Ladies and gentlemen, this evening Bapak would like to explain about the spiritual training of Subud - our worship of the One Almighty God, which all of you have experienced.
The spiritual training is a training of the content of our human self, whose working in our being we have long been unaware of.
As you know, when we were new-born babies we were still in contact with the state of our inner self. That is why, as babies, our face would often show expressions of happiness or sadness, or sometimes disappointment. The fact is that those expressions of a baby reflect a state of reality; but we grown-up people, who are able to use all our five senses, are unable to know what a baby is feeling and what a baby knows at such moments.
However, as the days, weeks and months go by, the baby's senses begin to get closer to the influence of the world. For example, the baby begins to be able to see the shapes that are in this world and to hear earthly sounds. The baby's contact with its soul gradually closes. So when the baby has become a grown child, the child is more familiar with the condition of the world outside than with the condition existing within its self.
The bigger the child grows - the more the child sees and studies and experiences things in this world - the closer he or she comes to the influences of the world and the further from influences from within the self. You could say that what comes from inside has been closed up completely. All the five senses - the heart, the desires, the brain and the thoughts - have become filled with influences of the world, and obtain no spark or content whatsoever from the child's soul.
Consequently, when such people come to think and ponder about the nature of life after death, they can only do so by adjusting it to experiences they have had in the world. It's not impossible that they may think or wonder, 'What is paradise like? What is God and what is He like?' When they think about and consider such things, their imagination compares them to what is in this world. In reality however, we cannot compare life after death and God to anything that exists on this earth. Yet that is really what people do when they grow up and become adults, because they have long forgotten the way of knowing that they possessed when they were small and still closely connected to the life before they existed in this world and the life after death.
Now you are just beginning to experience how you were when you were a baby. Now, tonight, that ambience has begun to open up so that, little by little, you can connect with your soul again, and you can connect with states from before the world influenced your physical parts or your five senses. That is why when you receive this latihan it is not necessary for you to think. You should not use your brain, heart or desires, lest they form a block or obstacle to your receiving from the contact with your soul, which the power of God is bringing back to life.
It may seem as if in the latihan you are repeating the activities of various parts of your body. For example, you begin with the movement of stepping with your legs, moving your hands and moving your body. However, for those of you who can receive it, you can feel that these parts are moving, not because your heart and desires want them to move, but that you are taking steps and waving your hands without any intention to do so. You really feel the difference between taking a step forward from your will, and stepping forward without your will when only your human soul wills it. If you really let go of your thinking and do not think of anything when you do the latihan, and you do not hesitate to follow the working of your soul within your being, you will be able to receive straight away, and your receiving will go smoothly.
Why does our worship of God, our return to our world when we were small, begin with this sort of thing, with movement -movements of the legs, hands and body? Because it is adjusted to the way we are. We began to get to know the forms and shapes of this world and we began to grow up in this world, with movement of this physical body. The movements of the physical body were an open door for influences of this world to enter our feeling, then our five senses, and then the gate or place of the heart, until finally they reached our brain.
( This process ) is repeated in the latihan. When our receiving of these movements is complete, we proceed to enter the gate Bapak just described - the gate where worldly influences entered our feeling. Then you will receive and experience clearly the difference between the way you see with the passions and the will, and the way you see with your soul; also in your hearing, the difference between hearing with the passions and hearing with your soul. Likewise, in our thinking, we can receive how our brain works for thinking about mundane things, and how it works for thinking about life after death or conditions outside this world. And we will also become acquainted with states that cannot be compared to anything in this world, states we used to experience when we were small, when we were still in close contact with our soul, when the ambience of the world had not yet influenced us.
In reality, this spiritual training you have received and are practicing is not something alien or strange. All of you really possessed this and experienced it before the influence of the world began to work in you. So this way you have found is a very easy way, for it is God's will that we should be able to receive our true condition, which can bring us well-being in our life, both in this world and in the life after death. That's why we should not think about the spiritual life. We should surrender calmly, with purity of the inner feeling and clean of desire, so we can receive the action of the soul as the soul wills.
However easy it may be, no doubt you will find it difficult. Every part of you has worked for so long, and worldly things have influenced you for so long, that you cannot quieten your self properly any more. However, if you are patient and obedient, if you follow obediently what happens in the latihan, loving God more than everything that has influenced your inner feeling, you will be able to do and experience what Bapak spoke of just now.
What Bapak has been saying agrees with the words of the prophets. For example, Christ and Muhammad told all humanity that people will be able to find God's power working within them if they can purify their character, be patient in their feelings, and truly love God.
For this reason, many people who wish to achieve this follow a path that departs from the normal life of people; for example, they put aside all self-interest, avoid all pleasures, and isolate themselves in lonely places. They do this only because they wish to be able to receive a contact with the Greatness of God, who works within their being. However, in our case, we can obtain this contact simply by surrendering everything completely to the Greatness of God, and by really obeying and loving God. For we have already received it - we only need to practice and receive the latihan diligently.
Why is there this difference? Perhaps it is because God knows more ( than we do ), God is All-wise, and knows how people are in this present age. God knows that it is impossible for people to quieten their hearts and thinking, which have progressed so far. Perhaps God knows that if people are not given a path that is easy, it will be impossible for them to successfully find the right path, which leads to the Greatness of God, and knowledge of their own inner self as willed by God.
Indeed, everything, however easy it may be, takes time. That is why Bapak hopes you will be patient, but also obey and practice the latihan, so that all may go smoothly for you as the power of God works within you. Certainly the work being done in us is not easy. The influence of the world has penetrated deep into our inner feeling and has really stopped our soul from being the leader and guide within us. This state of affairs began not only with ourselves, it began with our ancestors. So if we can achieve what God wills for us we will stem and halt the stream of mistakes that began with our ancestors. The mistakes will end with us and will not be repeated further.
This is Bapak's explanation. He has kept it short and has just given you an outline. Bapak will explain more another time -tomorrow night perhaps - about the nature of the forces that are always in contact with our passions and our thinking mind, and become obstacles in our inner feeling. Then you may realize to some extent the obstructions and temptations that are present in our inner feeling. You will also get to know the low forces that influence the inner feeling and arouse our appetite for things that are not good for us, what people call 'isms' - such as spiritualism, hypnotism, magnetism and so forth.
This is what Bapak has to say tonight. Bapak hopes very much that you will forgive him if he has said anything out of place. Bapak says thank you very much.