Brothers and sisters, Bapak will now begin this meeting. He would like the newer members to come forward first: those who have only recently been opened, together with those who have been in Subud for less than five years. Bapak would like the women to come forward first, for they would like to know and feel how their latihan is when it is in the presence of Bapak and witnessed by Bapak. Bapak would like those who cannot yet really receive very well to come to the front.

You should not be thinking about anything before you do latihan, but only feeling yourself and surrendering to the One Almighty God in your heart. Thanks be to God if you can already receive a kind of zikir and are used to this; that is, you are just repeating Allah, Allah, Allah in your hearts, or God, God, God. Just repeat this in your hearts. This is necessary in order that you can really receive what you should receive, and so that this receiving can really be free from the nafsu.

Leave your hands free and do not hold on to anything. Begin. Allahu akbar. ( Latihan for newly opened women. ) Finish.

And now Bapak would like to continue with those who have been opened for a longer time, together with the helpers. Please come forward. Yes, begin. Really relax, really surrender and do not think a lot. ( Latihan for women who have been opened for more than five years. )

Those of you who have been to Mecca on the haj will be able to feel what happens at this moment. Brothers and sisters, all those who have just been receiving the latihan are aiming in the same direction, towards the One Almighty God, saying Allahu akbar, Allahu akbar, Allahu akbar. But the ways they behave are different. Some stand upright, some sit or lie on the floor, some cry out, some weep, some pray. But nevertheless their aim is one and the same; it is directed towards the One Almighty God.

It is thus clear that what is indicated in the pillars of Islam is symbolic; it is like a pattern or example given to show how human beings should practice their worship of the One Almighty God. It begins with faith: first of all, faith. So your hearts are trained to acknowledge God, even though they are not yet confirmed in their faith. Then you perform the ibadat of the solat, the five daily prayers of subuh, lohor, asar, magrib, isa. Then comes the fast, the zakatfitroh and finally the haj.

These are the pillars in the shariat of Islam. All that is an example to show the way to worship God. And after you have fulfilled the shariat, then, if possible, and if God grants you grace, you come to the second stage, the tarekat. The significance of the tarekat is that it is necessary to know and to understand the principle and aim and intention behind what you have been doing. What, for instance, is the intention behind the sahadat ( first pillar; acknowledgement of faith in God )? People may make this acknowledgement, but if they do not understand the intention behind what they are doing, it means it is only anut grubyug ( following the crowd ), which means just copying, imitating an example.

After carrying out the ibadat of the solat, the five daily prayers, then comes the fast. Fasting is like practicing the hakekat, the inner reality of man's worship of God. Hakekat means truth or reality, conviction. Fasting is the way to bring conviction and reality into man's worship of God. What is the use of the fast? It is none other than to accustom you to a practical way of distinguishing between nafsu and not nafsu, between being under the influence of the nafsu and having a blank inner-feeling that is not influenced by the nafsu. That is why the fast is said to make it a practical matter. If the people who fast really do it as it should be done, not just fasting by refraining from eating, drinking or smoking except at night, but doing a proper fast, then it rises to the level of the tarekat, which means that they are fasting in the heart, fasting in the feelings.

This is why people who fast in the month of Ramadan are not allowed to be affected or influenced by the nafsu; they should not go on thinking about difficulties or things that upset their feelings, nor should they go on thinking about, or letting their attention go to bad situations. They must not be angry with other people or wish them harm. That is the fast in the thoughts and feelings. For the influence of the nafsu affects not only the outer parts of you, but it has an effect inside yourself, in your heart and mind, so that if your heart and mind are still not fasting when you do the fast, it is in fact not a one hundred percent fast, not a perfect fast.

So that when you have fasted for twenty days, and then gone on for a further one, two, three days, up to thirty days, you will not receive what you ought to receive in this fast. For it is said that if someone has really fasted for twenty days or more, then God will bestow or send down the grace called the lailatul qodar.

Lailatul qodar means that God blesses those who have carried out this fast; the things that are wrong throughout their hearts and feelings and minds are, as it were, purified and put right. Thus people who formerly used to have no feeling of compassion towards their fellow men begin to have this feeling. In this way there begins to grow in their inner selves a feeling that in Javanese is called lego-legowo; that is, a feeling of sincerity, patience and trust. And they begin to want to give to those in need and to enlighten those who are ignorant and blind to knowledge. From this there follows a growing feeling of having committed many offences against one's elders, and people confess these offences, believing this to be true, so that at the end of the fast they kneel before their elders to ask forgiveness for all their offences and for all the sins they have committed against them.

That has been the general experience and practice, especially for the people of Islam. They have the same feeling with regard to their friends. Of course, there will be some of these who have not always acted rightly and who have done things that have not always been good, so that at this time people mutually ask forgiveness of one another. Those are the results of the fast, and that is why at the end of the fast the fourth pillar appears, the zakat-fitroh ( alms giving ). Then, after all this, it means that the person concerned has fulfilled the amal willed by God, because his faith in God has been confirmed. He has received confirmation of his faith and of his worship according to the solat, and then he becomes able to receive the qodar from God.

After passing through these steps or stages, people are then required to go on the haj, the pilgrimage to Mecca, provided that this is possible, which means provided that one has the means as well as a sincere wish to go. If one has been to Mecca on the haj, it is like it was just now, just the worship of God. Thus all those many people go there with one and the same object of worshipping God, and they worship Him continually while they are there. If they are there with sincere intentions, they can receive. This means that they go there solely because of God, with no other intention, not thinking about this or that. But human beings are such that their own hearts always get in the way. So supposing one were to go to Mecca, in the right way as Bapak has just said, then one's self would suddenly be awakened. It is as if there is something present there in Mecca that brings it to life. This is symbolized by the Ka'aba Baitullah ( the principal shrine in Mecca ). It is in the midst of life, in the midst of your self. This is incorporated in the tarekat; it is the hati sanubari, the inner heart. Thus the hati sanubari, or inner heart forms the central core of all the feelings.

That is why, if you were really calm and tranquil just now, you felt what is called the vibration of life, which is what is usually called the khatir ilham, and which is usually expressed in the words Allahu akbar, Allahu akbar, Allahu akbar. La ilaha ilallahu Allahu akbar. Allahu akbar wa lillaa lil hamd. So this is what people say. That is, which is called Hari Raya - people all repeat, Allahu akbar as they turn in every direction, just as it was in the latihan just now. And each individual makes various movements; different movements for each of them. The meaning of this is that it is the Tawauf ( worship ) directed towards the One Almighty God.

So in fact there is no need for us human beings to go looking for teachers or to have a guru or to live in a cave or in the jungle in some strange place full of thorns. That is not necessary. It is enough to look into one's self, and to follow whatever may be one's religion, if one has a religion.

But, being human, we must not just do only that. As you know, brothers and sisters, we who are now adults began life as babies. It is clearly by the will of God that human life develops by stages. Growing up to become an adult always goes by a process of development. Development means getting bigger, changing into something better. So we should not want to remain forever the babies we used to be. It is not like that. From being a baby one becomes a small child, who learns to walk and eventually to run, and then one can go to school. One grows some more and becomes an adolescent; still more, and one becomes an adult, but a young adult. Eventually one becomes mature, the parent of children, at the age of about forty. Thus people over forty are called orang tua ( parents - literally "old people" ), which means they are the parents of children. When they get beyond the forties they are called kakek ( grandfather ), like myself, no longer a young man, for I am already seventy-five ( Moslem reckoning ) - they are called kakek.

So we must not get into the way of always going on just as we were in the beginning. We must wake up. A tree starts out as a small seedling and gradually it grows and bears fruit. It is the same with human beings. So you must not go on forever being A just because you used to be A to begin with. You must not do that. Search, look around. If you can get all that through your development as human beings - you yourselves, for I am not talking about other people - you can become strong, reliable people.

What makes you reliable? It is because you have to some extent had a glimpse of the plans, the working drawings. And God does not only show you pictures; He gives proofs. So that with what you receive you will no longer feel that the next world is far away from this one, nor that this world is far from the next, for this world and the next are all one.

Why are this world and the next world one? It is because God is One. It is only human beings who feel a duality and who are dual. It is like that in order that human beings should be different from God. God is single and man is dual. This is proved by the existence of man and woman, male and female. One cannot say of God that He is male nor can one say He is female. He can be said to be both male and female and yet He is neither. Thus it is clear that God is immortal and eternal and His nature is immortal and eternal, and cannot be divided. When good and bad exist, they only exist for human beings. Good and bad do not exist for God; for God it is all one. Therefore God is unchanging. That is why the nature of God is said to be langgeng, eternal and unchanging. In Javanese it is ora owah gingsir.

But you must not make any such claim for your own nature. Human beings still remain human. If any human being claims to be God, he is no longer human and has no place amongst us.

That is why a certain tarekh or teaching which at one time arose in Iran or Iraq was banned. All its followers were put to death, because each of them claimed that he was God and God was he. That was what they took to be the meaning of the tarekat that they had studied, so that each of them said, 'I am God and God is I'. 'Ya kawula, ya Gusti' means 'I am servant and also Lord'. So these people were put to death, for if you were God you would not need to be in this world, and you would have gone to the dwelling place of God. If God were here, he would fill this world, for God is very great. So they were wiped out. I forget the name of that tarekat, for it is not very important.

Coming back to what Bapak has just said about going to Mecca, all those who gather together there become one. Yes, perhaps Pak Subardjo remembers how it was when he was in Mecca. I have not yet been there myself. I may never go, for I am already old, but it will be as God decides for me and as God sees fit: I leave it all to God.

This is really how it is in Mecca. Everyone gathers there to pray to God. They wear only a simple garment, for if they did not remember the world to that extent, they would go around naked. This signifies that people can only pray to God if and when they are stripped naked ( of the world ). To be stripped naked means to not be influenced by the nafsu, for all material things, clothes and so on, partake of the nature of the nafsu, and the nafsu are what are called the satanic or material forces. Thus you must not think that the devils are all around; no.

To come back again to what Bapak was saying about what people receive and experience in the ibadat of the haj - which is going on at present - it is merely praying to God: Allahu akbar, Allahu akbar, Allahu akbar. Because God bestows His love upon the human beings He has created, there are, of course, some out of the many there who are able to receive, so that there is an external movement and stirring of life, which is the outward expression of what people receive in this gathering of the hajis. This is what is called the hakekat.

Thus it is clear, brothers and sisters, that what they receive is no different from what you were receiving just now. But in spite of this, you must not therefore think that you have become hajis. No; you can be said to be hajis in the eyes of God, but you are not really hajis in terms of the shariat. No; for you have not been to Mecca. Thus Bapak himself must not use the title Haji Muhammad Subuh Sumohadiwidjojo. No. Pak Subardjo can use it, because he has been there. According to the shariat, Bapak must yield place to Pak Subardjo. That is what it means. But in reality it is all the same.

So in fact this is the worship of God, brothers and sisters, and it is also so as to be able to feel how it will be in the hereafter, how it will be after you die. That is really what you should have felt, and you should be able to have experienced it before you die and leave this world. It will be like it was just now, because the place for receiving it is the same. It is merely like the other side of the coin. That is why it is called ron-roning atunggal. Ron means sisihan ( side or flank ). Thus they are two but they become one. It is merely the other side. On the one side it is called mengkurep ( face down ) and on the other it is called melumah ( face up ). Thus the here and now is melumah; then it will become mengkurep. Mengkurep means it is closed off from this world but open to the alam gumelar, the wide or infinite world ( gumelar means wide spreading ), to what is called the alam goslal, the great world of infinity. Or again, it is called the wilayah kubro, the kubro realm. Kubro means sublime and majestic. This world here is called wilayah suhro. Suhro means small or petty.

So if to some extent you have been able to receive this, you will not feel the shadow of death as painful. It will not exist, for you will already have experienced what people think of as the pains of death. For death is certain. Whether you fear it or not, you cannot avoid dying. So clearly death is something sure and certain.

Now I would like the newly opened men members to come forward and also those who have been opened for less than five years. Come along.

( Testing )

Now the older members, opened for five years or more. ( Testing ) Brothers and sisters, in our situation, receiving and following the latihan, we may conclude that it only remains for you, for all of us, to put what we receive into practice. The way to do this, and to perfect our worship of the One Almighty God, is by means of whatever you do while you live in this world. For instance, you may be a contractor, building houses. It is in the way you build a house, the way you draw up the plans, the way you calculate the costs, the way you organize everything to do with building a house. Everything that is comprised in your actions and activities and in your work produces a unity between the inner and the outer, between your jiwa and your mind. Thus it is clear, brothers and sisters, that your worship of God is present in your actions and in the energy involved in your outward activities or in the activities of your imagination, your thoughts and your ideas, which are in all of you.

This is the blessing and the grace God bestows upon you, and it brings His power close to you. You should not consider that those of you who do not, for instance, follow the shariat are therefore not worshipping God. No: not as long as those of you who do not formally practice the shariat do in fact always keep a connection between your faith in God and whatever activity you are engaged in. Bapak will illustrate this in a moment, for you to witness. But it is best of all when you do not abandon the customs of your religion; when, for instance, those of you who belong to the Islamic religion always observe the ibadat of subuh, lohor, asar, magrib and isa, you are not cut off from guidance, from the power of God within your inner self. In addition to your customary actions at the times of worship according to the ibadat, you have what you do during working hours. If you work as a lawyer, for instance, and are trained to handle lawsuits and practice law, you must not allow your work to cause you to neglect your worship of the One Almighty God, and so you will always be accompanied and protected by the power of God, guiding and directing you in all your thinking and decisions. This will save you from making mistakes.

Are you convinced that the power of God guides you and directs you in everything you do? This is something you can feel and witness each time you do the latihan kejiwaan. This is why Bapak calls the latihan kejiwaan a training, so that you are never really cut off in anything you do from the guidance and direction of God. ( Here Bapak moves away from the microphone and becomes inaudible. ) I will test this with you a little. Yes, it is good if you receive; if not, it does not matter. Just try to feel it: no need to make heavy weather of it. If you make it difficult, nothing will happen.

( Testing )

Brothers and sisters, this last bit was an extra, so that besides the talk and the testing Bapak has done this himself; something you could all watch. But I do not feel it needs to be translated. You can ask someone who understands Indonesian.

Bapak now ends this meeting, and he will say no more except to thank you for your attention to what he has been saying and doing today. That is all. Bapak thanks you and prays that God may always protect you, and that you may receive all that you hope for in this world and the next, both outwardly and inwardly.

Thank you.