Harmony is best described when thinking about it simply. The first thing that comes to mind when I think of the word is music. When music is in harmony, it is one of the most expressive tools in the world. A few breaths and finger strokes can bring you from elation to devastation and back again. This is why so many films incorporate music in important plot points because it is easier to get the right reaction out of the audience with music than it is with the actors’ words. However, if a musician were to slip up and miss a few notes, the harmony would be lost. When that happens, not only does the audience lose their feeling, but they probably also feel a bit of discomfort or annoyance at the problem. The harmony of music is similar to the harmony of the Shadows. Harmony is the Shadow’s relationship with what some might call the “Living Force.” Where much of Shadow philosophy often involves practicality and observation, harmony is where the spirit of the Shadow lies. When a Shadow is in harmony with the Force, he completely immerses himself into everything that is life. In order to achieve many of his goals, a Shadow must be humble and realize that he is not that significant in the scheme of things. Don’t be afraid of this insignificance. Take solace in your harmony with the Force, and let it nourish you and give you happiness. Because harmony is a way of life that involves a lot of blind faith and acceptance, it can easily become discord.
That is where balance comes in. Balance is what makes harmony possible for the ever observant Shadows; it is like a step back to keep an eye on our harmony. Not only is balance a step back, but it also reinforces the Shadow’s harmony with the Force. When harmony can be seen as the unconscious, balance is our conscious decisions. It can usually be broken up into internal and external balance. Internal balance is to be at peace with the self. When we are internally balanced, we realize and understand our emotions and use them to our benefit. External balance deals with the world around you. When externally balanced, we understand the social structures around us and see how each life form fits into the structure. Unfortunately, balance can be fudged, and it is done so by many individuals, some very well intentioned. This starts when for some reason or another, we lose our harmony. This can cause some to panic, creating their own artificial balance to try to bring the harmony back into their lives. To understand this, you may want to think of the left to right political scale. When politicians are labeled as too far left or right, they try to remedy that by making bland statements that supposedly appeal to the other party. They say these things to try to appeal to the “swing voters,” but it does not change who they are, and everyone knows that.
After reading of harmony and balance, you may be wondering how such a thing as duality could be incorporated. Well, when dealing with topics of such a grand scale as the Force and Shadow, it is necessary to break things down to have any chance of understanding. Duality can usually be described as polarizations of an idea or entity. We use these polarizations to give us a general idea of the extremes related to our universal topic. A Shadow must not only understand that there are dual ideas to many questions, but we must understand what the dual ideas mean and their significance. It is not very useful to simply say there is internal balance. One must actually understand what internal balance is if the dualism is to succeed. Common ideas in duality are good and evil, light and dark, and internal and external. When we finally understand all of these dual conceptions, we can transcend into a new universal realm of understanding. This is why many Shadows will tell you that there are no sides to the Force. This does not mean that we drop our understanding of the dual natures. It simply means that we look beyond the limitations and put things together into a whole. Then we break it up again.