EVERY year there is always a long fasting period followed by a ritual of forgiving. I once met a pious man who said: "'forgiving', like the 30-day fast of the month of Ramadan, could also be expressed as mengosongkan, 'emptying oneself'. And at the same time, 'purification'."

There is interweaving of a few words and meanings here. The word kosong or 'empty' (a word which is the same in Javanese and Indonesian) means void of content: something entirely nega