Balinese Hold Cleansing Ritual at Terrorist Blast Site

[Guest guest]

This tragedy occurred very shortly after Nora and her husband visited

Bali on vacation, and even more shortly after we spent a week

focusing on Balinese approaches to Hindu sadhana here at the group.

Yesterday, the New York Times reported an attempt at closure:

 

BALI, INDONESIA, November 15, 2002: Amid charred vehicles and piles of

rubble, Balinese worshippers presented elaborate offerings of grain

and fruit in a cleansing ceremony Friday at the site of last month's

nightclub bombings in Bali.

 

The Hindu ceremony was also attended by ministers, ambassadors and

victims' families. Other rituals were performed on a nearby beach in

the tourist town of Kuta. Religious leaders sprinkled the bombing

site with holy water and burned incense next to pictures of the

victims.

 

After the terrorist blasts, Balinese elders and religious leaders

consulted sacred texts and decided to hold Friday's ceremony

to "place the souls of the victims in the correct plane, to purify

them and show them the right way to enter the next cycle," said

Ngurah Gede, one of the organizers.

 

The ceremony is "a very specialized ceremony that has never happened

before," he added. The ceremony is done following war. Smaller

ceremonies led by Balinese Hindus also were being held Friday and

Saturday at the site of the World Trade Center attack in New York and

in London, Sydney, Toronto and San Francisco.

 

Indonesia is the world's most populous Muslim nation, though Bali is

predominantly Hindu.

 

Source: The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Indonesia-Bali-

Ritual.html

Courtesy HPI