Brothers and Sisters,

Bapak needed to hold this meeting in order to explain the duties and responsibilities of helpers; and if there is time Bapak will go on to explain the responsibilities of the committee.

Brothers and Sisters, the work or the responsibilities of the helpers is something very heavy, because their responsibility is not only to assist the latihan of the members, but the helpers are also the pioneers of the Subud Brotherhood - which means that if it were not for helpers there would be no members in Subud, since the members are opened by the helpers. So it is clear that the helpers occupy a very key role in Subud, and this is why Bapak calls them pioneers.

It is extremely important that the helpers should really understand their duties and responsibilities so that what they do should not be disappointing; by which Bapak means that there should not be, for example, members who have done the latihan for a long, long time and still don't really feel or understand what it's all about. Or that members, after some time in Subud, leave without any real reason.

Bapak always says that the spiritual Brotherhood of Subud is different from other spiritual groups because other groups, as Bapak described last night, mostly follow the way of Said Anwas - that is, by way of study with the mind which in the language of Islam is called tarekat: that is, using theory.

Subud is a receiving. The Latihan Kejiwaan of Subud is the same as that which was received by the Prophets. Therefore, the Latihan Kejiwaan of Subud is not a teaching, but a receiving. It is only necessary to follow it; in religion it is the same. You only have to follow what was said by the Messengers and the Prophets; for example, by Jesus Christ and the Prophet Muhammad. You don't have to study, because the kejiwaan means your life and it is in the hands of God. For you, the power of God has provided the thinking and the heart for you to use. So the thinking and the heart are the field of man, while the jiwa is the field of God. Because the kejiwaan, Brothers and Sisters, is something like an airplane. For example, it is not localized. It is international, it can go anywhere. But the thinking and the heart of man are limited to man - not more and not less.

With the heart and the thinking, man cannot get in contact with the angels or with creatures of God outside this world. It's impossible. But with the kejiwaan it is possible. Why is that? Because the kejiwaan is the power of God, so the One who manages the kejiwaan is God - it is the content. This Bapak explained the night before last, if you have not forgotten it, that besides being given the heart and the thinking for the needs of his life here on earth, Adam was also not given but protected by God's power, and his jiwa was always led by Almighty God, so that his jiwa should be able to make contact with jiwas anywhere which He had created.

This is why it is not possible for man with his thinking to study the kejiwaan. In fact, Adam's son, Said Anwas, just like Adam wasn't able to study the kejiwaan with his thinking and his heart. That is why he went away by himself, isolated himself, and then, using his heart and mind, put to work the nafsu that was within him - that is, with the lower forces - so that he was able to do his work and finally become Sang Hyang Sis. He was then able to create dewas, create a heaven, a hell, called in Indonesia Cawa Chundra di Mooko. This was a heaven of the imagination - not the real heaven. So in the realm of the dewas, in the history of Said Anwas who became a dewa, there is no talk about miraj or ascension. Ascension means to be called by God to the seventh heaven and to be given orders directly by God, as with Jesus Christ, as with Prophet Muhammad, Prophet Abraham, Prophet Moses, and also the other Prophets.

Now, just join in and just receive at the same time. Because Bapak is here maybe you are also able to receive it, because this needs witnesses.

Within the being Of Said Anwas, is there life? Is there life within Said Anwas? There is. Are you able to receive it? Just look at Bapak. In the life of Said Anwas, what is the light in Said Anwas? It's green. So he lives in his thinking.

In the life of Said Anwar - where is his life? Said Anwar is alive, but you cannot see him because his jiwa is fine. So for us in the Latihan Kejiwaan there are proofs.

According to man's mind, if man asks himself, a million years ago were there already human beings on this earth? That is, from the mind because man cannot find it. But with the jiwa - that is the human jiwa -one, two, three, four, five six, seven million years ago, was there life? Yes, there was. And how were the men who lived seven million years ago? Very big ( laughter ). And how is man's life now?

So this is the meaning of the jiwa. Once you have been able to put aside your thinking, you will also be able to receive these things, because your jiwa will be alive. Bapak has no authority because Bapak is only a man. The One who has authority is God.

The fact that with the thinking man cannot cross over into other worlds has been proved by man himself by his trip to the moon. When man went to the moon he could not have survived except by taking with him equipment from the earth which contained air for breathing and other essences from the earth. So if while he was there, man were to take off his equipment, which he used to cover himself, he would die. It is clear that with the thinking man is incapable of crossing the boundary of this world. And what about his jiwa? With his jiwa he can. This has also been proved by Christ, by Prophet Muhammad, and also by all of us, once we have progressed, progressed, progressed - because the jiwa, Brothers and Sisters, is life beyond the authority or the influence of the thinking and the heart and the nafsu. Therefore, the jiwa can penetrate deep within, So deep that at the very deepest it can be touched by, and touch, the power of Almighty God which envelops the universe outside this earth.

This has also been demonstrated by scientists nowadays by calculation, using only their minds. Because, well, this is also something that God has given to man - that man can, just with his calculations by his thinking, picture something which cannot possibly be reached by his own strength or the strength of his mind. For instance, man can demonstrate that besides this sun that we see every day there are other suns, and not a few. These other suns outside our world, are stronger and bigger than our own sun. And all these are collected together in the Milky Way, or our galaxy. While the distance of the Milky Way from here is far greater than the distance to the moon, the distance to the moon is nothing by comparison. So it is easy for man to get to the moon. But even this, man is still working on it.

Can he later reach Jupiter, which is much farther than the moon and is, in fact, a different world? If he can, it's just with his instruments. But even if, eventually, man can go there himself, he will still need equipment as a cover, as a cocoon or a container, to carry him there. This, too - if he takes it off, he will die. This proves that the thinking cannot carry man beyond this earth, or beyond this world. If it is away from here, it is powerless. This is why, if it is the wish of man, as willed by God, to be able to take a look outside this world, he has to leave behind his mind and his heart. How will it be then with the life of his jiwa? How can his jiwa live once he can no longer live with his mind through Almighty God? It's clear that if it is not God who leads man, even his jiwa, where He wills or where man asks, man cannot get there.

That is why in the history of the dewas it is never related that one can meet with creatures from outside this world. It just doesn't exist. But in the story of the Prophet it does. For instance, when Prophet Muhammad traveled upwards through space - further than the galaxies, further than the Milky Way, further also than Jupiter, Saturn and so on, Prophet Muhammad was alive, but not alive with his physical body, nor with his mind or his heart, but alive with his jiwa.

This, Brothers and Sisters, is what Bapak means when he says that the Latihan Kejiwaan is led by Almighty God. It is beyond the mind and the heart. This is why Bapak says that the latihan cannot be thought about.

So if there is talk, such as that which Bapak reads in his correspondence where people ask whether the decline of Subud isn't due to this or due to that, or isn't Bapak worried that Subud won't progress or won't develop, or supposing Subud were taken over by some country? - Bapak doesn't worry about any of these things, because this Subud isn't something that comes from a nation or is owned by a nation. It is owned by mankind because of the will of God. And it isn't only the property of mankind. If we base it on God, on the God of all creatures He has created, then it belongs to the whole universe, beyond this world. So if we base it all on God Almighty, certainly what is in Subud is under God's authority and can travel to anywhere, if God grants us His grace.

This latihan looks quite ordinary but, in reality, it trains that life which is within your life.

( Testing )

Again. Do you love your children or not? Now God separates you from your love of your children. Now, back again. So God has real authority and that is what we follow in the latihan, so that Bapak says in the latihan we only have to surrender to God Almighty.

Now, compare this with the Prophet Abraham - just by surrendering to God Almighty he was able to know things which men normally cannot understand.

( Bapak laughs ). This is how Bapak can say 'Laugh', and you laugh. But this is not Bapak. Bapak is only a tool. And why is Bapak allowed to do this? It is because whatever Bapak is doing, Bapak is close to God. So this is all God's power. God teaches us all the actions and all the behavior of man. Actually, to reach the kejiwaan, or to have the understanding which God wishes us to have, is something very, very easy. This is proof. Do you want to see the proof?

You make a table by thinking. You make a small toy by thinking. But when you make a child you don't think, and that is the work of God. So the smallest thing you make, you have to think about it. But to make a child, the child which is the focus of your heart in this world and something you cannot make by machines or by tools, is very easy. In fact, you can make it just by experiencing bliss.

This is something you should feel and think about. Actually a man, before he joins Subud, he should have been everywhere, he should have studied everything, and then he would understand what Subud really is. But normally it is not like that. People study a lot of things and instead of increasing their understanding it only makes them more confused, because Subud is indeed something that cannot be understood. We are looking for something that cannot be understood by the mind. In fact, something that can be used, an instrument that can be used to understand God is, in fact, God Himself, because God is not acceptable to man's understanding. A man who talks about understanding God, a man who talks as if he has found something with which he can understand God, is very disappointing because it is a lie. Because, in fact, it is God who has created man, so it is God who can understand man, and not man who can understand God. God understands man with His own essence, therefore He can guide man, and He can guide man to experience the nature of God. Because God has created man, so God loves man.

Bapak said there was a member from Skymont who had an experience before he was opened - at a time when he had just heard about Subud and was, as it were, already in the atmosphere of Subud. ( Bapak asked me to tell this because I was the one who heard this story from him ). When the member was driving along - and he had just heard about Subud - he suddenly saw something like a ball of light coming towards him and he could feel this light enter his body. After that he could feel his whole body vibrating and he could feel a power within him that he had never felt before. He felt as though he was no longer in this world; he was in a completely different place from this world. At the same time he was still driving, because when he came back to himself and he felt himself again in this world, he had gone several blocks in the car.

And this state he was in went on for several months, during which time many, many people came to him, and maybe 80 or 90 people joined Subud because of contact with him. When he was outside this world during that period - he doesn't understand how - he was aware of and could feel many, many beings that lived outside this world. Of course, their form is not the same as that of men here. And this light - Bapak doesn't say that it was a fantastic experience, but it was a good experience, it was a real experience - and that light that he saw is the same as that which was seen by Jesus Christ, which is called the Holy Spirit or the Roh Ilofi. This is what Bapak explained to you two nights ago, that the reason you are not able to see the miraculous is that your eyes are still closed by the material forces. Why is it like that? Because it is not yet time for you to be separated from the influence of the material forces - and you will experience this later, when it is God's Will and when God Gives you His Grace. And the way to it is through the continuation of this Latihan Kejiwaan, which is the Guidance of the Power of God.

Bapak has started off telling you all this to give you a framework or a direction, so that you will not now be affected by the nafsu, the nafsu that wants to do something or wants to achieve something by using the heart and mind; so that you will be protected from trying to do something that will only make confusion.

Now Bapak can give you what Bapak said at the beginning - some indications or guidelines about the responsibilities of helpers.

So after having understood all this, you helpers should work together in harmony and without having any feelings of raising yourself up and looking down on other people. Or, alternatively, of raising someone else up and putting yourself down. Once you are able to work like this - once you are able to work together close to each other and in harmony, - then what you have to start to think about and concern yourself with is the state of the members, so that you will not be affected by sin; by the fact that you open new members and then do not take care of them on account of this; so that you have to take care of and look after the members you have opened, to be sure that they are able to receive and to understand and to feel what Subud is. Subud does not need a lot of members. It is nice if the membership can increase, but that is not the important thing. What is important is that the members there should really be able to feel and to know and to receive and to understand about the Latihan Kejiwaan. And if they can do this then Subud will become strong, secure, prosperous and happy.

This Latihan Kejiwaan is, in fact, the hakekat - that is, the truth. It is a latihan which is based on the Guidance and the Training of God Almighty, and it is completely different from other ways where people simply follow a system, or the teaching, of another person and they do not know the reality or the truth or the content of what they are taught. For example, people go in crowds to church, or to the mosque, and when you ask them: 'Where are you going?' they say: 'We are going to the mosque.' 'What do you obtain there?'

'Oh, nothing in particular - we are just doing what we are told by the elders' - which means they say that this is how one worships God Almighty.

This is why their total number is millions and millions - which is different from the number of those who follow the truth, or the reality. And this is in accordance with the story that has existed for a long time - that those who follow the shariat, or the external observance of religion, are millions; but those who are able to follow the reality behind it, the hakekat, are maybe only a hundred out of millions, if that.

Bapak would now like to explain the way of opening new members. When the candidate for being opened has completed the three months waiting period and the time for the opening comes about, then first of all he is asked to say the promise or the declaration that is normal before the opening. After that, the helper should direct himself to God Almighty, as when he is doing latihan by himself. The new member is surrendered completely to God Almighty, and then it's up to God Almighty what He will give, or what He will grant to that member who is being opened. So that then both of them can receive from God Almighty.

But what normally happens is that the helper directs himself to the member, and the helper has the feeling: 'I am the one who is opening this member'. He feels that he is the teacher of this member being opened. Similarly, the member who is being opened feels the same way. The result of this always, when it is like that, is that all the load, the burden and the sins that are within the member being opened then flow towards the helper, and he feels very sick and very unwell. It is completely different if the helper can direct himself only to God Almighty, and then it is God who opens the new member. Then that member will receive what he needs, which is to feel the Latihan Kejiwaan, while the helper receives what he needs, which is to be able to feel the content of the opening.

As Bapak always says, if somebody opens somebody, then there must be something useful that he receives from that - it is like a reward or a gift from God for having brought a new person to the worship of God.

Brothers and Sisters, now Bapak will go on to talk about the organization, or the form of the helpers' work, or cooperation. As you know, normally the helpers are organized according to various functions which are called the local helpers, the regional helpers and the national helpers, and this arrangement is a matter of convenience. It is designed to make the distribution of work more even and more efficient. Unfortunately, helpers often misunderstand this, and they imagine that this implies some difference in their quality or their ability. So they imagine, for example, that national helpers are a kind of first-class helpers, while regional helpers are second-class helpers, and then the helpers at group level are not such good helpers. Some people even have the feeling when they are made national helpers that they must be some kind of dewa or demi-god, and they repeat a story that national helpers are always accompanied everywhere by four angels, while the regional helpers have only two angels - and the ordinary helpers at group level are very unfortunate because they are just ordinary people and really they have no angels at all, not even a low-grade angel or a second-class angel.

This is, actually, complete nonsense. This kind of feeling immediately awakens jealousy and disagreement and friction between the helpers. They don't realize that there is no difference between them at all. In fact, it often happens that helpers at the local level are able to receive far more in their latihan than helpers who happen to be national helpers.

Another thing that Bapak wants you to do - Bapak would like the helpers to hold a helpers' latihan twice every month, and always to invite the committee to join them for the latihan. This is very important so that there should be a close feeling and a good feeling of fellowship and harmony between the helpers and the committee, and it avoids the feeling that the committee is excluded from the kejiwaan and is condemned only to dealing with worldly matters. If that happens, you will find eventually that nobody wants to be on the committee any more, because they feel then that they will receive nothing in the kejiwaan - they will only receive the list of members twice a week. So, for this, it is very important in order that the committee feels included in the kejiwaan that they be invited to attend the helpers' latihan so that the wheels of the Subud Brotherhood will go smoothly and well.

Bapak would now like to explain a bit about the duties of the committee. Among other things, Bapak entrusts the committee with the work of creating and supervising enterprises, and this is something that is not at all the duty of helpers, but the duty of the committee. It is not the helpers who have to think about and develop enterprises - it is the committee. The duty of the helpers, Bapak has already explained. Principally, it is to check, for example, that there are not members who have been in Subud for some time and cannot yet receive in the Latihan Kejiwaan. If, for example, there is someone who has been doing the latihan for some time and doesn't feel anything yet, then the helpers must take that person and do latihan with him or her until he or she can feel it. So this, then, is the duty of the helpers. But enterprises are the duty of the committee. For this, the committee needs to form a group of experts, or a group of people who really have an understanding of business and other types of expertise that are needed in order to give advice and supervision to members who want to start enterprises. This will then avoid the situation where enterprises are done in a way that is amateurish, or not based on real understanding and knowledge, so that the enterprise eventually fails. This has frequently happened already in other countries, like in England and America, where enterprises, for lack of expert knowledge in the way they were done, finally had to close down.

So the first job of the committee in relation to enterprises is to form such a group of experts who can evaluate and assist in the new enterprises. Bapak then also gives the committee all responsibility to do with money, collecting money, spending money, fixing the budget and so on. Again this is something, therefore, which is not at all the responsibility of the helpers.

( Sharif said he left something out. ) Bapak also said that, in the case of enterprises, questions about enterprises should not be addressed to the helpers, but to the group of experts. Again, Bapak doesn't wish the helpers to meddle in the arrangements about money and financial affairs, because if they do, it is sure that sooner or later there will be a split or a conflict between the helpers and committee about how funds should be used and so on. This must be avoided in order to ensure the smooth development and the smooth working of the group. But it is clear that the expenses of the helpers - that is their expenses, for example, in visiting sick people or in visiting distant groups where things are just beginning and they need to give help on how to arrange and organize things - all that the committee has to reimburse them when it is asked.

Bapak feels that that is enough now. Bapak has told you about your responsibilities as helpers, about the nature of your work as helpers, and also relationships among the helpers. Bapak has also explained the relationship between the helpers and the committee and a little bit about the responsibility of the committee. Bapak doesn't feel it necessary to go further on, to that, because it is sure that you have read all the data and all the explanations that are always sent out by I.S.C., so Bapak assumes that the committee already understands its job.

So that is all. Thank you very much.