Modernity, Spirituality and the Baduy.

The term modernity that I will loosely applied is an attribution to a society that relate to present times, as opposed to the remote past, which is characterized by up-to-date technology, know-how, ideas or equipment and denoted by a current or recent style cultural activity marked by a significant departure from traditional style and value. It refers to people living in New York, Mecca or Serang. They use detergent to rinse their clothes. They use hand phone to communicate across the Globe. Modern man build the society by using the unrenewable source of energy. They increasingly produce side-by product which is called Carbon dioxide and at the same time causing the area of forest shrinking considerably year by year, making this Small Planet even hotter and hotter.

Meanwhile, the Baduy refer to the group of people or community that live in a protected-by-law zone of exactly 12,435 acres in the Hamlet of Kendeng mountain, Banten Indonesia. They are contrasted to the modern society because they refuse to accept any process of social acculturation or assimilation or whatever sociologist might say it. They resist all modern lifestyle in seclusion into a remote tropical forest of Kendeng. They object to using shampoo to bath, they reject the concept of formal education for their children. They resist all modern things absolutely by the sake of their traditional customs.

Then Spirituality refers to the inner state of someone to believe and to act accordingly based on that believe in pursuit of happiness (Try to guess your own meaning of happiness.) Spirituality in the real sense is connected to human spirit or soul as opposed to material or physical things and that of person not concerned with material values or pursuit. This spirituality does not necessarily have something to do with Christianity, Islam or Jews. This is a purest belief, whether or not associated with any religious teaching.

In pursuit of happiness, man is forced externally and internally to believe in something that is to be the truth and act as much as he can do accordingly. When you believe that preserving the tropical forest to be such a sacred duty from the ultimate Truth and you adhere to it, notwithstanding the fact whether it is rational, scientifically proved or not, then by doing so you find a contentment, an inner state of happiness, your Spirituality is there.

If you Visit Baduy Village, you will find that there people do what they believe and believe what they do. These acts have been their traditional customs handed down from generation to generation over the millennia, without reserving, without asking why.

In our advanced modern society, we rely much upon material or physical things in pursuit of our happiness and offsetting down by the negative impact we made to our lovely blue Planet Earth. Competitively each one, each Nation do dig and mine the Earth irrespective damages caused to the environment. We are in a harsh competition to open a new pit for Oil only to waste it in a congested traffic in New York, Bangkok or Jakarta. Added to that, more polluted environment. We are indeed degrading our own quality of life in quest of “unreal happiness.”

Contrasted the two different lifestyle of society, we will find something to remedy.