Melasti, The (Supposedly) Cleansing Ceremony

Every year, the Hindus in Indonesia would celebrate Nyepi holy day, as they enter the Çaka New Year. This year, we will celebrate Nyepi on March 23th. And as usual, proceeding the Nyepi holy day, we held 2 kind of ceremonials. The first one is Melasti ceremony, which usually takes place in the beach. The second one is Tawur Agung, which usually takes place in the city center temple, e.g in Central Java will be held in Prambanan Temple. I was blessed to be able to participate in Melasti ceremony just yesterday, at Parang Kusumo beach, Jogjakarta. The purpose of Melasti ceremony is to cleanse the macro as well as micro cosmos, before entering the new era, new year. The cleansing process for macro cosmos is symbolized by float out offerings to the sea, as for the micro cosmos, which is the humans, we flush ourselves with the sea water, praying that we are freed from all kind of vanity. Unfortunately, the will of cleansing stayed only in the mind. Just after the ceremony, most of the participants littered the beach with the paper they've been sitting, throwing plastic bags, and what's left from their offerings. Even Mom said it is okay, but I just can't do that to myself :( I can't help wondering, on my way home, how in the hell the supposedly cleansing ceremony end with littering the place? Is it because ceremonies are merely ceremonial acts that we forget the meaning and intention of it? We MUST ponder on this! If we can't maintain the cleanliness of a beach during preaching and praying to cleanse the world and us, what would we become? *originally published in omingoke.com