Bali Temples
Curious or not, within the biggest Muslim country in the world (Indonesia), most of the Balinese people are Hindi. They believe in one God that has several faces out of which Ganesh (the elephant) is the most popular. Big temples or God statues are present all around the island. In addition, each family has its own temple at home and each building has at least one small shrine at the entrance. We were surprised to find temples even on the mountains, in hot springs or on the rivers. Offerings are made to the temples at least once a day by young women that say a prayer and wave their hands (probably to scare the bad spirits).
Few Buddhist temples are also present on the island. However, even though Buddha thrones in the middle or there is a Stupa in the garden like in Brahma Vihara Arama, these temples are decorated with Hindi sculptures or you can find Buddha and Ganesh sitting calm next to each other in the same room.
Of course Bali wouldn’t be an Indonesian island without Muslims, so we’ve seen some mosques as well on our way up north.
However, we’ve been really puzzled when we were walking in the Pura Ulun Danu Beratan Hindus temple while listening to the 12 o’clock Muslim prayer and passing by a handcraft man selling Buddha figures!
All these religions live in harmony with each other, putting aside differences to focus on the positive side that unites us all: love and doing good to others (as we would like to receive in return) which is the only way for the transcendence of the soul, no matter what your religion is.