Bali is a fascinating island and has it’s own unique form of Hinduism that is only found in this very special place. Living a spiritual lifestyle is paramount to the Balinese and keeping in harmony with all the gods and goddesses that rule and protect the different aspects of life.
This means that there are daily offerings of incense and flowers to the deities that cover the shrines, doorsteps to homes and shops and bring a bit of beauty to each day and connect us with the divine.
Simple Daily Balinese Offernig
Ceremonies also play an important part of life in Bali and my favorite is Nyepi (pronounce nippy). This is the Hindu New Year in the Bali Island of Indonesia. The New Year is observed as ‘a day of silence’ as Nyepi symbolically represents the state of the universe before creation.
Nyepi 2011 date is March 5. Bali Hindu New Year is based on lunar calendar. The festival is marked by numerous rituals and pujas and is spread over four days.
The most important ritual associated with Nyepi is the bathing of village deities in the sea (Melasti).
Long trains of villagers carry offerings and sacred objects from their temples down to the ocean for purification these statues and effigies are symbols that help to concentrate the mind in order to become closer to God. The ceremony is aimed to clean all nature and its content, and also to take the Amerta (the source for eternal life) from the ocean or other water resources (i.e. lake, river, etc).
Melasti Ceremony
Today, the night that Nyepi starts there will be another type of ceremony. This time all villages in Bali hold a large exorcism ceremony at the main village cross road, which is known to be the meeting place of demons. They usually make Ogoh-ogohs (pronounced oga-oga). These are elaborately made 8 – 10 paper machet Monsters and daemons.
The giant ogoh-ogoh towers over the crowd
The Ogoh-ogoh monsters symbolize the evil spirits surrounding our environment that have to be got rid of from our lives. The carnivals themselves are held all over Bali following sunset. Bleganjur, a Balinese gamelan music accompanies the procession. Some are giants taken from classical Balinese lore. All have fangs, bulging eyes and scary hair and are illuminated by torches.
Everyone enjoys the carnival and in the evening, the Hindus celebrating Ngerupuk, start making noises and light burning torches and set fire to the Ogoh-ogoh in order to get the Bhuta Kala, evil spirits, out of our lives, and basically scare the evil off the island.
Ogoh-ogohs are meant to scare away bad spirits...this one would scare anything!
That night everyone goes home and for the next day and night stay at home in introspection by limiting their daily activities to give nature a chance to rest. Just one day. And it is a total rest for Nyepi is incomparable to any other holiday in the world because on Nyepi day itself, every street is quiet - there are nobody doing their normal daily activities. The only people allowed out are the Pecalangs (traditional Balinese security man) who control and checks for street security. The Pecalangs main task is to stop any activities that disturb Nyepi.
No traffic is allowed – not even flights as the airport is closed, not only cars but also people, who have to stay in their own houses. Light is kept to a minimum or not at all, the radio or TV is turned down and, of course, no one works.
I was told that this was not only to give the mind and nature a rest, but also because the following day the evil spirits that were scared off the island the night before are now out searching the islands to find a place with inhabitants to put their devilish influences upon. When they come back to Bali they see that there is no one here and go off to trouble some other place in the world.
It’s easy to believe that Bali has been purified during Nyepi as it is a wonderfully peaceful day. It’s amazing to just sit in the garden and all you can hear are birds, the wind and the ocean. Even the dogs in the neighborhood are silent and the background hum of passing traffic, that normally doesn’t register, is conspicuously absent.
Also because it is held on a dark moon, I love to go out on my balcony and look out over the pitch black and silent landscape and up to the stars that are out in all their glory. It’s hard not to feel the wonderful peace of a universe at rest. Nyepi offers a deep psychic reprieve, a cosmic sigh for all of us here.
The day afterwards when we all emerge from our seclusion, I feel a tangible calmness that underlies the island; even tough we are all back to work doing our normal daily lives.
Making offerings to the sea
Observing Nyepi really is a wonderful way to start the Balinese New Year with a refreshed mind and spirit.
In fact yogis have been putting aside time for rest and reflection for centuries by taking themselves on silent retreats and it is this spirit of self renewal that I wanted to embrace when starting Surf Goddess Retreats.
While we are definitely not silent on our retreats, and there is a lot of fun activity both in the surf and on land, the underlying heart of the retreat is to be a restorative time in a uplifiting space where we can all come to reconnect and refill to our inner well of strength, calm and beauty, to emerge again and bring the best of ourselves back out into the world.
Om Swastiastu
(Balinese for ‘May God Bless You)
Copyright 2011 Surf Goddess Retreats
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