Spirit Guides: Bali, Egypt and Europe

A quick googling of “Spirit Guides” returns well over a million results. Just about every spiritual tradition on the planet embraces the idea of some form of spirit guide: whether they’re called angels, devas or ascended masters. And I have to say that I’ve had my share of experiences with these “non-embodied” helpers. But that’s not what I’m talking about here.

I’m referring to the real-life, flesh-and-blood, currently incarnated kind of “spirit” guides without whom meaningful experience, if not useful access, at sacred sites would be a lot harder to come by. All over the world I have consistently found myself dependent upon, and deeply blessed by, the kindness of strangers who would become friends.

So, to honor these generous souls I’m going to be writing a series of articles on these “spirit guides” who walk among us. From Eder Pitch (“Big Dude”) and Dragon in eastern Europe to “The Surgeon and the Magician” in Egypt, I have been guided by some larger than life, colorful, and colorfully named, folks over the years. But I’m going to start with the newest addition to the pantheon.

A few years back we were scouting a spiritual trip to Bali. This is one of the rougher parts of the job of tour leader: you have to lay eyes, hands, glutes and senses on everything your group will. That means staying at the resorts, eating at the restaurants and riding the bus, water taxi or donkey cart (no, that’s not just hyperbole). That means massages, spa visits and, most importantly, getting to know your local guides.

So here we are, cramming a two week Balinese itinerary into nine days; vetting sacred sites, hotels, craftspeople and assessing the practicality of one itinerary over another. It might sound like fun, but it can get very tiring.

It was our next-to-last day and we had already settled on one guide: Yenta, who was wonderfully mellow, gentle and humble. It had taken him a few days, but once he realized we were serious about learning everything we possibly could about Balinese Hinduism, he completely opened up to us; patiently guiding us through the complex rituals of prayer and offering that are part and parcel of worship in a Balinese temple.

But we were quite uncertain about our second guide. Don’t get me wrong, he was a great guy who spoke excellent English, but he just wasn’t spiritual enough for our group. He wasn’t personally very devout (this by his own admission) and he really only seemed to know enough about the Balinese religion to satisfy the usual slate of cursory questions from typical tourists. But time was running low, and we hadn’t found a more suitable candidate.

We were visiting the last temple on our list: Batukaru, a mossy green fantasy of streams, statues and white-clad Pedandas. As is typical for us we had struck up a conversation with a group of local kids and pretty soon they were mugging for the camera.

Their father joined us. He was a bright, engaging fellow who spoke terrific English. He introduced himself as “Hari” and when we explained that we ran a spiritual tour company and that we were here to learn about Balinese Hinduism he immediately invited us to accompany his family in to the temple.

They were there to celebrate one of the many cremation ceremonies that occur after the death of a family member, so this was going to be an unexpected treat for us.

Over the next twenty minutes or so we were blessed with a beautiful experience. On our way in to the temple Hari told one of the Pedandas that we were joining the family, so the priest included us in the blessing (“American” is pronounced the same even in high-Balinese). We meditated, prayed and made offerings (just as Yenta had taught us), we chatted with the locals, teased with Hari’s kids and listened, fascinated, to the chanting of the priests and ringing of the bells. And best of all, I had a remarkable, enlightening conversation about Spirit with Hari. 

He explained “In the west, you have God. G-O-D. In Balinese Hinduism, we have the same: Generator,Operator and Destroyer. G-O-D or Brahma, Wisnu and Siwa.” A big light bulb went on for me that day. Hari was devout, funny, enthusiastic and very knowledgeable. 

Before I knew it the ceremony was complete and it was time to leave. As we walked out together I thought to ask my new friend what he did for a living. He grinned a little sheepishly and said “I’m a tour guide, actually.” I laughed and laughed. How perfect (and how perfectly Balinese, he knew full well we might have offered him work, but “making a sale” was the last thing on his mind.)

“Give me a name card!” I said “We must have you with us for our upcoming group.” And we did. Hari and Yenta were a perfect team, and the perfect guides for a Spirit Quest group. That afternoon in Batukaru Temple, I not only found a great tour guide, I found an important spiritual teacher and made a friend for life.