Mantras keris and empu

[A. G. Maisey]

Thank you for your post Mick.

Your experience in the home of keris culture was at a time when the nature of the culture was changing forever. Probably the very last people in Jawa whose keris knowledge and experience spanned the period from pre-WWII through into the modern age left us during the 1990's.

Because there was a general perception amongst these people that the younger generations had lost their way, I believe most of them did not accept pupils or followers and so much of the knowledge, experience, belief of the older generations is now lost indeed.

At the present time I fear that history is repeating itself:- those people who truly do have some of the deeper keris knowledge are extremely reluctant to accept pupils or followers because they are unable to find people with both the interest in keris and the mind-set to permit those people to learn the deeper aspects of keris belief.

Perhaps all the knowledge and belief of previous generations is not yet lost, but I feel that it soon will be.

Hidden knowledge is not passed freely to everybody:- that is why we know it as hidden knowledge. Exactly the same thing applies with the hidden knowledge of any religion. The masses are permitted a limited understanding, only the initiates have the hidden doors opened for them. As the difficulty of comprehending the hidden knowledge increases, fewer and fewer people have access to that knowledge.

In the World of the Keris, the only way to have a door opened for you is to be accepted by somebody who holds the knowledge and who is prepared to teach you, and that person will never pass knowledge to you gratuitously, but only in response to the questions you ask, because those questions will indicate to the Teacher the existing knowledge and mindset of his pupil.