Brothers and sisters, Bapak gives praise above all to the greatness of Almighty God, who has given His blessing so that Bapak, Ibu and their party have been able to come and be with all of you, who have been awaiting his visit for such a long time. Bapak also thanks you for your hospitality, especially the committee who have prepared everything that Bapak, Ibu and their party need, a gesture that truly brings our hearts,1 inner feelings and souls closer to all of you in Germany. May God bless this close relationship, so that it will continue for years without end.

As you know and are aware, it is very important for Bapak to visit you all. Besides strengthening the bond between you and Bapak, Ibu and their party, he wants to give the clearest possible explanation concerning the nature of the latihan – the spiritual training – and the meaning of Susila Budhi Dharma, which is what we call our spiritual association.

The latihan you receive and practise is truly a training that comes from a clean current, which is neither affected by nor under the pressure of the desires. It follows that such a spiritual training can be said to come from the Almighty, who has bestowed His grace on humanity, on all of you, so that you can easily receive the latihan in the way you do. Actually, the latihan you receive is not something new that has only now been obtained by a human being – that is, by Bapak – in reality it has been the property of human beings ever since they were created in the world.

This is in line with what has been said in books that were written and disseminated by people who lived a long time ago. It is told in those books that at the beginning of time, before there was anything – which can be understood to mean a state of stillness, emptiness and silence, where there was no light, where nothing could be seen or heard and the world had not yet been filled – the will of God, it is said, created the heavens. God created seven heavens. The reason why God needed to create them was because God wanted to test the extent of His power, glory, majesty and greatness. So God created these heavens in a period of seven days, one day for each heaven. He started on Saturday, and this is why Saturday was sacred for human beings who lived a long time ago.

Then God wanted to form or create something that could witness what God’s creation was like. That is why God created angels, which were made out of light. The light that was fashioned into millions of angels is called ruh al-qudus in Islam. Once the angels existed, they were ordered by God to witness and inspect the heavens God had created. The angels did as God had ordered them and carried out their inspection, travelling through all the seven heavens. The outward journey took them fifty years, so the round trip lasted a hundred years. Hence God understood that the journey from the first heaven to the seventh and back to the first, where God dwells or exists, took the angels a hundred years, even though the speed at which the angels could cover a given distance was a thousand times the speed of the light of the sun that illuminates the earth. Scientists have calculated that this light reaches the earth in about seven minutes. So it is clear that the journey from God through the seven heavens, which took the angels a hundred years, would take the light of the sun a hundred times a thousand years, or a hundred thousand years.

Besides creating the heavens and the angels, God wished to create the contents of these heavens, including human beings. So God spoke to the angels. ‘How will it be for human beings? How will it be possible for them to come in front of Me, to come to Me, if it takes you angels, who are so fast, a hundred years to get here?’ For this reason, after God had created human beings out of earth, water, air and fire, God decreed that His will would be embodied in all creatures, including humans.

Then the angels said to God, ‘God, what sort of decree is this? God has created human beings out of earth, water, air and fire, and now He is making them superior to all of us angels who are made of light.’

It seems that the angels did not really believe God: that human beings could be faster than they were. So God said to them, ‘See what will happen later; you will witness the speed of human beings who have received my grace.’

It happened in actuality later on, with the resurrection of Christ, which took only three days. That was followed by the ascension of Muhammad. Muhammad was able to make the journey to God, leaving after the evening prayer at about half past seven and returning at half past four in the morning. Thus the angels realised that human beings, made as they are of earth, water, air and fire, could return to God faster than they – thanks to God’s gift and God’s grace.

So an angel, spurred on by jealousy, worked on this and said to Almighty God, ‘O God! I believe. I am not going to criticise You, nor prevent whatever is Your will. But I will always tempt human beings. When I tempt them it will not be possible for them to come to You in a short time.’ That is why only human beings who are patient, who really obey God, who are truly accepting and willing to let go, can travel faster than the angels. Human beings who are not like that in their reality and in their inner feeling are certain to be obstructed by the angels and cannot possibly succeed in coming to God in a short time.

Nevertheless, thanks to God’s justice – for God is All-just – God said, ‘All right, you may tempt human beings, but you cannot possibly succeed in tempting those who really trust and obey me. Therefore I will divide you angels into two groups: one group will tempt while the other facilitates. One group will be called members of heaven and the other, members of hell.’ That is what was said in this story.

This is not a new story. It may be that you have read or heard it, either in Islam or in Christianity. That is why Bapak is using it to help you understand our latihan. It is really true, brothers and sisters, that whenever we do the latihan we feel and comprehend God’s will that has been embodied in every creature, including humankind. This experience is generally described, especially by religious people, by saying that God accompanies human beings, that God accompanies you. In Islam this is called the dhat Allah, meaning the will of Almighty God, which is experienced as a vibration of life, a vibration within your body called khatir ilham. This is a vibration of life that comes from the power God that envelops your being, outwardly and inwardly.

So it is clear that you cannot find God unless God wills it. That is the reason why there is no method for finding God, either in Christianity or Islam, other than by worshipping and surrendering with patience, acceptance and a willingness to let go. We are told that it is enough for us to go to the mosque, to say ‘Allahu Akbar’, to do our prayers and to make the pilgrimage to Mecca. That is all. Why? It is because God cannot be found by using either the human intellect or the imagination. In short, human beings do not have the capacity to travel the path to God and God’s power.

Because this is all there is, it is difficult for people in this present time – whose heart and thinking have developed greatly and whose knowledge is constantly becoming deeper and wider, enabling them to create instruments for going to the moon, rockets, atom bombs, and so on – just to have that kind of faith. That is why many human beings do not acknowledge the existence of God, because God cannot be seen nor have His existence proved with the mind. So it is fortunate for us that God has sent down and given us His grace through the latihan, which is beyond our expectation and our will, and which comes without our looking for it or studying it. Such is God’s love and God’s gift to human beings – that is, to all of you – that you are able to receive this contact easily. You are able to receive and feel within you the will of God, which always accompanies your life.

Of course, in receiving God’s grace you will not be able to receive or understand all of it, because everything has to start from the bottom up, like the growth of a plant. There are no plants that bear fruit as soon as you plant them. There are no human beings who are born and immediately have a moustache and a beard. Humans are born as babies, and plants have to be planted. The same is true of our receiving in the realm of the soul. It starts from the bottom, from the beginning; and that is why Bapak asks you to be patient and not to be in a hurry. Your path to God cannot be accelerated in accordance with your wishes. Especially as what you have in your heart and your thinking has been put there by the jealous angels who do not want humankind to reach God quickly.

That is why many of you receive now and say, ‘That is good’. Tomorrow you will say, ‘No, it is not’. The day after tomorrow you say, ‘It’s not good’. The day after that, you say, ‘It’s good’. So the content of the human heart has two qualities: bad and good. And the reality is that truth or perfection comes about only after this bad and good has disappeared and been replaced by zero. Once there is nothing more, once there is zero, then there is only God. In Holland they say, ‘The lies will disappear and the truths will emerge and be revealed’. That is why in the latihan you are like an uninformed child, one who is uneducated.

What is the point of this? It is precisely to avoid the temptation of your intellect and your heart, which still contain bad and good. That is why Bapak asks you not to continue to think of things that might speed up your receiving, or pay attention to anything you consider could help you to understand and more quickly become aware of what goes on in the latihan.

The reality of what takes place in the latihan is reflected in the scriptures that tell the story of the way Adam was created in the world. The story goes like this. The first human being God created was Adam. In fact Adam was still in heaven and had not yet come down to the earth, and his life in heaven always felt blissful and happy. God said to Adam, ‘I did not create you just to be comfortable; I created you to measure My greatness and My glory. I created you for My purposes, and therefore I am sending you to earth.’

So Adam was sent down to earth. Before he was sent down he said to God, ‘God have pity on me, don’t send me to earth. I feel so good in heaven. If possible, please don’t send me down, for earth is full of suffering, full of misfortune, full of bitterness and difficulties. I shall be oppressed; I shall suffer from the heat of the sun and the cold of freezing water.’

God answered, ‘You cannot refuse this; I am going to send you down to the earth. And do not be concerned, do not hesitate, because you will always be in contact with Me, as long as you truly obey and have trust in what I advise you.’

And then God said to Adam, ‘Adam, I have made you out of earth, water, air and fire. You must remember where you came from. You must be able to perfect everything that happens to you; you know that I have embodied My will within you, so that you will find the way that will truly lead you back to Me.’

Adam continued to weep for he could not avoid being sent down to earth. Once he was on earth God spoke to him. ‘Adam, I am going to give you something that will enable you to remind yourself of the way you felt when you were living in heaven.’

So God created another human being, but of a different gender, a woman called Eve. Once Adam had this woman for a companion he forgot what God had told him and started to think more about the world, and he gave more importance to the world than to heaven or his life after death. If it was now, and he had seen his wife wearing make-up, he would have thought even less about the hereafter. So he asked God, ‘God give me a life that is as long as possible.’

Because God loves human beings God granted Adam’s request, and Adam lived in the world for a thousand years. When a thousand years had almost passed, God said to Adam, ‘Adam, it is time for you to return.’ Then Adam cried for a second time. When he had been brought down to the world he had cried, and now he was called back to heaven he cried again, because he was leaving the world. That story is told in the holy books.

This was also demonstrated by Christ. Christ knew that he was about to die, but because he had faith in the greatness of God, whom he referred to as his father, and because he loved God as his father, he was willing and he submitted. Although he was faced with his own death he surrendered it to God. That is a sign of what is said in the scriptures: that the principal condition for receiving a revelation or a gift from God is simply patience, acceptance and willingness to let go in surrendering to God.

The conclusion from these stories that are told in the scriptures is that what you have received in the latihan truly represents the reality that they describe. So, from the stories we are now moving towards the reality, towards proof. Indeed, people these days need something real, even if it is not in the ordinary, scientific sense. Actually, spirituality has its own science. The difference is in the way it is perceived. What relates to the soul has to be perceived by the soul, whereas what is scientific needs to be perceived through science. This means that what is coarse has to be perceived with what is coarse, and what is fine needs to be perceived with what is fine.

Certainly that is what people need today. That is why the latihan neither forbids nor can be disturbed by the development of the intellect, of your brain and your heart. You may study to the limits of your brain’s capacity and your heart’s intelligence; in fact, it is better if you do. The more you understand the better, for then you will get clarification from God if your intellect encounters a problem.

Therefore today is no longer the time for stories, but the time for doing and acting. The reality is that God can overcome everything, because everything happens by the will of God; it is God who is making it happen.

Brothers and sisters, Bapak hopes that you will regard the latihan as an obligation, for it does not benefit anybody else but you, and it makes you happy. It creates a clear atmosphere and brings happiness to your life, both in this world and after your heart and thinking have ceased to work.

This means that you have two obligations in your life. The first is your obligation to worship God, where you need to empty yourself of everything so that you are free of good and bad and are beyond human thought. Your other obligation is to use your intelligence, your thinking and your heart, to look after and preserve your life and that of your family while you live in this world and make it happy. Therefore the latihan cannot be said to relate only to your inner life but also to your outer life. In reality it is training for our life as human beings.

Once your latihan is perfect you will know that you are able to live with this physical body and that you are also able to live without it; that is, to live with your body that is not physical. That is symbolised by Christ’s return to this world after three days, when he showed himself to his followers. His followers did not believe it, so he showed them his hands and the marks of the nails where he was crucified. So it is clear that human beings can live without limits and that death is just the continuation of human life.

It is said that God is the God of all humanity and of all that God has created. It is not only humanity that recognises God, everything does. This is reflected in the latihan. Even though in the latihan you are with people of different nationalities and different religions, when you do latihan together there is only one direction: towards Almighty God, who moves you, who brings your inner feeling to life – and you can feel it in your body.

So it is evident that God is not like an Arab, a South African, like a Javanese or a European. God does not have the form and colour that are depicted [by people]. But because what people have in their brains are pictures of this world, they represent God wearing a crown, sitting motionless on a golden throne, holding a sceptre. In the same way, it may be that the black people in South Africa imagine God as big and black. So, the only truth [about God] comes from God, and it is not true if it is not God who shows it to us. And God will show it to a person if that person is zero in his or her inner feeling; in other words, when there is no bad, there is no good, when there is no self-interest, there is no self-will of any kind, simply surrender to God.

Those who are able to fulfil God’s advice to human beings are symbolised as clothed entirely in white and also as clothed entirely in black. The meaning of white clothes is that a person has been purified and is clean of all influences, whereas black means eternity. Before anything existed, there was only God; that is why black represents eternity. These symbols mean that human beings cannot receive the closeness of God if they have not been cleaned. As soon as a person has been cleaned, he or she will be aware of completeness, of eternal life, life without limits.

Brothers and sisters, that is Bapak’s talk for this evening. Even though he was tired, having just come from France, he felt it was very important to give you an explanation. And he has taken his explanations from the stories and books of people who lived long ago, so that you can reflect on the experience of the Subud latihan. It is clear that the spiritual training we call Subud or Susila Budhi Dharma truly does not contradict religion, and truly does not contradict what has been written in the ancient scriptures, the good books that are sacred for human beings. On the contrary, it supports religion in reminding people of God, helping people to have faith in the existence of God, and making people more sincere in the practice of their religions and in worshipping Almighty God.

Therefore, as most of you are Christians, practise your religion, whatever it is you have learnt. And for those of you who are Muslims, practise your religion too. For Subud does not have a religion, it is the members who have religions. There are members who are Christians and Muslims, Catholics, Protestants, and others. Therefore Subud is just the technique7 or the reality of what you have learnt and what you have heard. It will make you into a person who cannot easily be deceived, who will not be superstitious and believe strange tales.

That is it, brothers and sisters; Bapak will end tonight’s talk. Tomorrow he will start with a general latihan for all of you. Bapak wishes you a good night, a safe journey home and says thank you. Danke.