CHAPTER ONE

When I was born, especially when I was very young, I had a feeling of love for everyone, although I was born with some physical challenges. I had a short neck and my shoulders were curved. The vertebrae in my upper back were fused. So this created problems in my life as people would laugh at my physical appearance and make fun of me.

As time went on, my feeling of self-esteem became very low and caused me to start drinking alcohol at a very young age. This was a way to mask my insecure feelings and low self-esteem. My original feelings of love for people soon changed, and I became different from my original self.

As time went on, my suffering increased to a point that my drinking problem became a way to endure the pain that I was experiencing. I could not face people unless I was drinking. I was in a constant state of fear that someone would laugh at me or make fun of me. My life became more and more unbearable.

Finally in the summer of 1964, when I was 26 years old, I was lying in bed one night contemplating killing myself, even though I was a coward and probably would not have had the courage to actually do that. Then suddenly, I heard a voice inside of my head saying,

"Well, you've tried everything in your life but you've never tried praying to God."

I thought to myself,

"Well, I guess I can kill myself next week; this week I'll try praying to God."

But then I realized that I didn't know how to pray to God. Then, spontaneously, I started calling to God inside of myself,

"God, God, God," over and over.

Suddenly a force completely enveloped my whole being and began shaking my entire body very strongly while I was lying in bed. I also began crying out loud and really could do nothing except to accept what I was experiencing. This experience went on for thirty or forty minutes and then it stopped. I felt very peaceful and fell asleep like a little baby.

The next morning when I awoke, I was shocked at what had happened the night before. I was also curious to see if it would happen again. So I decided to wait until everyone was asleep that night and try calling to God again.

At that time, I was living in Brooklyn, New York with one of my brothers and my parents, and I didn't want them to hear me crying if it happened again. When I felt they were asleep, I started calling to God again and the same thing happened to me. I was enveloped by the same force and it began shaking my whole body, and I started crying again. Once again, after about thirty minutes or so, I fell asleep in a peaceful state. This happened every night for about one week. Then I stopped doing it because my life was changing and I didn't feel as desperate any more.

About a week or two later, this voice in my head came back to me and told me that I should go to a certain place in Brooklyn that I normally would not go. It was a nightclub and I was given a list of instructions to follow. Normally I wouldn't have followed this, but the voice was very loud in my head. Based on my previous experiences, I felt that I should follow it. When I arrived at this nightclub, to make a long story short, I met a Subud member and we became friends. This person had a very strong feeling that I should join Subud and would always try to convince me to go to a meeting for applicants in Subud New York.

After a month or so, I finally attended an applicants' meeting to find out about Subud. Somehow I had not connected my earlier experiences with Subud. I didn't say anything at this meeting, but I listened to what everyone had to say. There were many applicants and helpers attending. The main thing that I noticed was that the helpers seemed to have an inner peace that I saw in their eyes, even though everything they said sounded foreign to me and I thought they were all crazy.

I thought to myself that I wanted that peace. I didn't care what they called it, Subud or "Shmubud," I wanted that inner peace. But I still had second thoughts about it and I didn't sign the applicant form, although I attended the meetings every week.

During that time the voice in my head told me not to listen to anyone but just to read Bapak's talks. Even though I had never read a complete book in my life up until that time, I began reading every Bapak talk that I could find. Fortunately, Subud New York had an extensive library and many books and talks were available. Surprisingly, I found that I would remember much of what I read. It seemed to go inside of me and stay there. When the end of my three-month waiting period was finally getting near, I asked if I was going to be opened. I was told by one of the helpers that I needed to sign the form in order to be opened and I would now have to wait two more months. I started to get angry because they knew I had attended all the meetings and were still making me wait. Then the voice in my head told me to just accept it and surrender to God. So I did what I was told and waited the two months.

When I was finally officially opened on January 31, 1965, I received the same kind of experience that I had received when I first received it at home by myself. It was then that I understood that what I had received was the spiritual exercise, or as it is called, the Subud latihan. I had been guided to find Subud. Latihan is an Indonesian word meaning exercise.

After my opening, I started to attend the group latihan and had an interesting and challenging experience. When the latihan would begin, I would be shaken very strongly by this same force, although now I was standing instead of lying in my bed. I would be bent over backwards until I would be forced to fall backwards on the floor on my head. Once I was down on the floor, I would be moved very strongly on the floor and would hear my bones cracking in my neck and shoulders. Sometimes I was rubbing my head into the carpeting. When the latihan was over, my hair would sometimes be in knots from the movements that I was forced to make. Every latihan was a test for me to accept falling backwards on the floor on my head or not. This kind of latihan lasted for about one year.

The other thing that happened right after I was opened, was that following latihan I would be made to go into a bar and drink alcohol. I thought this was really strange, but I followed it because it was so strong. I would have a drink and immediately become intoxicated. It was as if I were two people. One was drunk and the other was sober and making fun of me for drinking. The next morning I would have a terrible hangover. In a very short time, I lost my desire to drink alcohol and could not even stand the smell of it. I continued going to bars for two or three months or so after I could not drink anymore because my whole social life revolved around that kind of atmosphere. I would order a Coke or some other soft drink, but I found that the people in the bars didn't like me anymore. So I finally stopped going to bars completely.

After about a year of falling backwards on my head on the floor, at last I was made to stand up in the latihan and for the first time I felt that I had legs. I remember feeling that I would no longer have to be thrown backwards on the floor because I could finally feel my legs and I could stand on my own two feet. After that experience I was never thrown down on the floor again.

My latihan would change every time I received it after that. My inner looked like a piece of cloth that would unravel during each latihan After it was completely unraveled, I began to see the various forces inside of myself—material, vegetable, animal, and the ordinary human forces. I began to make all kinds of movements that I would normally make in my daily life such as walking, praying, moving my arms, speaking, singing, laughing, crying, and many other ones as well. The difference was that I was being made to make these movements by the Great Life Force of the latihan, whereas in my daily life, I was making all these movements from my own will.

I didn't understand the reason for making these movements at that time, but I paid attention to what I was receiving anyway. Some time later when I was walking in a shopping mall, the thought came to me that I should try walking the way that I would walk in the latihan. I should clarify here that when I normally walked, I would swagger from side-to-side. But when I was made to walk in the latihan, I would walk without swaggering and would move my arms in a different way. So I decided to try to walk that way. The moment that I did felt the same as it did in the general latihan. I felt myself being moved by the force of the latihan and I felt exactly as I did in latihan, except that I had the intention to walk. I then began to understand that all the movements that I received in latihan were useful for my everyday life.

I was being trained in the latihan to live my life in a certain way, which was different than before I received the latihan. One could say that I was being taught to live in accordance with the will of God or, Susila, living in the right way. My latihan became more Islamic as time went on and eventually I felt to become a Muslim. I decided to go to the Mosque in New York and make the Declaration of Faith which is what is required to become a Muslim. Some of my brothers and sisters in Subud felt to accompany me to the Mosque, and some even felt to make the Declaration of Faith, also.

When we arrived at the Mosque, we saw that it was all messed up and asked what had happened. The Imam explained that they had had a party the night before to celebrate the Prophet Muhammad's birthday, which was today. That also meant that it was Bapak's birthday. I felt very surprised and happy because I was not aware that it was their birthdays. I was especially surprised by Bapak's birthday, since he is the spiritual guide of Subud. This was the official beginning of being a Muslim for me, although I had been receiving it in latihan for some time.

After that I began saying Muhammad Isman Kanafsky in latihan over and over. I knew that was my name, but I did not have the courage to use it outwardly yet. Maybe it wasn't time for me to use it yet in my everyday life.

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Mr. Kanafsky's book can be purchased at Amazon.com.... All proceeds will be donated to Subud U.S.A.