The family that prays together stays together – the beauty of purpose and belonging

I was, sort of surprisingly, born and baptised as a roman catholic, but led most of my life as an atheist. My mum was from a protestant family. But I don’t recall either of my parents – who were young and independent and had a shotgun wedding in the 60s – ever going to church or praying.

I guess I’ve been fairly anti-religions at times during my life. But when I think about it now, I realise I’ve always leant more towards an interest in philosophy than theology (adult life just got in the way of pursuing that interest).

When I was at school I enjoyed reading Plato and Aristotle. Over recent years I’ve been interested in ‘philosophers’ like Tibetan monks, some new-age authors, the ultra spiritual JP Sears ;). I must admit I’ve never read the bible (but I did read the children’s bible to my kids when they were young). I’m inspired by people who do good in this world, like the amazing Scott Neeson. In more recent years I’ve found my way to a personal spirituality. (Recently I did a Facebook trivia quiz which determined my spirituality is most akin to Zen Buddhism .)

My beliefs about religion tend to match those espoused by the likes of the Dalai Lama, Buddha or Chinese philosophers. That is, I believe one doesn’t need a temple to pray, nor does one need to wear traditional cloth, to be a good person and to do good things.

There are plenty of people who wear traditional cloth – from all religions of the world – who do not practice what they pray.

I am now in a place where I believe spirituality comes from within. And your temple can be inside your heart, and head.

But for the Indonesian Hindu people (most of whom have their roots in Bali), the temple, or pura, is of utmost importance.

There are so many temples and so many ceremonies that much of local life is spent preparing for them and attending them. Everybody is involved. Toddlers copy their grandmothers as they make offerings. Young lads help make decorations. Old people are deeply respected and involved in making decisions about them. Dead people are there, always.

Temples, and the myriad of rites Balinese Hindu people follow, give everyone purpose and belonging.

It is way beyond the scope of my blogs and your patience to explain what little I know about the various temples and ceremonial rites. Balinese Hinduism is unique as it is a blend of animism (the original Indonesian beliefs), black magic and white magic (which still run deep in all Indonesian religions), Buddhism and Hinduism. And each village or location within Bali and the Hindu communities of Lombok have their own take on things too. It is a very complex but fascinating subject! Currently I’m reading Bali – Sekala & Neskala, a book of essays about Balinese Hinduism by Fred Eiseman. But even though I’ve been in Indonesia for two years now, I’ve still only learnt a smidgen of it all.

To keep it a tad simple…

In each home, every family (close blood relatives like grandparents, uncles, aunts and first cousins) has its own personal mother temple, plus several shrines around their house. Anybody who was born in that home, belongs to that temple through a deep and abiding connection, no matter where they end up living or the different paths their life might end up taking.

Then, each extended family or clan (spanning second and third cousins and grand uncles and aunts etc) has a mother temple somewhere, which all the family are also deeply connected to. It is the place where the family comes together, and where many ancestral spirits reside.

Then there is the village temple, which serves several banjars. There are public temples of varying size and significance. And there are crematory cemeteries.

Last weekend we went to Made’s place in Lombok for the inaugural ceremony for a brand new temple. This temple is the second in my description above, especially for his clan (extended family mother temple). The temple that serves this purpose for his family has until now been in Bali. Every year some of the family travel to Bali to pray there, or for the biannual ceremonies held in it.

But over recent times there has been some unrest between the family members in Bali and those in Lombok. And it is not always easy or affordable for Lombok family to travel to Bali.

Over the last year or so Made attended several meetings held by the family in Lombok. They decided to make a new temple in their own village, on quite a big empty space of land at the home of one of his second-uncles.

It took about a year for the family to build, paint and decorate the temple. Eventually an auspicious date was found for its first ceremony.

For a couple of weeks leading up to the day the family had been busy with preparations. Women cooked cakes and snacks for offerings and meals, and prepared the little snack boxes that everyone gets when they arrive at the temple. Plus a gazillion elaborate and beautiful offerings made from palm tree and banana tree leaves, filled with flowers, fruit and gifts.

The day we arrived the men got together at the temple to make the penjors. Penjors are long bamboo poles which they decorate with elaborate creations cut from palm tree trunks and leaves. Offerings of fruit or cakes are hung onto them as well. Each house has a penjor at the front gate, and temples have two placed at the front entrance and two more at the temple gate. Balinese streets often look beautiful because they are lined with these. And they smell beautiful too, because incense sticks are usually placed several times a day, in the offerings all around the homes.

 

 

 

 

Family came from Bali, including Made’s brother, and cousins came from Mataram. On Thursday, we all put on our traditional clothing and went to the beach.

Some of the family carried a structure made from a plant in a pot, and ropes and offerings. This structure represented a vessel for the family’s ancestral spirits. The pandetta sat on his mat with offerings all around him, his huge adorned velvet crown on his head, ringing his bell in his left hand and chanting away a thousand prayers, while the gathering sat and chatted and smoked and took more selfies, and dropped their snack wrappings and plastic water cups and straws all around the beach.

A duck and a chicken, chosen specially to be sacrifices, were blessed and then put into a rice bag for a while. It was distressing for me to see their stressed breathing movements inside this bag.

All of a sudden everyone stood up and walked as a group with the ancestral spirits to the beach, into the water. More mantras were chanted, and everyone tried to touch or be part of it. The whole thing was done in a casual lighthearted manner, as always seems the way, with people laughing and taking selfies at the same time.

Then the duck and chicken were released into the ocean. The duck had a great time, ducking his head under the water and flapping its tail happily. The chicken wasn’t so sure, and made its way back to shore quite quickly, and quite bedraggled.

The spirit structure was taken back up to the beach and everybody sat facing the ocean. The pandetta led us through the usual sequence of five prayers, and then everybody got up ready to go back to the temple.

The mess of trash left behind was disgusting, and because it’s what we do at home on Meno, Made went around picking it all up. I helped him, but was told off by a few of the family. “Tidak apa apa” they tried to tell me (= no problem). Hmmm, well I didn’t agree with that. But how, in the middle of their sacred and beautiful rituals, and in the midst of such family love and togetherness, do you explain to them that straws and plastic bags kill sea turtles.

I was worried about the duck and chicken. I know the Hindu people believe these sacrificial animals are lucky. Because they are specially chosen, they will reincarnate into a higher life form. Actually they will reincarnate into a very good life.

Still, it upset me that some of their last moments were spent suffering heat-stroke in the rice bag. And I was worried they’d be eaten by the roaming beach dogs who had already arrived to scavenge through the rubbish.

But there was a skinny old lady in dirty clothes walking along the beach with a walking stick. She was collecting trash, plastic bottles and bits and pieces to sell for a few coins for recycling. She caught the chicken, and a young girl she knew came along then and caught the duck for her. This old lady from the Muslim village behind the beach not only cleaned up a lot of the rubbish, but she was set to enjoy a full protein meal that night.

On the way back to the temple, the family stopped at the main village road intersection and walked around in circles with the ancestral spirit structure. Now, to explain, it’s really hard for me to understand the significance of a lot of the rites and rituals. Made, bless him, has long followed his own brand of personal spirituality too, which is a mix of his deep Hindu upbringing, some Buddhism philosophy, and mostly he follows his heart. And he has a very good heart. But during ceremonies it’s a bit of a bummer he’s not more devout because whenever I ask him why things happen he says “oooh, nooo, I donno”.

Friday was spent making more penjors and completing the final touches on the temple. Velvet cloths were wrapped around posts. Gold, red, yellow and white cloth and flags were hung. A buffet table was set up under the fancy marque beside the temple. More offerings were brung.

On Saturday morning Made’s brother – the more devout one – led us through the five prayers, blessings with holy water, and the gyatri mantra in the family’s personal mother temple at home. We ate a grain or two of rice and pressed some more onto our foreheads over our third eye. Behind our ears we put flower petals soaked in holy water. Then we went to another family’s personal mother temple for more of the same. We were supposed to go to a close-by public temple for more prayers but that didn’t eventuate. Not sure why not ;).

I spent hours and hours sitting around doing not much at all. The family all speak Balinese (not Indonesian) and I can’t understand a single word of it. None of the ladies speak English so they can’t teach me to cook their super-spicy foods nor how to make offerings (I went to an offering making class in Bali once and it’s really hard!). Nonverbal communication doesn’t seem to be a strong point for them and they get completely bamboozled every time I try to make some hand gestures. So I have no role, no responsibility, can give no hands-on contribution. Which makes me feel useless. Yet they treat me like a special guest, insist I take a seat (usually on the tiled floor), ply me with food and drinks, refuse to even let me put my dishes away. So I sit. And sit. And sit.

Around 3.30pm we all washed ourselves again (to purify before praying), and headed back over to the brand new temple. It looked so beautiful in the late afternoon sunlight. Close family, about fifty people, sat inside the temple. As usual, I was the only white skinned person there.

Another fifty or so people, the invited family guests, sat outside the temple under the marquee. Again, during the hour or two that the pandetta rang his bell and chanted prayers and songs and made his many blessings for the temple, blessings for the family and blessings for the dead peoples’ spirits, the clan chatted loudly, took selfies, and facebooked.

Some of the family, following instructions from the pandetta and his wife, walked around the various shrines in the temple with offerings and holy water on their heads, waving incense smoke around the temple and over everyone there. It is all so very beautiful.

Then suddenly the group hushed, the pandetta took us through some prayers, and the whole group – even tiny tots – recited the powerful gyatri mantra. This is absolutely my favourite part of the ceremony. I still don’t know the actual sequence of the prayers and which deity we are meant to be praying to when, but I take that time to say my own personal prayers. The gyatri mantra is the most powerful chant, and when I hear a hundred or more people singing it in unison in the temple, it transports me to some other place. A place of sublime calmness and wonder and peace. It reminds me of how I felt the time I heard the most exquisite harmony of voices of a choir singing in the St Stephens Basilica in Budapest. And the hauntingly beautiful call-to-prayers I hear daily from the local Gili island mosques.

Then it was all over. More selfies were taken and everyone went down under the marquee to eat a feast of jackfruit curry, oleh oleh, ayam goreng, babi guling sate sticks and kerupuk. And rice, of course.

It is the local way to eat very fast and then head off straight away. Some of the close family stayed on to clean up the mass of rubbish that had been thrown on the ground, and to wash dishes.

As we left we spoke briefly to one of the elders of the family, Made’s Uncle Komang. He spoke to me in Indonesian, and said how he was so pleased to have a new mother temple that will be more conducive to bringing the family together in an easier and closer place. He was very happy.

Made took me home (200 metres on the Scoopy) and later he returned to join his family to sleep at the temple. Each night and for a couple more there will be family that stay there overnight, lights on, gamalen music playing, a TV screening Balinese dancing… to keep the temple alive, or lively. Made wanted to sleep near the spirits of his father and grandparents. And, like every member of the family, the temple should not be alone.

And so, I may well believe that one does not need a temple to pray in. But, as we all know, places of worship sure do have their beauty. And the temples here do especially because they provide everyone in the family with purpose and belonging.