Bali Mandala News 1/2021

Due to the virus, apart from the health issues, many people worldwide have reached their limits. Same is true for us at Bali Mandala. The Indonesian borders are closed, traveling is impossible, and that means: no guests.

The employees of the big hotels in the south of Bali like Kuta and Seminyak have unfortunately long been terminated without notice and sent to their home villages. Fortunately, we can still employ our staff on an hourly basis, in order to keep the Bali Mandala in good shape for the day when the borders of Bali open again.

The staff and I, we all haven’t experienced such a situation before: no tourist on Bali. For example, because of the lack of passengers, our drivers move the cars at least once a week so that the batteries don’t drain. They also keep their heads above water with creative other jobs, whether opening a warung (kiosk) or growing oranges.

And yes, from April 2020 onward, it became an increasingly challenging time for me as well. The familiar sounds of children laughing, gathering for inspiring conversations in the restaurant, yoga sessions in the meditation hall, splashing around in the pool, but also those sounds of the festival of lights at Christmas, have given way to an enormous silence – and the songs of the birds, which seem to continue singing and chirping as undisturbed as ever.

It’s kind of funny: our restaurant with its seven tables is empty. For the first time in over 16 years, I have the place to myself. Morning, noon and night! A privacy which I didn’t know before. Since Lisa, our school coordinator during the last year, has returned to Germany only Maggie, our guest supervisor, and myself have remained on the compound.

As our staff continued to decrease their working hours, I went deeper and deeper into the stillness of my being. I developed a new training program for myself to stay in flow physically, mentally and emotionally and called it “The Thousand Divines”: The program consists of closing and opening my hands 1000 times with outstretched arms, simultaneously walking through the Bali Mandala in different “walking styles”. Skipping, heavy walk, light walk – whatever I feel like.

No guests sees me, who have to fear for my mental wellbeing – because it looks very funny. It reminds you of the walk of the Marx Brothers, how they walk through the city with their upper body bent forward, their neck stretched out and their arms swinging to the side. But: in the last few months, the whole thing has increased to 5000 times a day. And so the appearance is secondary…

Since Bali is currently still closed to tourists, I sometimes feel a bit like Napoleon Bonaparte on St. Helena. No one was allowed on the island and no one was allowed off. And I thank Maggie – without her I wouldn’t be able to do this at all. We are getting along great together – who would have thought that we would share the experience of such a situation. Plus, without my meditation practice, I wouldn’t have been able to “ride” my mind all these months. So, in challenging times, each and everyone has something that encourages and strengthens him or herself.

Coming from this place, I wish you such a “strengthening” so that these times will change again very soon and the light at the end of the tunnel will grow brighter quickly.