Mandapa, a luxury Ritz-Carlton Reserve hotel in Indonesia where one night’s tariff can be around $5040, has a century old Hindu temple on its compound, where guests are invited to join during ceremonies.
On August 23, this Pengason Temple will have a lavish Odalan celebration when Hindus pray and “thank their gods through religious services”.
Website overview of this luxury resort, surrounded by the Ayung River in Ubud (Bali), talks about spiritual richness. It offers various kinds of meditation, including Yoga Nidra, Chakra Meditation, Jagadhita Meditation and Trataka. Its yoga offerings include
restorative yoga, dynamic yoga, advanced yoga, Pranawayu style of yoga, sun salutation, pranayama, Sunrise Yoga, Sunset Yoga; besides services of a private yogi. Yoga classes are held in “Yoga Pavilion overlooking the Ayung River and close to the Holy Temple”.
This Ritz-Carlton can also organize a “water blessing ritual” with a Hindu priestess which involves a number of rituals and meditation. Its guests can place a daily offering at the resort temple; it can organize “homa yajna—fire blessing ritual”; and it offers Vedic Astrology.
Its two-hours long “Grahastha Ritual”, said to be ideal for couples, “will start with a purification ceremony in front of the resort temple that aims to cleanse the body, mind and soul”. It can also arrange Purnama (full moon Hindu ceremony) and Tilem (new moon Hindu ceremony).
Its Mandapa Spa, which apparently has a statue of Hindu Lord Ganesha, “provides a secluded temple for meditation, deep relaxation, food for the soul, and an escape to another world; a sanctuary in which to relax one’s mind, body and soul through ‘Divine Energy’.”
Hindu statesman Rajan Zed, in a statement in Nevada today, commended Ritz-Carlton for providing a Hindu temple in its compound for usage by its guests besides arranging various Hindu rituals for them.
Calling it a step in the positive direction, Rajan Zed, who is President of Universal Society of Hinduism, urged world’s leading luxury hotel brands to keep a copy of ancient Bhagavad-Gita in each room and house an active Hindu temple on their properties so that guests could explore the oldest existing religion of the world with a rich philosophical thought.
Ritz-Carlton, established in 1983 which now runs 91 hotels worldwide, is a luxury brand of Marriott International, Inc.; largest lodging company in the world with over 6,000 properties worldwide and headquartered in Bethesda (Maryland). J.W. Marriott, Jr., is the Executive Chairman of Marriott, while Herve Humler is President of Ritz-Carlton.