Ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, before Bapak gives you a talk, first of all he greets you and gives thanks to Almighty God, who has permitted Bapak and his party to be here with you all. Bapak feels very happy to see that so many of you have come even though you are not from Wolfsburg, because this shows that God has awakened your heart and feelings to come and listen and pay attention to Bapak’s talk, which means that you are being really obedient to the commands you have received in your latihan. Bapak thanks you for your attention, and for deciding to come here and meet him tonight and during the coming days.

Brothers and sisters, it is now time for Bapak to give you some explanations about the process of the latihan of Susila Budhi Dharma that you receive and practise, so that you may have a better awareness and understanding of the true purpose of the Subud latihan, and of the meaning contained in the words Susila Budhi Dharma. Even though you are able to read explanations about this in the Chronicle or the Pewarta Kedjiwaan Subud, it may be clearer if Bapak speaks to you about it in person.

The latihan of Susila Budhi Dharma, abbreviated to Subud, is the symbol of human beings – of all of you – who are able, through the help and blessing of Almighty God, to paralyse easily the influence of the desires that reside in your heart and your mind. It is evident that it is not just your surrender that enables you to receive the contact from the greatness of God; you also need the grace that God gives to human beings and to all of you.

It is therefore clear that God, bearing in mind the state of the world at the present time, has given you His grace because the human mind has advanced greatly, with the result that a lot of thought is put into everything. The result of this is that people, including all of you, no longer have the time to settle and quieten the working of their minds and imagination, which are constantly working as they encounter the problems of everyday life.

And with the thinking mind now moving so fast, there has come a feeling, especially for intellectuals – for people who have studied very extensively – that God and God’s power do not exist: all that exists is the mind and the imagination. They therefore believe that, with the heart and mind, human beings can discover everything they need. We cannot blame them for this; for indeed, human beings do not believe in anything that cannot be thought about and whose beginning and end cannot be calculated. And this is because, before the birth of Subud, for a long time there was nothing that could demonstrate the truth of the existence of God and God’s power in a way that was really acceptable, in a way that people would really understand and believe, whether they wanted to or not. That is the reason why many people do not believe that God and God’s power exist.

There are other people who, in order to prove to themselves the existence of God and God’s power, avoid all enjoyment and move away from places where there are many people. One could say that in this way they give up all pleasures, because what normal people want and enjoy is contact with other people. But what they cannot experience as a reality yet is that, if God’s power is within human beings, they should not have to isolate themselves in lonely places, far from any enjoyment; they should be able to find it in every action and every human activity. Furthermore, this course of action is not one that can be imitated or followed by everyone else, because these days, people in general cannot practise it. And, if it is examined from the point of view of the soul – in other words from the latihan you have received and practise – it is not something that God wills for human beings.

God’s will for human beings is that they should be able to find the right path, and find the contact with the greatness of God without abandoning the everyday life of human beings, or deviating from normal human behaviour. But human beings like to complicate this simple truth with their minds; that is, they constantly search and search, they think and think, and they fabricate all sorts of ideas.

What they want is to be able, by following their thinking, by comparing God to this, and God’s power to that, to devise a way that will lead them towards the greatness of Almighty God. Because of this, many people create or develop all kinds of what are called spiritual ways, with various methods and systems. The result of directing all this human thought towards finding the contact with the greatness of God, and finding the path to God, is that they just confuse themselves and are unable to find the truth of God or the contact with God that accompanies all human beings.

What was said by people who lived a long time ago is really true: the more you look for God and God’s power the more you are unable to find it. The more you search, the more you are unable to obtain it. What is the reason for that, brothers and sisters? As you have already received the latihan, no doubt you can already feel to some extent that the reason why the more you search the more you are unable to find it, is that God is behind you; meaning that while you are looking for God, God is behind your thinking that is doing the searching.

It is like chasing your own shadow: the faster you run after it the more you are unable to catch it. But if you are just quiet, that shadow is you. What this means is that if a person really remains within his or her individuality – in their thinking, in their heart and in their physical movements – they will be able to feel who is enveloping them and who is moving them and always bringing them to life, enabling them to do this and that.

So, in truth it is really easy to receive the contact with God’s greatness and to feel how God’s greatness touches your inner feeling, as long as you do not think about it or search for it. Therefore it is a great happiness and a boundless good fortune for all of you that you have been able to receive the contact with the greatness of God easily, and without having to do the things Bapak just described, such as isolating yourself from society and giving up all pleasures. You have been able to receive this contact easily in a state where you are still complete, still thinking about your everyday needs, still thinking about your work and about human needs in general.

Maybe this has been the result of God’s will to help humanity, you among them. For if we who have received the contact with the greatness of God had not been helped or given it by God, we would have continued in a state of darkness, in ignorance of our life; and in ignorance of the true state of affairs about which we have been told in religion, about which we have been told by people who have found this contact in past ages: that God is within us and always accompanies us.

So, without God’s help we would not be able to receive this contact with the greatness of God. And we have acknowledged this by calling our association and our spiritual training Susila Budhi Dharma, which means a human being who has received the contact with God’s greatness, enabling them to paralyse the influence of the desires that reside in their heart and thinking mind, and to act in a humane way in accordance with the will of Almighty God. So the name Subud, or Susila Budhi Dharma, symbolises all of you. It is not the name of something that will enable you to develop your latihan. No. What we call Subud is you; that is to say, human beings who have received a contact from the greatness of God, who are really able to surrender to God because they have been strengthened and worked on by God’s power, which is within their inner self.

Therefore if you become sick, or if those of you who are working lose your job, or if you are married and you get divorced, or if you try to make a profit and end up losing money, do not say that it is because of Subud, as if you are blaming Subud because it has caused you to lose your job or your money, has caused your arguments with your spouse or has made you ill. Subud does not give you anything; on the contrary, Subud is you yourself.

You can feel for yourself how you are when you are receiving the latihan. The movements you feel and follow and perform are movements that arise and grow from your own self. Neither Bapak nor the helpers tell you to move in this or that way. You move from yourself, according to your own individuality. So if your individuality is like this, your movements will be like this. As your state changes, your movements will be like this and then like that, and so on. So it is really true that what arises and develops from your latihan is the result of the working, the action and the growth, of your own individuality.

So, if it happens that you have no work, or if you fall ill, that is not an illness from Subud. It is an illness from your own self. For if it was an illness from Subud, then all Subud members would get ill like you, whereas in fact it is only a few Subud members who become ill, and only a few Subud members who lose money. There are many who, after they join Subud, make more profit, get promotions to very high positions, become healthier and live in happiness. But these people have no complaints. In other words, they do not mention Subud at all; because they are happy they say nothing. It is those who have been suffering since they joined Subud who always report to Bapak: ‘Since I joined Subud I am often ill,’ ‘After I joined Subud I was dismissed from my job,’ ‘Since I joined Subud, I no longer know what work I should do.’ That is what they say, as if Subud were like a school that teaches people to fail. No, brothers and sisters, Subud is a receiving from God, received by your own individuality; and it is from your own individuality that growth will take place, giving rise to who you are.

Therefore, in reality, what these members say is inappropriate and not in accordance with the purpose of our association, of Susila Budhi Dharma. For people who have received the contact with God’s greatness need to understand their life and to know how to live, both in this world and in their life after death.

The principle and purpose of the Subud latihan is based on our surrender to God. You have been able to prove to yourselves that you are able to surrender to God because it is God’s will, because God’s strength has manifested within you, enabling you easily to surrender to God. Therefore the principle and purpose of the Subud latihan is that we worship God according to God’s will for us, whatever that may be. In short, the principle and the purpose of the Subud latihan is for us to receive God’s commands and to come close to the One who commands us; that is, Almighty God.

You may still be wondering, ‘What is the point of not using our thinking mind and our heart, and just surrendering – like a material thing that doesn’t move unless somebody moves it? That is certainly not a human attribute!’ Well, brothers and sisters, Bapak can sympathise with this thought or this opinion. But you should not forget that the One Almighty God is not a human being. It is the One Almighty God who created us, who created the whole human race and everything else; that is, everything that has been created: this earth and the whole universe, including the moon and the sun, and other things that you cannot see because they are too far away or are invisible to the eye. God created all of that. So the questions in the realm of the soul – of discovering the path of your life, both of your life in this world and of your life later, after you have died – are for God, not human beings. This is God’s domain, because human beings, using all their faculties, cannot find the answers. Human beings can know these things only if God wills it, guides them and teaches them.

Is this true, what Bapak is saying? You have certainly read and heard plenty of stories about people who lived long ago, such as the prophets and the messengers of God. From the time they were small until they became adults they never went to school, they did not study and could not even write. [There is a break in the recording.] … poor families, so it was impossible for their thinking to acquire a world-view that was profound or broad. But, what can you say: who does not recognise the truth of Jesus Christ’s teaching and advice; and who does not recognise the truth of what Muhammad, Abraham and Moses taught?

People believe and follow what they advised, even though those giving the advice had not studied at all, and did not use their brains or their thinking minds. They had not been to school, and had never experienced a life that was special or luxurious, having been born into poor families. But thanks to their patience, their obedience, and their surrender and submission to the greatness of God, God taught and guided them so that their whole feeling, their brains and hearts, were cleansed of the pressure of this world and of the influence of the desires, and filled with an understanding that was beyond normal understanding.

So, brothers and sisters, the results of being patient, submitted, accepting and willing to let go are very great, and people who lived long ago have proved and experienced that. The patience, faith, acceptance and submission they practised made their hearts and minds quiet, made their hearts and minds stop working. In general, if you are busy thinking about lots of things, the more you go on thinking about them the more your mind becomes chaotic, and the more confused you become. But if instead you let your thinking become quiet, that will stop; and then you will find what you were looking for.

That was the case with people who are regarded as discoverers or inventors: those who discovered electricity, invented railways and many other things. At the moment when they made their discoveries they were in a state of quiet. But because they had previously been working on something with their hearts and minds, they did not recognise that what they received at that moment came from God. They claimed that it came from their own intelligence, but in truth it was from Almighty God.

Indeed, God gives to human beings; but even though the gift is real, human beings are not aware that it is given by God, because God does not give in the way people do, with their hands. Nor is what God gives to human beings conveyed by sound, but through understanding that is given in their brain. So if these inventors had been able to sense this at the moment when they received their discoveries, it would have been a way for them to get closer to God’s power. They would have been able to feel how the contact with the greatness of God manifests in their being.

Is it true that human beings can receive the contact with the greatness of God so easily? And is it true that the greatness of God exists within the being of every creature, including human beings? Bapak will tell you or illustrate this in the following way. When you were all small babies and could not see, could not hear, and none of your other senses worked yet, at that time the connection of your feeling to your soul and to God was still very close. But once your brain was filled with an understanding of this world, and your eyes, ears and all your senses could feel the state of this world, your connection with your soul and with God became closed. The understanding that you had acquired of this world blocked it.

That is why it is not surprising if there are people who do not believe in God because God cannot be seen. They do not believe in God because God cannot be touched, in the way you touch a table or something like that. Why are they like that? It is because their understanding and awareness is an awareness of this world, an awareness of their feeling once it was in this world. But the awareness of their individuality when they were not yet born, or before their senses started to work, has become closed, so they are no longer aware of that world.

And this something that has become closed, distant and lost, that has become obscured, you have now found again in the latihan. So the Subud latihan is not something new; it came together with your life; in fact, with the coming of human life. Therefore, if human beings have been in this world for a million years, then the latihan, the Subud latihan, is also a million years old. You call it new only because you have only just found it. In fact it is not new; it is your own property, it belongs to you. But it has been covered up, because you have neglected it for so long and have completely forgotten about it. So you are very lucky to have found a way, to have found someone who could reconnect you so that you could get it back.

That is the reason why – you know it for yourself – although you may be older, perhaps fifty or sixty years old or more, when you start the latihan you cry like a little child, or sometimes you start the latihan crawling on all fours or walking slowly like a little child. It is clear that what you are being shown in the latihan is that there is something you have forgotten, an old connection from long ago between your life and the life of your soul, from the time you were still a baby or a small child.

Therefore Subud, Susila Budhi Dharma or the Subud latihan, in no way constitutes a religion, a teaching or a sect. It is just … well, just the way human beings are: it is human beings receiving from God, so that they can get back the contact with the greatness of God that they used to have within them, which they have neglected and lost.

So it is out of place if someone says that the Subud latihan conflicts with religion, with Christianity, Islam or Buddhism, or with this or that denomination. Yes, it is out of place because it could only be in conflict if it had a teaching, but there is no teaching. This talk is not Bapak giving you a teaching, just advice to help you to some extent to discard beliefs other than belief in yourself and in God.

You have also been able to confirm for yourself that the latihan you receive arises from your own individuality, not from anyone telling you what to do. In fact it sometimes isn’t what you want. You want to sing, but you cry. You want to walk over there, but you are made to walk over here. You would like to move like this, but instead you fall. This is a sign that the awakening you are experiencing is in accordance with your own particular individuality. Therefore you do not need to worry that your latihan will be like that of some other person, or if you see somebody in crisis worry that you will have a crisis too. Do not worry, because that has to do with their own stuff. You may never have a crisis; alternatively, you might have an even bigger one than the one you are seeing. It all depends on your own individual background.

That is why it is very important that you surrender these things to God. You need to be patient, accepting and trusting in God’s will, so that your heart and your desires do not always obstruct the true awakening of your inner feeling. For when it is obstructed by the desires that reside in your heart and mind you become confused. And when your thinking and heart are confused, that is what is called a crisis.

Even so, a crisis is temporary, which means it could last for one or two days, one or two months, or one or two years – it could also last for five to ten years, but there has never been a crisis that lasted that long – but in the end you become quiet again. Still, it is better not to have one, but just to receive whatever you need to receive, always calmly, always in a state of peace, so that nothing happens to disturb your family or cause them problems.

For those of you who have a religion – for example, Christians, Muslims, Buddhists – through the latihan you will receive proofs of the reality of what is taught in your religion. The result will be that if you are a Christian you will become a Christian who really understands; if you are a Muslim you will be a Muslim who really understands. The meaning of ‘understands’ being that you do not just follow others – if all your friends do this, you do it too; if all your friends do that, you do that too. For if you do that you have no standards of your own, you do not have a true individuality, one that you can follow, one that can be your path towards the one aim; that is, towards Almighty God.

Truly a great deal of teaching and advice has been given in religion – you probably know it better than Bapak. Therefore, when it comes to religious teaching, theory and discourse, there is already enough. It is time for putting it into practice, for the means, for the reality. Now it is this reality you can receive in the latihan, which means that you can provide evidence for those who do not believe in the existence of God and God’s power. You have only to ask them, ‘Are you willing to be opened or not? Are you willing to try it or not?’ You don’t have to say this or that, just, ‘If you want, just try it and you will be able to feel the reality for yourself.’

Therefore Bapak simply encourages you truly to obey what you have received; for, as he said just now, what we have received is a help that cannot be purchased, because it is from God, and by the will of God. In Islam it is referred to as ilham; in Indonesian as wahyu [revelation]; and in Holland they call it gave, Gods gave, the gift of God. It is not something we can buy, measure, or expect to get, other than by God’s will. That is why Bapak hopes you will really value it, and that you will be grateful to God for enabling you to receive the contact with the greatness of God easily, and for enabling you to do the latihan while still concerning yourself with worldly concerns.

This is the end of Bapak’s talk tonight; he simply asks you to forgive him if he has made any mistakes towards you and said anything that was out of place. And Bapak thanks you for coming tonight and for paying attention to what he has been saying. He will finish now. Thank you.

Danke, goodnight.