Peace be upon you and the mercy of God and God’s blessing. Bapak gives thanks and praise to Almighty God, through whose grace he has been able to come and be with you all here in Bandung. He also thanks you very much for your willingness to receive him here and to listen to the talk he needs to give to you all. He hopes that his talk will satisfy you.

Brothers and sisters, what Bapak needs to explain to you is the latihan, the spiritual training of Subud – of Susila Budhi Dharma. But first Bapak will explain the meaning of Subud.

Subud is the abbreviation of the name or words Susila Budhi Dharma. This name is in fact the symbol of each one of you who has been able to receive the contact from God’s power that, once you have received it, manifests as movement and energy and is called the latihan. Clearly, therefore, what we call Subud is you yourselves. Subud is not a spiritual teaching where people receive instruction; it is all of you, who by God’s grace have been able to receive a contact with God’s power, which eventually manifests as movement.

Therefore, if after joining Subud you find that it does not result in you finding a livelihood, for instance, or that your business makes a loss; or if after joining Subud you are out of a job, or no longer on good terms with your spouse, that is not the fault of Subud, and you should not blame Subud. If you blame Subud you are blaming yourselves, because Subud is not a place or a teaching where you are given directions or instructions.

Why is that? According to our experience in the latihan, it is because each of you will receive for yourselves, and your receiving will be appropriate to your own strength, state, capacity and individuality. So it is clear that the latihan comes through the grace of God, enabling you to feel the movement of your inner feeling free from the influence of the desires that reside in your heart and mind, and which are generally manipulated by the low forces; that is, by the material, vegetable and animal forces, and by the physical human force.

You receive all this through God’s grace, and commensurate with your own individuality. You do not need to receive like person A, like person B or like person C; you need to receive according to your own measure, whatever you are able to receive through your own individuality by the grace of God. This is the meaning of Subud – Susila Budhi Dharma – that you need to understand. What is called Subud, then, is you yourselves. If you do not exist, Subud will not exist. Therefore, whether the Subud association is large or small, making progress or going backwards, depends on you. If all of you are sincerely and truly Subud in your individuality, if you are Subud in yourselves, the development of Subud will be easy, as if you are developing yourselves.

Now, about the latihan: what actually is the latihan, the latihan of Subud? As Bapak has explained, the Subud latihan exists and comes by the grace of God, and it is as if the influence of the desires – which reside in the heart and thinking – spontaneously comes to a halt. If it were just a matter of surrender … oh, many people surrender to God in words; but if God has not bestowed His gift, grace and blessing on them, they will not be able to receive even if they surrender a thousand times.

It is clear that the Subud latihan is one among many of God’s gifts that have been bestowed on human beings who are able to receive them. So Subud is not alone in receiving the gift of God. There are others, too, who have been able to receive; this has been written about in books, stories and narratives of the many prophets, saints and people of former times who were able to receive a contact and grace from God. And what has been received by these prophets still continues to develop, in the form of existing religions. All of these came from the gift or grace of God who governs the universe. So, what you have received is one of the many gifts that have been given to human beings. Therefore, do your latihan really sincerely.

About the Subud latihan that you have received, one could say that in the beginning it looks like an ordinary training that people might do. So it is no wonder that when those who have not yet themselves received the latihan see what our latihan is like, they say it is not a practice of the worship of God but a training for children.

Why do they say that? It is because usually what people describe as the worship of God, or the practice of the worship of God, is carried out by quietening oneself, meditating and stopping one’s thoughts. That is what is done ordinarily by people who make a study of the worship of God. That is customarily called a mystical teaching, and many people who follow such a path say that our latihan cannot really be called true worship of God because it looks like something ordinary.

The truth about this, the reality of what the latihan actually is, you will eventually find out for yourselves. But for the moment Bapak needs to explain why the latihan we receive starts in the way it does; namely, with movement and physical activity, sometimes using the voice, sometimes weeping and laughing – all of which you and others have experienced.

Indeed, brothers and sisters, you need this kind of training so that you can become aware of the distinction between different kinds of movement; that is to say, movement caused by the desire and the will, and movement that comes from within. You will eventually be able to feel the difference between ‘I speak’ and ‘I am made to speak’; ‘I walk’ and ‘I am made to walk’; ‘I wave my hand and I touch’ and ‘I am moved to wave my hand and to touch’. That will progress until eventually it extends to your fine inner feeling and your understanding, which means you will be able to feel because your feeling is awakened from within, and you will be able to think because your thinking is moved to think.

This, if Bapak may say so, is God’s way of guiding and directing, God’s way of giving something to you all. It manifests in and unites with what you have within you. So, if God guides you to see something with your eyes, that guidance will manifest in your sight or in your seeing. When this process goes deeper and opens out and reaches your understanding, God will guide and direct you to be able to know and to think. The latihan will certainly take you to that point. We cannot know or picture how long this may take; it all depends on your individuality, your capacity and your condition. What is most important for you is simply to go on, diligently and sincerely, full of patience and submission towards Almighty God; that is, by receiving and following the latihan. For the only One who knows how far you can go, and how long it may take to reach what you need, is Almighty God.

Brothers and sisters, as you have not yet reached the level where you are shown reality, you are still in a state of uncertainty and doubt. How and why do you still feel uncertainty and doubt, when what you receive is actually God’s direction and God’s guidance?

It is indeed true that the guidance and education you receive are from God. But the question arises: how is your own nature and condition? If Bapak compares your nature to a piece of wood, even if it is struck by an expert [musician] – a gambang or gamelan player for instance – it will not give out a good sound, because it is just an ordinary piece of wood. Therefore do not blame the one who strikes, do not blame the one who uses it; in other words, do not blame God but your own nature, which is still faulty.

This is the reason why you cannot help being slow to receive, and why there are still many obstacles in your way that slow your progress. So Bapak is asking you to be patient, and to await with patience whatever God’s will is for you. For in truth, changing your inner content is hard work, dangerous work. It is work that can be done only by Almighty God.

Why is this? It is because the content of your self – that is, the soul – is the most important factor in your life, which steers and rules your life and every organ and every part of your body. So this content can be said to be a content that is half eternal and half not eternal. The eternal part of your nature is the power of God. The part of your nature that is not eternal consists of your desires, heart and thinking. Clearly, your heart and thinking are the most important tools for your life on earth, because without them you would have no power in the face of anything; it would be like a lion or tiger without claws and teeth, or like a water buffalo or a bull without horns. Therefore the heart and mind are the most important accessories for a human being. But they fulfil your needs only while you are in this world; whereas your life beyond this world – that is, your life in the hereafter – depends on the quality and development of your inner content. And that is in the hands and under the power of God.

Is the means for this part of our life also provided for us by God? Yes, it is. Therefore, besides thinking about and attending to worldly matters that are within reach of your heart and mind, you need to worship God by surrendering everything with patience, acceptance and a willingness to let go and receive. So, in order to fulfil your needs in this world, work and use your heart and mind, because these are your tools for this world, for your life while you are here. But it is that which is free from self-interest – namely, the feeling in you that is patient, accepting and submitted – which will attract something beyond your expectation. When that manifests in you, when that works in you, it is as though something is awakened and moves without you having willed it. So it is clear that what you receive in the latihan is beyond your mind, beyond your ability, and it is precisely that which can change, improve and perfect what you have within you.

Of course there are times when you wonder and ask yourself, ‘What is God like, what is God’s power like?’ Brothers and sisters, especially those of you who are Muslims, you must have heard – at least by hearsay – that God is One, that God exists, but that God has no country, no language, no abode, no form that you can visualise, no interpretation and no shape. God is before anything that is first and after anything that is last, beyond anything that is outside and within anything that is inside. If you remember such descriptions, in accordance with what are referred to in Islam as the twenty attributes of God, you will of course no longer ask yourself or try to visualise what God and God’s power are like. Are you now able to understand God’s answer to your question?

Just now Bapak explained that that which is not influenced by desires and is free of self-interest is the power of God. The life forces below the [perfected] human level, however, are still enveloped by self-interest, still associated with the heart and thinking; whereas the life forces above this level have no self-interest in the human realm. They have no agenda for human beings. You can understand this for yourselves if you think of a person who is high – higher, let us say, in every way and in every sphere than we who live in this world – why would such a person wish to influence us so that they could become human? But the forces below the [perfected] human level, such as the material and vegetable forces, the animal forces and the physical human force: these four wish to influence human beings in the hope of becoming human themselves. But what is highest or most noble for the material level is for human beings the lowest. The proof is that a person of bad character is considered low by human beings: a person who enjoys killing another person is certainly low, so is a criminal who is always harming others; as is someone who acts contrary to human conventions, in ways that are inhumane. Such people all belong to the material level.

So, the material force has a very great interest in influencing human beings and ensuring that human beings are influenced by it. If that happens, the impact is that the human being reveres and raises up the level of the material, while he or she is pulled downwards.

It is different with beings higher than the human level. Why would they need to influence human beings? You can only reach these levels above the human if you are free of self-interest; that is, when you are patient, accepting and submitted. This is important. Where a spiritual practice involves the will – even though it is directed towards perfection, towards stillness and emptiness – the mistake is in the initial intention: ‘I want’. That is because it contains self-interest, wanting to become this or wanting to become that; whereas what you need is to be free from self-interest. When the latihan begins, there is nothing to wish for, because your heart and your thinking are no longer working.

So this is what is in the latihan. You are able to make movements, you cry and you laugh, and your heart is just an onlooker in this experience: ‘How come I am weeping? How come I am laughing? Why is my hand moving like this? Why not like that?’ Thus something is born and grows that is beyond the thinking: something that is present, that exists, free of self-interest because it is no longer influenced by desire.

In this way, if you can go on receiving it, you will be able to feel something that is higher than your level or your realm; something that will manifest in your individuality, as was the case with the saints and the prophets. These were ordinary people, brothers and sisters; do not think that they were eternal beings. Not at all. Saints developed from being ordinary people, and prophets likewise. But they had a nature or body that was no longer filled with self-interest. They were truly free of it, and therefore the Holy Spirit, which is higher than we are, was able to manifest within them. Because it is higher, higher than our ordinary state, when it works we are able to understand the process of our own thinking. You will experience this – if God gives you the grace.

Why does Bapak say that? It is because it is not he who can ascertain this; only God can. But he hopes and prays that you may get to that point and receive it. So he does not say that you will for certain. If he could guarantee that you will definitely experience this, it would mean that Bapak is greater than God, and that is not possible. The highest possibility for human beings in their life is just to become an instrument of God; that is the highest.

Do not therefore claim to be God. That would be a very presumptuous claim. What would you think, for example, if a gambang, when it is being played by a gambang player and making a very beautiful sound or melody, were to claim: ‘I am Sastrodikoro.’ It would be absurd. It is Sastrodikoro who is playing, not the gambang.

So if you claim to be God, it must be wrong; it cannot be right. This sort of thing has happened in the past. For example, in Persia there was once a group of Sufis, people very devoted to Islam and devoted in their worship, who claimed, ‘I am God’. The government there at the time said, ‘Hmm … so you are God. In that case you no longer need to be on earth.’ And they were put to death. Twenty-five thousand of them were killed by the government.

Yes, there is something right in this, but there is also something that is wrong. What is right is that, indeed, if someone claims to be God, it should not be necessary for them to continue living on earth, because they already have everything. They can feed without eating, they can live without being alive, they can sleep without being asleep; they have no need to work for a living, as a clerk in an office, for example. They no longer need any of that. So if someone claims to be God, that’s it: goodbye! They no longer need to be on earth. So they were killed, and there was something right about that. What was wrong about it was that, since they were ordinary human beings, they should have been looked after. They had made a mistake, and it is quite normal for human beings to make mistakes.

Therefore the action of the government was both right and wrong. Human beings with their hearts and minds easily fall into forgetfulness, and then they become arrogant. So if some of you claim that you already know a lot, Bapak will not be surprised and will not blame you. It is normal for the heart to be like that. You feel tired and depressed when you have nothing, but happy when you have something – that is normal. In fact there are many people who, though they have nothing, are full of all sorts of plans: they picture to themselves, ‘If I win the first prize in the lottery – 150,000 rupiah – wow! I’ll build a house here, there, anywhere!’ Well, Bapak doesn’t want to say that they plan to get married again. No. But they’ll build a house here, build a house there. That is human nature.

That is what we need to understand and ponder on. We should not act on impulse: we should be able to weigh things up.

Bapak would like to tell you some stories about the members abroad. There was someone who asked, ‘Bapak, are you the Messiah?’

‘Oh, no! The Messiah is the Messiah. From the very beginning I have always said that I am Pak Subuh, and I remain Pak Subuh.’

‘No, Bapak, it is not so. I have had an experience in which I was told that Pak Subuh is the Messiah. The Messiah is the second coming of Christ in this world.’

‘Oh, no! Would God give a revelation to one person by taking back the revelation He has given to another? Surely not! God is not short of revelations; God is not short of anything He wants. For what is the nature of God’s will? No matter what, the will of God will be accomplished.’

So do not be in such a hurry to claim to be this or that. You must first reflect carefully. The way to do this is by keeping to the middle, between the eternal and the temporal, between right and wrong. If you do not weigh things up, but always claim to be right, then of course you will never consider anyone to be right except yourself. Even if your nose is rather long, if someone asks you about it, you will say, ‘My nose is the best!’

Therefore, in order that what happened in Persia does not happen again, do not neglect this kind of reflection or put it aside. We must understand this so that the events in Persia long ago are not repeated. You who have received the latihan, from the moment you were opened you have been taught to be free of self-interest, taught to be without conceit and without hubris. The proof is that in the latihan it sometimes happens that a person is scolded by him or herself, by their own soul. Sometimes they may beat their own head until they become very frightened and cry for mercy. A man who experienced this, once asked Bapak, ‘I beat myself in the latihan and I ask myself for forgiveness. How can this be?’

‘Well, what can you do? Just refuse to be beaten like that.’

‘I do refuse, but the beating just gets harder!’

This experience fits with a story told in the tradition of Prophet Muhammad. During the Prophet’s ascent to heaven he came to a place where he saw someone – or rather the soul of someone – behaving very strangely. He was beating his head until it split open and he screamed with pain. Then his head became whole and once more he beat it until it split. Then it was made whole again and again he beat it, and so it went on. He also described the soul of a woman who was slashing her own lips and tongue. She screamed with pain and asked for forgiveness. After that, her lips and her tongue were restored. Then she cut them again, and this went on repeatedly. The Prophet asked the angel, ‘Please, angel, what is going on with these fellow creatures? They have asked for forgiveness and yet they carry on like this.’

The angel replied, ‘If you want to know, it is the person’s own wrongdoing. Everything a person does will affect him or her later, when they die.’

Therefore God does not punish a person in the way one person punishes another. No. If God were to beat people, oh, then it would no longer be God. God punishes a human being through the working of their own self. This shows that God is Almighty.

That is what is told in the traditions of the Prophet. So a person who, formerly, only liked to eat, in the hereafter will just eat; and because he likes to eat he will eat anything, even stones. Bapak once attended to a member who experienced a crisis. Before joining Subud he had been a contractor. When he was in a crisis he ate stones, gravel and sand. He sucked stones while walking in the street. His brother said to Bapak, ‘Please Bapak, bring this to an end. How can Subud make a person become like this?’

Heavens, so he was blaming me! He said it was Subud that made his brother like that. No, brothers and sisters, it was not Subud, but he himself. Bapak has already said that what you call Subud is you yourselves. Subud is not something out there – there is no such thing – so do not blame Subud. But it seems that his brother thought that Subud is Bapak, and he blamed Bapak, he blamed ‘Bapak Subud’.

In the end, by God’s grace, after a three-month crisis he repented deeply. He had learnt his lesson, and he no longer wanted to be a contractor. Well, that was wrong; he could have gone on being a contractor, but not by way of eating – or cheating with – the stones and the cement. That is not what a contractor is supposed to do. He should not be ‘eating’ while he works: you understand what that means, don’t you? The true price right now is 1,000 rupiah, and you add 500 rupiah, which is ‘eaten’. So you say that the price is 1,500 rupiah whereas in fact it is 1,000 rupiah. That is what is meant by ‘eating’ stones or ‘eating’ sand.

So it is clear, from what Bapak has experienced while attending to and accompanying Subud members doing their latihan, that what happens in the latihan is directed towards our becoming honest people, who have integrity and are modest. This experience accords very closely with the experience of the Prophet during his ascension.

Why is that important? It is because a person may then know the purpose of any such experience that they get through the latihan. Oh, brothers and sisters, you should feel boundless gratitude because you have the opportunity to be purified of all your faults while still alive. You can be redeemed while still on earth. So, if you see another member in a crisis, do not be afraid. For you, it may not be like that; maybe it will be worse, or it could be that nothing of the kind will happen to you. They are being cleansed before they leave this earth, before they die. For once they die it is all over, like a book that has been closed. If their account shows a deficit, it will remain in deficit because the books have been closed. If they are at fault they remain at fault and they cannot go over it again. In Dutch they say gedane zaken nemen geen keer [what is done cannot be undone] – it cannot be, it is not possible. If they have a fault, it will go on.

Even so, Bapak does not praise and boast about the latihan and glorify it. No. What Bapak said is that Subud is one of the many gifts that God has given, that have come down to human beings. Subud is not the only one. But from what Bapak just told you, the latihan is a privilege and a boundless grace, because you are able to experience again and receive deliverance from your sins during your life on earth; whereas those who have not yet received the latihan will experience them after death, and they cannot deny or escape from their sins. You can receive deliverance at this time, even though, for instance, you may have to go through a crisis for three months. If it were Bapak, he would choose to go through a crisis, especially if it were just for three months. Even if it took three years, he would be willing to go through it.

If you have that attitude, you will not be afraid of a crisis; the benefit being that if you are not afraid of a crisis you will not experience one. So do not be afraid of a crisis. If you are afraid, then you will experience one, because a person who is afraid lacks surrender and acceptance, and is not willing to let go.

In fact this deliverance is something we certainly have to experience, while we are still alive as well as after we die. Once we are dead, things cannot change. Change can take place if we experience it while we are still alive. It is possible for change to take place after we die, but we cannot say whether it will happen quickly or slowly or at all, for it will depend on our descendants. It can take place if we have good descendants. But if they are bad – what then?

[The father of] this contractor had been relying on his descendants. Since he was afraid of a crisis, he chose not to do the latihan now. He preferred that his sins should be redeemed later, after his death, by his children. So whereas the father ate sand, when his son became an even bigger contractor, he not only ate sand, but also wood and other materials.

If you give this serious consideration you do not need to be afraid for someone who is in crisis, for the crisis may give the person who experiences it freedom from all sins before they die. This was evident when this member’s crisis was over: his latihan consisted of doing dhikr,4 whereas before when he did the latihan he used to curse. There was nobody there he was angry with, but he would just go on cursing, ‘You insolent creature!’ and so on.

There was once a Subud member who received a premonition that the time had come for him to die. Before he died, he said, ‘Brothers, it may be that my days of having fun with you are over. I shall soon die. It is the will of God that I return to the place assigned to me.’

Among those who heard this there were some who believed him, and others who did not because he was a man who liked to joke with them. Before he died he invited his friends to come and talk with him, but his attitude and his behaviour were already different. ‘There is no one who is free from faults,’ he said. ‘Just count up how often I have offended against you, and you against me. Therefore, forgive me for my mistakes. Beat me, if need be, I will accept it. If you do not beat me, I will be grateful. Yes, there remains nothing except sincerely to ask your forgiveness. If there is anything I have done wrong, brothers, please put it right.’

When they had finished their meal he said, ‘It is already late, brothers. Please go home now, and sleep well!’

One of the men was a good friend of his and said, ‘I do not want to go home, I would like to stay here.’

‘Very well. Sleep here, but not in my room as usual. Sleep in another room.’

In the morning the man, who usually got up early, was not yet up. So his friend began to worry that what he had said the night before might really have come true. He knocked at his door, entered, and found his friend was dead.

Some among his companions said, ‘How can that be? He was quite healthy and now he is dead. It is very sad.’

That is how some spoke. But others had a different view: ‘It is beautiful. I myself would like to die like that.’ Yes indeed, people differ in their views.

This incident shows that this man’s former conduct, which was considered sinful, had been redeemed, had been annulled, after he had received or experienced a crisis. So some of the older people said, ‘If it is like that, I would like to have a crisis.’ There were even some members who became addicted to having crises.

This tells you something about what happens in the Subud latihan.

It is not that Bapak wishes to differentiate between the Subud latihan and other paths, for their aim is almost the same. The aim of mystical teaching is also to ask God for the perfection of one’s life and that one might die in the right way. But their actions, practices and exercises clearly reveal a difference between their way and the latihan. In these mystical teachings, people practise quietening themselves; that is, deadening their feeling through meditation. We, on the other hand, bring our inner feeling to life.

This is quite evident when you see people following a spiritual teaching: they look quiet in their practice; meaning that they are bringing what is outside inwards. In our case it is the reverse, we go from inside outwards. Now which is right? If we bring all this [gesture] inside, when we die we are in here [Bapak points to his chest]. So there are many people still lying there, higgledy-piggledy, in the graveyards, even though their bodies have already decomposed. Their bodies have turned to earth, but they are still there.

It is different for those who go from inside outwards. This is in accordance with what those who follow such teachings generally say: that one who has reached a high level can be compared to a ‘frog that blankets its hole.’5 The frog fills up its hole. The frog does that from the inside to the outside. But in those mystical teachings it is not like that. There it is the frog that is covered by its hole.

There are people in India who do this too. Bapak did latihan with the members there for one, two, three, four, five evenings. While attending them, he observed them. He asked himself why they were like statues made of stone. After the latihan on the fifth evening Bapak asked them, ‘Do you feel satisfied with this?’

‘We are quite still,’ they said. ‘That is what we are looking for. To be still and not to feel anything, that is the highest – to be free of everything.’

‘Like what? That is like stone. Do you want to become statues or human beings?’

If your feeling is to come to life, when you do latihan just submit to God and do not think about anything. Feel your being, but if a blissful feeling flows through you do not doze off. There are some of you who come to latihan, walk, then sit down and go to sleep intentionally.

Does a tree grow tall in six months and bear fruit after one year? It takes some trees six years to bear fruit. Each kind grows differently, and there is no one who can direct or guide that except God. Only God can unite with His creatures.

For instance, in a mystical teaching or system you may be taught how to say ‘a-b-c-d-e-f-g’. If there are a hundred pupils, will the sound of each one’s voice be the same? If the pupils are told to read, told to imitate, will the result be a hundred per cent the same? No matter what, it is not possible for one person to be the same as another. So the right path is one that comes from your own individuality, whereby what you see and hear is in accordance with the seeing and hearing of your own individuality, and envelops your feeling. Then you will no longer differentiate between inside and outside. There is a proverb that says: ‘Whoever knows their own individuality knows God and God’s power.’

Clearly, the meaning of people knowing themselves is that A knows A, and not that A knows B. No. Thus a system which instructs ten thousand pupils to say ‘a-b-c-d-e-f-g’ is clearly not appropriate. How can ten thousand pupils become the same as their teacher? Among ten thousand pupils not one will be the same as another. Where is there a teaching that can unify so many people? There is none. Only God can unite people – only God.

That is why God is One for all. Therefore, if there is a method, whereby people are told to do it this way and that way, and it is followed and believed by many people, and if they really follow it to its conclusion, to the highest level they can reach, then at the very most they will meet a god who is of their own nationality. It will not be God who is One for all creatures in the world, for all the universe. It will be a god who is not in accordance with the ‘twenty attributes of God’. For God has no nationality, no country, no abode, no relatives. God is before everything that comes first, and has no form, no colour. So if the experiences mentioned just now were true, it would mean that there is an English god, a Javanese god, an Arab god, a Chinese god, and so on.

If you have been in Solo or in Yogya and spent time with spiritual teachers – oh, there are many kinds – you will have heard them say, ‘After I become calm by concentrating my mind … [Bapak demonstrates] Whoosh! I meet a form just like myself – it is beautiful!’ They consider that to be true, whereas in fact it is only an image from within themselves.

Brothers and sisters, do not become separated from your ‘I’. If you are not separated from your ‘I’, the ‘I’ will be guided by God, wherever you may be. Your ‘I’ should not be separated from you, from your self.

If you ask, ‘Who knows God?’ No one does, except God. What does that mean? That only God is acquainted with God. Only angels can be acquainted with angels. Even on earth, only a rich man can be acquainted with a rich man. If a poor man knows a rich man and approaches him, the rich man will think he wants to pick his pocket.

Clearly, what you have obtained and what you have received in the latihan is a training, a practice, that does not deviate from the direction of your individuality. This is what is meant by the saying ‘we need to discover our individuality’.6 That is what we need to look for. But why do we get lost on the way?

The will of God for human beings is the same for all; that is, to experience life and death, happiness and sadness, highs and lows, good and bad. This is a human being’s right. It is up to human beings, which ones they pursue: whether they pursue the bad or the good. Where is good and where is bad? Within you. That is why they say that you can pray to God for happiness a thousand times, but you cannot be happy if you do not act accordingly. It cannot be.

Now, concerning our latihan, we need to be careful of empty talk. We should not say, ‘I am good at it, I’m an expert.’ What is necessary now is to demonstrate it as a reality; in other words, you need to do the latihan with patience, acceptance and submission, so that you are able to correct yourselves. If necessary, you can ask someone to correct you: ‘Please correct me, I am willing to be corrected.’ But then, if someone corrects you and points out something bad, do not hit them or abuse them. If you are willing, be truly willing. Then there will be no disharmony between you all; and of course there must be harmony, constant harmony.

If you understand each other, you will understand the secrets of A, and A will understand your secrets. And once you understand each other, what is the point of having disagreements, of quarrelling and arguing? If you have understood one another and yet still go on quarrelling, it is from your ego. That is certain, brothers and sisters. If you do not agree, you can test about it. The results will truly show you. This is what Bapak means about testing.

Later, during the asuhan,7 Bapak will provide a special training, and hopes that some of you from here will also come. It is not necessary for many to come, maybe two or four, so that you can have a taste of the training we will be having in Cilandak. There will be about two hundred people trained there, a hundred from 15 July to 15 August, and another hundred from 1 September until the end of September.

Why only a hundred people? A hundred is a lot; and there will be people from sixty-two countries coming together in Cilandak. From Europe alone people are coming from Holland, Belgium, France, Spain, Portugal, East and West Germany, Austria, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, England, Italy, Greece; maybe Turkey, but there is no news yet. That is from Europe. And from America: besides North America, from Mexico, Peru, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela, Uruguay. And from Asia: India, Ceylon, Pakistan. Maybe Ethiopia, Morocco, Nigeria, Rhodesia, South Africa, Algeria, Iraq, Iran, Indo-China, Thailand, Cambodia; and from Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Hong Kong – very many.

Besides people from other countries, it is also necessary for members from Indonesia to come and show themselves and take part in the training there, which we are calling the asuhan. In that way the Indonesian members, who are the original members – original, because Bapak comes from here – will not be left too far behind.

Well, it is somewhat disappointing that in Indonesia there is not much progress, whereas in places over there, which Bapak has never visited – which, moreover, are far from other places – many people are spontaneously moved to join Subud. But in Indonesia it is not like that, especially in Bandung. Other centres already have many offshoots, but here you do not have a single one – offshoots meaning smaller groups nearby.

So, I hear that for some reason Bandung has no offshoots yet in the neighbouring towns; there is nothing yet in Cimahi, in Tasikmalaya, in Garut, in Padalarang, or in Ciamis. There is also nothing yet in Sukabumi. Whereas in Central Java, branches are growing in Magelang, Wonosobo, Purwokerto, Gombong, Purworejo, Banjarnegara, Tegal and other places; and within East Java, in Pasuruan, Ponorogo, Madium, Kediri and elsewhere. Why are you so soggy here?

Look, it is not that I don’t trust you. No. But I am asking why. This is something you must find out for yourselves; do not ask Bapak why.

The reason is because you give priority to your own self-interest; you attach more importance to your own needs. Certainly in this world people have to think of their needs, and Bapak does not blame you for that. But if you really keep the promise you made when you were opened: to surrender to God, to have faith that there is one God for all, to have faith that God is Almighty … you have not yet fulfilled these promises or kept them.

Do you think that if you just have faith in God but don’t make any effort to fulfil your needs, your outer circumstances will come right? No, brothers and sisters, it is not possible simply to worship God and then suddenly money comes to you. Oh, no; in order to get money, one also has to work.

But if you truly worship God, God will show you the way, so that everything – outer and inner – will be balanced. If you want to be liked by others, you must like others. If you do not want to be criticised, do not criticise. If you wish to quarrel – then go on quarrelling. If you always criticise others, you will of course be criticised continually. So, if you have true faith in God with acceptance and submission, God will show you the way.

You do not need to go as far as God, who is All-just and All-powerful; human beings will also return your love if you are loving towards them. Even an animal can love you if you are always loving towards it.

A story is told of a man who was very fond of his dog. One day he was walking through a forest, and in the forest there was a tiger, ready to pounce on him. But the dog, whom the man had treated with love, thought, ‘Heavens, what now? My master has loved me so deeply. Had he not loved me, I might be dead by now. But now it looks as though he is going to be eaten by the tiger. What can I do? I can’t speak to him in human language. If I bark, he’ll probably kick me. What now?’ Thereupon the dog, driven simply by instinct, thought, ‘Oh, it’s better if I’m the one who is eaten.’ So he ran ahead and the tiger pounced on him. His master, seeing his dog caught by the tiger, ran off. He was saved, but his dog was killed.

So if there are some among you who are wondering, ‘Why does everybody dislike me? I do good, I never criticise anyone, yet everybody dislikes me.’ Well, this means that you are only good to people outwardly. How are you inwardly? But also do not have the idea: ‘If it’s like that, if I have a good attitude towards people, what reward will I receive from within?’ Don’t have such thoughts. Do what is genuinely sincere.

Why is Bapak liked and loved by so many people? If I say ‘loved’, it is because wherever Bapak visits, when he leaves, oh, many people burst into tears at the airport, without any embarrassment, and they kiss his hand. Well, this is God’s justice. Why do they do it? Because I love them.

Does Bapak travel to so many places in order to pursue his own interest? No, it is so that the gift which we have received can spread throughout the world. So it is not for his own interest. No. This is the proof that the sincerity and submission Bapak practises are truly in accordance with what God has given him.

He gets many letters that say, ‘Though Bapak will not be here for long, only for fifteen days, it is still enough, provided that we may see Bapak.’

Why would that be, since they already have Bapak’s photograph? It seems they are not satisfied until they have heard Bapak speak, even though what he says is no different from what he is saying here. But they say that for them it is something tremendous – like jamu [an Indonesian herbal tonic]. Well, I am not very pleased about that myself. It makes me into a kind of a travelling medicine!

That is how it is, brothers and sisters. Bapak is not trying to suggest anything to you … but actually, to some extent he is, and that is because he loves you. He does it to get you to pay attention to your own being. While living on earth you improve your physical body and take good care of it. If you are a woman you make yourself beautiful, and if you are a man you smarten yourself up. Isn’t that true? Those who wear a peci [a brimless hat] might wear it on a slant, or if they have a moustache, they keep it well trimmed. Nowadays, a woman whose lips are not red enough will put on lipstick, and if her dress doesn’t suit her, she will buy a better one. So if you care for your body all your life, but when you die you just abandon it, what is the point of living in this world, if that is all there is? You enjoy, improve and embellish yourself for such a short time, but it is not real.

So, love your selves! And in your case, you have to some extent been introduced to your own individuality, which is like a bridge between you and God. When you know your individuality the result will be that you will be able to discover guidelines for your life that will ensure your well-being on earth as well as in the hereafter. They are there, within your self. That is why in the sayings of the prophets it is said that every individual has been given a book, placed within their chest.

In general, people cannot read this book unless they have experienced death. But once someone is dead they cannot read it any more. If I am a house-lizard, and I die, I will remain a house-lizard. If I am a frog, and I die, I will remain a frog. But if, before death, I become aware that my soul is the soul of a frog, and I ask, ‘Oh God, I am a frog. Please, change me and make me human,’ then there is a chance of receiving God’s grace and a change of my content before I die. Once I have died, it is too late; it cannot be changed.

Please love your individuality, brothers and sisters, having been introduced to it now you have been opened and have received the latihan. And whenever you do the latihan, do not let your wishes take part. If you have a wish, do not carry it with you: surrender to God. Because if you still have wishes in your latihan, it is only your wishes that will be answered, and you will make no progress at all in your latihan. You may do the latihan for ten years, and it will remain unchanged, with no progress. But if you genuinely surrender with acceptance and submission, there will be a change, even if it is small.

Of course when you experience a change in your spiritual life, your outer conditions also change, and so you will experience a transformation in your everyday life. For instance, suppose that you are always short of what you need, or always having quarrels with your spouse, or your marriage is not working. All that is a reflection of what exists or what is going on within your individuality. When you change inwardly, your outer circumstances will therefore change too. When the inner is good, the outer will be good too.

So if you ask, ‘Why is it that I am always unlucky?’ It is not that you are unlucky, but that what is within you still attracts bad luck. So you don’t need to ask a lot of questions; just look at your ‘I’. Its progress or lack of it, and its characteristics, are all evident outwardly. That is why the latihan is very necessary – not just necessary, but very necessary.

The reason why you have not yet been able to change your outer situation is that you have not yet achieved an inner change. This change can only happen when you truly surrender with acceptance and with a willingness to let go and to receive. Therefore, whenever you do latihan, do not always precede it with: ‘Almighty God, please give me good fortune, give me some money! When I do business tomorrow, let me make a big profit.’ Do not mix these two things; then you will make progress.

And when you do make progress, do not then look to your right and your left – that is, at your friends, at the other members – and say, ‘Why aren’t you making progress like me?’ Don’t do that. For everyone receives according to their own measure.

And although you receive according to your own measure, and that measure can be known, do not feel disappointed or depressed if your progress happens not to be fast, but surrender it to God. For there is nothing that can be obtained without suffering and difficulty. As the saying goes: ‘Well-being is achieved through sacrifice’. There is no excellence that can be acquired without paying for it with some deed that is painful or difficult to do. It is truly so. And it is a fact that there is nothing great that did not start off small; nor is there anything excellent that was not preceded by something imperfect. Human beings themselves start off as small children before they become adults.

We must realise that it is necessary to experience suffering. It is actually wrong not to experience it, because then you will not be able to keep a balance. Generally speaking, when people happen to have a lot of money and have everything, they forget God; but when they fall ill, oh, they will continually gabble God’s name: ‘Almighty God, please make me well soon,’ and so on in that vein.

What Bapak said just now is to indicate that prosperity and poverty, good and bad, go together. In prosperous times remember poverty, and when you are poor, remember prosperity. If you remember prosperity when you are poor, you will not feel desperate; and if you remember poverty when you are prosperous, you will remember to save and will not become swollen-headed.

So it is necessary to keep a balance. If you have received, do not then – as Bapak said earlier – imagine that Almighty God is within your being. It is true that you have received; it is indeed true that you are enveloped by God’s power and that God’s power envelops all things; but do not think that God in His entirety dwells in your breast. No. If that were so, God would no longer be anywhere else, and then His name would no longer be the One Almighty God, but your god.

As for the problem of finding a loan, it is not necessary to mobilise God for that: ‘God, please grant success for my efforts to get a loan.’ Do not do it. Have pity on God; don’t do that.

And further, brothers and sisters, Bapak said earlier that the latihan is one of the many gifts of God that have come down to humanity. So Bapak does not agree if you acknowledge only Subud. Subud is just one of the gifts.

But for us, what we have received is a very easy way, a receiving we are able to put into practice. You may have had the experience of having a guru who continually instructed you to cut down on your food and sleep, to practise asceticism and give up all pleasures and comforts, and you may have practised this for years and years. And in the end all you got was an inner voice that said something like, ‘Know that I am God,’ which in reality came from your own heart. But with the Subud latihan, it can happen that you have just been to the cinema and you are passing the latihan place on your way home, and you say to yourself, ‘Oh, why not drop in there?’ So, you go for a latihan after watching a film, and yet you receive. Isn’t that easy? And the result is no different from what people get who practise asceticism for years. So it is clear that God has given you His grace, enabling you to receive guidance and direction in such an easy way that is indeed from God.

One can say of the Subud latihan that it is from God and leads to God; we originally receive it from God, and it brings us back to God. The proof is that it is free of self-interest. If you have a lot on your mind in the latihan, you cannot move. There are those who fall to the ground in the latihan because they have so much on their mind. So it is clear that what we have received that guides and directs us in the latihan is quite uninfluenced by our desires, our intellect and our thoughts. It is free of all that. And in your latihan you will find guidance that is not only orderly, but good and excellent and never falls short of your capacity. Through this you will discover the destiny of your life.

Now, Bapak must tell you not to treat this lightly: ‘Rather than go to all the trouble of finding out for myself, I’ll go and ask.’ Don’t do that. Or, since generally you cannot discover this quickly and might have to wait some time, you might well just ask Bapak, ‘Bapak, I’d like to ask what kind of work is right for me. And I am not yet married; if I marry, what kind of wife should I look for?’

Isn’t that convenient! But you should not do that. You must begin to act in such a way that you are not dependent on anyone. Once you become dependent, it will become a habit. Therefore try to find a way whereby you are not dependent on somebody else for anything you want to do; you must depend on yourselves. This fits with today’s saying: ‘stand on your own legs’.

Do not stand on the legs of a horse. Just imagine – if you used a horse’s legs you would ruin your body. You would have to run at a hundred kilometres an hour; you would be completely worn out. The legs of a horse are for a horse, the legs of a human being are for a human being. And on your legs should be your own body, not the body of another person, even though your legs are similar.

Yes, it is uncomfortable to stand on another person’s legs. Even if your legs are no good, you’re better off with your own. You’ll walk slowly but surely. Although your legs may be uneven – one longer than the other – they are your legs and that is better. The proof is that when they are criticised you will be angry.

Start to practise not depending on anyone. For once you begin to be dependent you get accustomed to it. Do not lean on other people; stand on your own legs, not on those of a horse. And do not stand on other people’s legs, they are uncomfortable. Your own are more comfortable. It is like someone who has a child: [if someone says,] ‘Here, let’s swap!’ They are bound to say no: ‘Oh, no! Ugly as he is, I prefer my own.’

When you stumble over an obstacle: ‘Oh, Bapak, what do I do now?’ Find out for yourself! Bapak often hears that question nowadays, and that is why you don’t progress. In Subud we must be able to find our happiness for ourselves, without leaning on anyone else. Otherwise, if the person you are depending on dies, your story is finished. It is indeed the will of God that we should be attentive, so that we can develop ourselves.

You members here in Bandung need to be energised. If you are going to do latihan don’t look for a reason why that is not going to work out. ‘I want to go to latihan but it costs so much to get there!’ That’s because you want an easy life. When Bapak was young, to find a teacher he had to go up and down mountains and often got lost. You don’t need to do that now, therefore please take your latihan seriously. [The transcript ends here.]