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Originally Posted by Pusaka
There is no aspect to kejawen or kabatinan that did not already exist in pre Islamic Indonesia, actually kejawen and kabatinan could easily exist without Islam but the opposite is not true ie the yogi techniques are generally absent from Islam and could not have came from it.
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Pusaka, i am afraid that academically this just does not bare out to be true. There is a great deal of Islamic Sufism in Kebatinan and a great many of the spiritual terms are described with Arabic words derived from those sufi practices. Again, Kebatinan is a syncretic system derived from a number of spiritual practices that were blended into a system in colonial Jawa, first within the royal courts and eventually amongst the commoners. What we know and what is practiced as Kebatinan would not exist without the Islamic influence in the mix as well. The practice of it today, while perfectly valid, probably has as much in common with the practices of pre-Islamic Java as modern Wicca does with pre-Christian Celtic paganism. Please understand that this does not mean that i do not think it a valid or useful spiritual practice. Quite the opposite actually.