Ladies and Gentlemen, for those of you who haven't heard Bapak's first and second talks, you can listen to them from the tape recorder or read the notes that were made. Because tonight Bapak wants to continue his explanations about the Subud training that you have received, he will not repeat what he has already explained.

As Bapak explained to all of you who have received the latihan, it is not a training that is based on an effort of your heart and thinking. Rather, it is based on the awakening of your soul by the will of God at a time when your desire, thinking and heart are stilled and separated from the inner feeling. Therefore with regard to what you get in the latihan, or to assimilate this spiritual training, you cannot use your heart and thinking mind. All you can do is surrender, and trust the greatness of the One God who knows and has authority over your being, inwardly and outwardly.

And why is that? Because man's worship of God is truly God's work within man's being. As Bapak said, Subud is a spiritual training that is awakened by the power of God. It is impossible for a person to get involved in God's work where it concerns his or her being, his or her life. That is because what a person can bring to bear is only his or her ability, which is limited to the thinking mind and ego. Beyond that there is nothing he or she can do; there is no other possibility.

That is why in the history of the prophets or of people long ago, those who received revelations from God did not do so through study, or because they wanted it, or through the skill of their thinking mind or ego, but through their surrender, acceptance and willingness to let go and their trust in the greatness of God. It is through this attitude that their inner feeling became pure, their inner feeling became white - meaning pure and free of ego, making it possible for them to receive a revelation from the One God.

As Bapak explained yesterday, in childhood the brain of a human being starts to lose touch with the soul's knowledge it used to possess and know. Eventually, as it gets used to seeing, hearing and understanding the forms and environment of the world, this knowledge of the soul gets pushed aside and left far behind, while the brain comes ever closer to the ambience of the world. This is what happens to our brain. As the days, months and years go by and a person passes from childhood to adulthood, accumulating all that they learn at school, their brain is filled with knowledge whose origin is in this world; not from the life after death or from before they came to live in this world.

So the thinking - the action of the brain - can no longer accept or understand what is miraculous or beyond its expectation. It cannot be aware of such things, because it is always obstructed by the knowledge that it has obtained on the earth, in this world, while the previous knowledge that it used to have is no longer there - it has been lost from its understanding. That is why it is necessary for the content of our brains to be cleansed in the latihan by the power of God. It must be put aside so that eventually the content that we possess in our brains may correspond to reality - to God's will, that which is willed for human beings to safeguard their life in this world and the hereafter.

Bapak doesn't blame you if you think about the way of the latihan you receive, for, as Bapak said, your thinking has been at work from the time you were a baby till you grew up and grew old. That is how long your thinking, your brain, has been working, so that it has become natural for you to think about whatever you need, and Bapak doesn't blame you.

But as Bapak has told you, this spiritual ( way ) is the work of God - for how can a human being know his or her own soul? In general you can try to figure it out in an everyday sense - for it is other people who know your faults; it is other people who know your bad habits. In the same way, you can look at the color of your skin, the shape of your body - its virtues and flaws - by looking in the mirror. But even that is like looking at someone else - so you are unable to feel it or know it directly.

That is even more true in the spiritual realm, which has to do with life. For how can a human being understand his or her own life? If a human being could understand his or her own life, he or she could give life to a human being: a human being could create a human being. But this is only true in the ordinary sense, not in reality. People have children through marriage, but they cannot decide for themselves whether they will actually have any, or how many they will be given. They cannot know that.

It is clear that human life, the human soul is not something that people can know for themselves. Nor is it something they can change, making what is bad good, making what is good better; unless it is done by, unless - if Bapak can put it like this - help is received from something with greater authority than we have. And the One who has greater authority than us is God.

That is it. God knows in His wisdom that it is impossible for people to improve their own being through their own strength -only through God. So it is God who works within human beings in order that they may receive the improvement and salvation of their inner selves.

But indeed this is how the thinking mind, the brain of human beings generally works - it very much likes to think. For of course that is its work. Take the hands: to wave, to touch, that is the work of the hands. The legs: to walk hither and thither, that is the Work of the legs. The heart: to feel and ponder this and that, that is the work of the heart. The ears: to hear this and that. So it is with the brain. When the human brain works it is called thinking.

So the problem is not the brain but its content. Because, as Bapak just said, from babyhood through adulthood and old age, people's brains are filled with the influence of the world, with the result that in thinking about anything that is beyond this world, a person has to make a picture that is similar to this world. For example, people imagine, picture and model God as human. Only the difference is that because God is Almighty, He is higher and therefore pictured as beautiful, good looking, a radiant person, who is seated on a throne of gold studded with diamonds, emeralds and so on. That is how the human thinking mind pictures God, but it is totally wrong.

Clearly the imagination of the human thinking, which has been filled with the influence of the world, can go no further than what it has experienced in this world. A human being will only be able to think about and understand the power of God if he or she can eliminate everything that is within his or her being - can become what they call zero, nihil ( Lat.: nothing ). So it is only when what is within a person is truly zero that God's gift can be created there and bestowed on him or her.

That is the reason why in our spiritual training we start with not thinking anything, so that we are educated not to use our thinking mind to learn about the way to God and the nature of the human soul. But for the world we need to use our thinking, so that we don't feel a heavy burden in our life. For the matter of this world is our responsibility, while that of our life after death and our soul is the work of God. That's how it is.

And God's work within our being, within us as we do this latihan will not just remain as it is now. Our experience of God's training will not be limited just to this: just to movements that can be seen, for example. No, it will get deeper and broader with time, and then still deeper and still broader. Until our soul - even if it is not visible and cannot be seen with ordinary eyes - can influence, can go and can expand beyond this world. Until we are able to see and think about life after death just the way you all think about your everyday needs.

The latihan starts with the coarse, with the physical body. Even though this is just the beginning - it might be regarded as trivial - nevertheless this training of our self will certainly already bring us something. Bring us what? The health of our body. So that whatever feels sick, whatever is wrong with our body - as long as it is not the result of something we did intentionally or some organ we've had replaced - will spontaneously get well through the latihan we have received.

For example, you may have read - or if not read, heard - about Eva Bartok.

Eva Bartok had cancer in her womb. According to her doctor it was impossible...

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...such is the continuation of the latihan you receive and practice, and the working of God's power within the being of each of you.

To hear and receive further explanations, Bapak advises you to listen to or read copies of talks that he has given in other countries, for there is no time now for him to continue his explanations to you all. So Bapak has to bring his talk to an end now.

Furthermore Bapak must tell you that tomorrow afternoon he will return to Indonesia with his party and then he will soon leave again to go abroad - namely to Australia, America, and then to Europe and other places.

So Bapak would like to take leave of you, children, and he prays that after he leaves here you will be blessed by the One God so that you can achieve what you long for and what you wish for - that is, the worship of God that is real. And that you will find the true way in your life.

Bapak also wants to say something to you all, especially to the committee that was formed some time ago here in Japan, in Tokyo. Bapak thanks you very much for providing the necessary accommodation and hospitality for Bapak's stay here, which actually seemed to Bapak to be more than enough. Bapak prays that everything that was done for Bapak and his party by the committee, especially by Rofe, will be repaid by God in even greater measure.