Ladies and gentlemen, tonight Bapak would like briefly to reveal, or to shed some light on, what it's like for the mind, the feelings and the imagination to be stopped, immobilized, and made calm, and why this is necessary. And it is necessary, even though, generally speaking - or speaking of human beings as creatures higher than the other creatures - it's also mandatory, it's necessary to use the mind, feelings and understanding in order to be able to know, to be able to understand, the events that happen to oneself, and to discern what should be heeded and what not, as well as how to arrive at decisions about these concerns.

Indeed that's the way it ought to be. God doesn't want human beings to remain mere material objects unwilling to weigh the pros and cons of things and unaccustomed to using the utmost cleverness and resourcefulness in matters requiring attention. The same is true of dealing with things that people need to have, things that require a genuine effort to obtain and thus have to be striven for.

But maybe all of you, my children, are also already able to have some inkling of why it's necessary for Bapak always to advise that in receiving the training ( latihan ), or that when one is in the latihan, which is worship of God, the mind should not be used. Nor should one use the imagination, the desires ( nafsu ) and the feelings, which go wandering off in all directions.

The reason for this is that the power of God, which you have already received, my children, though not yet in its entirety, is the one and only way, the one and only requirement to enable the human self, or the human feeling, to become capable of grasping and receiving the gifts of God. To receive it, what's needed is for the imagination, the desires, and the like to be abandoned. This is because only after they've been left behind, after they're out of the picture, after all the things Bapak just mentioned have become quiet - only then will your feelings, my children, and your soul ( jiwa ), my children, be awakened and rise up, after their long oppression, after their long imprisonment by the desires and the subhuman forces, which have been influencing you from the time you were small up to the present, when you've become grown-ups, now that you're parents.

This is because under such conditions, my children, you'll finally be able to receive the way to obtain the rank of a true human being, the way to become head of the household within your own self, and also the way really to become the manager of your own personal self.

Where the mind is concerned, neither your minds and your hearts, nor your imaginations and feelings, have ever - starting from earliest childhood and continuing into adulthood and parenthood - been the original, the authentic minds, feelings and imaginations of perfect human beings. This is true of those who've already gone far in amassing knowledge, as well as those who haven't yet done so. As a matter of fact, those things have the nature of drives that originate in the subhuman forces. These are the material, vegetable, animal and ordinary human.

Consequently, the contents of the human mind are still quite a puzzle. So are the contents of the human imagination, of the human consciousness, and of the human feelings. Is this really A's content? Or is it from an animal, or from plants, or from an ordinary person? For that matter, that ordinary person may sometimes be an enemy of A. This is what people can't imagine, what they don't suspect when they've fallen, when they've been thrown down into a state of misery by wrong actions. They themselves take the blame for these actions, but in fact they were tricked by the animal, satanic and nabati, that's to say vegetable forces, which do not want mankind to return to the state of the true human being. Instead, they want human beings to fall into error.

Because of this, it often happens that human beings act in a way that ultimately goes wrong and turns out to have been a mistake. The outcome is some sort of retribution which pulls them up short and makes them feel frustrated and regret the deed. Yet in actual fact the mistake was not that of the person as a human being. It was the error of subhuman forces which had filled the heart of that human being, making the person carry out an action that in deepest reality caused a fall from the true standing of a human being.

For that reason, it's commonly said - many people say it - that there are many lost people, many confused people, too, and many anxious ones, and they get themselves into situations that are not as they should be. Their own intelligence can lead people into difficulty, can make them tarnish their own good names. Yes. And what's the reason for this? It's because their hearts are constantly longing for the unattainable, and because none of the things within them that Bapak has mentioned contain the force of the true human spirit ( roh ), with its genuine humanity. Instead, they contain spirits belonging to the satanic and vegetable ( nabati ) worlds, to animals and to ordinary human beings.

Of course, none of you, my children, at present, at this very moment, are yet able to fathom this. The reason is that you still can't receive the way to resolve these things into their smaller elements, meaning the ability to separate the self from the forces within.

Let's say, for example, that Bapak looks at something - now Bapak is looking - Bapak's sight is awakened, it's filled with a non-human force, with the satanic force. And it could just as well be filled with the force, with the spirit, of vegetables, or animals, or ordinary human beings. It's the same with the other human organs - in smelling, in taking part in a conversation, in passing on information, in tasting, with the ears in hearing, and also in the union between man and wife.

And so, for those people who cannot yet separate the I from that which is not the I, but only its servant, it's very easy always to be preceded, always to be tricked, by the subhuman forces described earlier so that in all their doings they are made to act in a way that is beneficial to the subhuman forces mentioned earlier. This is especially true for the man who cannot yet determine, and cannot yet verify, in the relationship between man and woman, in the union that will bring a child into being, whether the child will be from him, from the true human being. Or is the man merely being tricked into coitus with his wife and, in effect, bringing a child into being?

This is the reason why mankind really needs very much to have some place to run to. But where can mankind run? To God, of course! And where is God? God is everywhere. The only problem is that God cannot be seen, God cannot be groped for, if human beings are still trying to use the wrong instruments, still using instruments that are filled with the errors found within their individual selves. The reason is that God wouldn't bestow gifts on human beings that would ultimately kill the very persons on whom they had been bestowed. That is not God's will, for God is Most Knowing, Most Seeing, and Most Understanding.

And now, for the first time, let us become acquainted with God's greatness, with His ever-encompassing power. Actually you have already been touched by it. Being touched is not something unfamiliar, not something new. But to be touched by what precedes and outlasts everything that exists will require nothing other than the ability to quieten our hearts, the ability to quieten our desires ( nafsu ), the ability to pacify our minds, which we seem to be reluctant to make peaceful.

The desire of the subhuman forces is for mankind not to achieve peace, because with this peace mankind will uncover the secrets of these forces within the human self. So it's clear that there is no path - nor is there any method, any practice, any teaching -which can free us human beings from the oppression of subhuman forces, or from being chained to them. Only the One God can do it.

And after human beings have become able to receive- well, of course one doesn't receive everything in one go. One can't go straight to the very summit of receiving. Of course it begins small and goes on little by little. The reason for this is that the oppression of the subhuman forces, the subhuman spirits ( roh ), has been weighing down on mankind from infancy and it has continued doing so into adulthood and parenthood. And this has been aggravated still further by all that has come down from the ancestors and has flowed into the individual's essential nature. This means that actually an indeterminate period of time will be required.

That's why Bapak always suggests and advises doing the training ( latihan ) diligently. Don't let it get forgotten in the round of your day-to-day work, your work in the world. Make the two things finally become capable of advancing steadily, in parallel, each going forward with the other, like your left and right sides. It really is true that the spiritual way ( kejiwaan ) - or obtaining a separation between the I and the I's ancillary forces - is a job of work, an activity, involving no few, no small, difficulties.

You yourselves can, my children, or perhaps you can, figure out for yourselves the reason why it's so difficult to correct the thoughts of the I, to correct the heart of the I, to correct the understanding of the I, when the I - well, maybe this applies only to Bapak's own I - when the I doesn't want to be humbled by others, and called mistaken. It's because my I enjoys claiming, 'I'm more correct, more right, than anybody else.'

So it's clear that, in everything concerning the I and the I's heart, the I and the I's heart are plainly wrong; it's not yet the heart of the I of a person who's been made clean by God. Because the I is human, there's no I that can set things straight; there's no I that is truly changeless. Right now the I may happen to be like this. Tomorrow it will be different, and the day after tomorrow it will be still different. And finally it will change again. The desires of the I are always like that. That's why nothing is abiding, eternal and unchanging, except the One God.

It's for this reason that Bapak says the proper tool for enabling mankind to receive a state of detachment, or separation, of the I from its ancillary forces, is none other than for us to be patient in our feelings, to trust in God, to surrender and to be sincere.

Only with these four prerequisites that Bapak has just spoken of will a human being's chest be opened, will the whole body be opened. And ultimately, not only will the physical body be split open, or cleansed, but the heart, understanding and awareness will also all be cleansed as well. Once these are all clean enough to function on their own, then Bapak can tell you that there'll be no need to search elsewhere. Actually, within one's own self is the best spiritual knowledge, a spiritual knowledge that is completely beyond price.

As a result, a person who has become like that will feel, 'I'm a human being who is truly of greater value than material objects, plants, animals and ordinary human beings' - greater, for example, than human beings who haven't been taught this. Bapak says 'of value' not in the sense of goods like those traded in the market, but of value because whoever sees such a person, whoever's approached by such a person, will feel that he is a brother, will feel that he is a member of the same family, to the point where there's no feeling of, 'I'm I, and you're you. You belong to another nationality. You're not a member of my family.' There'll be none of that, and so there will be oneness, oneness, oneness, oneness.

Indeed, this is what God wills for humankind on earth: that the men be a brotherhood, and the women a sisterhood too.

It's certain that if this could really happen, the world would become peaceful, the world would grow prosperous, the world would turn into a place that could become a setting for man's worship of the One God.

This is in broad outline what Bapak has been explaining, the meaning and intention of what Bapak always says over and over again emphatically: leave your minds behind, quieten the emotions of the heart, quieten the imagination, and don't be thinking all the time about all kinds of things. It's not that Bapak doesn't want the mind to be used. No. That would be wrong. It needs to be used. However, when it's a matter of people's worship of God, then it shouldn't be used.

The reason for this is that the mind that a person wants to use in worship, the mind that person wants to use to understand and to know, is a mind that, like the understanding, the feelings and the imagination, is still a puzzle; do they really belong to that person?

So it's clear to Bapak that your first priority, my children, should be for all of you to become acquainted with the true I that is present within your individual self. This is because in the group training ( latihan ), whether there are ten, twenty, thirty, or even, for example, many more members present than that, in their training they're individuals. Each one is on their own. There's nothing whatsoever about them that's the same. So it's clear that A can't use B to find the right way. Nor can B find the right way because B is using C. The right way can be found only if A uses A, B uses B, and C uses C and no other. Although they are A, B and C, they all work, they're all awakened by their individual selves. And for this reason all of them are made by the power, by the mercy, of God to develop as individuals, yet the result is an everlasting oneness among human beings.

This is what Bapak... Bapak's explanations, which... which confirmed and explained, why it really is that Bapak always suggests that members be free in the training from all the thoughts of the mind, from all imaginings, as well as fantasizing in the heart, and the like. This is because you will, my children, if you can gain possession of what Bapak spoke of earlier, become able to know above all who the real I is, complete with all the skills the I possesses for life in this world and also later in the world after death. Then you can know what your life is based on, what is usually called your aptitudes.

It's due to lack of knowledge of these things that there's no shortage of highly skilled people who aren't very happy with their position in life. Why? And why is their family life not happy? Why are they unhappy in all aspects of their lives? The answer is that the skills they possess haven't arisen within their own beings, but are skills that come from B, C, D, E and F. The influence of these skills is such that when they re used, even when they're of an extraordinary kind, they can actually be the cause of a loss in the user's life.

That's the end of Bapak's explanations. They haven't been very long because there's still tomorrow to come. Also, because Bapak will soon be leaving the Netherlands, Bapak feels it's very necessary for you, my children - even though it's only to a small extent - to become accustomed to testing, so that you can feel and figure out for yourselves how far the training ( latihan ) of your I has progressed.

( Testing )

That's why it's said that human beings who have reached perfection, who have received God's grace, God's gift, don't die when they die, but rather they then begin to live. As an example that you won't forget, my children, because it's been told of in the Christian religion, there's the Prophet Jesus himself. It's not that the Prophet Jesus didn't die, but he continued living, and it's a life without limits. This is just an example; it's something you can take into consideration in deciding whether what Bapak has said is true or not. However, a person who hasn't yet reached that level, or who still has a body of desires ( nafsu ), when they die - as Bapak has been saying - will have no understanding of the fact at all; the person won't be aware of having died.

This is because such a person's contents return to their source, but not to the true human level, because the person came from below that level. As a result, human beings left behind with their desires ( nafsu ) wander around in whatever they imagined, in the things they gave a lot of thought to when they were on earth.

That's how it is. That's the reason why in Buddhism it's told that reincarnation is a fact, as indeed it is. But it applies only to those individuals who went astray on the path to God, or the path to perfection.

For this reason, in Buddhism there's this teaching: that if a human being has already reached a high level, then that person will be free from reincarnation, will be free from this world. This is why they try to understand the true nature of the spirits ( roh ) that a little while ago Bapak called forces, which originate from material objects, from plants, from animals and from ordinary human beings.

Because it lacks knowledge of these forces, the human soul ( jiwa ), or the soul of a person who hasn't actually reached such a high level, can very easily get lost in any place where the forces are stronger than the soul itself. This is what reincarnation is.

However, we ourselves hope and desire - as far as possible, if God permits it, if God gives us this gift - not to experience this. And we beseech God not to let us return to a place that is lower than the true human level.

In other words, we hope to know where we really ought to return, and that's to the place of origin of the perfect human being - the insan kamil as people usually call it, which means the perfect human being, the human being who is separated from this world in which we are now living. And we hope that after death we'll experience the real afterlife, not the world again. This world is not the afterlife.

For this reason, people usually speak of the heavens. We can enter the realm of these heavens after we have become free of the oppression of the subhuman forces, and also of our own desires ( nafsu ), which continuously take advantage of our relationship with these forces of a lower level than our own.

In the training ( latihan ), we don't, in any way whatever, ally ourselves with the desires, with the levels below us, with anything that was created by human beings in the past - in other words, with creations powered by desire and called 'isms', or spiritism, or any other such things.

This is because these desires have no use and no goal except to enable one to be seen as a person with strange abilities, with powers surpassing those of other people. As a result of such things, a person becomes bound more tightly, and then bound very tightly, to the subhuman forces. Finally they block the way entirely, so that the person cannot penetrate to the realm of the heavens that has been prepared for perfect human beings. That's the way it is.

Translated by Muhammad Mansur Medeiros