Ladies and gentlemen, tonight Bapak would like to explain the meaning and the aim and purpose of the training ( latihan ) you receive.
It is not really fitting to call the latihan you receive an exercise. The latihan you receive and follow is really true worship of the One God. However, as it is customary to call these things a kind of exercise, Bapak has no objection to using the name latihan ( exercise, training ).
Why does Bapak say that this is man's worship of God? The reason is that, although the movements you receive do not yet seem to be those of people worshipping God, these movements arise and exist and move because of the will and power of the One who envelops all the forms of life.
The proof of this, children, is that when you receive the training ( latihan ) you are free from imagination, will and desire. Clearly, the movements arise when your desires, thinking, imagination and feelings are peaceful or gone.
Such is the contact between man's inner feeling and the Great Life Force that envelops the self of man, both inside and outside. Within you, you feel as if you are touched by a power that is completely beyond your fathoming.
People are really searching for this in every direction. They try to find it by quieting their inner feeling and thinking. Their intention is really to obey the words of the prophets, the messengers who received commandments from the One God. In the interest of surrender, peace and purity in their thinking, feeling and desire, people intentionally suppress the arising of their thinking and desire. They do this in the hope of receiving a contact from the Great Life, as you have received.
However, these people who seek the way to God and search for a contact with God by suppressing their thinking and heart's desire, cannot possibly have a chance of discovering the true contact. Indeed, when the heart and mind are suppressed, they cause obstruction in a person's inner feeling. Such a person only appears to be still and quiet. In his silence, he feels many things within his heart, and many things constantly disturb his thinking. Although he sits and appears to be in a peaceful state, he imagines all kinds of things.
Man's thinking and brain should not be stopped or silenced. When a person's brain stops thinking, and when the will that is in his heart ceases to function, it means he is dead. That is why in religion, in Christianity as well as Islam, one is not permitted to stop thinking, to stop one's heart, and especially to stop breathing. If one does, it is said to annul or violate man's worship of God. As a result of these prohibitions, people generally, especially in religion, are obliged to perform only what Bapak usually calls the syariat ( prescribed religious observance ); that is, they only believe in God, so that they do not have to think too much. Besides not being allowed to stop their thinking, so they think and believe just like that, they are also forbidden to cut down on food and sleep, or to go off and leave society.
Indeed, this is absolutely right, and Bapak approves. God and His wisdom, God and His revelation, God and His greatness, cannot possibly be understood, and cannot possibly be felt by the heart of man. Nonetheless, people fear these prohibitions and are obliged to do what is usually done, that is, only the syariat.
However, Bapak can say that in this last century man has become a man of thought, a man full of knowledge, a man who can be proud of the greatness and extent of his ability to create things that are admired by other people. Since man's situation has become like that, and there is no evidence or proof to support his belief in God, it is as though he is getting further and further away from God's greatness. It is not that man does not believe. But there are no proofs to fortify his heart in the belief that God and His power exist.
Hence, the coming of something brought by Bapak was like a miracle. It was miraculous and wonderful for philosophers to discover that a human being could receive it, and so easily. Indeed, Bapak agrees with the inference and opinion of other groups who have not yet received this training ( latihan ), when they say it is really not some mystic lore or a path to God if it is received so easily. But they forget, or they cannot yet grasp, that God is the One God, God is more in every respect than human beings. He can give man a way that can open people and make their way to God easy, or confirm their worship of the One God. If we consider and feel it, perhaps this is God's will, because human beings at this time will not believe something for which there is no proof, evidence or reality.
Clearly, God has given the way to us. God has given the way to all of you, in a time when it is impossible to attain it easily. God's gift to all of you does not impair or conflict with your situation as it is at this time.
You may well consider that this is right, and as it should be. If there is a gift from God and man receives it, it certainly will suit the conditions of this present time, and it will also fit the condition of man, whose thinking mind has progressed so far that it is overflowing. What you have received in the latihan, namely, a contact with the Great Life, will not be extinguished or disappear because you still work, think, use various materials, and have normal human feelings, and you still like to go to see a film occasionally, or the ballet, or other kinds of entertainment.
What you have received, Bapak can say, is within everything that is in you. It is within your thinking, for example, and within your will and the feeling of your heart. Man's thinking and the will of his heart and desires are outside or on top of the life force that you have received. Clearly, then, what all of you have received awakens from within all that is outside and on top of it.
Whereas, if you practice, not this, but what Bapak calls meditation for example, from your will and your mind, you bring many impurities into you. The fruit and result of meditation or contemplation are that one is able to see images brought into one and manifested within by all that clutter. This training ( latihan ) is the opposite. It breaks down and casts out from inside, so you will gradually get to know and come in contact with states outside of man's domain. Eventually, with this training, you can get to know things outside this earth.
While the other, as Bapak just said, brings all kinds of clutter into the inner feeling. If Bapak may draw an analogy, bringing all that into the self is as if you do not go out of your house to see how things are, but you go into the house and lock yourself in. Then all you ever know is in your house. That is the difference.
One day, if you are able to receive it, you will yourselves know and become aware of this difference. You will be able to go out of your house and know the greatness of the life that envelops this earth, and also beyond this earth, so that you are not subject to reincarnation. We have been here for a long time. We are tired, and if we can, we look for a way out.
The other, the practice of meditation, and quieting oneself, is really looking, not for a way out, but for a way into the hall. When Bapak refers to the hall or house within man's self, he means all that is within the self of a human being. The forces below the human being are: the material or satanic, the vegetable or plant force, the animal, and the human. For these, there is reincarnation. So if you only stay in your house, when later you die, you could be here, you could be on the level of plants, you could be on the animal level, or you could be on the human level. In other words, you would come back here. And you would come back, not in the right form but in the wrong form.
What you have received is not like that. There is a clearing out from within. Of course, the clearing out depends on what is in the house. If there are all kinds of things piled one on top of the other, and there are hordes of cats, mice, dogs, cows, water-buffaloes and flower pots in the house, naturally it takes a great deal of work to clean. So do not be afraid, children. 'Ah, why is my latihan like this: "A, a, a, wah, ah, ah!" How come the others are just quiet?'
Well, everyone is different. There are some who have heaps and heaps of clutter piled up in their house. And there are others whose house is not so cluttered, so the removal is relatively easy and does not require the use of much force. But all of it has to be removed, it has to be, because it closes the door by which man can go out and follow the way to his rightful abode.
There are three special places that close the way. The first is in the sex ( hartstocht ), the second is in the heart ( hart ), and the third is in the understanding ( begrip ), or awareness of man. They are the kinds of doors that need to be opened.
If a person claims that he is clever and that he knows this and knows that, it is difficult for the door to be opened. How can a person, through his own awareness, know his own mistakes? It is impossible. There is no way, unless one gets help from the One God. The kind of help man needs from God, to be able to unload his human awareness, is from within everything that is within. And all of you have received this, children. All of you certainly have felt, 'Hey, what is this? I'm saying things without wanting to. I have no desire at all to say what I am saying.'
In everyday human discourse, when people usually speak, their Speech is awakened from the sex, from the heart, or from the understanding. So, if someone says, 'I am a very good person,' it is only words. The person does not realize that the one who says, am a very good person, is not, or is not yet, the human I.
There may be a cow inside that person, for example. And the cow within him borrows the human tongue, the human thinking and the human heart to utter the words, 'I am a very good person.' That is the reason why all the clutter Bapak described just now has to be cleared out. Then the door can open, and we can go on our way, following the behavior of our human soul ( jiwa ). Then, when you profess something, you will be right, because there is evidence and proof that you have received within you.
The training ( latihan ) you receive and do will always be there and you will always be able to receive it. There is no need for you to worry lest it may stop one day. The human soul, your true soul, needs to find its way to God. Even if it were obstructed by every possible obstruction, the human soul has begun to awake because of God's power which envelops and touches it within, and the soul will receive by itself, and will be able to come to the level required for man.
Besides that, those among you who practice worship in the way accepted as the way of worshipping God, that is, religion, with no obstruction, may continue in the usual way; for Bapak can say that, so far, your heart still tips the scales over your clean inner feeling. Sometimes, if you do not perform your worship in the usual way, you feel worried, as if you were leaving your religion. While you are waiting for the time when you yourselves can be aware of what is right and what is not, do not be in a hurry to put that aside and take hold of this. Just continue as usual. If you usually go to church, go to church. And besides that, do the latihan here or at home. Religion is really not wrong. It is right. What is wrong is not religion but its practitioners. The one who is wrong is not God, but the human being. Indeed, that is the nature of the heart.
In the human heart, there are four natures: the nature that likes to win, the nature that likes to have enough or to be rich, that which likes to be clever and wise, and that which likes to be well known and popular. With a nature like that, Bapak says not just many people, but everyone dislikes giving in, and dislikes admitting his mistakes. Take a thief, for example. Even if it is clear that he has stolen, when asked in court, 'Is it true that you stole?' he replies, 'No!' Such a nature is not forbidden by God, because if it were forbidden, it simply would not exist. Indeed, it is made and created by God to fill the heart of man.
Besides these four natures in the heart of man, there are also four more: the nature of the heart that is receptive, that which is patient, that which is trusting and submissive, and that which is sincere and lets go; in other words, the heart that is willing to give in. Not 'give in' in the sense of 'lose'. 'Willing to give in' means, 'What is the point of going on when it is of no avail?' A person who is willing to give in receives a great deal of blessings and benefit.
If someone wants to be clever, but is not willing to ask, it means he does not like to humble himself and admit that he is not yet clever enough, and he will not gain anything from the cleverness of others. When one is censured by others, there is a great deal of benefit, much more than if one is always highly regarded and approved of. Someone who is criticized gradually becomes clever, but a person who is always put on a pedestal has bad luck in the end.
Thus, within the human heart there are two times four, that is eight natures, and they are all different. That is the reason why people are not strong and steady in their inner feeling. The steadiness in a person's inner feeling will not become strong and complete if there is not yet a power that manifests from within. Bapak will now end his talk for tonight. Bapak hopes that when Bapak has gone from here, all of you will receive the training ( latihan ) sincerely, so that you will soon be able to discover proof and real evidence, which will increase the strength in your inner feeling. Bapak also takes this opportunity to say thank you very much to all of you who invited Bapak here and have given adequate service while Bapak and his party have been here. And Bapak takes leave of you, because tomorrow at twelve o'clock he will be leaving Manchester.
That is all. Thank you.
Translated by Sofyan Brugger