The Hidden Message of Serat Jatimurti

The study is a textual interpretation of Serat Jatimurti, a Javanese mystical folk religion literature by mainly using CMT (cognitive metaphor theory). The result shows that this text hid its main teaching in its forms which are multi-metaphors and abstractly unexplained terms. The teaching is basically on realities and human nature which are dialectically pessimistic and optimistic. Compared to the views of Indonesian major religions that originated not in Asia, the teaching of Serat Jatimurti on the topic bears some similarities yet, substantially the concept of sin is absent in it. The results triggered a question of whether the spirituality of the non-Asian religions such as Abrahamic ones can use metaphors and dialectical patterns of thought such as used by Serat Jatimurti to convey their spirituality without losing its core but instead be mutually enriched?