Page 86
Gratitude
By Robert Mertens Flashback: When I was little, I was sent to Sunday school by my parents. We were read the stories of Jesus, with pictures and writing we could understand. Sometimes we were taken into the church to hear the minister preach a little of his Sunday sermon. One Sunday, he spoke of angels in heaven worshipping God through all Eternity. I had no idea of the meaning of “Eternity” except that it was an endlessly long time. I thought, “This can’t be right. A little time worshipping in church was OK, but for all Eternity?” I knew there was much more to life. Seeds of doubt and questions were planted in me. Was there such a thing as “worship”? Such a place as Eternity where a person “worshipped”, and by extension, was there such a thing as God to be worshipped?....... The story: It was more than 50 years ago that I experienced Gratitude (with a capital G). I’m now 78 years old and my life has been good. I’ve experienced many kinds of gratitude throughout my days: gratitude for my family and friends, gratitude for animals, gratitude for the beauty of nature, gratitude for food, gratitude for health……….. and so on. But this Gratitude I can only remember experiencing once and it changed my life. I was living in a 4th floor walk-up on East 1st street in Manhattan’s East Village. We paid $54 a month for the apartment. There were three of us living there so we split the rent 3 ways and were usually a month behind. We made our money through a small cooperative gallery, that we ran on Charles Street, near Bleeker, where the rent was also usually in arrears. So whenever we made a sale we would pay the back rents, go out for a meal, and stock up the pantry. I took the Long Island Railroad to my parents’ house about once a month to connect with my family, get a home cooked meal, and do dirty laundry. It was on a late Summer day in mid August, while visiting my parents, when I experienced Gratitude. It happened like this. The day was as perfect as any I can remember. My father loved growing roses, and his roses in their second bloom, filled my senses with their aroma and beauty. The sky was a deep blue, with puffy white clouds slowly drifting across the sky. The temperature was cool, not cold and warm, not hot - in a word, perfect. I was in a dreamy, drowsy mood, contented and peaceful. So I thought I’d go to the room my parents kept for my brother and me for a nap. I lay down on my back and closed my eyes. Dappled light played on my closed eyelids from the trees outside the window that rustled in a light breeze. Then something remarkable happened. I was looking at the room through my closed eyes. It looked exactly like the room did with my eyes open, but there was something else there too. It was a flaming triangle hanging in the air. It looked something like the design pictured at https://www.dropbox.com/s/6hhxifejpne1ljv/Flaming%20TriangleSM.jpg?dl=0 except that the front and back faces were blue fire and the inside and outside faces were white fire. And I could see any of the faces from my position lying on the bed. As I watched, I noticed a vibration coming down from the triangle through the air. It looked like the heat waves rising from a hot highway. It looked like the shimmering “mirage” that appears as a pool of silver water that disappears as you draw closer. The vibration came down through the air and entered my chest, causing my chest to start vibrating. My awareness had moved from the room to the inside of my head where I had a strong curiosity to see what was vibrating in my chest. So I dived down there to take a look. I went into my heart where the vibration had become a ball of white light. I wanted a close look at this ball of light, so I moved towards it. As I did so, it moved away. So I moved faster towards it and it moved faster away. It was going deeper into my heart and rapidly accelerating. The faster I chased it, the more it accelerated until it was very far off and the inside of my heart had become like outer space, enormous and dark. The light had become like a tiny star in the distance and then suddenly it blinked out. As I hovered there, I wondered what to do. If I went farther, I might not be able to find my way up and out. If I emerged from the space in my heart, I might lose the chance of ever knowing what the ball of light was. So I was looking towards the place where the light disappeared, wondering what to do, when it popped back into view. And it was getting larger, coming right at me. I began to retreat as it became larger and larger, closer and closer, and suddenly found myself back in my head. And then It happened. The light had become a song. The song was Gratitude, and it was singing my heart (causing my heart to sing). My heart became Gratitude and the Gratitude began to move up. It came into my throat, causing it to sing Gratitude. Then it came into my mouth and my mouth was singing Gratitude, loudly! A thought, all at once appeared, like a ticker tape running behind my closed eyes. It said, ”You are at your parents’ house, and they are going to think you are going nuts!” At that thought, my eyes popped open. I waited anxiously, looking at the closed door to my room, thinking someone would come into the room to see what was going on. But no one came. I gingerly walked to the door and looked out. No one was there, either. I walked the short hall to the den where my father and brother were watching pre-season football. There was no recognition of any loud singing or anything out of place, from either of them. I breathed a sigh of relief, knowing I would not have to explain my strange behavior. I later realized that I had experienced Gratitude, and this was/is the true worship of my soul. It came unexpectedly with no bidding from me. It came from beyond myself and went deeper into me than I could follow. It was blissful beyond words and I experienced it in a place that I can call “Eternity” in and beyond my body. And I can say that it came from God. Understanding: So what does this have to do with the way that I make art? As I work in the digital realm (Photoshop), I start to construct pictures. I often begin with a simple geometric shape like a circle, or import a photo, such as a butterfly. I proceed to improvise, layering other shapes and motifs in Photoshop “layers”, blending layers above with layers below, often with unexpected results. An infinite variety of possibilities emerge as I proceed, and when something looks good, I get a little whiff of beauty and a drop of gratitude when I see it. I may then save that place as a “history state” and continue on. I go forward, adding layers, (sometimes fifty or more) and saving history states (sometimes more than a hundred). I can take elements from one history state and bring them into another state. I can change the “blending modes” between the layers at the touch of a command button and sometimes globally change the whole picture in surprising way, revealing something unexpected new and exciting. I work with the color and form like a kind of visual musical improvising. Sometimes it can be like jazz with spontaneous and surprising relationships, playing back and forth with each other. Or, it can be a slowly emerging organic structure, like the ordered form of a developing classical piece. It can feel like falling down a rabbit hole or entering a secret garden to see what is growing there. I usually work starting late at night until early in the morning, as it is a time of quiet and calm. When something good has revealed itself, I feel a deep sense of satisfaction and peace as I go to bed. - - - - - |
Through the Channel and Beyond: A Voyage Within
By Shoshanah (Sylvia) Margolin In July 1972, some friends from California invited me to travel with them to a Subud Congress in Montreal.This trip, as it turned out, would take me on a parallel inner journey to a place that seemed more dream than reality, couldn’t be reached via a highway, was not lined with trees or overlooking the ocean, and was not in New York, California or Montreal. Although I had multiple chores to do that weekend, I decided that it might be enlightening to go. The Californians picked me up the following morning. The interior of their van had been gutted, and some of us sat on floor pillows. After talking about our arrangements – we’d be staying at the home of the French ambassador and his wife, she being a Subud member, -- we closed our eyes to get quiet. At first, I felt a tingling in my feet, as if they were being awakened. Slowly, the tingling became a current that flowed up my legs. It felt as if the cells in my lower limbs were all vibrating, charged with life. The current continued smoothly, very slowly into my abdomen. It lingered a bit in my heart, but eventually passed into my head. Then the first storm started, like a hurricane. The energy raged. My head felt like it was the arena for a boxing match. Charges went this way, then that, clashing into each other. I sat in the van watching as if it were live on TV, except that I was the TV. Without my understanding why, the storm eventually ended, and the current moved out of my head into a serene place above it. In early evening, we arrived in Montreal. The hospitable ambassador’s wife greeted us at her door. A servant took our bags and showed us to our rooms. After resting, we drove to the Subud hall for dinner and remained to attend the opening session of the Canadian annual meeting. All through the weekend, depending on circumstances, my spirit ascended or descended within an invisible but nevertheless real and distinct channel. It was like a ladder without rungs, a tunnel of non-material matter within my body and rising vertically above my head. I’d sit in the meeting room taking notes, and then suddenly I’d feel compelled to close my eyes and have an inner experience. For example, during one afternoon when few people were attending the session, I began to feel vibrations in my head. They lasted for some time. It seemed like a continuation of yesterday’s storm, but it was much less turbulent. Finally, it subsided. I felt an inner bandage being wrapped around and around my head like a mummy casing. I had been swathed with gauze and now time was needed for healing. If this operation helps to bring clear thinking, I thought, then I am truly grateful. I became aware that the channel above me had grown about a foot. In another example. I returned to the meeting after dinner to find that, except for the committee officers on the platform, hardly anyone else was in the room. I was taking notes, but after a short while, there was little to document. An argument began among the officers. As people spoke to try to resolve it, the louder their voices became. I no longer remember what the argument was about, only that it went on and on. Suddenly, I felt my inner being rise up to the ceiling of the room. It was joined by one of the Canadian men sitting on the platform. Together, our souls descended on another committee member. This man now arose and uttered some words. I do not recall what was spoken, only that whatever he said resolved the dispute. Peace and harmony returned to the room. I realized that while receiving personal purification, I was also being used as a vehicle that could impact others. The harmony lasted throughout the evening until the meeting’s conclusion, and all through the weekend construction on the channel continued. By the time we were ready to return to New York it had grown as high as the clouds. We said our goodbyes, and I returned to my place in the van and closed my eyes. Immediately, the energy within that had been moving upward began to descend. When it reached my stomach, it halted. Inside the abdominal area, I encountered a host of demons of all shapes and sizes battling with each other. They were clamoring for hegemony. Each one wanted power for itself and over me, over my soul. I needed a weapon to hold them at bay so that one or more of them would not gain control. The only weapon I knew was saying the name of God. “God, God, God,” I said silently. They began to recede. Finally they disappeared. I rested. The talk in the van was about the people at the meeting and the interchanges that had occurred. I listened but didn’t participate as I was too worn out. As we passed the US-Canadian border, I again closed my eyes. This time the channel stretched above the clouds and into a heavenly space. Bapak appeared in the vast expanse. He laughed and lovingly said, “You’ll always be a little spacey.” Then he was gone. I felt the channel above me rise higher. It reached the sun. . Perhaps Bapak was there to ensure that I would retain my humility as my soul merged with the brightest of all known lights. I knew I had come to the end of the journey. The van drove up to my apartment building on the lower East Side of Manhattan. I got my bag and hugged and thanked everyone for inviting me to come with them. I waved as the van took off, on its way back to California. As I walked up the steps to my apartment, a voice within said, “Now you need to spend the rest of your life filling this in.” I knew what it meant, that I was just at the beginning of this journey. The filling in would happen in the remaining days, months, and years of my life. I did not know what would unfold, only that I had been shown the full extent of the inner road on which I was travelling that would develop in tandem with the outer one. - - - - - A Meeting of Jiwas By Anonymous My husband went to work in Asia for a few months, and after a few weeks, whenever I did Latihan I started to see a young woman standing in the room crying and holding out her hands for help. I had never seen her before and did not know what to make of it. As she showed up at every Latihan, I began to wonder if it was connected to my husband as she had a Muslim scarf on. I asked him if there was a maid provided for the men working there. He confirmed there was. but he did not know much about her. I wanted to know her name, the hours she worked and what she was paid. The last two questions were what I was beginning to fear. Long hours doing everything including cooking for very little pay. Also she was a single mother. Long story short, we arranged for her to go back to study, place her child in school and she managed to get a good part time job too. Now she is doing very well and always sends us an update. We have never met in person, but our jiwas have (across culture, religion, race and thousands of miles). God is great. - - - - - A Latihan for the World By Anonymous I'm an elderly Subud man and this morning, 7th March 2021, following a feeling to do simultaneous Latihan with our local Subud group, I stayed at home and did that. However, what I'd intended to be a latihan with the local group, turned out to be a latihan for the world. During this Latihan I experienced that this Latihan I was receiving was linked to Pope Francis' current praying in the biblical city Ur of the Chaldees, for reunification of and recognizing the unity of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Ur is where Abraham came from and was once sacred to all the Abrahamic religions. I'm not a Catholic, but as a result of this Latihan I would like to say that this Pope is being used for special purpose. (No wonder he started his duties asking people to pray for him.) This Latihan, which came into me strongly while I was still sitting down, lasted about twenty minutes. It was something positive for the world and for the sake of the world, I hope that others are experiencing it too? During this magnificent experience I was aware of still being one of Bapak's international helpers though that hasn't been official for many, many years. The prayer in me now is for the re-unification of all the Abrahamic religions. - - - - - |