Brothers and Sisters, and in the particular the National Chairman of Columbia, Bapak would like to thank all of you for the warm welcome which you have given to Bapak on his visit to Columbia, both in Cali and now here in Bogota. This has truly shown the closeness of your heart to that of Bapak, and may it be that this is not only now, but will always be so in the future; and may God bless us all so that Bapak may also be able to visit you, not only now, but several times more. And that these future visits will continuously bring you closer and closer to Bapak - in your heart, in your inner feeling and in your jiwa.

Brothers and Sisters, it is true that Bapak has already given some explanations about the Latihan Kejiwaan while Bapak was in Cali; and Bapak would not be surprised if a number Of you from Bogota were there and have already heard them. Nevertheless Bapak feels that it is right to continue with further explanations about the latihan, so that by listening to these your understanding may become deeper and more complete - about the latihan and what it really is, and also what its use and its benefit are for us. Brothers and Sisters, the latihan by its nature is like a repetition or a revision for us, because in the latihan we experience again all sorts of movements and actions which we have already learned to do since we were small. For example, we have already learned to walk, we have already learned to move our arms and our hands, and to use all the other parts of our body, and yet in the latihan all this is repeated step by step. The purpose of this repetition is that we should become familiar with the idea that the power of God is within everything that we do, that everything that happens to us is because of the will, or the wish, of God Almighty.

The expression of this reality in the religion of Islam is in the form of the words Bismillah hirochman hirochin, which is said by Muslims before everything they do - before they work, before all their actions. The meaning of these words is that 'Everything exists because of the Will of God Almighty'. So that the reality is that God Almighty does not create His creatures just like that and leave them alone, but God Almighty always watches over and protects and guides all the creatures that He has created. This fact is something that cannot possibly be understood by the heart and mind of man except, or unless, he is granted the understanding of the power of God Almighty. Therefore it is clear that the latihan which looks just like children playing, or something very trivial, is really the way for us - an open way for us in order to learn for ourselves or to become aware of how far the power of God gives His grace and His guidance to human beings within their capacity.

What this means is that within our life - within your life - there is the power of God Almighty within our everyday lives; the purpose of which is that we should always remember God Almighty in order to show His power and glory in our lives in this world.

Brothers and Sisters, human beings were endowed by God Almighty with a heart and mind, and the purpose of the heart and mind was to be able to change things in accordance with man's will; and also to weigh up what is right and what is wrong, what is useful and what is useless, in whatever man does, in man's activities. But the heart and mind will not be able to do anything, will not be able to act, will not be able to change anything or produce any results unless there is an object to work on. This is why God Almighty has given, for the heart and mind, an object, or things on which it can work - which are all the material forms that exist in this world. These objects are filled also with their own life force which can be called the life force of the material world. And this life is something that is within the material things in this world and is something that Bapak himself received long ago. Bapak received then that within material things such as stone or iron there is something moving, there is something spinning, and this is a life. And this something was discovered also by scientists, who found that within molecules and atoms that exist in the material world there is a movement and a life. This is something that cannot be seen with our ordinary eyes but can be seen with instruments which magnify very much. Through these discoveries man was ultimately able to discover things like atomic power, and so on.

God has given man very many things - everything that man needs in this world - as objects for his heart and mind to work on. The heart and mind, therefore, is something that is able to work and to change the form of material things, and to create new forms in this world. Even if the forms didn't exist in the beginning, man was able to find them by delving into the earth and finding all the various things that he needs for his life in this world. From the earth man was able to separate iron and gold, he was able to separate oil and so many things from which he could then form the things that he needed.

God's mercy to man is very great; God has really given man a tremendous opportunity to develop and to arrange this world by using the heart and mind. The heart and mind, therefore, is something that man should use in order to change the form of things in this world. But man is only able to do all this through the grace and the power of God Almighty. That is why man is always reminded in religion that it is necessary and right and his duty always to worship and remember the power of God Almighty in whatever he does. The trouble is that it is just the other way - that the more man’s mind advances, and the more man's mind understands and is able to do, the less it remembers the power of God Almighty.

When man was first created by God, he made a promise to God that he would always remember the power of God and he would always praise God in everything that he did, in return for God's gift of the heart and mind. The fact is, however, that the heart and mind cannot always remember God - there are times when they must forget God, and this is something that God himself knows, because God is All-Wise. It is not that God did not believe man's promise at that time, but that God understands the state and the nature of man. That is why God has given man something else - and that is something called 'faith'. And faith that is given by God Almighty is something within man that remembers God even when man forgets. When the heart and mind of man are forgetful of God's power, yet through this faith that God has given him, man does, in fact, still remember the power of God Almighty. The nature of the heart and mind is that man remembers God when he is poor, when he is sick, when he has an accident - at those times man remembers God. But when man has his success, when man achieves that which he strives for, then he forgets the power of God Almighty.

So what is necessary is for man to receive faith from God Almighty which will always remind him of God's power and God's nature. Man, by himself, cannot always remember God because within man's being there exist the lower forces - the material force called rob raewani, the vegetable force called roh nabadi, the animal force called roh hewani, and the human force called rob iasmani. These forces within man cause him to forget. Does that mean that these forces are intentionally trying to trip man up or trying to harm him? Not at all. These forces realize very well that they belong to a lower nature, a lower degree than man himself. What they try to do is always to stick close to man so that when man goes to heaven, they can also go to heaven. Therefore, man's job in actual fact in this world is to be able to administer the lower forces with justice - and the way man is able to do this in this life is through his good actions, through his social work in this world; that is, in the direction of social justice, through actions like loving one another, knowing one another, helping one another, and cooperating and being close to one another. Through this man is truly a just administrator of the lower forces that exist in this world. Actually, what the lower forces are always hoping is not that they bring man into a state where he falls into the satanic world -on the contrary, they are always hoping that man will act justly and correctly so that he will go back to his heaven at the end of his life: and, at the same time, the satanic forces, let us say, will become the king of the satanic forces. So one can say, for example, that the satanic forces within man then become the kings of the satanic world, or the king devils in the satanic world.

This, then, is why it is necessary for man to receive God's guidance and God's gift of faith in order that man can always remember the power of God. This faith is given to man in the form of a life that is within his life. But man cannot become aware of this, man cannot be conscious of the existence within him of this faith unless he moves - because it is only through movement that man can become aware that within him there is something like a vibration or a movement that is deeper than his life. This is the life or the movement that is given by Almighty God which is called in Islam the hadir ilham, which means the vibration that comes from God Almighty. This is what we experience in the latihan, as Bapak has explained earlier, in all the repetition that we do of all the movements that we have already experienced before. It is this you will experience if you do your latihan diligently and refrain from quarrelling with your brothers and sisters, and can truly follow what exists in the latihan. This is something that exists within you and you can receive it in this way, like in the Latihan Kejiwaan, because this is something that is given to you by the power of God Almighty, in the form of this faith that Bapak has told you about. This is something that you can receive completely differently from when you receive something for the nafsu or the heart and mind, because anything that you want to do for the nafsu or the heart and mind is something that you have to receive and work at through studying, whereas this is something that you can receive from yourself.

Brothers and Sisters, the framework of the lower forces form a sort of matrix because they are interwoven in the nature of man. That is, there is interwoven within the being of man all the forces - that is, there is the connection between the material and the material, between the material and the vegetable, between the material and the animal, between the material and the human; and then between the vegetable and the material, between the vegetable and the vegetable, the vegetable and the animal, the vegetable and the human, and so on. These lower forces form within man a network and a matrix which, actually, in man's life cannot be separated or subdivided. For example, when we look, within our looking there looks also the material, the vegetable, the animal and the human. Therefore, it is clear that what acts within man is not only the human, but all these other things act within man, and they interpenetrate the being of man. But in worshipping God Almighty it is essential for the being of man, for man's inner feeling, not to be influenced by the lower forces. This is the great problem of man, this is the great difficulty which man faces in his life ( a gap here ) - that is why man has always tried to avoid the influence of the lower forces in his life. And he has tried to do this by neglecting everything that has to do with the lower forces, neglecting the material world and the needs of the material world. For example, avoiding anything to do with material things, with wearing clothes, with living in a 'house, and so on: and also neglecting sleeping and eating, and going away from society, usually to meditate or to practice asceticism in lonely places, on mountain tops and in the jungle, and experiencing many, many hardships to the extent that very often people like this would die in the jungle without anybody knowing, not having attained What they sought.

These are the great efforts that man has made in the past to try to avoid the influence of the lower forces. Yet these efforts are inevitably unsuccessful because man, if only he knew it, can achieve the same thing simply by surrender - through having a feeling of acceptance, of patience, submission and trust towards the power of God.

It is clear that all these efforts and these difficulties that man has given himself, in order to separate himself from the lower forces, are man's own mistake and man's own fault. It is not God's will that man should give himself a lot of trouble and pain in order to follow the line of his life. This is only man's wish, always to look for difficulties, and to make difficulties for himself. In fact man could achieve the same thing simply by surrendering.

This is demonstrated by the history of mankind - about which Bapak has told you earlier but which Bapak feels it also necessary to repeat here in Bogota. Now, humanity is a great number - but originally, at the beginning, man came from only one human being known as Adam. Adam originally did not have the form of a human being. He had no body, he had no organs or senses, and yet Adam was able to be complete in his being, was able to do and to sense and to know all that which human beings are able to do. He was able to see without eyes, hear without ears and smell without a nose, and also to think and to understand without a brain. But when it was God's will that man should be created in this world, at that moment Adam was equipped with a heart and mind, and a physical body, and also with all the other contents of his human existence - the lower forces that Bapak described earlier. From that moment on Adam could no longer act in the way he did before - in order to act or to do anything, he had to use his physical organs and his physical body. He had to move and he had to work with his hands, and think with his brain. Although Adam was given all these accessories in his life, Adam was also given the ability to separate himself from them when he returned back to his original world. The story goes like this: that Adam also experienced difficulties and sadness in his life in this world. When that happened, when Adam was not able to obtain the things he wanted by using his physical body and his heart and mind, then he became aware of a dilemma within his life which caused him to turn to God Almighty and ask:

'God Almighty, I am here in this world, and I am now able to act and to see and to feel and to hear and to think with these physical organs that you have given me - but what will become of me when these physical organs will disappear, as I know that I will die in the end?'

And God replied to Adam:

Adam, I have created you with all these accessories in order to be able to live in this world, but I also accompany you all the time and watch over you and protect you, because indeed my power is such that I can always be with you and guide you.'

Then Adam began to understand, and said:

'Oh, is that what you mean, that something within me which is beyond my own ability, which is beyond my own power and beyond my own will, something that is beyond, the ability of the understanding of my heart and mind?'

And God replied:

'Yes, that is my power within you - which is a life that is deeper than your own Life.'

This was experienced by Adam - this something within him was experienced through his surrender, whenever he was quiet and was surrendered to God Almighty.

Now - Bapak doesn't know why - it is this same thing that Adam felt at that moment that God has given back to us again, at this time, in the form of the Latihan Kejiwaan. This, you yourselves have been able to witness when you were first opened, When you first received the latihan. That is, you became aware of a movement or a vibration within you Which was from beyond your own understanding and your own will, and you may have said to yourself:

'I didn't know. I was not aware till now that there exists something within me other than my own ability and the power of my heart and mind, because till now I thought that my whole life was just my own ability and my own will, and that everything was just willed by. myself. But now I can feel that there is something that comes from beyond my own will.'

This something, this feeling that we receive in the latihan - the proof of it is that at the time when we receive the latihan, when all of you receive the latihan, we are in a state of quietness, in a state of tranquillity, of happiness. And also with a feeling that is completely free from the influence or the concern of the needs of our everyday life.

So, Brothers and Sisters, even if our receiving is only up to that point, it is already something of tremendous value for our life in this world. If, for example, a person of great wealth could experience within himself What you have experienced - that is, a feeling of peace, a feeling of happiness, of ,being untroubled by the needs of this world - he would be so happy that you cannot imagine. Maybe you imagine that people Of great wealth are very happy, that people of high position, powerful people, are very happy, or that people who are incredibly clever are very happy - but the opposite is the truth. Actually, their state is one of suffering, because their thinking is constantly changing direction at every moment - and that, actually, is another word for suffering.

Bapak can give an example to you - something that Bapak has read -so that you understand it better. It seems that there is a very rich woman who has inherited great wealth from her father - maybe a fortune. This woman lived in Greece, and the fortune that she ,has inherited not long ago is perhaps more than a billion dollars. This woman apparently has told journalists - maybe you have also read the magazine - that she is depressed when she is awake, she is depressed when she is asleep, she is depressed when she wakes up in the morning, she's depressed when she eats. Maybe there is not one of you here who has even ten thousand dollars - but, even so, you are all very, very fortunate compared to this woman.

The power of God is something that enables man to penetrate through all the barriers of the material world and all the other worlds, out of this world. It is possible for man, through the power of God Almighty within him, for the human jiwa at the end of his life to leave this world and to penetrate all the barriers and all the levels that lead out of this world -because as you leave this world you penetrate levels where the atmosphere is finer and finer and rarer and rarer. This is something, for example, that has been discovered or has been understood by astronauts who, even when they leave this world a short way, already have to wear all sorts of equipment in order to be able to breathe. If these astronauts, for example, are leaving this earth and if something of this equipment that surrounds them breaks down, then they will certainly die. But the human jiwa is something that can penetrate all these barriers and can leave this world and return to its origin.

Brothers and Sisters, it is clear that this latihan which maybe appears trivial or like child's play or something very ordinary is, nevertheless, for us a tremendous gift and a tremendous opportunity - because even if we can only receive it to the lowest level, it will still bring us great happiness, because it will enable us to discover our true talent and our true value as a human being. This is what is called the culture that comes from the jiwa or the culture of life.

The power of God does not need man to suffer. On the contrary, the power of God always gives to man - is willing to give to all creatures - what is in accordance with man's nature. It is for this reason, Brothers and Sisters, that Bapak hopes that you will do your 'latihan diligently, and that beyond that you will really cooperate with each other in harmony, will work together, and will be close to one another. Above all, do not try to put yourself forward, or to impress others, because that is something that will not bring you forward but, on the contrary, will drag you down, because this will put you under the influence and in the power of the lower forces, and will cause your degree to sink. It is only through harmony and cooperation that you can open the way for your 'life and for your ideals.

Brothers and Sisters, this feeling of happiness, of peace and of consciousness which we experience in the Latihan Kejiwaan is indeed that Which all mankind is 'looking for; because indeed this feeling - this feeling of bliss or peace, and of inner consciousness - is the way or the ,bridge through Which man can return to his original world. This is what Bapak described earlier and which Bapak tested with you: for example, in Call, when Bapak tested with you - 'What is the meaning, or what is the feeling, of the word "heaven"?'

At that moment you were as if moved from within - you could just feel that you were completely surrendered to God Almighty. But, Brothers and Sisters, there is, nevertheless, a danger - that once you have experienced this 'feeling of quietness, happiness and consciousness in the latihan, you feel as though that is enough; that you have, as it were, 'had enough, that you have achieved what you wanted, and that's it. Whereas, in fact, this feeling in the latihan is simply an open door through Which you must go. Also, there is a feeling that when you already have this satisfaction, that you do not need to work any more - you feel as though all your needs have been satisfied with this feeling. Actually, that is not so - because that feeling that you receive in the latihan only relates to something in the kejiwaan, it is not the satisfaction of your needs in this world. While we live in this world we also still need to use our nafsu, because the nafsu is the condition, or the requirement, that our heart and mind will work. And the heart and mind have to work in this world in order to find the needs of our life here. For example, if you already have a family, if you have a wife and Children, it is your duty not only to find the needs of your own life in this world, but also for your wife and children. So that for your wife and children you have even to make sure not that they live in great luxury but, at least that for their life in this world, they will be happy and secure.

This is why, Brothers and Sisters, Bapak always advises you that in addition to doing your Latihan Kejiwaan with a feeling of satisfaction, of peace, of consciousness, Chat you must also do enterprises. You mustn’t misunderstand - you mustn’t think that by doing enterprises Bapak is trying to encourage you to become businessmen who only hunger after profit and great wealth and making more and more money. What Bapak means ,by doing enterprises is to get yourself used to working in this world in the way that man normally has to work in this world - but at the same time not forgetting this guidance and closeness ,of the power of God in your everyday life. Although we are using our '.heart and mind and all the lower forces and the nafsu in our work in our everyday life, yet all the time we remember that the power of God is there, following, overshadowing and guiding our life: so that in our everyday life, in our everyday work, it will be like when we are doing the latihan. Besides receiving our latihan, it is necessary for us to arrange our life in this world, to arrange human life in this world. This is in accordance with what is taught in religion - that man ,has in this world to worship God Almighty, but also man must work in order to achieve a society that is just and peaceful. We must work in this world in order always to try to go towards what is right and what will cause society peace and security, and away from things that take us into danger and trouble.

Therefore, Bapak is not advising you to do enterprises in order to amass wealth, but in order to fulfil the needs of 'human society. So that in addition to the value for ourselves, our work in enterprises will give an indication of our relationship with this world. The fruit of our enterprises will not only be for our own needs, but part off it must also be used for social work. For example, it is necessary that we should start charitable undertakings, such as having schools and hospitals, even though the State also provides these things; and also such undertakings as homes for old people with no families, and so on, so that through this we will fulfil our duty towards human society in this world. It may be that as a result of this it will also enable Subud to have an open or an easy way in achieving what it needs to do in this world, because it will have shown the proof of what Subud is to the governments of the countries in which it exists. It may be later that not only will it be easier for Subud to do anything it wants, but maybe even governments will make available houses and buildings for Subud to have meetings and to do latihan, as an appreciation for what Subud has done in their respective countries.

Therefore, Bapak wants to make it quite clear that the intention of doing enterprises is not that Bapak is encouraging you to delve into the material world in a search for wealth, in a search for the material benefits of life - and thereby to turn your back on the kejiwaan. On the contrary, it is so that you should be able to work in the world - and not forget, at the same time, your worship of God Almighty. So that when, let us say, you become very wealthy, or very powerful or very intelligent, this power and this intelligence and this wealth will not cause you to forget God Almighty. You will not be in the position of the wealthy person that Bapak told you about just a few minutes ago. On the contrary, your wealth and your power will be a bridge for you in your worship of God Almighty.

Brothers and Sisters, Bapak will conclude his talk at this point this evening, but will continue with his explanations during the following nights while Bapak is with you.

Bapak would like to say 'Goodnight' and 'Thank you'.