About Subud

The following is a short article about Bapak and the founding of Subud by Sharif Horthy in the introduction to the centenary limited edition of Susila Budhi Dharma (2001):

In 1925, a young man in Semarang, a port on the north coast of Java, received a remarkable spiritual experience that was to transform his life and that of many people all over the world. That experience is fundamental to understanding how this book came to be written.

His name was Muhammad Subuh. By day he worked as a bookkeeper at the municipality and at night he would study accounting. It was his custom to go for a walk late at night after working at his studies, to clear his head before going to bed. On this particular night he was on his way back from his walk at around 1 a.m. when he was startled by the appearance in the sky above him of a ball of light as bright as the sun, which illuminated everything around him. As he looked up, he saw that the ball of light was falling towards him. He felt a tremendous physical shock as it entered his body through his head. His body shook, and he was sure he was experiencing a heart attack. He stumbled home, went to his room, lay down on his bed and surrendered to God, preparing to die.

What actually happened was completely unexpected. First he saw the inside of his own body, filled with light. This lasted only a few seconds. Then his body started to move of its own accord. He was made to sit on his bed, then stand up and walk to his study. There his body went through the movements of the Muslim prayer. These were the customary movements that would have been familiar to him as a practising Muslim, but they were not accompanied by the words that are normally spoken. Then he was walked back to his bed. All this happened quite independently of his will, as if an invisible force was moving him, but throughout the whole experience he was fully conscious and aware of what was happening.

That was how Subuh described the first occurrence of what was to become a regular event. Every night the involuntary movements returned, and Subuh observed what was happening as if he was a second person in his own body. Since all this happened independently of his own will and his own mind, Subuh felt that it must be happening by God’s will; so he simply surrendered to what was happening, but remained attentive.

These manifestations kept changing – the movements of prayer gave way to different kinds of dance and martial arts. Subuh had some expertise in the latter, and to his surprise he found he was being taught many new movements and techniques that he had never before experienced. Gradually the movements also became deeper and more complete, involving his feelings and understanding. Soon he found that he was being taught about and experiencing all the levels of life in the universe: the material, vegetable, animal, human and levels higher than that. As this process of inner change went on, Subuh increasingly came to be regarded by his acquaintances and friends as a person of remarkable wisdom and insight.

All this culminated one night some years later in an experience in which he was given to understand that what he had received was indeed the action of God’s power, and that it was not just for him but could be transmitted to others. He was not to seek people out, but if they sincerely asked they could receive the same contact with this same power that Subuh had received. This proved to be true. When acquaintances asked him to transmit this contact to them, he found that he could do so. If they were simply close to him in a state of surrender, they would suddenly start to feel the same action that had started within Subuh many years ago. It was clear they were experiencing the same power, but that it adapted itself to the nature and individual needs of each person. This passing on of the contact from one person to another came to be called pembukaan or ‘opening’. Once it became established in the new person, they were in turn able to pass it on to others. For several years after that, this experience spread slowly among Subuh’s circle of friends in Semarang and Yogyakarta, a neighbouring city that became his home after the Second World War. They referred to it simply as ‘the spiritual training’ – latihan kejiwaan in Indonesian – and practised it together on a regular basis.

The practice consisted of Subuh’s friends meeting in a room – men and women separately – where they would surrender themselves to the working of this inner power for thirty minutes to an hour at a time. People would simply follow whatever spontaneous movements and manifestations arose within them. When the practice later spread outside Indonesia, it came to be called simply ‘the latihan’, because it was felt that the English word ‘training’ would confuse people, as it implies learning something through the use of intellect and will.

Besides joining in the latihan with his friends, Subuh also shared with them his insights about its true nature and purpose. He told them that this experience was not something new, but simply the result of restoring the connection between the Divine Power that fills the whole universe and the human soul; a connection that is the birthright of all God’s creatures, but which human beings have lost through generations of life that emphasised the development of the mind rather than awareness of the soul. Subuh told them that maybe the reason these movements had started for him with the familiar movements of prayer was to reassure him that what he was experiencing came from God’s power.

He had later come to understand that there are different stages in the worship of God. There is the familiar worship enshrined in our various religions, which is initiated by the heart and mind, and based on faith in what has been handed down in traditions deriving from the teachings of prophets or messengers of God. There is also worship that arises spontaneously from the human soul being guided by the power of God, as in the latihan. According to Subuh, this second kind of worship leads to the repair and improvement of the character and physical body of the worshipper.

He made it clear that what he passed on was in no way a new religion, since it brought no new teaching, but was rather a re-connection with God’s power that provides the proof of the reality of what the great religions teach. In the same way Subuh would always emphasise the great difference between the latihan and the many spiritual or mystical ways to be found in Java known as kebatinan, which are passed from teacher to pupil and depend on human will, using techniques of meditation and asceticism. Although Subuh would from time to time pass on to those doing the latihan some of what he had learnt in the course of his own spiritual experiences, he always warned them not to treat this as a teaching but more like a road map to help them understand their own individual experiences in the course of the latihan. He was later to say,

‘In all this, Bapak’s function is like that of a school servant, who sets out the books, opens the door, cleans the classroom, and arranges the desks and chairs for you to sit on. When you are all there, sitting down and facing the front, facing the blackboard, the teacher will come and give the lessons; and the teacher is God, not Bapak.’

Bapak Muhammad Subuh Sumohadiwidjojo, Talk at Coombe Springs, England, 19 Aug 1959.

A few years after the war, after Indonesia had declared its independence from the Netherlands, there were already a few hundred people doing the latihan in Central Java and they called a congress with the intention of incorporating themselves as a spiritual association. They chose for themselves the name ‘Subud’ – not taken from Bapak’s name but from a contraction of three Sanskrit words: susila, budhi and dharma. The meanings ascribed to these words were as follows:

susila – humane behaviour that is in accord with God’s will.

budhi – the inner power within human beings.

dharma – surrender in following God’s will.

What I want to do sounds very simple. I want to try and explain what Subud is and what it has meant to me for the forty or so years I have been in it. I want to make it as understandable as possible. But we are talking about an experience that is kind of unique. It is one that those of you who have not joined Subud would not have had, as far as I know. So it is not that easy to talk about. Maybe one of the reasons we don’t talk about it very much is that we have been told not to proselytise or try to pressure people into joining Subud. But another reason is that it is not that easy to talk about.

What I want to start with is to say that Subud is completely open. It is open to anybody. There are no secrets in it. So, if you are not getting what I am saying, it is because I am not good at explaining it. It's not because it is either complicated or secret. We are going to have questions and answers afterwards and I want you to be very, very relaxed about asking anything that is not clear. There are no "wrong" questions. In other words, it is supposed to be explainable and it is supposed to be clear, so please remember that if you are not getting it, it is probably my inability to convey it. And I'm also talking a different language of course, because I grew up in England, and there is that problem. What I am saying is, please be brave and just ask about anything that is not clear.

What I am going to do is, in just a few words, explain what Subud is and then I am going to tell you a bit about how I got involved in it. That will give you a sense of what it feels like to approach Subud and join it. And then I will give you a little bit of a rundown on how it started and the history of where it comes from, and, if there is time, I will talk a little bit about what Subud members do and what we believe and things like that. And then there will be a short test, which you can uh . . . No, just kidding, I think then we will just open it up for question and answers. I can see the audience is heavily laced with Subud members, so I'll probably ask some of them to come up and help, and join me in answering your questions. And maybe tell us about some of their experiences.

So, what is Subud? Subud is a direct, personal experience of a higher power in our lives, as an everyday reality. I know that this is kind of a difficult concept for some people, because for some people who are religious, a higher power is God and something you only talk about inchurch. And for others, it is something they do not really understand, and they may not believe in it.

But, as I said, Subud is an experience, so we do not go into all that stuff. We don't have to figure out what it is. It is very different from the kind of spiritual movements, which start off with a teaching, and there are zillions, or at least many, many, of them. You first are taught what is a human being, and what is the soul, and what is God, and what are the chakras, and so on. Then you practice certain exercises you have learned, and you have a teacher, and then you are supposed to arrive at certain experiences.

Subud is absolutely not like that, because there is no intellectual effort up front. You don't learn anything. What happens is that a contact with an energy, or a power, is passed on from one person to another. So a person who has received this, and has practiced it, is somehow able to pass on this contact to someone near him or her. The only requirements for this seem to be, one: that they sincerely wish to receive it, and two: that they are next to somebody in whom this is already working.

So, it is a bit like - if I take an analogy from physics - you have a piece of iron and you have a magnet, and if you put them next to each other, the piece of iron becomes magnetized. Before that, if you hang the iron on a piece of string, it just goes round and round; but once it has been next to this magnet, it will align itself with the earth's magnetic field. So, something has happened to that iron, because it can now pick up a force field that was there all the time but before, couldn't be felt. So it is kind of like that, but as you know, analogies can be limiting, so you can just forget it.

But that is sort of how it works-it is something that is passed on. And this thing that is passed on is an experience that you have yourself. It is personal. Nobody tells you what to do or how to receive it. You just receive it. And most of us who have been in Subud a long time have already passed this on to many people. The process is very straightforward and I will describe it later, but none of us know precisely why it works. All we know is that when somebody is near us and we both surrender, meaning we just let go, they somehow get to receive this experience that we received before them. They get to feel the same thing. I am going to try and explain what that feels like, although it is different for everyone. But that is the reality of Subud.

It is very clear then, that Subud is not a cult, where you have a teacher . . . because there is no teacher. And it is not a religion because there is no creed, you are not told to believe anything. It is really an experience. But, although Subud is not a religion, it has a strong connection with religious experience. Actually I believe it is what is at the core of every religion. The reality is, if you dig into any religion, whether it is Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism or others, you find that the people who started the religion had an experience of a direct action, of something that did not come from their own will. It is like a power was involved that seems to have an intelligence that is beyond the human. Some people have called that God, or Allah, or the Great Life Force, or whatever you like.

In Subud we don't say you have to believe in that. We say, "You can try it - if you want to experience that, we can connect you with that experience." And because there is not a teaching in Subud, it does not take you away from your religion. So if you are a Jew, or a Muslim or a Christian, you can go on practicing your religion. And, since you now have an inner experience that corresponds to what is taught in religion, it gives your religion a new dimension. It becomes more real, instead of just a lot of words.

That was my experience. People come into Subud who believe in God and have a religion; people come in who do not. People sometimes become religious when they are in Subud, some do not. Some people change religion when they are in Subud; that happened to me. And all this comes about through an inner development. The other dimension of Subud is that once you receive this experience, it triggers a whole process of inner growth. And, again, it is not something that comes from a teacher. You do have a teacher in Subud, but the teacher is inside you. You begin to recognise that there is a teacher inside you who can actually guide you in your life-which is different from everyone else's life. It guides you according to your own nature.

Subud is this individual experience. Subud is also the description of an organisation that supports people who do this. It is a service organisation. It is international and now spans about 80 countries. The purpose of the organisation is to provide places where people can practice Subud and also to support members in bringing this experience into their life, whether through their enterprise or their work or through social work or cultural expression or any other means.

The organisation itself is rather horizontal. To give you an example: although Lorenzo described me as the head of the international Subud organisation - I do this for four years, and then somebody else does it - it is not a post that carries great power and influence in the world. I basically work with a council of people from all over the world representing the zones in countries which have Subud members. And I can never get them to do what I want and it is rather a hard job. So Subud is not one of those pyramid things where there is a big organization and you have to do what you are told. It is very bottom up and quite democratic - more of an anarchist, minimalist organization. That is Subud in a nutshell.

Now I will tell you a little bit about how I got involved in it. In many ways I had a very ordinary childhood. I was an only child but I was lucky to grow up in a very loving family. We started out in Hungary, went through the war, and ended up in Germany, survived a Nazi prison, and then lived in Portugal and England and so forth. But, basically I had a normal, uninteresting childhood.

Well, it felt normal. But the thing that perhaps was not normal was that, at the age of eight, I had an unusual experience. I was walking home from school one day through this beautiful park in Portugal near where we lived, walking through lots of flowers and so on. At a certain moment I 'came to' - it was like a kind of awakening. In that instant I realized a whole lot of things. I realized first of all that I had been asleep, or rather - since I was a child who liked going to the movies, the way I conceived the experience was - I had been in a black and white world. I had been living and walking around in a black and white world and now suddenly I had woken up and the world was Technicolor.

And then I realised not only had I come to, but I'd had this Technicolor experience before, that this was how I lived when I was much younger. I had memories going back to the age of two or three when we were still in Hungary and I was aware that when I was at that age, my whole life was Technicolor. That is, my life was very real, and I was right there living it. Somehow this had evaporated and my life was not real anymore, as though there was now some kind of cotton wool [thread] separating me from the reality of the world around me. This realisation was accompanied by a great feeling of loss and sadness, as though I had lost something very precious.

In that instant I became a seeker, though of course at the age of eight I didn't express it to myself in those words. I knew I was looking for something - I was trying to find out how to hang on to that experience. A few years later, when I was still reading comics about Bugs Bunny and Donald Duck and so on, I also started reading other things. Being an only child I read a lot. I started ordering books on science and philosophy through the mail, not really finding anything that grabbed me. Finally I came across a book by a follower of the Russian-Greek teacher Gurdjieff. He was from the Caucasus and his philosophy was, 1 think, based on teachings he got from a Sufi school way out in the East somewhere.

Gurdjieff explained human life in terms of human consciousness. He suggested that human beings are really asleep; that we essentially spend our lives imagining that we are awake, making decisions and running our life, but actually we are just behaving mechanically, in a state of semi-sleep. We have the illusion of being free will but actually we are being moved around by forces we are unaware of. The key to becoming human was waking up. In other words, human consciousness could be developed. And this really grabbed me because it seemed to explain the experience I'd had. I got genuinely interested in this man's teaching. I read book after book, because he seemed to give clues about how to do this.

At twelve, I was sent to a boarding school in the north of Scotland, and I took advantage of life at school to do these funny exercises, like fasting and not sleeping, trying to do things consciously, counting backwards while going to sleep ... I mean lots of different things. I think I was very lucky because I was at an open, permissive kind of school where weirdos were tolerated, so I got away with it. But what I concluded was that none of this seemed to work. I still believed the diagnosis, but the cure wasn't working.

It was only when I was about sixteen that I discovered there were still groups following Gurdjieff’s teaching, although he himself had died. I decided to go and find one of these groups. And I did. It happened to be the one where the founder of Subud had just been invited. He was invited by one of the leading people in the Gurdjieff work who had found that, without Gurdjieff there “to urge them on,” the group was making only limited progress. They were basically giving up. According to what this particular leader told us, when Gurdjieff lay dying a few years earlier, he had warned him that this would happen. Gurdjieff had told him to "look for someone who is preparing himself in the Dutch East Indies who will take you to a higher level." So, with his "antenna" out looking for something new, he heard about this man who was the founder of Subud and invited him over to England.

He had just been and gone when I got to Coombe Springs, the headquarters of this group. Within a few months of him being there, a big crowd of these Gurdjieff types had gone through this Subud experience. Overnight many of them abandoned the Gurdjieff work - not the philosophy, but the techniques - and they were practising Subud.

Gurdjieff was a kind of straight, up-and-down-the-line kind of guy, one that European intellectuals could relate to, but I wasn't sure about Eastern gurus, so I had misgivings at first. This sounded a little weird. But what they told me piqued my interest, because they said that, in Subud, you simply surrender and receive a contact with a life force that fills the whole universe, including human beings, and that this life force is actually the power of God. It is not just a force; it is an intelligent power that can guide you to your own individual truth. They said that this process will go on inside of you, and that all you have to do is just ask to receive this, and it can be passed on to you. And then what you do is you practice it. You do it twice a week for half an hour and that gives enough time for it to work inside you. Little by little it will become part of your life. So I said, "Okay, I would like to receive this," and I was told to wait a week or two to sort of acclimate myself.

While waiting, I had an interesting experience. I was living in Coombe Springs and I heard what we call the practice of the Subud “latihan”. Latihan is an Indonesian word meaning training - that's all it means. But in England, calling it "training" could be confusing because that evokes the idea of a teacher and a set of exercises, etc., so we just call it "the latihan". The first time I heard the latihan, it was like the sound of lots and lots of people singing and shouting and making a good deal of noise. You might have thought that this would he off-putting or that I might think, “What is going on here?” but I had a strange inner feeling at that moment. It was almost like a voice in my head. The words were just suddenly there: “The thing you are looking for has to be like this. It can't be something polite, with people explaining things to you in an intellectual way.”

So, I thought, okay, I'll have a go at this. This is the way I received it: one day I was asked to come in the evening. When I arrived - there were two or three other people who were also waiting to receive this contact - all we were told was take off anything that would stop us from moving freely. For example, if you have coins in your pocket, take them out, take your watch off, take your shoes off, and take your glasses off - so that you feel really free. The place where we did this was just a large open space with carpets, nothing else. Having done that, having prepared myself in that way, I (along with the others) was asked to stand up, close my eyes, and surrender - to follow whatever happened, not to try to do anything, but to just let go.

This was very difficult for me because I was rather an intellectual person and, when you tell a very intellectual person to stop thinking or to let go, they think even harder. They think, "How do I let go? How do I stop thinking?" I got more and more frustrated, standing there with my eyes closed and lots of people around me singing and making noises and running around, and I thought, “I'm not going to get this, this isn't going to work. I'm just not able to let go.” As I was going through this inner agonizing, I suddenly noticed that my hands had started floating up, like this, (demonstrates) towards the ceiling. And I thought, "What is this?" As soon as I thought “What is this?” they flopped down again. But the moment I just did nothing, they started moving up again of their own accord, as if somebody had picked them up and was moving them for me. Now this was really strange. Every time I stopped worrying about it, it would happen. So, the first latihan I did was spent with my eyes closed and my hands going up and then flopping down and going up and flopping down. I knew something was happening but, for the life of me, I didn't know what.

I was rather sceptical as a young man - probably rather unbearable - and I thought, well, this could be hypnotism, it could be people around me influencing me, it could be anything. But it was certainly something I had never experienced before. Then, in my second latihan, I had the experience that, for me, absolutely clinched what Subud was. I need to tell you this, not because you will also have that experience, but because then you will understand why I am still in Subud after 42 years.

What happened in my second latihan was that I immediately started moving, it wasn't anything to do with hands, or worrying about letting go, or that sort of thing. The moment I started I was spinning around like a top. I moved really quite violently and the movement was totally involuntary. I was also completely conscious - I wasn't in a trance or anything like that. I could observe it, and I could have stopped it if I wanted to. After about ten, fifteen minutes the spinning stopped and I was made to kneel on the floor. As I knelt, I suddenly became aware that I was back in my childhood, at an age of two or three, and I was in the place where we lived in Hungary. I was actually there, in our apartment. My mother was there; my governess was there. I noticed that I was in that state of vivid consciousness, exactly as when I was two. And as I realised this, again there was the voice that wasn't a voice, as if the words appeared in my brain. It said, “Is this what you wanted?”

For me this was extraordinary! First of all I myself had forgotten the experience I'd had at the age of eight, and secondly, I had never spoken about it to anyone else. So from these simple five words, I knew that the power behind Subud was an intelligence that knew me much better than I knew myself, that it had been with me from the time I was born to the present, and that I just had not been aware of it.

I didn't need any more proof, but if I had needed it, it came a few weeks later. I of course had to go back to school - as I said, I was at this boarding school in the north of Scotland, a few hundred miles from the nearest Subud member. Before I left Coombe I had talked to the helpers - that is what we call the people who pass on this contact-and I asked them, “What should I do when I go back to school? Should I practice this the way you do here, half an hour, twice a week?” They said, “No it's better not to because you haven't been doing it very long and you might not be able to stop it. You might get scared, or people might see you and think you're crazy and then you could get worried. So it would be better not to do latihan at school. Come back and continue with it on your summer holidays.”

I went back to school. One day, only two or three days after getting back to school, I was reading a book and suddenly I could feel this inner movement. I thought, "Now what? Do I follow this or not?" Luckily, as a prefect I had my own room, and I decided, "Okay I'll just do it." I locked my door and I followed the latihan. It stopped after about forty minutes and it was gone. Then I knew for sure that it was inside me and not an influence from someone else. I was nor getting it because I was with other people. It was like a switch had been turned on. Something inside me had made me able to have access to this force, power, whatever it was. So I went on doing the latihan, and I went back to Coombe Springs, and the rest is basically that I never, never stopped doing the latihan. I do it whenever I have the opportunity, usually twice a week, maybe three times a week, sometimes every day.

Why I do that is ... it is not a practice like being a member of a religion where you go to church and you think, okay, I'll give it an hour because it is my job as a Christian to go to church. I do it because for me the latihan is a time when I am in touch with my real self. I believe now, from my experience in Subud, that there is such a thing as a human soul. And I believe that each of us has a human soul. But for many of us it is completely dormant because there are other souls as well - I will talk about that in a minute. What I think happens in the latihan is that the half hour of being in the room, either alone or with other people, of closing your eyes and completely letting go and letting this power work in us, is analogous to letting your soul breathe. It is giving time for your own real self to come out of the dark room that you have kept it in and actually be in contact with your body, with this world, with your everyday experience.

The thing that I was told in the beginning, at my introduction to it, really did happen for me. Little by little this power or this feeling of the latihan, where you are moved by something that is you and yet it is not you - it is a deeper you - this became an experience that started to pervade my life. In other words, it was not only in those half hour sessions that I would feel the inner movement. It would come at any time: when I was working, when I was thinking, when I was writing, when I was eating, when I was making love, whenever. You don't know why it begins. It just does. It is always from beyond your own will; it is not something you can force. But you can also bring it on yourself by being quiet ... you let yourself get quiet and then it comes.

That has been my experience. And more and more as I go on I have realized that inside me there are two people. There is the old me, this person who was born a long time ago, grew up, developed a personality with good and bad habits, and an ego that wants this and wants that. And then there is another "I" that is really from another world and doesn't care unduly about any of this stuff here. It seems mostly to he looking after me, making sure 1 don't do anything stupid that would damage my possibility for surviving this world and going on into the next one.

It is very important to emphasise that I am convinced that this experience, which I call the experience of the latihan, is something that is not bound to this world. When I die, I will be just as alive as I am right here and now, through the vehicle of the latihan. In some way, the latihan experience is really separate from this world. I know this is probably a little difficult to believe - the great thing about Subud is you don't have to believe any of this stuff. I am just telling you how it seems to me. If you decide to try it, you will experience it in a completely different way from me - it will then be your own truth, not mine.

What I want to do now is to very briefly explain how Subud started. Earlier I mentioned the founder of Subud, Muhammad Subuh Sumohadiwijojo, who was born in 1901 in the city of Semarang in Java. We call him Bapak, which just means father, but in Indonesia it also has a meaning similar to Mister, Everybody is called Bapak, so this is not intended as a sign of undue reverence, as if he is our guru or something. It is just a respectful name, and it is easier to pronounce than the other one.

He received this gift when he was 24, at a time when he was not looking for a spiritual path. He had had some rather unusual inner experiences before that age, which you can read in his autobiography. As a result of these experiences, for a rime he looked for a spiritual teacher who could explain to him about the meaning of life. But he had given up on all that. He had decided he wasn't going to get anything from the many mystical teachers who could be found in Central Java in those days. He decided to become an accountant. He was working by day as a bookkeeper, and studying at night. He wasn't married yet and was living with his mother.

At about midnight he would usually stop studying and go for a walk before turning in. On this particular night he went for a walk. It was pitch dark, but as he was walking along not far from his home, everything around him turned suddenly light. He looked up and saw what he thought was the sun in the sky above him. As he looked, he realized that it was a ball of fire and it was falling to earth, towards where he was standing. It fell on top of him, and he experienced it entering into his body through his head. His whole body began to shake and he thought he was going to die. He thought he was having a heart attack. He stumbled home. His mother opened the door, and said, “You look rather pale, are you all right?” He could only say, “Yes, I am okay.” He went to his room, lay down on his bed and prepared to die.

But he did not die. I will try to describe what happened, the way he described it to us. For a few seconds, he had the strange experience of seeing inside his whole body, which was full of light. Then that went away and, as he was lying down, his body started to move by itself, as if somebody were lifting him up into a sitting position. He sat up on his bed and was made to walk like a puppet to his study, where he had been working earlier. It was as if he was being moved by another person while he just observed. When he got to his study, his body performed the movements of the Muslim prayer. The familiar pattern, you go down like this, then you go down on your knees and come up again and so on. He did this without any words, entirely moved by an invisible force. Finally he was taken back to his bed and he went to sleep.

The next night it happened again. And then it happened every night. This was really the first experience of the latihan, as we know it. According to Bapak's story it worked in him every night for a thousand nights. He practically didn't sleep for a thousand nights. The experience got deeper and deeper and it changed from the movements of prayer to dancing, followed by a series of inner experiences, where he felt how it was to be a material thing, he experienced what it feels like to be a plant, what it feels like to be an animal, what it feels like to be a human being. And then, he was shown things about the universe. It was as if he was given a spiritual guided tour of life in the universe.

Certainly, all this totally changed him. After those thousand days, he was a completely different person from what he was before. But he wasn't very happy. He never wanted to be different from other people, so I think at one point he prayed to God, saying, “Look, God, if this is just for me, I really don't want it. I just want to be a normal person.”

A few years later, about eight or nine years after the latihan began, he had an experience where he received a better understanding of his mission. He was taken out of this world and was told, “Yes, this thing, this contact you received, is not just for you. You can pass it on to other people. And not only that, they can pass it on to other people, like a chain reaction.” That was the beginning of the spread of the latihan.

He was also told he should not look for followers, but just pass it on to anyone who asked him. And so he did that. At first it was just his close friends who had noticed that he was different. They said, “What's up with you?” He said, “Well there is this thing I do, you see, and if you want it, you can have it.” Little by little it grew, so that by the end of the World War II there were a few hundred people practicing this. One day they all met and said, “Look, we ought to call ourselves something.” They all sat around to determine what to call it. In fact they were able to choose the name using the latihan. They tried to receive, through the latihan, what the name should be. They got the name Subud. That is how Subud began.

And then in the early fifties, when Indonesia had just become free, a young Muslim of Syrian descent who spoke many languages came to Indonesia. He was called Husein Rofé. Because he had an interest in mystical movements, one of his language students introduced him to Bapak. He received the latihan and quite quickly realised that it was something new and unique. He had become acquainted with lots of mystical teachings and different kinds of Sufism and so on, but he had never encountered anything that was so real. He started writing articles about it. The Gurdjieff people in Europe picked it up and invited first him, and then Bapak, to England. That is how it started outside Indonesia. So now you have the whole story.

There is one more thing I would like to talk about, and that is what else Bapak brought us. He spent the rest of his life, not so much passing on the latihan - we all did that, as I said, whoever got the latihan and practiced it was eventually able to pass it on - but what Bapak went on doing, was to go around the world explaining what the latihan was. And, in a way, to me his explanations seem as important as the experience itself. That is why I want to spend just five minutes on that.

Actually I am a little nervous doing this, because the truth is, he never spoke about these things to anyone who hadn't first received the experience. There was even a sort of dictum that he coined when he came to the West, "Experience first, explanations afterwards." I only recently came to understand that if he had talked about these things to people who had not done the latihan, it would be as if he were teaching. It would be Bapak telling everybody, "This is how the world is," and immediately Subud would become a reaching, not an individual and personal experience.

What he was in fact giving people who had received the latihan was a kind of road map. He was saying, "This is what the latihan is about and this is the meaning of the experiences you are having, so you may better understand what is happening and where you are heading." And I can tell you, such understanding can be very useful. As you have probably gathered by now, this experience does not come from your own will, rather, it happens to you. You are being cleaned out and changed inside. That can be wonderful and it can also be scary and unsettling, so understanding what is going can make all the difference.

Basically what he said was that, while we live in this material world, we see material things-tables, chairs, electrical conduit boxes, etc., everything that is material. These material things are actually alive; there is a movement or vibration in them that is alive. If they were not alive, they wouldn't exist. So, Bapak had a sort of quantum-mechanical view of the material world.

Then he said there is a higher world, the vegetable world. He said that is not the material world, but a world inhabited by vegetable essences. In the vegetable world these essences appear as plants, but we also have them inside of us. When we eat a potato, the potato essence in us and the potato essence in the potato meet at that moment, resulting in the delight we feel when we eat. It is the nice feeling when you eat something that tastes good. And he said that meeting is very important because, it is at that moment, we are enabling these vegetable essences to meet their destiny. The same with the animals. Eating a plant or an animal should be an act of worship or a sacrament, not just an act of consumption.

And then there is the human world where we basically interact through sex. And there are worlds that are higher still, worlds which are independent of this world. Bapak explained that the latihan came from a universal power created by God to enable essences at each level to connect with and ascend to higher worlds. So for us, the latihan is our link with where we originally came from, and takes us back to God.

I found these explanations very interesting. I was horn in Hungary in the middle of the Second World War. Although I was small during the war, I still remember that time, that atmosphere. As we know, it was a time where apparently highly civilized people were performing acts of barbarity that we still have not come to terms with. As a young man, I realized that, from time to time, cultured and educated human beings can behave in ways that are barbaric and evil but I could not understand why. With Bapak's explanations I began to understand that there is no such thing as evil. What there is, is things out of place. You can have a material, vegetable or animal soul in charge within people whose human soul is dormant or unconscious. What motivates the actions of such people are these inferior selves.

The soul is what is powering you, what is alive in you. But it may not be human - it could he material, it could be vegetable, it could be animal. If, for example, a person is capable of exterminating other people because he believes that will somehow make the world a neater place, it means that the soul in him or her is a material one, because a material thing feels nothing. A material thing is totally without feeling or morality, or even any awareness that there are other living things. Therefore, it is clear that a person like that-it is nor that they are "evil"-is just doing what their true nature, the thing that motivates them, wants to do. And what is wrong is that that thing, that motivating force, is out of place. A material soul has taken possession of a human body.

Because in our culture we have learned only to look at what we see with our eyes, we do not see that. We only see the results in the way the world is. The same is true of the vegetable forces. They have certain characteristics, as have the animal forces, and so forth, What the process of the latihan does is to awaken the human soul and gradually introduce it to all these other things inside us, so that it can

eventually take charge. It is like the householder who has been locked in the cellar while the cats and the dogs have been running the house. One day the door is opened and the householder emerges from the cellar and, of course, at first, feels really strange. But little by little he takes charge of all the things in the house, and eventually tidies up the house, puts the dog in the dog house where it is useful for scaring off intruders, and puts the cat in charge of catching mice and so on.

So, that is a part of the big picture that Bapak gave us. As I said, it is not a teaching, it is an explanation or a road-map for what we experience in the latihan.I think I have covered everything that can be said about Subud that could make sense to anyone who has not done it.

Transcription from recorded L.A., California talk in October of 2000, courtesy of Rosana Schutte and Sierra Goodale.

The Latihan: an inner awakening

“When you come to zero, when you come to the nothingness, at that moment there is a vibration.”

Bapak Muhammad Subuh Sumohadiwidjojo, recorded on 17 January 1981 in Jakarta, Indonesia. Reference 81 JKT 2

The term latihan kejiwaan is an Indonesian term meaning ‘spiritual training’ or ‘spiritual exercise’.

The founder of Subud, Bapak Muhammad Subuh Sumohadiwijojo (Bapak), explained that the latihan is a method of worshipping God that is open to all mankind and whose source is the power of God.

The practice of the latihan involves voluntary surrender to the power of God. After quietening one’s thoughts and desires, one makes the intention to worship only God, who has the power to reach and move a human being from within, without any external means. This power is the source of the latihan. Once in such a quiet state, one may feel spontaneous vibrations or movements that derive from divine grace. By willingly following these movements, one can experience a worship free of thought and desire.

Bapak explained that the movements and vibrations represented the awakening of the inner self or soul of the individual by way of the action of the latihan. Following this awakening, individuals start to become aware of their true selves and their connection with the divine grace, humanity and life in the universe. Over time, individuals may find that this enables them to live their worldly lives more in accordance with their true inner nature and in a way that benefits themselves, their families and their community.

Since the latihan is unique to each person, no two individuals’ latihans are the same. This is a matter solely between the individual and the power of God which is the active force guiding the latihan. Pak Subuh explained that what happens in the latihan is truly a receiving, and it can be received by each one, but differently between one and another, yet in accordance with the inner self of each one, so that the ultimate aim is ‘becoming more and more you’. Therefore in the latihan there is no ‘direction’ of anyone’s experience from a leader, although more experienced members are present as helpers. The initial contact is the beginning of the awakening process which takes time to evolve, and requires patience. Many members find their practice and understanding of the latihan changes considerably as their experience deepens.

Beginning and following the latihan is a completely voluntary act and should only be commenced following a conscious and sincere decision by the individual without any pressure from others. Individuals remain inwardly calm and conscious during the latihan and may choose to stop their exercise at any time.

It is acknowledged that the latihan may be difficult to understand or believe in simply by reading or listening to the accounts of those who follow it. The reality of the latihan can only be felt and its significance understood once it has been experienced by the individual.

Practising the latihan

In Subud, people meet to practise the latihan in a local venues, men and women separately, with each latihan lasting approximately 30 minutes. There is usually a preparation period of up to three months before a person comes to their first latihan, the latter being known as the ‘opening’, in which the contact with divine grace is spontaneously received by them. Most people find this applicant period important, as it is a time to ask questions and be sure that joining is something the person wants to do. It may also be a time of subtle change, creating an inner readiness for the experience of the latihan.

Meaning of the word latihan

The word latihan, short for latihan kejiwaan [Indonesian], translates literally as spiritual training. Since the experience of the latihan is unique for each person, people in Subud often have different ways of describing their own experience of the process and the impact it has on their individual lives.

Acknowledgement:

This text has been copied from the website of Subud Britain

Joining Subud

Anyone over the age of seventeen can join Subud. People wishing to join are asked to wait for a period of three months before being opened. This gives them a chance to find out about Subud and to make a sincere and considered decision of their own free will. The waiting period is waived in certain circumstances such as for the children of Subud parents and for people over the age of sixty-three.

Do I have to believe in God to get ‘opened’ and join Subud?

Bapak consistently explained that the latihan is a worship of God. However, Bapak left it open to members to find the reality of that through their own experiences and also to refer to the source of the power of the latihan by whatever name they recognise or feel comfortable with.

Since the Subud latihan is in fact a receiving from what is variously called ‘The Spirit of God’ or ‘The Holy Spirit’ or ‘The Power of God’ or similar words in other languages, a person who wishes to be opened will be asked to state that they ‘believe in God’, ‘would like to believe in God’, or to make some similar statement with regard to worship of ‘The One Who is Almighty’. This should be discussed with the helpers during the applicant period.

Does it cost anything to join?

The latihan is a gift, given freely to those who sincerely ask for it. However, since normal expenses exist — such as the rental or purchase of facilities, communications, etc. — members are asked to consider making voluntary charitable contributions to their local group.

How do I begin the process to join Subud?

Those wishing to join should contact the helpers[1] of the nearest local Subud group, or if that is not available the national organisation, and if one doesn't exist, the International Organisation.

If you are local to Orgiva, and wish to experience the latihan for yourself, please send an email to the helpers[1] of the Subud Alpujarra group:

If you are a woman:

Email: helpers-women@subudalpujarra.org

If you are a man:

Email: helpers-men@subudalpujarra.org

For other enquiries, please see our Contacts page.

NOTES:

[1] Some experienced members are designated to act as helpers. They are responsible for meeting with applicants and witness their opening. They also assist members with "testing"[2]. Being a helper is not a badge of spiritual merit. Bapak outlined various qualities a helper should have such as being experienced in the latihan and being generally well liked by the members.

[2] Testing is a way used by Subud members to seek the answers to practical and spiritual questions through the latihan. As well as the general latihan in which members simply surrender to God, there is also a special use of the latihan which is called testing. In testing a question is put and an answer received through the movements of the latihan. Sometimes the questions are related to practical matters in life. On other occasions the questions are of a more spiritual nature. Testing is also used to determine the person who is most suited to hold a particular office in Subud such as the chairman of the group. Typically, a number of candidates are nominated for the position then each one is tested with a statement such as: "Show by the movements of your latihan your willingness, ability and capacity to carry out this responsibility". Sometimes further questions are put to clarify the matter and usually testing produces a result eliciting general agreement.

Acknowledgement:

This text has been copied from the website of : What is Subud?

Subud and Religion

Since Subud puts forward no creed or dogma of its own, it is open to people of all religions; and in fact people of all religions, as well as those of no religion, do belong to Subud.

"It is important to understand that Subud is not a religion. And the reason why Bapak says this, is because the first impression people often get about Subud is that it is something that resembles very much an activity or a teaching that can be described as a "new religion" or something like that. But the fact is that Subud is not a religion, because if it were a religion, then it would not be possible for Subud to receive people into itself who still practice their respective religions. And the fact is, as you know, that Subud actually receives members who are Muslims, who are Christians, and within Christianity, all the different types of Christians like Catholics, Protestants, and all the other various forms of Christian teaching that there are. And also, other religions such as Buddhists and so on. In addition, Subud receives people who have no religion. So, all these people are able to coexist and to experience or to receive Subud. So it is clear that Subud is not a religion but is a receiving that arises from beyond the influence and effort of the heart and the mind and the nafsu. " 

Bapak Muhammad Subuh Sumohadiwidjojo, Reference: 81 WOS 1

EXTRACTS FROM MATTHEW SULLIVAN'S BOOK - Living Religion in Subud:

• A free digital verson of this book can be downloaded here; and a physical copy purchased here

Subud and Islam

The fact that Bapak was a Muslim has given the great majority of us who are not Muslims a sympathetic feeling towards Islam which we would hardly otherwise have reached. Simply being with Muslims time and again as we practise the latihan has the effect of rinsing away age-old prejudices, and the effect of hostile images of Islam dwelt on in the western media.

Another link has been fasting. A large number of non-Muslims among us have taken part regularly, or for some years, in the annual Ramadhan fast, attempting to follow it the way Bapak often spoke of, with emphasis on inner watchfulness as much as on outer restraint (see page 60). After all, through the ages fasting as a means of inner discipline, cleansing and renewal has been a normal part of religious practice, and Subud is only bringing back, along with some other movements in the church, what has become of value. For my own part, the times of following Ramadhan were an education in the meaning of and the need to practise Lent, which Bapak has said has equal high value with the Muslim fast.

Bapak himself never sought to make converts to Islam, which would have been totally against the spirit of Subud. But, being himself a supreme exemplar of the breadth and depth of Islam, he could not help exerting an influence. Not a few westerners among us, having no roots or education in religion or being put off by the Judaism or Christianity they were brought up with, have embraced Islam, at least as a stage in their religious journey. Some of these converts, it must be said, having received a Muslim name and joined Islam in an elevated state, have found it difficult to follow the requirements of a faith outside their own culture and so have fallen away and reverted to their original names.

But how do those who are firm in Islam, it is asked – and they also ask themselves – stand in relation to the conservative and authoritarian forces which are at present sweeping through Islam on the one hand, and the modernising and westernising tendencies which oppose them on the other.

Those who write in 'Evidences' answer this question in a variety of ways. The Islam to which they bear witness is very different from the popular image prevailing in the West. The issue of human authority is avoided because the practice of the latihan enables them to experience the pure source of authority beyond man. One Algerian-born Muslim who is also a psychologist suggests that Subud, being outside these conflicts, offers a new model, or paradigm, of change, through which the present divisions might in time be made obsolete.

Bapak and Christianity

Nothing about Bapak has moved me as much as his deep familiarity with my own faith. It was not the Bapak grew up in a society in which Christian missionaries were respected, or at least tolerated, and that when young he had close friends who were Catholics, nor that as a Muslim much of Jewish and Christian scripture were part of his own inheritance. It was far beyond this. Bapak spoke of Jesus more often than of Muhammad and when he did it was often with a freshness and intimacy and considerable inner knowledge, which to a Christian can be both unnerving and revelatory.

In his earliest talks Bapak would refer in the usual Muslim way to nabi, or prophet, Jesus. After a little while in the West he dropped this and, while use nabi for Abraham, Moses and Muhammad, always said simply Jesus or Jesus Christ. On one occasion he spoke of the light that came down into Jesus when he was born and remained with him as a child, adding that this Light was only visible to a few. At once something in me responded: but of course that must have been so! The mystery of the Christmas story suddenly was clarified. Only those who were clear and clean enough in themselves, such as the shepherds on the hillside and the three wise men, could be aware of a glow above and around Jesus. Had I been there, as an intellectual, I certainly would not have seen the light.

When Bapak alluded to Jesus feeding the multitude, the walking on the water or healing of sick and raising the dead, he would give these stories both a deep inner meaning and a psychological content: 'To walk on the water means to overcome and purify human emotions'.

'Be simple like children in order to receive the Truth,' Bapak would say, echoing the words of Jesus that we must be like little children if we are to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. On the physical plane spontaneous movements in the latihan are, indeed, often like those of helpless babies or young children playing, for most of us start at that stage in the development of our inner selves.

Most striking of all is when Bapak spoke of Jesus and of the manner of his death. He points up the fact and reality of the crucifixion and empathises with the suffering on the cross in a way perhaps unprecedented for a Muslim.

Among those who sent in contributions to this book (not all printed here) no fewer than ten Subud members tell of an occasion when they were suddenly aware, in their feelings or visually, of Jesus being near to them or of the presence of Mary beside them. One member, going through a critical moment in his life, describes how he was in his bedroom and was spontaneously brought to his knees in latihan, aware only of a great light.

I sat back on my heels, eyes tight shut but as though open wide. The light dazzled and took the form of some immeasurable mighty presence that towered above me through the roof and into the night sky above. I touched the floor with my forehead, then came a dawning, an unbearable realisation, that I was at the feet of Jesus, there in front of me and within touch. I passed out. When later I told Bapak something of what had taken place, he said, 'You see Jesus when you are truly repentant.'

How can a Christian not feel awe for a Muslim from whom such personal words could come? Yet Bapak never wished us to feel awe towards himself, but only towards the power and source of his mission in the world. Only God may be called great.

The need to practise one's religion

In the last year of his life Bapak spoke more definitely than before about the need to practise a religion, giving two main reasons. If we think that attendance at latihan is enough, he said, this will lead to a feeling of separateness from our fellow men and women. It will also lead to 'a decline in the state of our souls'. Many of those who have found the latihan and the deep fellowship of Subud with, perhaps, a personal closeness to Bapak during his lifetime to be all in all may find this a hard saying. But I wonder if Bapak was not telling the great majority of us to be more in touch with the religious wisdom of the ages, and the whole wide realm of prayer.

Subud is in accordance with the main religions

Bapak speaks:

"However, with the coming of Subud – though Bapak himself does not know its real significance, for it all depends on God's will – God is at work within us, so that we begin to receive and to understand the reality and the practical value of the advice contained in these books: the Zabur, the Torah, the Gospels and the Koran. In Subud, therefore, there is no more need for advice, for theories, for rituals – for the worship of God, for God Himself will guide you as to worship as well as to leading the right kind of life in this world and in the hereafter."

"Hence, Subud is not another religion, but it is what God wills for us for the realisation of what is contained in various religions. For those of you who are Christians, once you have received a good deal in Subud, Christianity will become really true for you, because you will see clear proof of its truth, and you will become real Christians. And equally those among you who follow Islam will become true Muslims, and not one of those of whom it is said: 'Muslim yesterday, but not tomorrow' or 'Muslim tomorrow but not the day after,"

"Such is the evidence which Bapak has heard from all kinds of people: from Christians, for example, that what they receive and practise in Subud confirms their beliefs, so they say that Subud is entirely in accordance with Christianity. It is the same with the religion of Moses and Abraham: its followers say that Subud fully agrees with what they have read and understood in their books. And thus, too, say the Muslims: that Subud is truly in complete accordance with what is found in the Koran. Thus this Subud is truly man's worship of God, which comes and begins to act by the Will of God at the moment our hearts, desires, and thinking suspend their activity."

Acknowledgement:

This text has been copied from the website of : What is Subud?

Aims of the Subud Association

The Subud Association has ten aims expressive of its intention to foster the development of Subud and the well-being of humanity in general. The ten aims of Subud are:

1. Facilitate the members' worship to God through the latihan and provide for the needs of Subud members

2. Preserve the practice of the latihan so that it will remain available to people everywhere in the form in which it was originally practised under the guidance of Bapak.

3. Protect the good reputation of Subud and makes available information concerning the latihan

4. Encourage peace, harmony and understanding between peoples

5. Provide educational and other facilities for the development of the full potential of human beings

6. Relieve poverty and deprivation

7. Encourage the development of a healthy and harmonious inner and outer environment for the well-being of mankind

8. Encourage cultural activities and the values that enliven the human spirit

9. Encourage the entrepreneurial spirit, which enables people to improve their lives

10. Make available information concerning the latihan kejiwaan of Subud

Wings of the Subud Association

The Wings are autonomous organisations with representatives who sit on the World Subud Council and are members of the World Subud Association. Their mission is to carry out Subud's aims in the social and humanitarian field, entrepreneurial development, cultural and youth programs. It is important to realise that there is a direct connection between the spiritual experience of the latihan and Subud members' activities in the world. Therefore the Wings are not simply organisational instruments but channels through which Subud members express the fruits of the latihan in business, culture, social welfare and other realms of human activity.

The charitable wing, Susila Dharma International Association, (SDIA), represents the social and humanitarian work of Subud members. SDIA has category II consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council and UNICEF as a non-governmental organization (NGO).

The enterprise wing, Subud Enterprise Services International, (SESI), provides support, encouragement, and networking opportunities for entrepreneurial activities. Businesses contribute expertise as well as funding to charitable, cultural, and youth projects, and to the Subud organisation.

The purpose of the cultural wing, Subud International Cultural Association, (SICA), is to encourage and support the expression of human culture and human values through initiatives around the world that enliven and enrich the human spirit.

The objectives of the youth wing, (SYAI), are to help young people develop their talents, identify direction for their life work, and assist them with planning and taking steps toward their field of studies and careers. It organises activities and programs run by, with, and for young people to meet their needs and interests. It aims to facilitate international communication between youth of all nations and cultures.

The mission of the health wing, Subud International Health Association (SIHA) is to promote the attainment of true human health by providing opportunities to share our experience and together discover a way for the content of healthcare to be guided, and enlightened by the Power of Almighty God through the latihan kedjiwaan of Subud.

Acknowledgement:

Most of this text has been copied from the website of : What is Subud?

Links to Subud websites

World Subud Association: more information about the WSA

Subud World News: news and events from the worldwide Subud community

What Is Subud?: an introduction to Subud, hosted by Subud Voice

Finding Subud: A short film on YouTube, showing a young stranger’s 9 minute documentary glimpse into Subud

Susila Dharma International Association: the humanitarian association of Subud

Subud Books: including personal life stories

• Free eBooks by Subud Authors to download

Subud Spain