( First part of recording missing ) ...although you have only received the latihan twice, there are signs of progress in the receiving of your spiritual training. That is indeed how it is when you truly fulfill your part - meaning when your heart, your inner feeling and your thinking really surrender to God and you don't think about anything at all other than the greatness of God. ( This is like ) when you go to church or are in church.

We have to remember that the One God is certainly more powerful than we humans, so we cannot think about, we cannot compare or imagine, the real nature of His power that is within human beings. For the power and nature of God truly exceed and surpass whatever is within us, that is, our human capacity. So God can do as He wills with your being, whereas we cannot... ( inaudible ) ...God, nor can we influence Him.

For God is One for all, and in reality He has no nationality, He is neither man nor woman. He has no country and keeps no company, meaning that He has no dwelling place. For God and His power envelop everything, so one can say that a human being is encircled by God's power.

Bapak will repeat this because there was a lot left out in the translation: God has no country, no nationality, no language, no dwelling place; the power of God envelops everything. Therefore we human beings and everything that He has created - which we cannot enumerate one by one - all of that is encircled by God.

God has not been created but exists because of His own Power. He does not beget children and was not begotten. He was before the beginning and will bring to an end whatever will be at the end of everything. He is inside everything that is inside and further out than everything that is outside. Therefore God's power is not only inside everything that has been created. Outside of everything that has been created, God's power is there too.

So it is clear that before human beings see anything God has already seen what they will see; before they hear anything God has already heard what they will hear. In the same way God is there before anything human beings feel or imagine and God is also there before they think anything. So whatever we do and whatever we discuss, God already knows.

As an analogy, a human being can be compared to a child in the first or second grade. His or her teacher will know the ability of this small child and will know how far the child is able to absorb the lessons. That is how it is with God's power.

That is why we do not need to worry or have doubts, because a doubting heart, an anxious heart, will not lead us to clarity and rightness in what we receive. On the contrary, it is a source of temptation, an ( opening for the ) influence of the lower forces, which Bapak will talk about later, whose influence on your heart, your feeling and your thinking causes them not to obey, not to believe in, the greatness of the One Almighty God. This in turn can result in your falling to a lower level, to a level that is lower than human.

Indeed we need to trust God and obey God. Our obedience and our trust towards God will awaken God's power that is present within our being; awaken the power that can contain, that can seal off, the influence of the lower forces, which always tempt the inner feeling of human beings to prevent them from achieving their hope of returning to their own true world. ( Here the interpreter asks Bapak to repeat what he just said. Bapak replies 'I cannot' and continues as follows: )

Human beings ( should ) believe in God, should obey God and ( acknowledge ) that it is God whose greatness has true authority. Because through their obedience and their trust towards God, they can contain and seal off the influence of the lower forces that can cause them to fall to a level lower than that of a human being. For such an attitude will cause something clean and pure to arise within their inner feeling.

Thus in Christianity, Islam, Buddhism and the other religions it is said that downfall and misfortune can happen to human beings if their heart always feels worried and unclear. So it is clearly God's will that human beings should be able to turn to Him. Besides being required to trust in God and obey God, they need to be clean in their inner feeling. It is this cleanness within a human being that blocks off the influence of the lower forces Bapak referred to just now.

That is why Bapak advises you never to involve your thinking mind in this Subud latihan of ours. Never reflect on this and that -simply worship and obey God, just like when those of you who are of the Christian faith go to church, and are in the church, or when Muslims go to the mosque, and are in the mosque, or when Buddhists go to the temple, and are in the temple. Just have faith in the One you are facing.

If you wish to know about the structure of life, Bapak can tell you about it, but he hopes that you will not make a mental picture out of it -just listen and get to know the structure of life in its totality.

This structure consists of seven life forces, which are depicted in the Subud symbol. The first is the life force referred to in Islam as roh rewani, the material life force. The second is the vegetable force, referred to in Islam as roh nabati. The third is the roh hewani, the life force of animals; the fourth the ruhjasmani, the life force of human beings. The fifth is a life force higher than the human level - so that human beings cannot use their thinking to understand it, because it is higher than they are in every way - called roh rohani. The sixth is higher than the roh rohani - which is itself higher than human beings - and is called roh rahmani. There is still a seventh, which is more powerful than all the others, so that this life force is referred to as the 'ruler's assistant', and is called roh rabbani.

So in actual fact, the human life force is in the middle of this framework of life forces which Bapak just described.

Now, if we human beings feel free and consider it normal to hunt animals - who are just one degree below us - to eat their flesh and to do whatever we like with them, then how do you think the roh rohani are towards us? Of course it is just the same, but the manner is different, very different.

This is even more true of the rahmani life force that is above the rohani. Its ( relationship to us ) is the same as our relationship with plants. We can do whatever we like - we plant them here, we plant them there, we eat their fruit, we cut down their branches, we use the trunk to make wood, out of which we make various things -tables, chairs, whatever we wish. It is as if we feel no sense of sin in such actions, because, actually, that is how it is - one who is higher than another can do as they wish towards them.

In the same way, the relationship of our human life force towards the one that is lowest, the material, is similar to that of the rabbani to ourselves. How do we treat inanimate matter? We feel no sense of sin whatsoever. We make this and that - for example, houses and other things - and we do not consider that matter is alive.

But in fact everything that exists in this world, everything that can be seen and whose movement can be heard, is of course enveloped by life. And now scientists have discovered that within matter that was not thought not to be alive, there is a life that - if one can detect it - is constantly spinning. Humans have begun to master ( this power ) - ( the power within ) the atom and the molecule.

Such is the framework of life forces, which has been created to function in the most harmonious way according to God's Will. Although all this was created in such a well-ordered way, God wished to give a chance to the life forces of the first level to rise to the second - not the object as a whole but its content - and for those of the second to rise to the third, fourth or fifth levels. And also for human beings, so they should be able to raise their level above that of the human life force. So God created a connecting force, a guiding force, which constantly radiates out to all creatures and so becomes a bridge, a counselor, a leader, offering them an opportunity to rise up. This is called the ilafi ( Arab. ) force, or in English Christian terminology, the Holy Spirit.

Although such a framework of life forces would seem sufficient, God still wished to create a further life force or spirit, lest ( His plan ) still be influenced or still not come to pass. This life force is also a connecting force, which radiates its holiness towards creatures who wish to rise upwards. This is the life force known as ruh al-qudus.

That is how the One Almighty God has created things. That is why it is not only impossible but out of place for human beings to think about God, because He is far beyond our thinking ability. For that reason, in Islam as well as in Christianity, there is no way to approach the greatness of God except by trust, surrender and love of God's greatness.

Truly it is like that. If a human being truly and sincerely loves God, surrenders to God, really puts his trust in God - trusts God more than he trusts himself, than he trusts his own thinking - his soul will be opened.

And why is it that some people - Bapak does not say which people - who express their trust in God, express their obedience to God, express their love of God, have still not found the contact with God's greatness? Because such expressions are still in the thinking mind and the heart, still influenced by the thinking, the desires and the heart.

So it is clear that if we still use our thinking, our heart and desires to experience something that is beyond our thinking, we have no chance of obtaining it. Because of this, perhaps it is God's will -Bapak himself does not know this, does not know what is God's will - that humankind be given a way to receive it that comes from God's power. When we are able to stop our thinking, when we are able to stop our feelings from wandering here and there and so become truly quiet, we can receive it so easily, just the way you did.

But, because of the ease with which it is received, many people who have not yet received it say to us that this is a false worship; that it is not correct, otherwise how could it be received so easily? They forget that God has full authority, God is more powerful than a human being, so that He can will something or bring something about that is impossible in the eyes of a human being.

An example is the life of Jesus Christ long ago. Who would have believed that the small child, born in such a lowly place, a place so much below what is normal for a human being, and who grew up never receiving any education or guidance of the kind a schoolchild does nowadays, would finally become a guide to the world, able to give counsel to millions of people, as we can now see. This could happen because of God's will, because of the greatness of God and His ability to create something beyond the imagination of man. This little child, who was born in such a miserable place, was able to demonstrate to human beings the reality of the truth contained in the counsels of the prophets.

So, with this latihan, if you truly keep your promise to God, that is to say you truly love God, are more loyal to God than to anything else, you will also receive as you should. This therefore is the content of Subud, its purpose and aim, which Bapak has explained to some extent.

But Bapak hopes, as he said earlier, that you do not make a mental picture of all this, rather that you just listen to what is important - the real basis and aim of Subud, which is nothing other than God, the greatness of God; and that we human beings may truly become instruments or tools of God.

In fact, besides this, Bapak would have liked to do a little test with all of you. But in view of the fact - and this is the truth - that you have only just received the latihan, it is still too early to test the extent of what you have been able to receive in it. For this reason Bapak cannot do this yet and will put it off till later, when he has an opportunity to visit you again.

Bapak will now conclude his explanation about Subud. Also Bapak would like to take leave of you, since tomorrow he has to leave this place, Caracas, and will continue his trip to Lima. Bapak wishes nothing more than that after his departure, you may be blessed by God so that you can truly fulfill His will for you, and fulfill your own sincere wish to worship God. Also that you find the right way to achieve the salvation of your life in this world and in the next - in other words, the life after death.

And Bapak does not forget to say thank you very much for the hospitality and security you have provided for him and all his party, which has been truly satisfying for all of us. Once again Bapak says thank-you.