Baptized in Bali: Lost, found, purified, reborn .

I have the hiccups.

To be specific, I’ve hiccupped pretty much non-stop for the last 24 hours.

The taxi driver is freaking out a little. Not bad, and not about my hiccups, but the anxiety level is rising in the car. We’re lost.

<Hiccup>

“Where you friend go? He drive too fast! This the street! This where he said, but he not here!”

All of this was true enough. Thirty minutes earlier my Balinese friend, Yanta, had given the driver a few rapid-fire directives in Indonesian, then sped off into the snarl and tangle of Denpasar on his scooter, quickly outpacing the car.

Now we were crawling down an empty back street, drawing curious stares from a group of young guys shooting a game of billiards on a decrepit pool table that sat in the middle of the sidewalk.

<Hiccup>

“You have his mobile? You SMS?”

Shit. Tactical error.

If we were anywhere other than Bali I’d be worried. It would be easy to mistake this neighborhood for a “bad part of town,” but in Bali there really seems to be no such thing.

I glance at my taxi-mate, Loryann, my look implying, “You okay?” She flashes a brilliant smile and says, “I’ve been to the Philippines. I’m not worried.”

“What you meet your friend for? What is building? House?”

Uh… Tactical error #2. No clue “what is building.”

I spitball. “We’re here for a meditation with Gede. At his meditation center?”

The driver brightens a little. Something concrete.

“What is other name? Gede what?”

And stee-rike three! In Bali, where you’re named based on your birth order, there’s a 25% chance anyone’s gonna be named “Gede.” Without the rest of his name I might as well be looking for “John.” Actually someone named John would be easier to find.

The driver looks at me like I’m an idiot, which is <hiccup> fair. He stops in the middle of the street and jumps out of the car, engine idling and door open. Loryann smiles again. I hiccup back.

This little adventure began many months prior, when, on a prior visit to Bali, my friend Yanta introduced me to his guru, Gede.

When I first met Gede I thought he was way too young to be a spiritual adept. And his hair was too good: thick, black, movie star hair. How can you be a guru and have movie star hair?

After that first meeting, Gede invited me to join him for a meditation ceremony. I’ve learned over the years to say yes to these kinds of invitations (which has netted me everything from meals with Coptic monks to witnessing a ritual exorcism under a full moon). So here I am, clueless in Denpasar, and feeling doubly troubled since I’ve dragged poor Loryann along into what should be my personal muddle.

Loryann’s a nurse, but when Gede first met her, he declared her to be a “spiritual healer.” So I impulsively invited her tonight – thinking this would make a good introduction into the world of spirituality. If I hadn’t invited her, it would matter a lot less that we were lost, that I had no phone number to call, that I didn’t know what Gede’s last name was. Actually, if I hadn’t invited her I probably would just have ridden on the back of Yenta’s scooter. But regardless, here we are and I’m feeling simultaneously stupid, responsible, and, thanks to the hiccups, dyspeptic. Maybe I didn’t really think this through…

As he returns to the car, the driver announces, “No one here heard of Gede Meditation!” Gede now has a last name at least. Gede Meditation might not be accurate, but it’s descriptive.

Our slow crawl continues. A scooter zooms up next to us. It’s Yenta!

“Where’d you go, Baba G?!” This is often what my friends in Bali call me.

<Hiccup>

“Where did you go, Yenta!?” I reply.

He fires directions at the driver and zooms off again. A few turns later, and we’re there.

Yenta and Hari, my other long-time Balinese guide and friend, both stand waiting as we hop gratefully out of the cab.

“Baba G!”

“Hari!”

“Baba G!”

“Yenta!”

“Loryann!”

“Hari!”

 <Hiccup>

We make our way inside. It’s not exactly the “meditation center” I’ve conjured in my imagination. It’s a typical Balinese family compound: smallish, clean, middle-class. Traditional Balinese homes are actually a collection of buildings that center on a shared, open-air commons. Each building has a specific function: worship, sleep, cooking, etc. It’s a very comfortable arrangement, especially given Bali’s mild climate, but quite different from western style homes.

Of the dozen or so Balinese in the courtyard, no one seems particularly surprised to see Loryann or I. In her case, this is understandable: she’s Filipino and with her brown skin and dazzling white smile could easily pass for a local. In the “temple dress” we’ve been told to wear – sarongs, sashes – she looks even more authentic. Me, on the other hand, no one is gonna mistake for a local, regardless of how hard I rock the man-dress.

 

“Om swastiastu!” I offer enthusiastically to the group, palms pressed together in the traditional greeting.

“Om swastiastu!” they reply in unison.

<Hiccup>

<Laugh>

<Blush>

 

 

We all mill around for a few minutes, a little uncertainly. Out of the side of her mouth, Loryann asks, “What’s going on?”

I whisper back, “I have no idea.”

Suddenly the ornately carved double doors on the compound’s small temple pop open and Gede peers out into the courtyard, squinting beneath his shock of hair. He brightens when he sees Loryann and me, then ducks back inside and begins to ring a small bell.

At once the group slides off their shoes and shuffles into the small vestibule of the temple, motioning for Loryann and me to go in front.

The interior is lit by a dozen flickering candles placed around a shrine in one corner of the room. Gede sits cross-legged on the floor. The air is close with the smell of heavy, sweet incense, and the sound of the bell in Gede’s hand bounces around the tiny space. I can tell from the rich, resonate tones that this bell is made from an alloy of five sacred metals. I wonder how old it is?

The atmosphere in the room is already intoxicating. Loryann looks wide-eyed as she sits. Everyone packs into the small space, sitting cross-legged like Gede. Save for the pure, clear, ding-ding-ding from Gede’s bell, it’s silent.

I choose a spot at the back, and press my spine against the cool brick wall. Next to me a young guy, also sporting movie-star hair, settles in, smiles at me, and lights a massive bundle of incense. He begins to ritually bathe in the smoke, washing his hands and face in the traditional way, before motioning for me to join him.

<Hiccup>

The pungent smoke wafts over me as I scoop it towards my face and up over the crown of my head. Gede begins to chant in Sanskrit over the ringing bell. The Balinese begin to sing. The sound is dirge-like, evocative, haunting. I close my eyes as the tones from the bell and the chant and the song combine with the smoke and the energy in the room to lift my consciousness up, out and awa…

<HICCUP>

Fuck. The next half-hour is a bizarre combination of sputtering transcendence and self-consciousness. Led by Gede, the group cycles through a series of prayers, chants and songs. Some of them rock rhythmically back and forth. Periodically, one young woman makes a deep kind of retching sound. The energy in the room is remarkable. But each time I’m about to achieve that familiar, blissful, meditative “click” in my consciousness, my diaphragm spasms and my awareness slams back into my body. I feel like a bird chained to a perch. I can only rise a few wing-strokes into the air before I’m jerked back down to where I started…

I worry about Lorryann. While for me this is all unexpected and exhilarating, it’s also familiar. I have been steeped in the world’s weirdness for years now, but she’d kind of “fresh off the boat.” I hope that, for her, it’s neither too alien nor too overwhelming.

The guy next to me raises his hands into the air, channeling energy into the room. I close my eyes again and join him. To my inner eye, I see everyone glowing like gorgeous, luminous balls of energy, suffused with a golden light. I raise my hands, palms out, breathe in, and activate my heart and crown chakras. As I exhale I send a wave of love from my palms, and the center of my chest, out into the room.

<HICCUP>

In frustration I open my eyes. Loryann is scooting forward towards Gede. He takes her hands, and the guy next to me moves towards her, touching her in the middle of the back, tapping, drawing the shape of letters across her back, gently slapping her shoulders. Gede tones deeply.

I close my eyes again and raise my palms toward Loryann.

The intensity of the song around us increases.

<HICCUP>

As we shuffle out of the little room into the cool night air Loryann mouths a silent, “WOW.”

We’re led around to the side of the temple, beside a high stone well filled with clear water, where the congregation (I really don’t know what else to call them) begins a purification ceremony for us. Gede is still in the temple room, chanting, praying and ringing the bell. The guy who shared his incense with me, who I realize now must be Gede’s right-hand man, jumps up on the side of the well and uses a long wooden ladle to scoop out massive dipperfuls of water. I keep the high watch for Loryann, and then step forward to take my turn.

<HICCUP>Man, I’ll be glad when these stop.

The ladle is dipped into the well. Gede’s assistant gently tells me to “Wash.” I raise my cupped hands and he fills them with cold, sweet water, which I splash onto my face. The congregation begins to sing. Their voices are beautiful, moving. The Sanskit is an impenetrable, evocative mystery.

More water. I splash my face and neck. “Now, your ears, nose and mouth.” Of course. The congregation draws close. Water is gently poured onto the crown of my head. I close my eyes, tip my head back and let it run, cool and refreshing, over me. The song grows stronger. I’m handed a huge bundle of burning incense, which I hold between my palms, fragrant smoke billowing. More water is poured. Now my shoulders are wet. Hands reach gently for me, slowly washing my neck, upper back and arms. More water is drawn and poured onto my crown. The chants grow more intense.

Soon I am soaked, as a dozen loving hands work the steady, insistent flow of water over me: chest, arms, neck, belly, legs, calves…

Suddenly I am drawn into the heavens and blessed with one of the most extraordinary states of consciousness I have ever known. I am at the very center of existence. Life itself breathes through me, here at this crossroads of the human and divine. Above me, the wheeling stars welcome my exultant soul. Below me the Earth herself is palpable and alive. Around me, I am enfolded in the arms of the beautiful community, the very essence of human compassion. I am the rose flowering on the cross: a flaming amalgam of temporal and infinite, human and cosmic, transcendent and contained.

My hiccups are gone.

A beautiful young woman, the one who made the retching sounds earlier, stands in front of me. With a single, fierce movement she snuffs out the burning incense on her palms and slides the ash down the middle of my forehead in a long, fragrant smear.

After we change into dry clothes, Loryann and I lounge around with the congregation on the porch of the temple. The atmosphere is light, joyous, casual. In a corner of the compound, a few guys watch a soccer game: Arsenal versus Manchester United. We all joke and laugh and giggle. It’s so easy. We’re family now.

We write down our full names and birthdays and Gede calculates our Balinese names.

Loryann is Ni Putu Tasya Shanti Dehe: The woman who possesses peace in her heart in the name of God.

I am I Wayan Widya Balawatam: The man who has the power of spiritual knowledge. Hopefully after tonight that’s a little bit more true.

Gede twists up two simple white bracelets out of a raw bunch of cotton and ties them to our wrists, deftly trimming down the ends.

I wear it as I type this. It’s a constant, gentle reminder of that night. With no way to take them off, we’ll wear them until they break.

Each time I catch sight of that simple homespun circle I find myself wondering: What happened? What was all that? It certainly wasn’t the “meditation” I thought I’d be getting when I accepted this invitation months before.

Could we call it a baptism? I suppose. Not in the Christian sense, of course, but it certainly felt that way. I felt reborn: a new person to go with my new name. No matter what it was, I can never forget that long, timeless moment when I was cradled in the arms of the cosmos and bathed by the hands of man.

Facts are like hiccups: dragging me back down to the perch when I would rather soar.

And just as the Sanskrit was more powerful for not being fully understood, so it is with the rest of that night.