concepts

A Javanese concept prevails to this day is MAMAYU HAYUNING BAWANA - to preserve the beauty of the world in a broader sense means to preserve the universe for the welfare of its inhabitants. By nature, a Javanese is an environmentalist, a preserver of nature as clearly shown in their natural oriented tradition & rituals. Living in harmony is of prime important - the harmonious relation among people in the society: between human beings and the universe & harmonious relation between servant & God = TRIBAWANA; Trinity of Universe. Since their tender ages, the Javanese have been educated by their parents, families, society, teachers etc, the lessons of belief in God, moral behavior & etiquettes etc.

The elder Javanese always say that all religions are good. So far there is no conflict in Java due to religious differences. Up to present date, the four royal palaces in Yogyakarta & Surakarta (Kasultanan under King/Sultan Hamengku Buwono X, Pakualaman under Viceroy/Adipati Pakualam IX, Kasunanan under King/Sultan Paku Buwono XII, Mangkunagaran under Viceroy/Adipati Mangkunagara IX) are the centers of Javanese court culture, where royal ceremonies from the old days are still performed.

KASUNYATAN; The reality in all its forms and manifestations, from the most refined ones (HALUS) to the most rough ones (KASAR), is conceived as a solid unity whose parts are not only a product, but more than that the ontological elements which give existence to the Whole. In KEJAWEN we do not find the dualistic contraposition between Creator and created and not only is there a correspondence between microcosm and macrocosm, but, more than that, there is not really any clear boundary line between the two. The whole is in all the parts, but also each part is already an exponent of the whole.

In this context the human being is nothing but a microcosm which contains in itself all the manifestations of the macrocosm and therefore represents perhaps the most powerful living potential for the harmony between the whole and the parts, between matter and spirit. She/he is the ultimate possible meeting point of rational and irrational, known and unknown, human and divine. Besides this very special microcosm that is the human being, there are many other levels of microcosmic reality: they also represent manifestations of the universe, phenomenally different, but substantially somehow identical in their essence.

It is clear that in such a way of viewing 'this' and the 'other' world, there is no space for those types of dichotomies, so typical of western philosophies. Pairs of opposites like subject and object, matter and spirit, positive and negative turn into something quite different in the Javanese mystical tradition. Basically they lose their character of opposites and the relative ethic value that we are used to connecting them with and they stand as ontological essences valid in themselves. At this point the ethic matter becomes irrelevant compared to the ontological one, because, as Javanese often like to say, itu kenyataan (that is reality) and this and only this is what we have to deal with.