( Beginning of talk not recorded .) ( ...And you can see that this is true in a new-born baby, where the connection between body and soul is still very strong because the baby is not yet influenced by the outside world. In such a new born baby you see that sometimes they are happy, sometimes they are sad and sometimes they are annoyed. )

As the days, weeks and months go by, a baby - at first unaware of this world - gradually becomes aware of it through their senses of sight, hearing, smell and so on. At the same time, their connection with their soul begins to separate or become blocked. This happens all the more once a child grows older and their brain, heart and desires start to work, so that they become good at thinking, feeling and imagining things. Where previously they were aware of the ambience beyond this world, now the connection between their feeling and their soul is almost completely cut.

That is the main reason why grown-up people cannot instantly make a connection between their inner feeling and their soul; it is because the whole of their inner feeling - which is connected with their seeing, hearing, smelling, feeling, thinking, and their heart and desires - is filled with the ambience of this world rather than that of the world before birth and after death. That is also the reason why the feelings of human beings are far from the power of God but close to the conditions of this world. Therefore it is not surprising that many people, when they picture God and God's power, and the way things are in heaven, portray God as a handsome human being sitting in a glorious place, living in a house that exceeds the palace of any king. And heaven is visualized as a place of magnificent panoramas and is considered to be a holy place.

That is the kind of picture made by the human mind, because human beings cannot picture anything that is beyond their own experience, the experience that has formed the content of their entire inner feeling. It is clearly mistaken; it is clearly not like that, because God is not of the same kind as human beings. If God were of the same kind as human beings, God could not have created the human race along with the rest of the universe. Whereas, in fact, it is God who has created them, together with everything in them, both the visible part and the part that is invisible to their physical eyes.

But people whose hearts have been purified, those whom God has willed, are able to see what God's power is like. As it is told in the book, when Jesus was facing death he said, 'My father, God, why have you left me?' So it is clear that, at that time, Jesus could truly see and know God, whom he likened to his father. And why was he able to do that? It was because he had indeed been willed by God to be pure and truly obedient to God's greatness.

That is why, in the latihan, God wills us to have complete faith and be able to receive how the power of God works within our self, free of our thinking mind, heart and will. Maybe you feel worried or have doubts, and imagine that the awakening we experience in our latihan has within it a current coming from a force that is not good for our being. In fact it is just the opposite. We do the latihan, we receive the latihan, unconditionally. This means doing it without our offering anything to God's greatness, other than our emptiness. If we receive something in that empty state, it is not possible for any influence or will to enter into it. Certainly not.

There is a proverb that says, if someone wants to make money they must carry some money; meaning that they must already have some. For example, if they want their merchandise to sell, they mustn't be reluctant to spend money on advertising and so on. Similarly, if you want to acquire a skill, you need to put all your effort and all your mental power into it. That's how it is. So if we do something that is not from our will, the result will not be filled with the heart and mind, meaning there will be no influence in it, and it will not contain any force of the kind usually called 'magic'.

Bapak wants to say clearly that the forces below the ( perfect ) human level - that is, the material, vegetable, animal and the ordinary human force - are always closely connected with the mind, heart, desires and feelings. Thus if people use them to look for God - or so they say - then of course their feeling will always be influenced by these low forces, which work through the heart, the mind and the desires.

So if we are in a state where we are not using our heart, our thinking mind and desires, then clearly our inner feeling will not be influenced by those low forces that otherwise always influence us. Under these conditions, your inner self will truly be able to receive how the power of God works within you, and your receiving will not be mixed with the ambience of this world.

It is certain, ladies and gentlemen, that there is no path or endeavor that doesn't take time. Everything, every undertaking, whatever it is, always requires time. That is why all of you need to have a feeling of patience, trust and sincere submission in your hearts. And have faith that God will give to you, if you keep your promises.

As Bapak said just now, you started neglecting your soul when you were small. From the time you were children until you became adults you have been filled with the things of this world. So it's clear, for those of you who are fifty, sixty or forty years old, that you have neglected your souls, you have not been in touch with your souls for forty or fifty years, but you have been very closely connected to the environment of this world.

It is as if, for instance, you have a motor car but do not know who its owner is. It suddenly appeared in front of your house so you use it all the time. If anyone asked you, 'Who owns that car?' ( You would answer, ) 'I don't know.' In the end it is the same with your situation. You ought to be steered and used by your soul, which is your content, but you do not yet know 'who is within me and who is in charge within me.' That is why in the latihan we are willed by God to learn who is the driver in each one of us.

Your hearts and minds understand that if you own something you are bound to look for it and think about it: where it came from, who made it, who manufactured it, how much it costs and what it is for. That is how it is in this world. So it is easy to think about this world, because that is the job of the thinking mind, the heart and the feelings - to know and to understand.

But when it comes to the soul, you have forgotten that 'I exist, so there must be a cause of my existence; I exist, so somewhere there must be a source, which made it possible for me to be here.' That is something you haven't figured out yet. And that is the purpose of this latihan: for you to be able to find again, to be reintroduced to 'who I am, I who am in charge of everything within me'. It is God who is showing you and guiding you in getting reacquainted with your true T. That is the function of the latihan you are receiving.

And why is it that you are not able to do it right away - able to do this and that? Why does it have to start with the movement of your hands and feet? It is because from the moment you started to move your hands and feet, to move forward, and to see, you were already affected by this world. So you need to begin at the beginning, just like learning to write. When you learn to write at school, you write 'A' like this. So when you grow up, you go on writing 'A' in just the same way. That's the reason why you cannot change something by starting half-way along. You can't do that. You have to start here, at the beginning. That is the way God educates and guides human beings, so they can get to know their souls, which are supposed to work within their being, and can behave as true human beings should. As an example, look at Jesus or any of the other prophets who have set an example to the human race.

So you will not always be making sounds like 'Ow-ow-ow...' in latihan. No. But it does start like that, because from the time you made your first sounds, 'Aa-aa...' you were already beginning to be influenced by the world. At the end of the day this 'Ow-ow-ow...' ( in the latihan ) is all from the world. It is all being cleansed, so that from the beginning you are clean, and able to receive how your true soul uses your being in a way that does not come from the desires of this world.

Bapak understands and is aware of your situation. He knows that your hearts and thinking minds feel they don't want to know about this, or feel that it is something they cannot think about. Why is that? It is because your thinking mind, heart and feelings are older than your soul; they have worked longer than your soul. You are forty years old, your mind and your heart have been working for forty years, whereas your soul has only just been born, or at most it was born a year ago. So how could they work together? But, if you can be patient, you will eventually arrive at the point where they operate together in the way demonstrated by Jesus.

It is not God's will, nor is it in fact the intention in Subud, that you should avoid using your thinking minds or the will of your hearts. No. It is not necessary to avoid them or to get rid of them. They just need to be put aside so the work of repairing your soul is not impeded or disturbed.

You can figure it out for yourselves. If you want to make a table, first you have to stop work on the chair, or whatever else you were working on. You have to stop work on one or the other; that's how it is. It isn't possible to make a chair and a table at the same time and get them both done. You can't do it, because you have only two hands and one brain, which can't do many things at the same time - unless you have a lot of people who can work on making the tables.

This is how it is for you. Your inner can work if it is not disturbed, if your heart and thinking mind can be put aside. But once ( the inner work ) is done they can work again. That's how it is. This is symbolized by the fact that in life there are always partnerships: between day and night, woman and man, great and small, good and bad, far and near. Even trees and material objects have their partners. If they didn't, they would not exist in this world.

Therefore, in order that your receiving can go well - as you would all like it to - it is better to keep your mind, heart and desires from taking part in it. Just leave it to God, with surrender, patience and trust in God, and it will work by itself. Later on, at some point in the future when the right time comes, you will all experience the reality of what Bapak has been saying to you tonight.

Brothers and Sisters, Bapak will now end his talk for this evening. He will continue it on Monday evening, once again after the latihan. He hopes that this short talk has given you some satisfaction, and he thanks you.