Spiritual service holds a special place in Balinese society. People here believe that some receive their gift from higher powers and that the path toward it may pass through difficult trials.
This is how Ibu Jero describes her own story. Today she is a Balinese priestess who conducts rituals, blessings, and spiritual consultations.
Her path began long before she started helping other people.
18 years old. The illness that changed everything
When Ibu Jero was about 18, she was in her final year of school. At that time, she became seriously ill and was admitted to Sanglah Hospital in Denpasar.
According to her, the illness was so severe that she experienced clinical death.
Ibu Jero spent an entire month in the hospital. She remembers almost nothing about what happened during that time.
After waking, however, she felt that something inside her had changed. She began to sense a completely different energy, which she describes as being closer to the spiritual world.
She did not yet understand what had happened. She was only 18, an ordinary life still seemed to lie ahead, and she did not give these sensations much importance.
For a while, the experience remained simply an unusual episode from her youth.
24 years old. The beginning of a difficult period
Ibu Jero married at the age of 24.
Family life was not simple. She faced difficulties in her relationships with her husband’s relatives and serious financial problems. All of this led to a deep depression.
During this difficult period, events began to occur that she could not explain rationally.
From about the age of 25, Ibu Jero says she began to sense the presence of invisible spiritual forces. She did not understand what these energies were, why they appeared, or what they wanted from her.
To make sense of what was happening, she turned to spiritual teachers. They told her that, in their understanding, these were not random events but signs of a spiritual gift given by God.
Ibu Jero would have to accept this gift and learn to live with it.
28 years old. The call to serve people
By the age of 28, the spiritual experiences had become especially intense.
Ibu Jero says that the energy came to her again and again with the same message: she was to devote herself to serving people.
This was not a path she had planned or consciously chosen. In her words, spiritual forces persistently directed her toward this purpose.
Accepting it was not easy. Ibu Jero had to pass through many trials, tears, and difficult life circumstances.
She says the path demanded enormous patience, resilience, and strength of spirit. Gradually, she began to accept her purpose and follow it.
How her spiritual strength developed
One of the most remarkable parts of her story is that, according to Ibu Jero, her spiritual strength did not appear immediately in the form she experiences today.
It developed gradually.
Ibu Jero connects this development with her own life experience: illness, family difficulties, emotional upheaval, and the need to overcome trials again and again.
She gives particular importance to patience. In her words, patience, resilience, and the willingness to keep moving forward allowed her spiritual strength to grow over time.
Today she considers this strength the foundation of her service.
The path she still follows today
Many years have passed since then.
Today Ibu Jero receives visitors and conducts spiritual consultations, blessings, and Balinese rituals. People come to her with questions about relationships, family, life difficulties, work, and the future.
Her practice draws on Balinese Hindu tradition and on the spiritual experience she has accumulated through years of service.
Ibu Jero sees what she does not simply as work, but as a purpose given to her from above.
Her story reflects how a priestly calling may be understood in Balinese spiritual tradition. It is not always a conscious choice of profession. Sometimes it is a long process of accepting one’s path.
For Ibu Jero, that path began with a serious illness at 18, continued through years of trials, and eventually became the work of her life.
As she herself says, patience helped her develop the spiritual strength with which she works today.