The need for a daily sacred practice

Creating Sacred Spacesbali-entrance-pencil

Shauna and I went to Bali a couple of years ago for a holiday. It was our first time to Bali and we just wanted to hang out and rest, do a little shopping and see the country. We found the Balinese happy and friendly. To us they appeared to be soft and gentle hearted people, who placed their Spiritual and family life first.

The majority of Balinese are Hindu and they place their spiritual lives above all things. Each house has a temple to the Gods and spirits of their ancestors; some of their sacred spaces are so large that they take up the whole top floor of their house. They fill each day with Spiritual awareness and at least 3 times a day the Balinese make a conscious connection with the Divine with offerings and prayer.

The streets were littered with little prayer parcels asking for blessings. In every doorway and place of business the blessing parcels where piled up. We could easily tell how desperate each shop was for business by how high their prayer parcels were piled.

When we landed in Bali, Shauna and I could immediately sense a change of energy in the environment, even just walking out of the plane into the airport. Bali felt calmer and more peaceful. It had a gentler type of energy, somewhat less frantic than where we live. Even though everyone drove their scooters as if there was no tomorrow, there was still this flow of life force that was neither pushed nor hurried. Life flowed through the present moment with no hurry. Continue reading