Tri Hita Karana and Tourism in Bali (4)
The Importance of the THK Awards & Accreditations

The importance of the tri hita karana (THK) concept has appeared to become distri-buted and spread out more extensive-ly amongs activists of tourism in Bali. The Annual Competition of Tri Hita Karana Tourism Awards and Accreditations (THK Awards & Accreditations) has played an intensive role in the dissemination process based on a program which has been running since the year of 2000.
Many positive results have come from the last three years’ THK Awards & Accreditations amongst hotels, restaurants, tourist attractions and special retreats in Bali. One of the most impressive things has been the commitment and cons-ciousness of tourism activists (em-ployees, managers, and owners) in the strong implementation of THK in hotel business management.
Bali’s tourism, natural environ-ment and civilization, in the opinion of tourism activists, could only be saved by consistently implementing THK throughout all sectors of community life. Such an assertion is a statement and attitude of sincerity which deserves our attention, it has the potential to guide people in composing and realizing the policy of Bali’s future tourism sector development and execution.
Some may say that this committment and consciousness might be too late. This is because it’s emergence follows a decline in nature, civilization, and the spirit of Bali is in a condition of concern, however it still remains worthy. The reason is that it would be better late to know and do something about it than a reluctance of knowing and doing things.
Tourism activists seem really confident of the effectiveness of sympathetic and cultural ways of acting, as shown by Balinese people in Kuta’s Tragedy, to bring about compactness and rifeness of the condition that THK principles would give spirit to human life. THK, in effect, does not merely want God’s human creatures to devote themselves to Him (parhyangan), but also to love and be intimate to each other (pawongan), and to also not be destructive to our natural environment (palemahan). In this context, THK wishes mankind to live in harmony with nature.
The above-mentioned principle means that we shall ‘keep ourselves away’ from applications of force. The Balinese culture, spirited by the Hindu religion, holds a lot of symbols instilled with love and nuance of religious characters. Various aspects of social life are reflected in many holy sites (pura) and ritual activities. This is one of the important reasons why Bali is named The Island of a Thousand Temples and The Island of God. (Please, read also: The Origin of Bali’s name of ‘Island of a Thousand Temples — Editor).
There has been nearly nothing of profane character contained in aspects of human life in Balinese (Hindu) community from a viewpoint of totality existence, except of religious nuances as a manifestation of balanced relations between humans and God.
Whether harmony or disharmony prevails in the relations of humans and God (parhyangan), according to the THK concept, it firstly depends on whether human performances are positive or negative towards the natural environment (palemahan), and social environment (pawongan). Thus, both these two elements, ‘palemahan’ and pawongan are easily visible as a means of measurement of the parhyangan.
It has been just possible that somebody regularly visits sites of worship and says his/her prayers, is eloquent in debating theories on religion, highly qualified in performing a lecture because of his mastering of holy versions of religion. Nevertheless, if his daily actions were always destructive towards nature (starting forest fires, shooting birds, killing fishes, and the likes), even leading civilization into disaster, by misusing religous versions as stated in holy books, to set fire to places of worship or to kill each other, don’t look at such people as being in harmony with God. This person’s pureness and sincereity in upholding religion is just deceitful.
Thus, if the actors of tourism in Bali really wish to implement THK, the real springboard towards avoiding a curse on nature (palemahan) and interpersonal crimes (pawongan), and keeping people away from habitually misusing holy versions of religion as a tool of doing crimes, as commodity of politics and economic strife, and of piling up richness and power. The reason in realizing holy versions to the good of mankind in their interaction with God and nature, lays at the base of implementing and upgrading the human spiritual concept (parhyangan) of THK.By Berata Asrama, The Chairman of THK Awards & Accreditations