To open your heart to Bali as soon as you have arrived, it is best to begin discovery of the island with a ritual purification in the sacred waters of the Sebatu font. First-time visitors to this place emerge renewed and nearly reborn!
People of the island trust in the healing power of the water and its ability to purify karma and treat the body's illnesses.
The font is located in the middle of the island, in the highland village, Sebatu. Here you can begin your journey to your true self from a source of healing and meditation, harmonizing the elements.
You will feel yourself ready to drop everything extraneous, leave behind all your troubles, and at the end of the rite immerse yourself in the spring, under whose quick-running waters you may ask for fertility, health or enlightenment.After the ritual we will have lunch in an secluded little café with excellent views of the scenery, tasty dishes from the national cuisine and exotic juice of the wild soursop.
After we are done resting, we will move on to Gunung Kawi Sebatu, a place of tranquility and quiet reflection. The temple grounds are a fragrant garden of pools where carps live, and you may feed them. In the garden shade stand many ancient scultures and altars. The central object of veneration here is the Taman Sutzi throne, which stands directly in the middle of a pool devoted to the patron deity of the temple, Vishnu.
We will continue to Pura Besakih, which stands on the southern slope of Agung mountain. This is the most important holy place of the island, part of a complex of more than 80 buildings that spreads over mountains and among rice fields – a natural backdrop for incredible pictures you can take.
The central temple is open to all people of all faiths. Here we will get to meet a living legend of the island, a clairvoyant and a keeper of the temple, Mangku Jati, who will honor us with his company on our walk.
We will examine the temple, Penataran-Agung, and medidate as the keeper recites a prayer. Every one will be able to ask the guardian spirits for assistance with personal matters, and in the next center Mangku Jati will personally perform cleansing of your energy centers.
The ritual of coconut-smashing will help us leave behind negative experience of the past. Finally all visitors will be able to talk to Mangku Jati in person, receive his blessing and tips for finding one's own path to happiness.
All who come on the trip will get to take away wonderful memories and answers to deep questions that may spark off a new and happier period in their lives.