, but not my responsibility to shoulder.
The lesson here is to understand your sphere of responsibility. And to understand that it does in fact grow as you grow as a Jedi. The more capabilities you have the more responsibilities you have. This goes with that whole quote from National Treasure (the movie) - "If you have the ability to do something, you have the responsibility to do something." It is why we spend so much time harping on all those points and aspects listed above in all those various Jedi texts. It is important to know and will help you properly manage what is and is not within your sphere.
Do not seek to shoulder the world. Despite what the fictional quote says, Jedi are not responsible for the entirety of the galaxy. Remember Jedi Living's motto - World-Betterment through Self-Betterment. You start within and allow that positive impact to radiate outward. Eventually you may just find your sphere engulfing a whole state or maybe a whole country. Knows first Jedi President, but before all of that, you are to start within and not rush too quickly for more responsibility.
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:: The Philosophy Assignment Ten ::
You do not have to practice the Force Sensing Exercise (I mean I won't stop you if you want to - but it is not mandatory). However I would like you overall thoughts on it. Do you feel it is a good lesson? Does it pass our APBP Test?
Accounting time. What are your current responsibilities that you have?
How big do you feel is your current Sphere of Responsibility is? (Whole Galaxy Big?)
How big do you want it to be?