Jangan Kasih Makanan Monyet (Don't Feeding the Monkeys)
I once heard the definition of mantras explained as ‘mind-mapping’. This resonates with me. For this is what they do for me, they guide me to a place in my mind and consciousness that I wish to go. Somewhere important. It’s an adjustment of perspective and experience, away from my monkey mind (no offence intended monkeys who might be reading this). They lead me back to the divine within. Mantras are particularly useful when I’m lost in my mind and experience of the world, and I'm away from my spiritual centre. It is then that I need a prompt, or a map, back to where I want to be, to where the voice of my developed spirituality quietly nudges me. Words can do this for me. This is why mantras, for me, need to be linguistically and cognitively meaningful to me. It’s no use being assigned some exotic and foreign words from a guru that are firstly, not in my natural language and secondly, not personalised by me for me and my particular way of understanding myself and the world. Gurus and guides are great and essential resources, but I am ultimately responsible for my internal world.
‘Don’t feeding the monkeys’ says the sign on a mountain top road somewhere between Lovina Beach and Ubud, Bali. Although the Google translation of the Bahasa Indonesian words on the sign read: ‘Don't Give Monkey Food’. I prefer the former. Regardless, as soon as I saw it I automatically read ‘Don’t feed the monkey mind’. Probably because of my thought stream just prior about oneness and mantras while riding my motorbike in this wild and wondrous part of the world.
I like to broaden the meaning and function of mantras from just an intentional incantation to also states of mind in how I read the world within and around me. Signs and guides can come from anywhere when I am in my divine mind. Which is a conscientious and conscious practice for me, a continual returning to.
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I keep being drawn back to the island of Bali and I’m not exactly rationally sure why. Although I have my suspicions. For, there are many things about the island that I find challenging and off-putting, such as: the omnipresent pollution, the omnipresence of ‘influencers’, the intensity of tourists (I know, I know, I see the irony), the often chaotic busyness in certain parts, the sometimes relentless human spamming by no doubt well meaning locals, the relative wealth guilt I can experience as a result of the currency exchange, and lastly the feeling like I’m intruding or contributing towards a problem rather than helping.
But there is something unique and special about the land of Bali for me (and I suspect others, whether consciously aware or not)—and by land, I mean the interplay of the actual physical land, the wildlife, the people, the more relative animist and interconnected culture and the essence that ties them all together: the energetic or spiritual matrix. Something happens to my awareness when I come here that is different to when I am on my home terrain or in other countries. I am keenly aware, after six trips to Bali, that I become ‘oneness conscious’ when I’m here, that is I experience and contemplate the oneness and interconnectedness of all things (incidentally the word ‘oneness’ is one of those mantras of mine). It’s not a new concept to me, but it comes alive here in me more than anywhere else. And I am not sure why this isn’t raised in the same way in other places I have spent time. It is not anything overtly communicated, I am fairly sure. I don’t think I’ve been cognitively primed. I believe it is the environmental influence. And when I am oneness conscious I am a better version of myself. Maybe every land and people dyad create their own energetic matrices that shape or influence us.
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According to Gestalt psychology, environmental influence is understood as a holistic experience, meaning that our perception of the environment is not simply the sum of its parts, but rather a unified whole shaped by our interpretations, needs, and how we organise sensory information within the context of our surroundings, emphasising the interaction between the individual and their environment as a dynamic field. In other words, we are not islands, we are not contained and isolated units disconnected and separate from the space we share with others, with things and with forces. No matter how Zen Buddhist-detached I might think I am, I am always in relationship with and being impacted by my surroundings.
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I get a sense that because of the spiritual and cultural beliefs and practices of the majority of Balinese people, together with their relative harmony with the land and its fecundity and potency, something energetic flows in the ether that one can’t escape, despite the myriad of...less uplifting...influences also present here. It’s as though when I arrive and spend time here I enter a matrix of divine energy. When I am spiritually open enough myself, that is.
Part of this matrix is definitely the people (and of course it’s not going to ever be all the people all the time, but generally speaking). I admire and appreciate the way they invite the spiritual into their consciousness daily, by their seemingly infinite rituals and temple dedications. Their material engagement with their cultural-religious doctrine appears to manifest a continual flow of spirit or god consciousness. It is ‘mantra in action’. But the first and most easily discernible of Balinese’ special qualities are their smiles. Their smiles often arrive in my being like blessings. When they smile directly at you it can feel almost like they are making love to you. Or in love with you. Or love the essence of you. Sometimes their smiles seem outright seductive. And sure, sometimes it feels manipulative. And very occasionally, it can even look menacing. This could be more about where my head and heart might be at, at the time. Or it could be a combination of all the above, I’m not sure. Nevertheless, the Bali smile is more often than not intoxicating to me in a beautiful way and encourages my smile to more quickly and readily precede me. And the wonder is especially evident and potent when you observe one Balinese smiling at another. I dare you to not be touched and moved by it.
What is my home country of Australia’s energy matrix largely made of I wonder? And other nations? Or other groups of people? What are our central focuses of attention? Is it hyper-individualism, -consumerism, -materialism, -accumulatism? Of course, those isms apply here in Bali too, to a significantly lesser extent, however, they also have the moderating and reorienting force of a collective spiritual or religious practice that seems to thread through all aspects of life on the island.
And then what are our individual focuses of attention? If I watch Married at First Sight or A Current Affair on a regular basis I’ll think about and be more conscious from the values coded and embedded into the content of those shows. If I surround myself with people who are often negative or critical, it is going to impact my energy and shape how I experience myself and my world. If I stay in a relationship that I might sense deep down is continually unreasonably harmful to me then my world will be shaped thusly. I am what I eat (or consume or absorb). What I read, listen to, watch, expose myself to environmentally, what I repeatedly tell myself or allow others to repeatedly tell me, shapes my experience of myself and my world, and ultimately shapes me.
By being in Bali’s particular combination of material and spiritual matrices, I am shaped and steered in kind (just like when back in Australia and my home and workplace etcetera…) And that goes for both the enlightening as well as the burdening aspects of Bali. But I suspect that the spiritual energy seems to trump the material, in my experience anyhow. And when I am spiritually open myself, of course.
It seems that, when I am open and connected to my spiritual core and in my flow, I am better able to read the world and hear the messages I need to hear to keep me in good stead.
Like the caterpillars that have been presenting themselves to me, first on my first few days here and then intermittently, seemingly at just the right moments. I kept seeing caterpillars on regular intervals and I thought to Google their meaning (I know, I know…but stay with me). According to my Google Oracle on that particular day the symbolisms were: change, transformation and growth are underway, be adaptive, trust the process and be patient. The caterpillars seemed to appear in front of me just when I needed reminding. Particularly to be patient with my current experience of growing pains in relation to an important transformation process I have been in. Or with things outside of my control that might cause me frustration or loss of peace.
Or when a car pushes its way in front of me as I cross the road, instead of allowing righteousness and anger to flare, I can seek the meaning in this from my spiritual centre. Or if I feel unfairly treated by another or others or a system, for example. It’s not a message or meaning about them or the system that I need to seek but about my mindset. And I’m not necessarily saying there’s an inherent message or meaning that comes from outside of me, but there is always meaning to be potentially made within me. Or not. I get to choose. This is part of the way of radical responsibility that I choose to adopt and follow. I alone am accountable for making meaning of my existence and all of its minutia.
I get that this might seem a bit woo woo and loose, about the caterpillar guidance and other energy awareness for instance, but it's a good system, for me, to guide me back to the path I want to be on and to my spiritual centre. I like the idea that everything, every encounter I engage with consciously, is a potential Rorschach test.
The Rorschach test is a psychological experiment created by Swiss psychiatrist Hermann Rorschach in 1921 that uses inkblots to assess a person's personality and emotional functioning. They have been used to determine and analyse a patient’s projections through what they saw and interpreted in the inkblot. What the patient fed back to the psychiatrist was generally believed to be a portal to their inner worlds.
I believe the whole world is a series of infinitely available Rorschach tests, potential reflections of myself, when I approach things and phenomena with conscious awareness. The quote “We don't see the world as it is, but as we are”, attributed to Anaïs Nin (however some believe she was paraphrasing Immanuel Kant), speaks a truth that resonates deeply with me. That the mindset I am in, whether by conscious choice or when I’m in automaton or reactive mode, is how I will experience the world…or more accurately, my world, which is the only world I can truly know.
I alone as an adult am responsible for my experience of the world, ultimately. This is also a mantra of mine. Of course, it’s not always easy to do or is even doable. But it is an idealised destination I want to continue to be redirected to, to journey to, to return to. It often takes strange and sometimes convoluted paths for me to get to the places I need to be, that are hinted at when I am spiritually engaged with myself. Sometimes they require me to visit other lands, other influences, other perspectives, other mindsets. And I need to continually monitor and be conscious of what I am allowing to influence and shape my mind, the most important resource I have and the mediator of my state of being and reality.
