The Dewa Ruci The Book of Cirebon

The Dewa Ruci ; The Book of Cirebon

The Dewa Ruci from The Book of Cirebon, is a wonderful mixture of Javanese syncretism with Sufism, Hinduism and Javanese philosophy, it is a story and a puppets play which contains advices about life delivered by Dewa ruci to Wrekudara.

It illustrates the efforts of Wrekudara and his struggling to find the fullness of life. In addition, this story also describes how Wrekudara get advices from Dewa Ruci.

 As the topic of this week’s blogbost, we will analyze the moral message that is actually contained in the story, as well as the mystical teachings contained in the Dewa Ruci story (the colors), which is built upon the interaction that occurs between the two main characters and figures, Bima or Wrekudara and the dwarf god Dewa Ruci itself.

Keywords: Wrekudara, Dewa Ruci, Life Perfection.

The power of mind is not only represented in learning but also is represented in the power of repressing ones ego and desires such as to dominate. Having such ego and self-interests desires can blind our eyes. However, through the power of our mind can overcome them and help us to see things clearly as written in the text "The power of mind, its function, is its ability to see, to discern that which is genuine.” Therefore, our mind has the power that allows us to master ourselves and free our soul from any sin and when we reach that state of mind which is called in Sufism (fanāʾ) which means the death of one’s self (ego) we become able to reach enlightenment and represent god. Dewa Ruci advised that, in every action there must be awareness, which is based on conscience. He explains how humans act on the control of their Lord, and act in awareness. In other words, the will to act on the basis of conscience, is the same as acting on the blessing or the will of God. The four colors present in the story, named, black, red, yellow, and white are the colors seen by Wrekudara when inside the body Dewaruci. Each color is a symbol of the basic properties found in human beings. The black color is a symbol of anger. The color red is a symbol of lust, which is often misleading people. The yellow color is a symbol for the confusion that often disorients humans, so it is often misleading and damaging. Finally, the white color symbolizing purity or clarity, contained in man. And they can be interpreted in the way that even when a person is away from God, away from what is in his heart, the color white, as a symbol of goodness, should be able to fight the three vices contained in the human body. But In a real fight between three people against one man, it is very difficult to imagine him winning against them. In life, perhaps, it’s also hard to find people that can beat anger, lust, and confusion, and attain their inner peace. If indeed they were able to defeat their evil qualities, well, undoubtedly they reached perfection.

Therefore, being aware of our acts is the key to a life of truth. Awareness is the beginning of the truth, what is done consciously; it will be done with full consideration of good and bad.

In addition mysticism, in this story there are some moral messages that can be learned by the reader. Mainly, the big and strong determination of the Wrekudara figure, who show a aware and vigilant attitude on what has happened, and will happen, as well, as the call of the Dewa Ruci, to always be humble in life. Arrogant attitude is an attitude that is not commendable, because man is never higher than the Almighty. And finally a reminder that we that we should remain alert to always be able to control our behavior and acts.

This paper is far from perfect, if there is a shortage or a mistake to rethink in the writing of this article, the authors apologizes. Feedback on this work are more than welcome for a future evaluation and a better learning.