"The belonging you seek is not behind you - it is ahead." What does this mean??

I took it to mean that Rey has been hung up for years about the idea that her parents dumped her on Jakku, and if they want to be reunited with her, they better come pick her up because her being on Jakku is their fault and they have to correct the mess. The "belonging" that Rey senses "behind" her is probably her earliest childhood (first five years or so) as part of a family, which she can hardly remember. She wants that feeling back, and she believes she can only get it back if her parents undo the dumping. So she's sitting there like a duck for over a decade without even showing an interest in who her "much missed" family may be. She is willing to give up on many years of belonging with her family if she can't have the fairytale "damsel in distress" rescue at the same time.

When Maz confronts Rey, she has just had her force vision. She's upset. She probably senses that she's the daughter of whoever the lightsaber belonged to. She probably senses that the force vision is part of the explanation why she's been stuck on Jakku. (It's probably the visual equivalent of Han's story about what happened to Luke). And she's suddenly about to abort the ongoing journey to her father in order to "go back to Jakku", because she's got the idea now that her father condoned her being there, and she gets angry all over again because being dumped on Jakku was really traumatic.

That's when Maz just slices through Rey's denial, telling her that the abandonment she's been so hung up about was not caused by her parents, whatever they may have told her, and that her father (=Luke) would come back for her if he knew where she is. That's how I understood it, anyway: that Luke could come back for Rey even on Jakku if she stubbornly insisted, but that it's an unnecessary demand since she's already on her way to him.

So this is what I take Maz' line to mean. That Rey cannot reconnect with her father emotionally unless she stops being hung up about why he allowed her happy childhood to end in the first place. It shouldn't be a precondition for their reunion, and she wouldn't be able to enjoy seeing him again if she lets this unanswered Jakku question come between them. Maz just wants Rey to focus on the many years she will have with her father in the future.

 

even if her family isn't dead, they are not her place of belonging; Luke is.

this doesn't make her Luke's daughter to my mind.
if anything, it confirms that she is not, as it seems to draw a distinct line between two things:
her "family" who she believes left her on Jakku, and her destiny as a Jedi.

 

I agree. What I understand from what Maz says is that her destiny is to become a Jedi, not specifically that her father is waiting for her ahead. He might be or he might be not. All we know is that the Force is tremendously strong with Rey, so strong she was able to have a Force vision the first time she touched Anakin's lightsaber (it was first his than Luke's) and that she is to become a Jedi.

Also that phrase helps Rey to stop looking back to return to Jakku. Whoever left her there - either her real parents, or whoever she thought her parents to be - are not coming back, so she needs to stop that.

 

This is how I tend to see it as well.

Rey is experiencing, in a very appreciable way, the "Call to Adventure" and the "Refusal of the Call" part of the "Hero's Journey" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monomyth#The_Call_to_Adventure).

Maz Kanata is psychologically instrumental in priming Rey's mind to consider (and later remember, at the most pivotal moment during her confrontation with Kylo Ren) the Force.

"The Force" -- how Rey says in that and closes her eyes in that glorious moment.

Rey's destiny -- and the Force itself -- is calling to her.

Like Luke Skywalker, her first knee-jerk inclination is to go back home, to carry out his chores, and, most importantly in his parallel at this point in his character arc with Rey, wait.

When prompted to come with Ben (Obi-Wan) Kenobi, Luke immediately made excuses, and Obi-Wan quickly countered that with "That's your uncle talking."

It's only when Luke recognizes "there's nothing here for me now" that he accepts the Call, moves past the Refusal, and accept the "Supernatural Aid."

The "Supernatural Aid," in Luke's case, is Obi-Wan Kenobi, talk of the Force, and his father's lightsaber.

In Rey's case, Maz Kanata serves in Obi-Wan's capacity, and she mentions the Force and has the same lightsaber in her basement, which Rey finds.

Rey's first reaction is to run.

It is only when she is captured by Kylo Ren, mind-probed, and then becoming conscious of her inherent Force abilities, that she can begin the next step:

"Crossing the Threshold"

Then she begins to explore her newly recognized abilities (e.g. Jedi-mind-tricking the Stormtrooper) and gains more confidence to move forward based on that new awareness.

Luke crosses the threshold on the Millennium Falcon, where he trains with Obi-Wan, before they get captured.

Once he, like Rey, accepts what must be done, he is able to think and move and speak with greater confidence and purpose.

The parallels don't end there:

Luke witnesses Obi-Wan die / sacrifice himself to Darth Vader.

Rey witnesses Han Solo die / sacrifice himself to Kylo Ren.

Both are shocked and disturbed by this, and this psychologically impels them forward, because they know they have to move forward if they are to survive.

So Rey becomes forward-oriented after her encounter with Maz, just as Luke looks past his past after engaging Obi-Wan.

The belonging they sought was always ahead of them, in reach if they moved beyond their wishes, their fears, and their pasts.

This is thought-provoking whenever we consider if we might be also similarly too fixated on the past, or one some wish which might never be fulfilled, and therefore not yet fully engaging the powers already within us, the wonderful potentials ahead of us, waiting for us, if we could only get up and move on.

There are many such amazing life lessons in Star Wars!

JediMasterRobert

 

Me too. I also find it interesting that it is a little bit of a contrast with how Yoda viewed Luke as too forward looking.

Yoda: Ready are you? What know you of ready? For eight hundred years have I trained Jedi. My own counsel will I keep on who is to be trained. A Jedi must have the deepest commitment, the most serious mind. This one a long time have I watched. All his life has he looked away... to the future, to the horizon. Never his mind on where he was. Hmm? What he was doing. Hmph! Adventure. Heh! Excitement. Heh! A Jedi craves not these things. You are reckless!

 

I agree with most of the previous posts. I interpret one's "belonging" as their purpose in life. Rey's is to become a Jedi. She needs to leave Jakku and fulfill that destiny.

The part about who she's been waiting for not coming back is a bit tricky to me, because complementary canon material suggests that she's not even sure who exactly that is. In the book "Rey's Story", she hopes that "her family, a friend, anyone" will come back for her. She also claims not to have any memory of her parents nor of why and how she got to Jakku.

So bare with me... If she's waiting for "anyone" to come back, then Maz's words mean no one ever will. Either because she was left by someone who never had any intention to come back in the first place or the people who care about her think she's dead and therefore never went looking for her or stopped looking.

You're waiting for anyone at all = who you are waiting for is not coming back = no one is coming back. Especially because if I'm not mistaken she uses the word "whoever", which makes me think she was trying to say something along the lines of "look, I don't know who you're waiting for, but whoever it is they're not coming back"

There's also the possibility that Maz doesn't actually know anything at all about her abandonment and is just trying to convince her to move on.

 

It means that what she wants isn't behind her but it's in her future, which is a given so id take this as a literal meaning of the words she says meaning what they mean instead of some hidden agenda .

 

I took it as this:

"The belonging you seek" - could be interpreted as family, a place in this world, her destiny
"its not behind you, its ahead" - she's been dwelling on her past for most of her life, letting her past dictate her actions. But now it's time for her to look to the future. To follow the future. To let herself to move on.

 

The problem I have with that Jedi destiny idea is that they said the same thing to little Anakin when they took him away from Shmi, and we all know how that turned out.

Anakin always wanted to belong to a family, even after becoming a Jedi, which is why he got secretly married.

Also, I never saw Rey "seeking" belonging to any armed organisation. Maz says that Rey's journey forward fulfills a need she already knows she has, and she hasn't talked about anything but family IIRC.

 

What Maz said reminded me of Qui Gon and Obi Wan when they first entered the conference room on the Trade Federation command ship. Obi Wan was paying more attention to the future at the expense of being mindful of the here and now, while Rey is at the opposite end... always thinking about the past.

 

I took it the same way you did. I took it as her family wasn't come back to where she was, but would be where she is going. Maz says that "someone" still could. That someone she has been waiting on is her family. She replies "Luke". My first thought was Luke was her father. But I do see who the "belonging" could also mean with the Jedi.

 

Perhaps it was her mother who left her on Jakku. Her mother is no longer alive. But her father, Luke, is.