Our budget, and the fact that Bali is a big island, means we have created a cunning strategy. Essentially where we are us genuinely local without being in the middle of nowhere, where it would be completely impossible to get around. Ubud, though we do intend to spend some time staying there, has the same problems we face here, in terms of traffic and commercialism, though it does have more art. Much less in terms of locals though. Ubud is for the tourists. They live out and travel in. For the green paradise you need to get out into the countryside, which has the 'middle of nowhere' issue. Back to square one. Except, of course, for our Plan.
The answer is a few days in Ubud, maybe a few days in Lombok, and a lot of day trips out of the traffic and into the countryside. To do this you need a taxi or a tour. They're expensive. But, if we sandwich them between days in which we cook in our lovely kitchen, write and blog outside listening to the birds and surrounded by the leafy greenery where we are staying (no real hardship), thus spending little or nothing, we can use two days budget in one and afford it without breaking the bank. Bingo!
All of which is a very round about way of telling you that we didn't do much today, and that therefore I have leisure to relay to you what we learned when we finally finished stalking people's cremation ceremonies and made it to the museum.
The museum is a beautiful place in itself, set in grassland and with ornate carvings and four buildings, each housing a different subject.
We learn that the manifestation of God known as Dewi Sri, serves as a symbol of fertility and is often characterised in temples by something resembling a phallus. Shiva is female when personified as 'Cilli', a very beautiful woman, but otherwise, being a manifestation of God, is above such things. The symbol of fertility, however, is not all about sex. It's used most in relation to water in an agricultural context, particularly given the large scale production of rice.
Ceremonial thanks, pleas and offerings are made to the relevant manifestation of God on a continual basis. The Balinese, at least those who are devout (a fairly large proportion) remember their God regularly. More than that. It is intertwined closely with their daily lives, with their harvests and workloads at every stage.
There is a ceremony before the commencement of rice planting to make an offering for the fertility of the soil and the abundance and quality of water.
There is another ceremony after the rice crop is 12 days old, to entreat God to ensure that it grows well.
In 1 month and 7 days, another ceremony is held to make offerings to ensure continued fertility and prosperity.
When the rice is 2 months old a further ceremony takes place to ensure the safety of the growing crop.
When the rice is fully grown a ceremony is held to invoke the fertility God(dess) to make sure the rice is 'meaty'.
On harvesting day the people create a representation of the manifestation Sri from yellowing rice which is cut, tied and decorated with flowers to symbolise the union between male and female, water and earth.
At each stage of a babies life a ceremony is performed, one of the most significant being the first 'Otonan', after 210 days, this being equivalent to a Balinese year. On this day the baby is allowed to touch the ground for the first time, signifying his or her first steps towards adulthood. This day, the Otonan, continues to be celebrated as the child grows older. The ceremony focuses on the child becoming aware of his or herself, with the help of their siblings, and their hands are loosely bound symbolically, to show the child's willingness to avoid doing evil. Rather in contrast to the exuberance of western birthday celebrations, the day is largely reflective and spiritual, rather than excited and cake fuelled.
Finally, (though in fact there are plenty more ceremonies) I will mention the rather ominous sounding tooth filing ceremony. In this, men and women line up to get their teeth filed, and offerings and prayers are given up to God. The museum leaves the reasoning behind this and it's symbolic significance rather to our imagination and when we ask our host later he says he us not sure what it means but that it began because an ancient king had a mishapen, fang like tooth which his beautiful prospective bride insisted he file down before he married her. Seems reasonable. Both on her part, and on our hosts - given that he is in fact one of the few practising Buddhists in Bali and therefore doesn't follow such ceremonies. Consumed by curiosity, I ask the friendly internet. It is, it appears, a joyous coming of age ceremony in which the tooth filing itself symbolises the transition to adulthood, the changing from animal to human and the control of evil desires. The filing is relatively painless and, as I understand, does not significantly affect the general geography of the mouth afterwards. Certainly the participants seem to be able to join their relatives and well wishers for a celebratory feast afterwards.
But supposing this meaning grew after the historical tale of the king?
Does it matter?
Personally I think the Balinese have got it right. As someone who professes to pursue a faith, I don't spend nearly enough time attributing what I have to my God. I don't pause to say thank you on my birthday - at least not as a matter of course. But if you are constantly requesting prosperity or success from your God, you are continually humbling yourself, reminding yourself if your belief that God, not you, are in control. If you stop to say thank you, or to perform ceremonies which refer you back, again and again to your rules of behaviour, continually refreshing your resistance to temptation, you retain hope - you give yourself new starts, new resolve. Your life is lived with reference, always, to the God you worship. And isn't that how it should be for any religion?
There is always more to learn from another faith than there are details to argue about.
Moreover, the empty throne which we have seen, everywhere, strewn with offerings and appearing more than any other, symbolises the one God of which all the others are simply manifestations, symbols to direct the mind, metaphors for the human view point. The throne is empty, because the one true God is neither male nor female, neither animal nor human and thus, is everything in one. When Balinese Hindus appear to worship Ganesha or Devi Sri, the offering is really for just one aspect of the one God, who cannot be represented or defined by human imagination.
And that one God defies any one place, cannot be tied to one form or one personality, because this God is in and in control of everything.
I rather like the empty throne.
Balinese Hinduism, Judaism, Islam. All pointing to that one God, however differently it is perceived. It seems to me that so many of our world religions seek something which they find, without realising it, in the same place. Can it be that we are all, from different angles, gazing up at the same thing?
"We do not fight here," one man tells us, "because we believe in one God. In Indian Hinduism they fight about whether Vishnu or Brahma is better. But here we do not."
No. If course. Because it would be pointless to argue about different manifestations of the same concept.
I am increasingly wondering whether, across the world, over centuries, we have been bloodily busy - doing just that...
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