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Laughter
By Anonymous After reading the newest edition of Reminders of Reality, I remembered something funny that Mas Adji said to me in '70."Surrender through the latihan is better than watching television." That thought made me laugh. And of course, Mas Adji, (Tuti and Muti's brother) was a total jokester. A deeply spiritual young man, very wise for his age, and totally fun loving. Yesterday, I was reflecting on the Purpose of Life, and the purpose of the Latihan Kedjiwaan [our Blessed Spiritual Exercise.] "The purpose of Life is for Learning, Loving, and Giving Light." as far as I can determine. Our diligent spiritual life enhances all three. At the moment, I am not experiencing any specific Devine Miracle, except for the Blessing of receiving the Latihan during this pandemic. I emailed a brother living on the other side of the world. "You know, brother, Subud saved my life. "Do tell", he said:, Perhaps there are no accidents. Perhaps there is no such thing as Karma. I once asked Bapak, "You always speak of the ancestors, and that the Latihan purifies seven generations back and influences seven generations into the future. "Bapak, you never talk about our past lives." His answer 'knocked me out.' He asked me: "Is there a difference between ancestral purification and our past lives?" Lordy, are we just recycling the people in our lives -- and the souls of our relatives - 'Until We Get It Right?" Ah, yes, last time, son, you were my grandmother. The Bible says, "Honor thy father and thy mother... and then later, "Parents rebuke not your children...." Is it simply: "What goes around, comes around"? I have wondered why this is the strangest life that I can remember. I was physically and sexually abused by my father from age four to age seven. I blocked those memories until much later. I was taken to the hospital twice to get repaired. The police were called, and out of fear I remained silent. During my teenage years, I attempted suicide multiple times. I felt worthless. I was locked up in a mental hospital, ages 18 and 19. One day, I was rescued by a doctor who heard me playing classical music. [Long story omitted.] Then the miracle happened. I was talking to a neighbor in 1965. He said, "Excuse us, we need to go to Subud." "Not without me", I yelled. The sound of the name rang huge bells. I knew it was for me. It was my "Get Out of Jail" card. After I was opened, along with seven other men, I never experienced a suicidal thought --- Ever. In the end, I feel we must take every opportunity to laugh. I feel laughter brings in the Light. Laughter brings in the Blessings. - - - - - The Inner Voice that saved my Life By Anonymous When I was fifteen years of age, 1958 to be exact, something extraordinary happened to me from which I never fully recovered, although it literally saved my life. It happened in a small seaside town where sitting in cars in the main street and talking to one's friends on weekends was an enjoyable activity. Up and down the street, were young people sitting in cars, this was small town culture. On this particular day, I was invited into the back seat of a car by a couple older than me. They were in their early twenties, and I congratulated them on just becoming engaged to be married. Sitting in the back seat with me was Margaret, a girl I liked very much, whose father had once given me a much coveted after-school job feeding the animals in a small zoo where he was the head keeper. These were happy, carefree days spent among likeable people. Suddenly the driver, whose name I no longer recall, suggested a drive into the country. We were all interested and I was looking forward to it, when suddenly a voice inside me loudly and urgently said, "Get out of the car." I wanted a drive in the country and ignored this experience which had never happened to me before. Again it spoke in a loud command "GET OUT OF THE CAR!" This was accompanied by a such a terrible feeling of panic that I quickly said I'd changed my mind and left the car. The newspaper report said that their car had hit a tree and the two occupants in the front were killed instantly. I caught a train and visited Margaret in a hospital fifty miles away. She could barely talk and her head was the size of a pumpkin. There were no seat belts in those days. I never saw her again. I was shaken by the whole experience and attached that newspaper article to the inside of my wardrobe door never to be discussed with anybody--ever --until now. Although I was educated in a convent and Guardian Angels and the Holy Spirit were known to me, they were like fairy tales. At fifteen I was rather childlike and undeveloped, and the shock of that whole experience took away my innocence. Eight years later I had what could be described as an epiphany and four years after that, I was opened in Subud. There have been 'experiences' and an inner voice has spoken up occasionally. Thanks to the Latihan I take all of this in my stride, but the shock of that encounter at such a tender age caused me to literally lock it away for sixty years. For some reason it has to come out now. - - - - - Caught in the Act – by the Inner By L.B. I was away from home. I checked out a local group and showed up for latihan. I waited, and waited. Nobody came. Of course, I had got the wrong night. I wandered around outside the silent latihan premises. I reached automatically for a cigarette. I lit up and a thought occurred: 'What would happen if Bapak walked around the corner in that moment?' Then it happened. The hand holding the cigarette floated of its own volition behind my back. I felt like a naughty schoolboy caught smoking behind the school cycle shed. - - - - - |
Covid and Me
by Matthew Spivey Starting in October, 2019, I began receiving that I needed to start meditating daily. This was so non-Subud that I simply dismissed it. But the receiving was persistent. You see, I had not been able to attend group latihan since May that year due to a very severe flare-up of frequent episodes of vertigo due to Meniere's disease. I did some latihan at home, but it was not disciplined or regular, and often I would get distracted by something at home which was demanding my attention. Finally, in late January, I gave in. I started doing what was in essence getting quiet, except that I also paid attention to my breath, which was a nice way to keep me from popping up every time my mind lighted on a chore that I needed to get done. It was only later, upon reflection, that I realized that I had just passed my 49th anniversary of being in Subud, on January 21, 2020. No surprise that after about ten days of this meditating, I was finding that after a period of time it spontaneously became latihan, and of course I did not resist it. When this happened, I made sure that I completed my allotted 30 minutes of time. So from January to March I was doing latihan daily until March 14, 2020. The day before I had lunch at a wonderful Chinese hot-pot restaurant with my brother. I had just bought nitrile gloves, a few ski masks, and ski goggles to start wearing once the Covid virus made it outside of Washington State in the USA. On the 14th, I phoned him and declared, "As soon as a case is reported here in San Diego County, I am going to mask up, glove up, and get through this without getting sick." I didn't have to wait long. Two days later, they announced a case on the news. The next morning, St Patrick's Day as it happens, I woke up with a hoarse voice and a little trouble breathing. I wasn't entirely clear if this matched the symptoms of Covid, so I wrote my doctor a note about my symptoms. I then looked up the Covid symptoms list: I didn't have fever, and hoarse voice wasn't listed. So I felt a bit foolish and wrote a note to my doctor apologizing for wasting his time. Our notes crossed in the mail; his said to quarantine for two weeks. By the afternoon, the hoarse voice became a sore throat, and my breathing was getting really much more labored. I got a little panicky then and re-contacted my doctor, but was assigned a doc who was specifically managing Covid patients. He asked me to stay home, and to have someone pick me up a pulse oximeter at the pharmacy, which a very kind neighbor did for me the next morning. I had Valium on hand for use with Meniere's disease, so he told me to use it judiciously to manage the panic, since that only made the breathing problem seem worse that it actually was. In the end, I needed Valium only three times; once I got the pulse oximeter I could tell if the perceived air hunger was real or not by seeing what happened to my oxygen level, which went up when there was anxiety. Thus began a 24 hour a day journey of taking individual breaths, one by one, as if I was a survivor on a lifeboat, knowing that if I didn't keep rowing I would die at sea. Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out. Deep labored breaths, and all intentional. At an earlier time in latihan, I had this extraordinary experience in which Bapak had come to me and told me that all latihan was actually for all of mankind as well as for myself and my loved ones, and that the latihan of those who are alive on this world is much more effective for this world than the latihan of those who have passed beyond this world. So on the third night of this new illness, I said to Bapak, "If you want me to keep doing latihan here in this world, then I need your help!" I saw Bapak, in my inner self, in the distance. He immediately looked over and began moving toward me. Just at that exact moment, I also thought, "I could use some healing from Jesus as well." Instantaneously there they both were, Jesus to my left, Bapak to my right, and both reaching into my chest with their hands. Jesus's hands were glowing with light, Bapak's hands first touched my (inner) heart then pulled some dark energy out of me. Both said (telepathically), "Make your breaths as deep as you possibly can. Then fill them just one bit more." Then Bapak looked at me, and I knew that my latihan was to start from my heart from then on. Theretofore, it had always started in my hands. This whole encounter was at most 30 seconds. By the evening of the next day, my breathing was becoming more comfortable, and by the next morning it was definitely better, and I knew that I had passed the danger. I required weeks of convalescence, but since that time my latihan is just plain different. It now starts in both my heart and in my third eye (the inner silent witness). I feel it penetrating parts of myself that I didn't know actually existed. Things in my life have changed as well. My troubled relationship with my (long deceased) mother has made great strides. In particular, I have realized that I really never knew who she was. The daily pain and embarrassment that I have been feeling about our government has been healing, while at the same time I am transitioning to recognizing that my soul does not have a nationality and that all men and women are in fact spiritual brothers and sisters. As a bonus gift, I had surgery on my diseased ear two days ago, which, God willing, will bring my vertigo attacks to an end. Oh the gratitude! How Great is God! It is amazing the gifts God is constantly offering us, whether our outer lives seem to be going well or seem to be a disaster. Our part is to surrender, and let Him have His way. He loves us more than we can ever love ourselves, and He wants more abundance and love for us than we are capable of even imagining. - - - - - Hubris By Anonymous Not long after I was opened in the nineteen sixties, I decided to go to Mass and take Communion which I did. I'd never done anything like this before, but assumed that because the Latihan was the impulse behind all religions, that gave me instant and full access to all possible communions. My mother was Jewish; my father was raised a Christian, but none of us followed a religion at the time. The very next night, Christmas Eve, I almost died in an accident and my life was saved as if by a sleight of hand on the part of Mother Nature. I lay on the ground hearing myself shouting in what sounded like Arabic, as people rushed to lift the huge fifteen foot shop front sign which had fallen on me, almost breaking my neck. The wind had flipped it in midair so that the back of the sign landed on me rather than its side which would surely have led to decapitation. The hospital put me in a collar for six weeks because of a broken bone in my neck and the feeling which arose in me told me that this had been a lesson about hubris. It seems that there was a flaw in the arrogant way I'd approached the whole experience. That violent experience, at just 27 years of age, restricted my outer life from that day forward. My left-brain, right-brain crossover was affected to such a degree that although I can read, I have not been able to write or type without massive stress which causes me to avoid it at all times and I've relied on my wife and others for that. At the time of the accident I was a court reporter but career options being severely restricted from that day, I could only do work with no writing involved. Humbling indeed. - - - - - |