Ladies and gentlemen, before Bapak continues his talk about spiritual matters... ( pause for Spanish interpreter ) ...Bapak wishes to appoint as organizers of our association, brothers and sisters who have been receiving this latihan for some time. For three months after Bapak's departure, these members will need to keep the records, arrange the finances, and obtain a building or premises to serve as a place of latihan. After three months, the members who have served in the organization will automatically become ( responsible for ) the spiritual side. Then, as soon as possible, with the agreement of all of you, they will form a new committee that can truly work for one or two years.

In a moment, Guido Petric will announce the names of the members Bapak is appointing as chairperson, vice-chair, secretary, assistant secretary and treasurer.

Bapak will propose an outline for the committee work. As for the bye-laws that you have to adopt, he will leave it to the judgment of all of you here to adjust the rules of our community to the regulations of your government, so that they do not violate the laws of this country.

Broadly speaking, the committee's work is to keep records, to know how many members there are and their circumstances, and to raise the money for renting a building to provide a space for doing the latihan. Eventually, you will also need to set up or create a business enterprise, a body for making money to pay for all the needs of our community here. This is so that you do not burden the members. There have been instances where members who have no money found it a real burden to pay a contribution whenever they came to latihan. The result was that they stopped coming to the latihan because they felt ashamed or disappointed that they could not fulfil their obligations.

You can collect the capital for setting up this enterprise from the whole membership. Then, later, you can distribute the profits of the enterprise to those who have contributed capital, and use the remainder for the needs of Subud - for renting premises and other needs. If the enterprise gets bigger and becomes really profitable, you will feel pleased because you will be able to build a building according to your own design and wishes. You can make the building so that it will accommodate a latihan place that will really be sufficient for your needs.

Also you, or we, will eventually be able to create schools and welfare institutions. Of course that will require a great deal of money, but we will be able to establish them, because we have put our effort into our enterprise in the way Bapak has described. So, Subud, this community of ours, will work and do good deeds for God. We will do good deeds for humanity and for God. We will be working in this world and in the life after death.

Worldly matters and money are generally considered to be unimportant in worshipping God. They are not considered to be a means that enables us to be firm and true in our worship. However, the evidence is that your worldly needs are a tremendous obstacle that stands your way, preventing you from worshipping God sincerely.

In truth, if you create an enterprise, and a welfare institution for the general public, you are helping your country. You are lightening the burdens of your country, and you are really serving society. Moreover, you are serving the greatness of God whom we always worship.

In England, for example, they have established a Subud hospital. Not only the official doctors who work there, but also our brothers and sisters who have done' the latihan assist with the healing of the sick people in the hospital. Thus, we can accommodate people who are sick, or suffering, in a place that we ourselves have established for them. Not like now, where one could say that everyone who is sick has to come to us and ask for a ( special ) latihan, or ask to be healed. This increases our burden. So for lack of a facility that specializes in healing the sick, your worship of God is somewhat disturbed.

In the schools that we will establish, we can employ teachers who are already aware and have a wealth of experience in this spiritual receiving. They will be able to know the basic talents of the children and in which direction to point them. As a result, the children who go to this school will not stray into a field of study that is unsuitable for them.

As you will realize, all of this will involve quite considerable expense. That is why it is necessary in Subud, in your community, to set up an enterprise whose profits can pay for all the needs of Subud and will enable you to serve society well.

Brothers and sisters, do not worry, or think that if we do something worldly it may obstruct our worship of God. Not at all. For, in Subud...

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( We don't have to worry that in doing these worldly things, such as doing business and making money, we will be prevented from worshipping God, because it is God's will ) that we should be able to work as normal people, and organize things as well as possible in this world, without neglecting our worship of God who created us. Bapak will explain about this later. Perhaps his explanation will clarify for you the relationship between our worship of God and our work to provide for the needs of our life as long as we are in this world.

As for the work of the helpers on the spiritual side, it consists only of accompanying all Of you in the latihan, opening new people who wish to enter Subud, and increasing the number of people in Subud. And later, when they are able to receive something from God that is useful for society, some of the helpers can write a book that can be published and sold to the public. They should contribute part of the profits from the books they publish to the organization, to strengthen it for doing its work in society.

Also, the brothers and sisters who are spiritual helpers are advisers to the organization. When ( the committee ) wishes to organize something that relates to the members, they should ask the advice or obtain the approval of the helpers on the spiritual side.

In doing their duty, the helpers may have to visit places that are a long way away, since there may be many brothers and sisters who live far away and cannot afford to come ( to the group ). Of course, the organization should be responsible for defraying the costs. So, the organizational set-up described earlier can pay the necessary expenses relating to the needs of Subud, that is, all of you.

Bapak has given a brief outline of the aim and set-up of Subud, and of your community here. Later, you can arrange things as you consider necessary, according to the circumstances in your country.

Now, a brother with the appropriate skills will read the list of names of those people who will serve in the interim organization for three months, as chairperson, and so forth. In three months you will elect a new committee to replace this first one.

( Someone reads the names of the first committee )

Please would you stand, so that all of you can remain calm.

( Applause )

Brothers and sisters, as Bapak said earlier, he would like to continue speaking about the spiritual way that all of you have received and are practicing. Bapak has explained earlier about the structure of life; not only that of human beings, but also the structure of life in its entirety that God created by His will. Now Bapak would like to go on to explain about the animal life force and how it works within the human inner feeling.

When someone's inner feeling is under the influence and control of the animal force, it is impossible for them to truly feel and be aware of it, since everything within that person has been filled by that life force. So all that is in us - our brain, our heart, our feelings, our five senses - is then used, controlled and steered by the animal life force that has overwhelmed and seized power in our inner feeling. Clearly, our brain and thinking - however high and advanced our learning may be - are then the tools of this soul or life force that has taken over and filled our whole being. So in reality, our brain and heart, which we have sharpened in the process of becoming really learned people, are tools of the sub-human life force that is in control of our being. This is a real loss for us human beings, because we are being used by a non-human life force, which rules within our self.

That is why - please would the ladies excuse this - there are not a few beautiful women who feel no shame or sense of loss in using their beauty as a tool, as a material object to be bought and sold by whoever wants it. Also, there are men who feel no remorse, or fear of God, behaving in an abnormal way - described in Indonesian as hidung belang ( philanderer; lit.: spotty nose ). Such men very much like women who look beautiful, young and shapely, and very easily fall under their influence.

Religions - Christianity, Islam, and other religions - very strongly forbid such behavior. That is because people who behave like that are harming themselves, closing the way for their worship of God, and making it impossible for them to find the true way back to the human world, which is indeed higher and more wonderful than this world. Jesus said, 'Truly, the most blessed, blissful and glorious kingdom is the kingdom of God that is above this earth.'

This is just an abbreviated account Bapak has given of how the animal life force influences a human being without him or her being aware of it.

With this spiritual training you have all received and practice, you will be able to receive guidance from your human soul, through the power of the ruh ilafi ( Arab. ), the Holy Spirit, which Bapak spoke about the other day. You will become aware that everything you have done is entirely because of the influence of forces below us, which still control our inner feeling. Bapak is not ( only ) saying it is very important - but by God's will it is truly an obligation for human beings to draw near to God, to remember God, so that God may give them His love by showing them the right way, and so that they may realize the true situation. Thereby, eventually they may no longer be influenced by the low forces in whatever they do, whether it is in their daily work in the office and so on, or during union with their spouse. Otherwise, such an influence could lead to the creation of a child who is really not theirs, but the child of the life force that has been influencing them in their inner feeling.

This cannot be achieved by our thinking-mind and heart, for as Bapak said earlier, they are only tools of the life force that is within us. The only way for us to distinguish ( between forces ) and know the truth about the content of our self, is to receive the contact with God's greatness, which envelops us both inside and outside.

Before human beings discovered chemistry - the science of separation - they were unable to...

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... ( separate gold, oil and other substances from the earth. All this became possible after the discovery of chemistry. We also need this science of separation in our souls, so that we can know ) where the material life force is, where the plant life force is, where the animal life force is, where the human life force is, and also where the life forces above the human level are within the human self. Later you will experience evidence of what Bapak has been saying. Even now, some of you have started to experience this in your latihan. Sometimes you cry out; sometimes you move like an animal, like this and that ( kind of animal ). This proves that the self of human beings is filled with subhuman forces, which rule within their being.

Many signs and indications of this exist. You may have seen and heard of statues and pictures depicting a human body with an animal's head, or a human body with the head of a plant, or a head of fruit, or a human body with a table or chair for a head and so forth. These are clearly symbols, which proves that in times long ago, people really experienced and knew what Bapak has been describing.

Now, to continue - how does the human force influence a human being? Perhaps you would like to know about this, and Bapak will tell you how it really is.

The human force is the force that acts between people. The effect of its influence on a person's character or feeling is that they will always elevate and emphasize their own greatness, high level and wisdom, and the intelligence of their brain. They do not remember that they are like that because God created them, and they do not remember that above human beings there is an authority higher than they are.

A person under the influence of the human force feels that he or she is the highest and has the authority to impose their leadership on others, who have to follow and submit to their will. It is usual for such leaders to force others to acknowledge that they are the leader, that they hold the power and can show others the right way.

However, that is not God's will. Human beings are just human beings. The highness of a human being lies in harmony, in the feeling or state of humane compassion that comes when a person has received the life force or a perfected human being, one that is truly in accordance with God's will.

That is the difference between the Pharaoh and Moses, as recorded in history, or between other ( leaders ) and Jesus or Muhammad. Those who are like the Pharaoh want power, want to subjugate their fellow beings, and want them to acknowledge their supreme power on earth. But Moses was different. Moses led and guided people to live in harmony, to feel compassion for the lives of others, to be able to truly worship God, and ( to believe ) that it is really God who has the supreme power in human life.

This is the meaning symbolized by the story that the Pharaoh and all his troops sank into the ocean; that is to say, they sank into the current of subhuman life forces that had influenced their inner feeling. However, Moses was able to avoid the current of sea water that was going to engulf him. He was able to separate ( the waters ) and escape. This means that God gave Moses the power within himself to be able to distinguish between bad and good, between that which was from a low force and that which was from a force from above - from God's will.

Such are the symbols behind what you have heard and read. You can experience the truth of this later on, with God's help, if you do the latihan. Through God's grace, you will know the truth of what Bapak has been saying.

If the animal force influences the self, then as long as he or she lives a human being will never know the cause of his life or how the result - the continuation - will be. You might compare it to someone who owns a table, but does not know what the table is made of or why it is necessary. The person just owns it and uses it in the usual way. In your case - I'm sorry ( if this offends you ) - you marry but you do not know what marriage is. You have intercourse with your wife - or if you are a wife, you have intercourse with your husband - and you have a child. How this child came about, and what the child will become, you have no way of knowing. You just do the usual thing - you marry, have children, and that's it.

This is why the latihan is necessary: so that you can know why God made you here, what human life is for; why you need to marry and have a child, and what is the purpose of that child in life; and... ( inaudible ). Then your marrying and having children is not meaningless. In reality, marriage between a man and a woman is not for pleasure, nor is it just instinct, as in the life of animals. It is really important, because the union between man and woman should be true worship of God. In the case of your table - you understand what the table is made of and its purpose, as opposed to just having and using it. So you will not be disappointed when your child does not turn out to become this or that, because you knew beforehand what the child would become.

What is even more wonderful for you is ( the possibility ) that, having become aware of its inner nature beforehand, you will bring into the world a child who really contains the life force of a perfected human being. Such a child will eventually be able to create an order in the life of human society that is truly humane, or, to use a foreign word, sociaal ( Du.: charitable ) in the true sense.

As for the rohani life force, it is higher than the human force. The rohani life force influences the inner feeling and will work within the self - if the person does not prevent it by continuing to use his or her thinking, heart, will and desire. This is not because the rohani life force is unable to work within the person, for that would mean it is less powerful than a human being. No. But when someone still makes use of thinking and desire, it acts as a negation and a mischief maker within that person's self, so he or she cannot know the working of the rohani force.

Well, how does the rohani life force work within the self of a human being? When the rohani force is working in you, you will obtain understanding that is beyond your own understanding, and you will be able to know something beyond your knowledge. You will really be able to feel and know whatever is wrong in your own actions and how it would be if it was right. So you will be able to know ( the consequence of your action ) before you do something, and you will be aware before something happens. In that state you will not be forgetful or negligent. You will remember more, your memory will be more perfect, so the things you do will turn out better. Even though it takes you less time, the results will be more perfect than what is normal.

The prophets received and possessed this in times long ago. That's why the prophets knew and could foresee everything in a way that was beyond human reckoning. That is how the rohani force, the fifth of the life forces, works within the human self.

The sixth life force, which is called the rahmani, is higher, wider and even more perfect than the rohani life force - which is itself more powerful than the capacity of human beings. Bapak does not need to describe it to you here, for there is truly no description that might convey to you the nature of the rahmani life force. The only way is if God blesses you and calls you to come ( to that world ), not using any ordinary human means, but the means that are appropriate to that place.

To go there, to the world of the rahmani life force, you need to penetrate and pass through several worlds. The name of the first, in Islam, is lahut ( Arab. ), and it is blue. If you have gone through that you come to the malakut ( Arab. ) world, which is white or yellow. When you have passed through that, you come to another world, jabarut ( Arab. ), a world of light, boundless and incomparable. Bapak will give an example to illustrate this. If the light of day, however bright it may be, were put into the jabarut world, it would be as if Bapak were to light this match in full daylight.

You can only come there, brothers and sisters, if it is God's will and He leads and takes your soul there. You cannot go there with these organs. With them it is impossible, because these organs - the coarse physical body, the brain and so on - cannot possibly face something that is incomparably different.

Even though this life force is so high and so great, it is still only the life force on the sixth level. The seventh level, the life force called rabbani, is more powerful than all of them. There is no picture that Bapak needs to convey; Bapak only cites the name. Not only is it more powerful, but it can create whatever there is on this earth, such as yourselves, in just the same way as you create things.

Such is the structure of the life forces that Bapak has told you about. God in his wisdom, with his greatness and power, knows that human beings will experience difficulties if there is nothing to guide them. For in their life human beings are hemmed in by all the life forces, which vie with one another to influence them. For this reason, God created another life force, more powerful than the others. It is not active in doing their work, but leads, illuminates, and gives counsel and guidance to all the life forces. That is the Ilofi life force, which constitutes both a law and a self-awareness for all the life forces.

This life force is followed by another one called the ruh al-qudus ( Arab. ), which is its companion and escort. It guards and guides the state of a human being from beyond his or her human nature, in other words, from outside. The ruh ilafi ( Arab. ) works within the human inner feeling, closer to the human being than his or her own heart, closer to the human being than his or her own thinking. The one that accompanies it - that is, the ruh al-qudus - is further than the furthest human thought can think, further than a human wish can wish something. That's why, before a person thinks, it knows; after a person thinks, it knows. Before a person wishes for something, it knows; and after a person wishes for something, it knows also.

So, it is really not strange or impossible that human beings are able to receive a contact with the greatness of God. The contact with God's greatness already exists within the self of human beings. Only, because their thinking is still working, their passions are still working, and their heart is still working, they obstruct something true that is there within the human self.

We are very fortunate and it is a great blessing that we in this present age, who have progressed so far in our intellect, are able to receive this grace from God just as we are, just like this. We even consider it something that is very easy to receive. But the truth is that the ruh ilafi force is working within our being, beyond our mind. That's why we cannot think about it. We cannot analyze what is working within our self, because ( the ruh ilafi ) is the leader, the light, the guide in all that we do not know, and in all that we need to know.

For this reason, brothers and sisters, never use your mind, your heart and your will in this spiritual training. The work of the ruh ilafi within the human self requires no help from the heart and thinking. On the contrary, it subdues them and sets them aside. If you still use your mind and desires, you will not receive from the ruh ilafi. What you receive will be from a low, subhuman force -from the material, plant or animal forces - which is what people usually receive, because these are aligned with the heart and thinking-mind. In other words, you will obtain some kind of 'ism', such as many people acquire and practice.

At first glance, people who have not really gone deeply into spiritual matters, or have not received a lot in the spiritual ( training ), might say ( these two things ) are the same or similar. However, the truth is that they are very different. The one arises from a subhuman force, and ( works ) from below upwards; while the other is from the ruh ilafi, and ( works ) from above downwards. It is a gift from above downwards to human beings. So, if they receive it they will certainly follow the will of the One that gives it...

( The recording ends here )