The month started on a high note. It was Sunday morning and many weekend visitors had been staying overnight. After the morning session Ratu was sitting outside the taman, talking to the Balinese visitors and many of us Westerners sat down with them.
To demonstrate a particular point, Ratu got up, stood in the centre of the courtyard and asked about 20 Balinese students to form a chain, the first putting his hands on Ratu’s chest, the second holding on to the first one’s shoulders, the third holding on to the second’s shoulders and so on. He then asked all of them to push him over. They started to push and shake with all their might, but very soon they all ended up in a pile, rolling in the sand, doubled up with laughter, having fallen over each other, while Ratu remained firmly upright, smiling in the centre.
He repeated the exercise a few times, asking the Western visitors as well as the women to have a go until everyone was covered in mud and sand – faces, ears, hair and clothing.
Ratu then called his son Gde and his daughter Diah, asking them to take his place. Once again, the human chains were assembled and the pushing started. To everyone’s amazement, neither Gde nor Diah could be moved, but everyone else was flying through the air and into the mud. Finally he called Kobe, asking her to place her hands on his chest and meditate while shaking. After only a short while, Kobe ended up on the concrete driveway, panting, and when Ratu asked her, she told us that she had seen Ratu as a huge mountain with fire coming out of his head. It was quite a Sunday morning!
There was more high activity during the following weekend. The concrete mixers were started up at 7am, mixing the many lorry loads of pebbles, sand and concrete that had been dumped on the car park during the week. This time the human chains were filling the concrete mixers on one side and pouring the fresh concrete into buckets on the other side. The buckets were then passing from hand to hand to be poured into a network of wood and steel channels to become the third floor ceiling of the new accommodation block. The job was finished by 2pm, in record time, and everyone was heading to the river for a much needed shower. By the following evening the concrete had dried sufficiently for us to hold a sacred fire ceremony on the new ceiling asking the gods for their blessings for this new building.
August is also the month when Indonesia celebrates her Independence Day, on August 17th. During the weeks leading up to the day we could see groups of school children in their uniforms marching up and down the roads in neat columns, lead by the head boy or girl, singing national songs and proudly shouting some of the Independence Day slogans. In the afternoon of the great day, many visitors came through our gates, but the main attraction happened just outside the ashram walls, across the road, where many contraptions had been put up for the customary competitive games that are played on the day.
It was an afternoon of fun for the children as well as the adults, and everyone, Balinese and Western visitors, joined in. There was a tug-of-war, a sack race, a spoon and marble race, pillow fights that had to be negotiated while sitting perched on a bamboo pole and, finally, the greasy pole contest. This was a game for the boys only. A long wooden pole had been erected, thickly coated with soap. At its top, a wheel had been mounted from which hung various presents that were prizes for those who managed to get up there. It was a very slippery affair, more so since the pole was sprayed with water to make it even more difficult to climb. The boys worked in teams of four, the strongest at the bottom, with the other three trying to climb on the shoulders of the one underneath.
Our ashram boys are well used to climbing high trees to harvest coconuts and papayas, but this was a different kind of challenge. The soap was very slippery and it spread all over the climbers’ bodies as they were holding on to the pole, so that the next one up often could not find a foothold on the lower ones’ backs and shoulders and the entire human tree slid down to the ground before the forth had reached the top. There was lots of cheering and encouragement from the audience and eventually the presents were ripped off the wheel and flung to the ground, but I honestly do not know how they managed it. The impossible had become possible!
A number of our shaking friends from Lombok had come to the ashram to celebrate Independence Day with us. They extended an invitation to the ashram to visit them in Lombok to meet their entire shaking community and to hold a session in their new taman, in their leader, Pak Made Sumantra’s house. 
So, on 25th August, some 20 ashram people, Balinese and Western, travelled to Lombok by boat and plane. We were first escorted to a public park to meet several groups of primary and high school pupils for an introduction to shaking. Ratu first talked to the children, then we all started to shake with them. Afterwards there was time for questions and answers. Some of the children had obviously made an instant connection with the energy and their questions were very profound – the next generation of shakers in Lombok was born.
We then visited a temple that sheltered a sacred spring whose waters were said to bestow a long life. We all washed our faces and drank from the water before moving on to Pak Sumantra’s house. Ratu was given the traditional Balinese welcome for a holy person, with a symbol of his divine body laid out on a white cloth decorated with rice and flower offerings. After Ratu had blessed the taman and addressed the large gathering of local shakers it was time for lunch. Then the shaking started in a packed taman, a two hour session, like in Bali. It felt like a Saturday night in the ashram, with a mixed crowd of experienced and new shakers. There was great enthusiasm and stamina, and a lot of joy about Ratu having come to visit them. The commitment of the original group of shakers will ensure that shaking in Lombok will continue to grow.
Throughout the month Ratu blessed us with many inspiring talks. Around the time of Independence Day, he often repeated that we need to kill the colonialist inside us so that we can become truly independent and allow our soul to run our life. The greater our focus during our training, the more we can recognise our enemy, the negative thoughts planted in us by our mind, draining our energy and making us ill and unhappy.
Again and again, he emphasized the importance of laughing to create a positive vibration that will reverberate around the planet and eventually induce peace and harmony in the world. The stronger our shaking, the better will become our connection to the astral world.
Shaking combines all the energy practices, such as Tai Chi, Chi Gong, Reiki, Acupuncture, as well as the eight types of yoga practice mentioned in the Bhagawad Gita. There is no need any more in this modern age to learn mantras and mudras for spiritual growth.
Since Ratu is now dwelling with us, awakening our electrical body, he can become our lift to the astral world. We just have to enter the lift, push the right button and the lift will take us to our chosen floor, whether it is no 100, 300 or 500.
Then there was a particularly strong and hard lesson for myself. I had adopted the cat family in the ashram and become particularly fond of a sick little orphaned kitten, which I nursed back to health. The little creature had almost become a child for me. Several times, Ratu mentioned the story of a Brahmin who, through good karma and good works had reached the angelic realm. During his lifetime he had become very attached to a deer, which he treated like his child. When the deer died, he was inconsolable. Soon afterwards he passed away himself, still full of grief. When he arrived at the door of paradise, the angels told him that he could not enter because his attachment to the deer disqualified him from admission to their sublime realm. He then had to spend his next lifetime as a deer. I did not understand at first what Ratu meant, until he forbade me to feed the cats and visit the kitten any longer. Of course I was very upset and cried many tears, but this showed me just how attached I had become to the little mite. Ratu then also told us that it was wrong to pervert the nature of animals, that it will cause bad karma for us. Cats should catch mice and rats to keep the balance in the food chain, or else the mice will eat the rice that is destined to nourish the humans. We should first learn to love ourselves and our fellow humans, then we can give the right kind of love to our animals.
On another occasion he told us to beware of the snake energy. The basic character of the snake is to tell lies to serve its own purpose. The snake will tell us with perfect logic that it is better for us to feed our ego, to think of ourselves first rather than invest our resources in the community. But humans cannot live by themselves; they need a social network to exist. Many of the ills that have befallen our planet are caused by the egocentric politics of the rich nations, protecting their own interests with no regard for the poorer populations. This scenario is not only played out in public life, it permeates all of our social structures, including our shaking community. Let us beware of petty jealousies, of backbiting, of being first at the dinner table. Whatever we give to the community will bear incalculable interest in the astral world. The economics of paradise are radically different from those of our earthbound perspectives.
With love to you all - Marianne
