Teachings,+The+'Darth'+Title

The 'Darth' Title
(Return to Teachings) (By Darth Affliction)

Selecting a 'Darth' name is something each Sith does as a sign of re-birth. They recognize that their lives have been destroyed or controlled to some extent by certain elements of their own personality. They first choose to do anything it takes to gain control and then, in the process, they burn themselves to ashes. This is more than symbolic. The battle to gain control is an effort no less than herculean in difficulty to most. When a Sith makes this decision the engage in a battle where to win even a perfect battle is to strike themselves a killing blow. The end result is always the death of themselves. Whether they lose and are beaten, or they manage to shatter that mirror image of themselves containing their weakness, they still drive the blade home to the heart and then burn the remains down to ashes.

But remember ash is clean. And from ashes the most deadly fires rise.

Now dead, the Sith must face a second herculean task. You see death is peaceful. To lie down and die is a comfort for the weak. If they have the will and the power to rise from the ashes and re-assert their true form they have shown power greater than any force in the world. Like a dark phoenix they rise again as a new entity, a shadow, with no light to play tricks on the eyes. Just real pure substance. Clean substance and form with all of the strengths and minus at least some of the weaknesses of the weak being they had been.

This new being bursts alight with new life and strength far greater. Because of the process and the great amounts of pain and effort involved it is not uncommon to desire a new name. This is where the tradition of taking the title of 'Darth' began, and the Sith often chose a name that specifically reflected the key elements of their transformation.

I will share my own experience of choosing my title because it exemplifies the process.

All transformations take place at a time of great pressures, darkness, and change. In this condition with nothing left to hold onto I came to realize myself much more clearly.

I finally fully contemplated and began to know the reality of my latent suffering. I realized that my whole life I had been suffering. Looking for a part of me that was missing. Trying to be what others wanted of me. Hating myself in the darkness between conscious thoughts.

I realized that the sheer depth and magnitude, even, the perpetual presence of my own affliction was in fact a key to great power. I learned that because of how much I knew personally about suffering, because of the deep intimate relationship I had with it's every facet, I could cure others, I coult make it my own and prevent it from reaching others by taking it on myself, and I could do the things others were unable to because of pain. I am not talking about things like killing good people so more could live, or forcing others into suffering for the greater good. I am talking about stepping in front of a bullet, walking the extra mile, or giving another person my last drink of water in the middle of a desert. Going into a burning building for the last person with no armor.

I became Darth Affliction when this happened. I burned to ashes in my grief over losing something I knew I couldn't live without. I died. And when I rose again I had ten times the strength, I had a hundred times the glory, for I had become the limitlessness of affliction and affliction in this world is perpetual. Immortal. I had turned my greatest darkness into a force more powerful than the foundations of the world.

I chose Darth Affliction because it had been my weakness and it had become my great strength.

THAT is one of the glories of the Sith, and that is not evil.