Subud

”One evening after dinner one of the older women pupils asked why it was that Mr. Gurdjieff had laid such emphasis upon the necessity of loving one’s parents. She had a particular difficulty in that she had lost her parents while young and hardly knew them. Mr. Bennett answered this question with great gravity. He said that many people in the Work made great efforts and just because they were never reconciled to their parents everything came to nothing. He spoke of the mysterious connection of blood, of how it was necessary to love one’s parents whether one had known them or not. (Miss Rina Hands had also told me that Mr. Gurdjieff had said that a child must love his father so that a place could be prepared from which later he could love God.)

This talk had a profound effect since many people had family difficulties. I was among them, and as Mr. Bennett left the room I sprang impetuously up the stairs after him and asked whether I could speak to him at once. I explained my difficulties. My parents were colonials whose views and ideas were quite incompatible with my liberal views, particularly on matters of colour and religion. I simply did not see how it was possible to love one’s parents when there was such a lack of communication.

Mr. Bennett said that he did not mean that I should become blind to their weaknesses, just as I must become cognizant of my own. “Your own state is not free in relation to them,” he continued. “You must be able to love them consciously, because you choose to.” I asked him how I could remedy the situation and he suggested what seemed to be a simple task. When I wrote to them I was to hold within myself a certain attitude, but on no account to attempt to explain anything of my own ideas and views to them.

This simple task proved to be far from easy, but the fact remains that from that date my relationship with my parents grew better. They even remarked upon the sudden change in my letters. Inevitably I began to see things about myself, how I was connected to my parents in a way that formerly I had denied. Certainly it remained true that there is a part of man that is not related to anybody but is connected solely and directly to God. But I began to concede how very like I was to my parents, being a compound of their faults and virtues...

I received a letter from Mr. Bennett to say that he had spoken to Pak Subuh about me, and he suggested that I should be present at Coombe Springs for the Whit weekend, and as many Monday and Thursday evenings as possible, so that I could become established in this new exercise. The whole of that Whit weekend, except for its culmination on the Monday evening, has now been blotted from my memory. I can only remember that sometime on Monday afternoon about fifteen men gathered upstairs in Mr. Bennett's study, prior to being "opened." He gave us a very brief introductory talk. We were to take off our shoes, our ties and our watches. We were simply to stand and to be open in our feelings. If we experienced the spontaneous arising of movements within our bodies we were not to resist, but simply to follow. We were not to make any effort to control our mental associations, but were to let them wander freely, constraining nothing.

We then filed downstairs to the dining room, the floor of which had been covered by a number of new carpets, and the curtains had been drawn. We were placed in a rough sort of circle in the room. Pak Subuh was already in the room, with a number of Indonesians. I recall a very fine exquisite odour, such as I had never smelt before. Pak Subuh then said a few words in Indonesian that were translated haltingly by one of the Indonesian helpers. He said something about coming to the true worship of God, and that in the way of Subud, we should not use our thoughts for meditation but simply receive. Then, "Close your eyes and we begin."

Almost at once a number of people began a very strange singing. They sang independently, though it did blend in a curious way. The singers also seemed to be moving about the room. Someone else began to pray in a loud voice in a language that I presumed to be Arabic. The words " Akbar Allah" were repeated a great number of times. But if I simply say prayer in a loud voice, such as one has heard from a priest or a muezzin, that would give entirely the wrong impression. This prayer seemed to be heaved from the very depths of his being, as if he was in an agony of remorse, sorrow and supplication. It had a strong effect upon my feelings and I began to feel very small and utterly unworthy. At the same time, I began to be afraid and tensed up. I heard a friend on my left crash to the ground. At the other end of the room someone began to weep as if he would burst in two. Yet another began to laugh, as if at the greatest joke in the world. And still others were moving about quite rapidly, to judge from the panting and the feet padding on the floor.

The longer the exercise lasted the more I tensed up, till I was holding on to myself, determined to resist anything that might come. Suddenly one word was called out— "Finish!"— and the pandemonium stopped. I opened my eyes and saw that six or seven of my friends were still standing as I was, while the rest had obviously been moving about. A half-hour had passed. I went next door to put on my shoes and jacket. A friend tried to catch my eye with a questioning look, but I avoided him. I quickly gathered my things together and went down to the station to catch the train to London. Four of us shared a compartment who had been to the exercise, but not one of us spoke a word...

That Sunday morning Pak Subuh gave a talk to the men who had been opened. Those who had not yet been opened were not permitted to attend. This was the first time that many of us had seen Pak Subuh closely and heard him speak. Husein Rofe, the Englishman who had studied with Pak Subuh in Indonesia and who had opened Mr. Bennett and the other seniors, translated. Pak Subuh's voice was musical and his enunciation clear. This was most important to me, since I had read that a "true Yogi" always has a beautiful voice, and I held a conviction that no man of inner development could possibly speak sloppily. The Indonesian language, at least to my ears, was also very charming.

I was at once impressed by Pak Subuh's complete relaxation, which seemed easy and uncalculated. At any rate it was of a different brand from that which we had been used to practice. As to the talk itself, it was completely different from anything that I had heard before. It was certainly a far cry from the sort of thing we heard from Mr. Bennett, which was above all psychological and full of fine distinctions. Pak Subuh gave explanations but they were not explanations at all. For one thing they were delivered ex cathedra— they could more truly be described as pronouncements. For example, explaining that the word Subud is itself a contraction of three Sanskrit words, Susila, Budhi and Dharma he said: "Susila means right living according to the Will of God, Budhi is the force residing in the inner nature of man. Dharma means surrender and sincere acceptance of the Will of God..."

That evening I went to the latihan determined that it would be my last. Subud might be of help to some people, but I doubted that it could ever be my way. I was in such a skeptical frame of mind that I determined that this time I would open my eyes and see what went on. A few minutes after the latihan had commenced, I followed my intentions. One man opposite me was rotating his head and shoulders at great speed. Another knelt on the floor and made a series of arm gestures of great simplicity and beauty. As for Pak Subuh he simply walked about and smoked a cigar, stopping occasionally in front of someone. Suddenly Icksan Ahmed was in front of me. "Close your eyes," he said chidingly. As soon as I had closed them I heard him chanting, "Allah! Allah! Allah!" and at once a great force was rained down in and around me. My back was bent back and then forward and back again very quickly, so strongly that I lost my balance and fell to the floor. As I lay there I could feel this force surge and sway through my body. I believe that I laughed. All my former fears instantly evaporated.

When the latihan came to an end, I went up to the main house and joined some of the others for a cup of tea in the kitchen. I could still feel in myself the presence of vital energy and I felt elated and yet detached. But within I was deliriously happy. The state that I was then in, far from being unfamiliar to me, was, on the contrary, well known. Even now I can remember the aroma of the tea I drank. I walked into the back kitchen and took a tomato, and it seems I can remember the taste of that tomato. All my senses had become sharply alive. And within myself, I felt very much at home and at ease.

The taste of this state was similar to what I had experienced on several occasions after making great efforts either at movements or at some psychological exercise. If there was any difference it was only in the intensity and the effortlessness with which this remained with me. But of course the main difference was in the origin. Normally, it required effort and time, the struggle between "yes" and "no," between affirmation and denial before the reconciling force appeared. In the latihan on the other hand, I had been moved by a mysterious force beyond my comprehension, and felt flooded by a vital energy. My eyes must have shone and my face looked flushed, because when I went to chat with some of my friends and told them that I had experienced, they at once said, "Oh yes, we can see that..."

~ "Stairway to Subud" is an auto-biography of one man’s education starting in Christian boarding schools, to living under J.G. Bennett in Coombe Springs and practicing Gurdjieff's system. Pak Subuh, the founder of the international spiritual movement Subud, came to England in 1957. The author's search reached an explosive climax and he spent the rest of his life with this connection.

~ As a young man Muhammad (Pak) Subuh received a series of intense experiences that he believed gave him contact with a spiritual energy from a higher power. By the 1930s, he believed that it was his task to transmit this energy - which he called latihan kejiwaan (Indonesian for "spiritual exercise") - to others, but that he was not to seek people out but simply to wait for those who asked for it.

Muhammad Subuh wrote in his autobiography that, about the year 1932, he had a visionary visit to the highest heaven, the "Seventh Heaven". By his account, one night he felt drowsy and went to lie down in bed. Instead of falling asleep, he felt himself "lengthen, widen and expand into a sphere" and then entered a great space. He saw a group of stars far away and was told that it was the universe he had left behind. He then traveled at great speed through a great expanse and beyond, there were seven (7) "mountain-like cones of light, one stacked upon another". He described how he entered the cones of light one after another until he entered the seventh, the last. Then he returned to earth and saw what looked like stars in the sky but later realized they were the lights of Semarang, the hometown where he lived. He even tarried a little over the rooftop of his own house trying to lift up some roof tiles with his fingers but instead found himself inside his own room. It was about the time of Subuh or dawn."

"Subud is not a teaching; it does not have a ritual, nor a teacher. It is open to members of all races and beliefs. Pak Subuh being brought up in a Javanese mystical tradition, has explained the process of inner receiving in terms of his own culture. An exposition in line with our present-day state of knowledge about man and the world he lives in is left to the members. The process evoked by the latihan brings Subud members an inward view of their own nature, makes them understand their fellowman better. It brings them in a state of mind in which they can see clearly the right decisions to be made and the proper course to follow. Thus it will help to develop a different meaning to their lives and a deeper insight into their religious or spiritual believes.

Subud is based on the experience that man can open himself to a divine power that can heal and purify him. At the centre of Subud activities is the practice of a spontaneous spiritual exercise, the latihan. In it members give free expression to a process of purification. Tensions in body and mind will disappear resulting in an inner harmony permeating their being. In this state of wholeness a deep inner communication takes place. A silent prayer takes over dependent on the ability to surrender and yield to the spiritual life force. Eventually it will result in a regeneration of being, a wholeness of the fractured self, leading to a deeper spiritual life in harmony with the Divine. Although countless other benefits - material, physical and mental - have been reported, a warning is given not to be guided by expectations.

Subud lays no claim on the individual. The object is not Subud, but man himself. Subud is an association of people dedicated to the wish to be guided from within. Its members will gain as much from Subud as they devote themselves to the art of living in harmony with their deeper Self. The latihan will be instrumental in accomplishing this. It releases tensions continuously. After a latihan she/he will feel free - fresh to undertake anew the tasks on hand."