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Journey to the Centre (Thursday 24 November 2011) By Anonymous The latihan was described by Bapak as a “training that is beyond the mind, training that is beyond the will,” [69 LAX 1] Many of my experiences in the latihan sound impossible; hence I am reluctant to put my name to the experiences I have had. You could say what happened was imagination, but then I wonder why I would imagine something so painful and uncomfortable. It’s easy for my mind to question myself, and yet I function normally and work in the world. Over the years in Subud, reading about other people’s experiences has helped me, even though they may be very different to mine. So the reason I share this “impossible” experience is in case another person has had a similar experience “beyond the mind” and would find this helpful. Latihan starts, and I fall prostrate to the floor. I begin to weep, and two beings of beautiful light, appear on either side of me. The latihan continues and as they accompany my latihan, Ibu Rahayu (physically a thousand miles away) appears in front of me, and I remain prostrate on the floor with my head on the ground, weeping. Suddenly the ground beneath me opens up and I’m looking into a deep abyss in the earth below the Latihan Hall. I am pulled down into the darkness and a part of me is terrified and resists, but within the surrender of my latihan, I accept and trust. Your will, Lord, not mine… As I journey down into the void, I am aware that the beings of light and Ibu Rahayu are unable to accompany me into the depths, but I notice I am connected to them by silver threads of light which gives me some comfort. As I travel deeper through the earth, the silver threads disappear and I am now alone in the heat and darkness. My physical body feels porous and is being dragged through the earth; through the sand, the gravel and rocks deep below the latihan hall. The pain is excruciating and yet there is nothing I can do but surrender completely to God. The heat increases as I go deeper down and even though my physical body is still in the hall weeping, I feel the pain and sensations acutely in my body, my heart, and my mind. Trembling and shaking, the vibration of this process, of being dragged through the earth, is tearing and breaking everything within me. I feel the grating of my flesh through the earth, similar to how water flows through the layers of the earth to become filtered and purified. However, this is far more painful because I am more solid than water is. After being broken and crushed through the rocky crust of the earth, I am drawn down through viscous molten rock and deep into the solid core of the earth. Under the intense pressure and heat of this journey to the centre of the planet, my whole being has been crushed and compressed into a miniscule sub-atomic particle. I have been annihilated. Almost. Eventually I stop moving. Everything stops. Alone, dark, silent and annihilated within the extreme heat, silence and darkness at the centre of the Earth, I am nothing. I surrender. Suddenly, unexpectedly, I feel the Holy Spirit (Roh Ilofi) and Bapak’s presence there with me. Oh my… so the Roh Ilofi, the vibration we experience in the latihan, truly can penetrate everywhere, from the lowest of the low to the highest of the high. Here am I, an almost annihilated, minuscule particle at the centre of the earth and yet, the Grace of God is with me. I am amazed. Suddenly a strong force pulls me though an invisible hole smaller than an atom, one that I don’t even know was there. Instantly, I am in a vast space of light, immense, soft, cosmic, alive emptiness that is an indescribably, incomprehensible infinite, eternity. I am in the Oneness of All. My annihilated self is engulfed in a totally unimaginable or explainable space of infinity and eternity. The two extremes of dark and light are so close to each other, yet so incomparable and far apart. After a few moments within the Oneness of the infinite, eternity, I am taken back through the invisible hole and back into the extreme heat and darkness at the centre of the earth. But now I am different. “When thou givest to God thy nothingness, God gives to thee His All.” Abu ‘l – Hasan Khurqani – Sufi (died 1033) Instead of being compressed by the heat and pressure, I am suddenly expanding. I spread out horizontally and vertically as a three dimensional cross from the centre of the earth, and as I reach the surface, I feel at one with the earth. Bapak is still with me throughout, and then somehow I am back in my body that is still prostrate on the floor of the Latihan Hall. All the while, from the time I started latihan to when I came back to my body, my physical body was weeping softly and prostrate on the ground. When I finished latihan and went back to sit on a chair, I was still teary yet also felt extreme gratitude, all at the same time. Afterwards, I couldn’t speak of what had happened to me, but I mentioned to one of the helpers that I had felt Ibu Rahayu’s presence at the latihan and she said that she felt that too, even though she had never experienced that before. After this journey, I felt as if I had “died while still alive” and experienced an intense purification of my being. Bapak spoke of the latihan as a process in which God repairs and changes our soul, which requires a purification of the inherited faults contained within our being. “For every change of your soul is a death, even though you are still alive. So a thousand changes required by God – for there are very many faults – will mean experiencing a thousand deaths in your life.” Bapak, 23 September 1959 [59 MUC 2], Talk # 1 From Bapak's Talks Volume 7 - - - - - How I met my husband and came into Subud By Murtiah Chalmers When I was about 18, I had this strange experience, while I was awake, aware and not thinking of anything. Suddenly I felt myself lifted off the bed, then put down. This happened a couple of times, while being lifted, I heard a strange ringing sound,which I understood later was the sound of the earth spinning on it's axis. The strange thing was I wasn't afraid while it was happening. But for years after I avoided lying on my back. I went down to my Granny to see if I could get an explanation. "Girl, you were dreaming," Granny said. "No, Granny" I said. I am not sure, but on that visit, or soon after, I was staying with Granny and her brother came to visit her. He was telling her about this nice Englishman he met at the Forestry Dept. Something went "ping" in my head. He was asking my uncle about Islam. About two years later, the Englishman came to live about a couple of miles from where I lived. I noticed this person, in this nice car, a Citroen DS, looking in a couple of times as he drove past our house. He obviously had seen me. He put a letter through the Louvres (we didn't have a post box) introducing himself and asking if I would like to meet him. Within three months, in December1967, we were married. I was 20 and he was 36. While he was exploring in the Amazon for cocoa (he had changed jobs and was now doing research in Cocoa at the university) he met a Swiss architect, who lived in a little village in Ecuador who told him about Subud. He lent him a book which he brought back to Trindad. I read it and knew at once that this was for me. I went up to Minneapolis to stay with an aunt and was opened in 1971 at the University of Minnesota, where a group met for latihan. We moved from Barbados to live in England in 1991. I was happy to belong to a group at last, as I was mainly isolated in the West Indies. Several years after practicing the latihan, I was reading a talk that Bapak gave to newly opened members in 1957 in his first visit to the UK in Volume 1 of Bapak 's Talks. "One day when you are lying down, you will unexpectedly feel you are lifted up, and in that state, you will feel the spiritual life. One day you will know how it is in the clouds" The tears started flowing. So I certainly believe that Dan didn't just choose me. He didn't have a choice. It was his task to bring me the latihan. - - - - - Three Sons By Murtiah Chalmers After my husband and I got married at the end of 1967, we dearly wanted to start a family as soon as possible, but sadly with no success. Then I got opened in1971. Six months after being opened, there was a problem. I started to have a purification that lasted for eight years. As I was isolated, I wrote the helpers in the Cental London group explaining the situation. The tested and received that it WAS a purification and I should praise and thank Almighty God. We continued to see doctors who discovered that each us had problems, any one of which would make conception difficult. We saw a top Specialist in London, who wrote to my gynecologist in Trinidad to say our chances of having a baby were very small. Anyway, I started to receive in my latihan that I was going to have a baby. And I delivered a son, Mutahar, in September 1979...he is about 6'3" and I am 5'2". So it was in the 12th year of marriage that he arrived. Three years after, I started to receive in my latihan, a child called Harun, telling me "Mama, Allah will bless you with me." For two years Harun was telling me that regularly in my latihan. Then I got pregnant. I thought I was going to have a very special child. Then I lost him in a miscarriage at three months. When I got home from the hospital, I was so dazed and in shock. While receiving this repeatedly in latihan, my hand would draw a circle in mid-air with a cross in it. Years after, I understood that he was telling me he wasn't coming, and was going back to God I went to the Quran and opened it randomly and read this verse: "On that Day shall no intercession avail Except for those for whom Permission has been granted By God, most Gracious And whose word is acceptable to Him" |
And I just knew that verse was meant for me.
I closed the Quran, and opened randomly a book on the Sayings of the Prophet Muhammad. And the page that came up referred to ladies asking the Prophet, what happened to babies who miscarried. The Prophet was reported to have said that they will bring their parents to Heaven. I have never been sad about him and completely accepted his loss. Six months later, I conceived with Matthew, who was born in 1985. About 20 years afterwards, I went to Trinidad to help look after my ailing mother. One morning, while doing a short latihan, I received "Harun is here to take Zaitoon across." Zaitoon was my mother and his Granny. She died that night. He also came to take his father, Dan, across in 2016. So I thank Almighty God for our three sons. - - - - - From the Heart By Anonymous Thirty years ago: Group latihan starts - just normal - then, I'm suddenly gripped, hard, can't escape. I'm forced to stand and watch as all my sins and errors are rehearsed in full technicolour in front of me - all the hidden things never revealed - the nasty little things I'd done as well as the more well-known errors and omissions - this went on for some time and I slowly sank to the floor and, head down, sobbed convulsively. After some time, a calm descended, the iron grip loosened and I was stood up, deeply shaken and with a feeling of profound unworthiness. As I stood there limp and dazed and ashamed, a warm feeling started to spread through me. I felt what I can only describe as pure love running through me until I was full. Then I felt a voice saying, "Well, seeing the way you are, you've done quite well!". Off I went, singing with joy. This was a pivotal moment for me. Two months ago: After 50 odd years of frontline soldiering in Subud, proud of always being in the thick of any action and often leading the way, I had this quiet revelation that in fact much of what was achieved was much, much less than it should have been. The reason was that my passions and bad feelings had been involved in a big way, fighting with other members because I knew what was right and all that familiar human nonsense. I would get an initial piece of guidance to do something for the group, sometimes quite significant, but the ensuing adventure leading to the end goal was often heavily cloaked in passionate exchanges of various sorts and degrees, with people getting hurt. Of course, this was not just me – there were many actors in these dramas. Having said that, one major adventure has survived and thrived for thirty-five years or more. There were two reasons for this, I believe. I was group chairman when I was shown that we should acquire land adjoining the Subud property, about ten hectares with three houses on it. When this venture was first proposed to a group meeting, I was amazed to find that there was some serious opposition to it, even though a group of us had worked out all the financial details of how we could do it with little risk. So, I closed the meeting, wondering what to do. I turned to prayer: “God, you have shown us what to do, but some people are opposing it. What should we do?” I received a clear answer “Go round them”. So, we called a meeting of all the people interested in buying the land and we went ahead, not as a Subud business but as a business of Subud members. It was outside the official Subud structure. The second element was that a great deal of goodwill, patience and trust was displayed by all involved, particularly the two biggest investors. The other thing that happened was that the person most against the idea initially became one of its staunchest supporters. We even managed to weather the storm caused by one Director going rogue and almost costing us the whole concern. This business is now a charitable trust and will survive for another thirty-five years at least with our offspring now taking over the running of it. It is a real community asset, much appreciated and enjoyed by both locals and people from further away. Two weeks ago: Then, two weeks after being shown just how much I had contributed to the general lack of growth in terms of members (we have had virtually no openings for the men and few for the women, while members fall away through ill health or simply getting sick of the dramas and not coming any more) I read the short extract from a talk given by Bapak in 1968 (the year I was opened) and my feelings were confirmed big time. So, what are my feelings about this now? I go back to that 35 year old experience I had. I am what I am – and God still loves me in spite of that. And I love God. And I can say that I believe that I now realise where I went wrong and can watch for the little demons that are always ready to push their tawdry little agendas into the my life. I didn’t realise just how long this journey would be when I started all those years ago – and I feel I have really only just started. Wa salaam, brothers and sisters and thank you Bapak and Ibu. For Subud Members ALL PROBLEMS CAN BE RESOLVED (An extract from a talk given by Bapak in Melbourne) Therefore, Bapak asks you simply to adhere to what he has told you and to what you have received for yourself in the latihan. If you do you will become and constitute a core in Subud. Indeed, it is probably God’s will that Subud should not grow at the moment; the way has not been given for Subud to have millions and millions of members, not yet. This is probably God’s will, to ensure that those who have been opened, those who receive the latihan, can truly receive both the meaning and proof of the process of the spiritual training of Subud. For that reason…Bapak is not singling you out, he is not showing favoritism, not at all, however, it is better to have one hundred Subud members who know in depth, whom God has blessed with understanding and awareness of the reality of the process of the Subud latihan – which is Almighty God’s leadership and guidance – than to have one million members who have no understanding at all, who just make up the numbers. Hence Bapak is not going to feel disappointed if Subud does not grow quickly here, if there are only one or two hundred members, not two hundred thousand. He is not disappointed. It is probably God’s will that Subud only has so few to begin with. The important thing is that God blesses those few, because of their attitude of surrender, because of their acceptance and their patience and their willingness to let go, and because they are aware of the reality of what we call the Subud latihan. God is truly Wise and All-knowing. Bapak says that, because for now there is only Bapak; how can he do the work so that this spreads and is received by millions and millions of people? It is impossible. Just looking after you here has tired Bapak. So do not get disheartened. It will be different in the future, once you really have become Bapak’s representatives, once you truly are helpers, once you have become Subud helpers who never refuse any of the members’ questions and can know everything. Then Bapak will have plenty of assistants, maybe five hundred, maybe a thousand or two, which would be more than enough. At the moment he is the only one who can do this. How can Subud spread? How can we have many members? It is not possible. However, once you reach that stage, once you have become helpers who are true helpers, who really are assistants of Bapak, then in no time Melbourne will probably have at least half a million members. This is why Bapak hopes God will bless you and that you will really carry out what Bapak has asked you to do, so that you become his helpers in the real sense. So, when it comes to having harmony among helpers and among members, you must create it, you must live it. That is because having a state of harmony among you will open the path; it will open your own path, making it easy for you to progress along it without any difficulty. But if you constantly squabble, if you never help each other or respect each other, and if you keep giving vent to and exaggerating your passions, it will be impossible for you to find an open way that will lead you toward the right path for complete human beings. Therefore, remember this: all problems can be resolved. 68 MEB 4 - - - - - The Ladder By Emmanuel Williams The voice says “Listen to me.” I put down the book Close the doors Turn everything off Sit by the window Take a deep breath. ”I’m listening.” The silence is longer than usual. I think of bamboo growing in the dark an old black cat named Frederick It doesn’t matter what I think “There is a ladder…” says the voice “Yes you said that in January there was A lot of snow and the pipes . . . well it Doesn’t matter what happened with the pipes Thing is, ladders make me think of going up Or going down and which way I’m going And then there’s the whole falling thing. I preferred your pumpkin message to be honest. Can’t we…” “I’m here to tell you,” says the voice “that you’ve reached a high point on this particular ladder...” “That’s wonderful,” I exclaim. ”I thought, well, you know I mean, I’ve been doing my best But I keep… I keep…” “We’re all very pleased with you,” says the voice. An old deep knot loosens. I sigh. The voice says,”There are many more ladders.” Yes of course there are. Of course there are. Meanwhile I can’t tell you how different it is the world I come back to the world I lived in as who I once was. For a while there’s no one here except when you are with me and warm stars whisper in my ears and flowers are as happy as they look. I will not try to tell you. I say no more. - - - - - |