With my "trip" to Bali yesterday I have now reached the two-thirds mark of
my journey. I have enjoyed this series of programs and think you would too, if
you bear in mind that these are mere introductions and sometimes one-sided in
what they present. The scenes, however, are mostly breathtaking.
That was especially true for the Bali program, which more than made up for
the comparative drabness of last week's "trip" to Australia. The greenery of the
lush vegetation was stunning as was the craftwork of the many temples visited
along the way.
This program dealt with the practices of Balinese Hindus. In Bali, we are
told, religion "is an inescapable as gravity, as regular and unrelenting as a
heartbeat." Balinese Hinduism is built strongly on ancestor worship and animism.
They consider they everything has a soul. They believe in reincarnation and as
this program includes the cremation of an older woman, it seems typical of what
was learned in the previous program about Hinduism.
The program tells that belief in sorcery is accepted as reality, and thus
witchcraft is a thing much feared in Bali.
There is no way I could even scratch the surface of the depth of rituals,
mythology, and legends of Balinese Hinduism which are covered in this program.
And having said that, even what is covered is superficial.
Hindus believe in many gods, and the Balinese mythology includes the belief
that the gods express pleasure and displeasure through the elements, notably
volcanoes, as we are told.
As I've watched these programs it has been reimpressed upon me that the
primitive form of spirituality was most probably animism. Humans from the
beginning seem to have developed views of the sacredness of nature, and that
back of it all there is a sensed purpose. We have fine-tuned these notions along
the way, but it seems clear that natural theology preceded revealed
religion.
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