Eat, Pray, Love

“You are still practice Indian meditation, too?”
“Every morning.”
“Good. Don’t forget your Yoga. Beneficial to you. Good for you to keep practice both ways
of meditation—Indian and Balinese. Both different, but good in equal way. Same-same. I think
about religion, most of it is same-same.”
“Not everybody thinks so, Ketut. Some people like to argue about God.”
“Not necessary,” he said. “I have good idea, for if you meet some person from different re-
ligion and he want to make argument about God. My idea is, you listen to everything this man
say about God. Never argue about God with him. Best thing to say is, ‘I agree with you.’ Then
you go home, pray what you want. This is my idea for people to have peace about religion.”
Ketut keeps his chin lifted all the time, I’ve noticed, his head held a little bit back, sort of
quizzical and elegant at the same time. Like a curious old king, he looks at the whole world
from above his nose. His skin is lustrous, golden brown. He’s almost totally bald, but makes
up for it with exceptionally long and feathery eyebrows which look eager to take flight. Except
for his missing teeth and his burn-scarred right arm, he seems in perfect health. He told me
that he was a dancer in his youth, for the temple ceremonies, and that he was beautiful back
then. I believe it. He eats only one meal a day—a typically simple Balinese dish of rice mixed
with either duck or fish. He likes to drink one cup of coffee with sugar every day, mostly just to
celebrate the fact that he can afford coffee and sugar. You, too, could easily live to a hundred
and five on this diet. He keeps his body strong, he says, by meditating every night before
sleep and by pulling the healthy energy of the universe into his core. He says that the human
body is made of nothing more or less than the five elements of all creation—water (apa), fire
(tejo), wind (bayu), sky (akasa) and earth (pritiwi)—and all you have to do is concentrate on
this reality during meditation and you will receive energy from all of these sources and you will
stay strong. Demonstrating his occasionally very accurate ear for English idiom, he said, “The
microcosm becomes the macrocosm. You—microcosm—will become same as uni-
verse—macrocosm.”
He was so busy today, crowded with Balinese patients who were stacked up all over his
courtyard like cargo crates, all of them with babies or offerings in their laps. He had farmers
and businessmen there, fathers and grandmothers. There were parents with babies who wer-
en’t keeping food down, and old men haunted by black magic curses. There were young men
tossed by aggression and lust, and young women looking for love matches while suffering
children complained about their rashes. Everyone out of balance; everyone needing equilibri-
um restored.
The mood of the courtyard of Ketut’s home is always one of total patience, though. Some-
times people must wait for three hours before Ketut gets a chance to take care of them, but