Becoming Normal
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Yes, I may go to coast this summer. I just
missed you in that bar last summer when I sat that little cat on my lap all
night... I had a ball that summer time, but overdid it & went a little
schizo. (I thought I was being ‘poisoned by The Subud Cult’)!
—Jack Kerouac, Letters
<http://www.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/~fleig/kerouac.html>
…the inspiration for me to begin moving
out on my own spiritual journey, outside the confines of the constrictive
belief system that infuses Subud these days…
—M., email to author
Subud and the “c” word
Who wants to join a cult? Anyone? Raise your hands
please!
Subud is not a cult, Subud is a cult, Subud is not a
cult but sometimes looks like a cult, Subud is not supposed to be a cult but is
turning into a cult…. This debate has been going on within Subud, rising and
falling in waves, in a variety of forms.
At the 1989 Sydney Congress, Michael Rogge produced a
paper, ‘Subud at the Crossroads’. In it, he analysed Subud’s problems—many of
them the same today, many of them highlighted in the articles published by
Subud Vision, unresolved. He said of these problems: ‘All the above aspects may
be traced back to Subud’s past and its roots in Javanese religious culture.
Subud outside Indonesia has failed to adapt itself to people of other ways of
living and thought. It has still the appearance common to Javanese mystical
movements.’ The paper was not accepted for discussion on the Congress floor.
At the 2001 Bali Congress Damiri Renard facilitated
two workshops of thirty to forty people each, on the topic of ‘Do we in Subud
behave like a cult or sect?’ The proceedings of the workshops opened with the
acknowledgement that: “In many countries, Subud is considered a sect or cult.”
The recommendations of these workshops were put to the Congress, who referred
them to the International Helpers for further action. As far as I know, no
further action was taken.
Finally, in the 2005 Innsbruck Congress, five major
themes were discussed. One of these was ‘Presenting Subud in the World: the
Image of Subud’. The report on the workshop on this topic opened with the line:
‘In order for Subud to operate in the world with credibility, it needs to get
out of its “spiritual egocentrism” and isolationism and start facing a world
that tends to consider spiritual movements with great skepticism and
prejudice.’
I think that the one thing that the majority of
members can and do agree on is that is it of no benefit to Subud to either be,
or appear to be, a cult. However, the articles published by Subud Vision, and
the efforts at the various Congresses, suggest that this problem is persistent.
As long as it persists, people will view us in the same category as they do Sai
Baba, Amma, Heaven’s Gate and Scientology. Constantly I see members adopting
strategies to hide from the public their association with Subud. This ranges
from agitating to have secure websites to ensure that no one can find out that
they are an officer of Subud, to living under two names: a ‘Subud’ name that
they use at the hall, and another name that they use elsewhere. None of the
above suggests a membership who is comfortable with Subud’s image in the world.
What makes us look like a cult?
Technically, a cult is ‘a relatively small group of
people having religious beliefs or practices regarded by others as strange or
sinister’—in other words: a small religion. (Tom Wolfe put it this way: ‘A cult
is a religion without political power.’)
A sect, on the other hand, is ‘a group of people with
somewhat different religious beliefs from those of a larger group to which they
belong’—in other words: an offshoot from an established religion.
What makes Subud look like a cult is the presence of
‘strange religious beliefs’. ‘Strange’ is a relative word: what looks like a
strange belief to a European might not look strange to a Javanese. In fact,
beliefs that in Java belong to a large and widely acknowledged—if
shrinking—religion, Kejawen, when imported piecemeal into other countries,
would appear to be a cult. Thus, I’ve heard that the Javanese see nothing
unusual or strange in Subud, but the governments of France and Italy have
classed it as a cult.
Given the degree to which Subud beliefs are descended
from the religion of Java—Kejawen, or Agama Jawa—one could also call Subud a
Javanese sect, rather than a cult.
The beliefs in Subud come from Pak Subuh’s talks. He
was Javanese. His talks are—for the most part—teachings of Javanese beliefs.
Consider, for instance, the following three paragraphs, the first from Pak
Subuh, the others from expositions of Javanese religion:
1. Besides these forces that have become
man’s partners, the human being, by God’s will, also has the desires (nafsu) he needs, to arouse in him the spirit to
work and be active. The nest of these desires is in man’s heart, that is, in
the heart of man’s will. There are four kinds of desire or passion. The first
is called aluamah, the desire or wish to
win; the second is amarah, the desire to become rich or acquire wealth for oneself; the third is suplyah, or the wish become, oneself, the most
famous and well known; and the fourth is mutmainah, the nature of the heart that wishes oneself to be the most wise. Man
needs to possess such desires so that he does not remain motionless like a
material object, or like a plant, or an animal, or like a human being without
learning.
—Pak
Subuh
<http://www.subudlibrary.net/library/Bapak_English/BAPAK157.HTM>
2. Woodward (1989:190–91) notes, for
example, that the Javanese he came to know in and around the Sultanate of
Yogyakarta commonly speak of there being four different types of ‘passion’ (nepsu in Javanese): (1) aluhama, or greed, ‘symbolized by the color
black, represented as an animal, and located in the blood’; (2) amarah, or anger, ‘symbolized by the color red,
represented as a spirit, [and] located in muscle tissue’; (3) mutmainah, or desire for tranquility, ‘symbolized
by the color white, represented as a fish, [and] located in the breath’; and
(4) supiyah, or the desire to
destroy evil, ‘symbolized by the color yellow, represented as a bird, [and]
present in bone marrow’.
<http://content.cdlib.org/xtf/view?docId=ft4r29p0jz&chunk.id=
d0e4732&toc.depth=1&toc.id=d0e4729&brand=eschol>
3. The Serat Wirid and Serat Cabolek [two court books recording
details of the Javanese religion], for instance, mention the following types of
nafsu:
i. Nafsu
Amarah—(Javanese; from Arabic, al-ammarah) anger, symbolized by the color red, represented as a spirit, located
in muscle tissue.
ii. Nafsu
Aluhamah—(Javanese; from Arabic, al-lawwamah) greedy desire, symbolized by the color black, represented as an
animal, Iocated in the blood.
iii. Nafsu
Supiyah—(Javanese; from Arabic, saffia) the pure, good desire which wishes to destroy evil desire, symbolized
by the color yellow, represented as a bird, present in bone marrow.
iv. Nafsu
Mutmainah—(Javanese; from Arabic, al-mutma’innah) the calm, peaceful and upright desire or the desire for tranquility,
symbolized by the color white, represented as a fish, located in the breath.
— Chuzaimah Batubara, Islam and Mystical Movements in Post-Independence Indonesia: Susila
Budhi Dharma (SUBUD) and Its Doctrines,
Institute of Islamic Studies, McGill University, 1999, p. 86
In the first excerpt, Pak Subuh is expounding on the
Javanese theory of the nafsu. Readers who have adopted this as their own spiritual psychology, have
indeed adopted aspects of the belief system of Java.
So not only do we push particular obscure religious
beliefs, but through our information channels, we aggressively push them: ideas
about about angels and demons, about Christianity and Islam, about religious
symbols, about ‘genuine’ human souls, and others that are inferior to stones.
For instance, a recent email from Subud USA advertised:
Brand New! Bapak’s
Talks Volume 16 Arrives in Late May!
The sixteenth volume of Bapak’s Talks
comprises fourteen talks given by Bapak in Madras, Calcutta, Johannesburg and
London in March and April 1967.
It then gave a long list of topics covered, including:
‘How you will know when you have reached
the level of having a genuine human soul.’
‘How some stones, plants and animals are
considered to be of more value than human beings.’
‘How not to be affected by demons.’
‘What is necessary in order to reach God.’
[See Note 1 for a fuller list of the topics presented
in the email.]
Most of the topics have have nothing to do with the
formless, individual latihan kejiwaan, or the administration
of Subud. They are religious instruction. They are particular religious
cosmologies and theologies in keeping with Javanese religion, but often in
direct contradiction to faiths and knowledge outside of Java.
For example:
‘How you will know when
you have reached the level of having a genuine human soul.’
Unlike Kejawen, Christianity and Islam do not teach that there
are ‘levels’ of soul. This is a Hindu import.
‘How some stones,
plants and animals are considered to be of more value than human beings.’
This belief is offensive to many faiths, including Judaism,
Christianity and Islam, as well as to secular humanism.[2]
‘How not to be affected
by demons.’
People of many religious
persuasions—to speak nothing of secular ones—will find this question bizarre.
Belief in demons is far more widespread in Java, than it is in the UK, the US
or Australia.
‘What is necessary in
order to reach God.’
Each religion has its
own answer, which is what makes it a religion.
We say over and over, Subud is not a religion. We say
that it is not incompatible with any religion. Yet within Subud, we promote a
particular theology, from a particular religious background, and we promote it vigorously.
In other articles published by SubudVision, Helen
Bailie has called this ‘bait and switch’ and Lilliana Gibbs has referred to it
as ‘a lack of integrity’. Certainly, to say one thing to people, on which basis
they invest their time and sincerity, only to eventually discover that in
Subud, there is very much religion, very much teaching, and very much guru—is
unethical. In the literature that looks at cults, this dichotomy between what
is presented to the outside world, and what insiders see, is considered one
sign of a destructive cult. Shirley Harrison, in Cults:
The Battle for God, calls this ‘deceptive
recruitment’.
We don’t want to inhabit that space, or be anywhere
near it. So what has happened? How have we got into this situation? Are we unethical?
Are we deceptive? My view is: not
deliberately so, but, inadvertently, yes. We have been carried here by two
well-known mechanisms: the diffusion of culture, and the tragedy of the
commons.
The diffusion of culture
The latihan is passed from person to person. This
process is called diffusion.
But the same process also carries other practices,
beliefs, ideas and influences. So with the latihan came a hundred different
other influences, following the same diffusion path. A friend told me of an old
Subud film. Pak Subuh visits Disneyland (dressed in a suit, no doubt!). Behind
him come a number of faithful members, wearing pecis (black felt hats), batik shirts, and smoking kreteks (clove cigarettes). These affectations of dress seem to be largely gone
now.
Then there was the diffusion of terminology: nafsu, jiwa, sukma, wahyu, rasa, jasmani, rabbani, rohani, Nasut, Malakut, Jabarut, Lahut, Hahut…. Certainly, the tide is shifting away
from the continuation of such jargon.
But these are only visible influences. Beneath these
surface influences lie the theological concepts that underpin these words. One
can change the words, and still be under the influence of the Javanese
theological world-view, in which there are various levels, all souls are not created
equal, divine power flows around and between people and rests in objects,
people are inhabited by a dormant divine spark which when awakened puts its
house in order, and bodies are animated by ‘life forces’. This complex
cosmology was not invented by Pak Subuh. It’s Javanese, with smatterings of
Islam and Theosophy. So you can dispose of the batik shirt and the black felt
cap; you can stop speaking in foreign words; but as long as you subscribe to
the theology, you are being affected by the cultural diffusion that accompanied
the diffusion of the latihan.
And beyond the theology, there are tacit cultural
attitudes, like conflict avoidance, deference to wahyu-appointed authority, name-change, guided democracy, ancestoralism,
harmony as a prime value, and others which are well documented in the
literature on Javanese culture.
There is nothing wrong, in itself, with the religion
or culture of Java. (Or rather, there may be—but that’s up to the Javanese to
sort out.) There is something wrong, however, when it is attached to the
latihan—either consciously or unconsciously—as a necessary accompaniment.
First, it attaches a particular religious system to the latihan. This is
something we have promised, very publicly, not to do.
Second, the Kejawen belief system conflicts with other religious
systems. That pushes followers of those religions away. This is also something
we have promised, very publicly, not to do.
The process of diffusion is assisted by two other
factors. The first is Pak Subuh’s role as the Charismatic Leader of the
organisation. (The role of charismatic authority in the early stages of
development of spiritual and religious communities is described in another
article in this volume: ‘History vs Myth’.) That authority meant that his
religious background was given particular influence and force, over and
above—for instance—the many Christian influences that existed among the early
membership.
The second is the influence of Coombe. Subud’s first
contact point in the West was at a Centre set up by John Bennett. The people at
Coombe were there because they were attracted by what Bennett had to offer.
That group was particularly open to—and even seeking for—a saviour. You can see
the system of belief set out in the first two chapters of Bennett’s book, Concerning Subud. By the end of Chapter 2,
Bennett had more or less declared Pak Subuh the Second Coming of Jesus
Christ.[3] Not all of Bennett’s
followers may have agreed with this assessment, but a very large core of the
early membership consisted of people who had been gathered by Bennett, and
therefore in one way or another had found his world-view attractive. From
there, it spread to their friends in ‘spiritual circles’—again, like-minded
people. And Bennett’s messianic interpretation of Pak Subuh and the latihan
would have helped inculcate an attitude of uncritical acceptance of Pak Subuh’s
views and cosmology.
Once a particular influence is present in a founding
group, then that influence will tend to replicate itself, because others of
like mind will tend to be attracted to the explanations of the founding group,
whereas those who are not of like mind are likely
to be put off. This is a statistical tendency, not an absolute. We thus find
Subud not only shaped by cultural diffusion from Java, but also by a set of
very particular millennialist and messianic beliefs from England.
The tragedy of the commons
The ‘tragedy of the commons’ is a metaphor for a
certain kind of community catastrophe. It refers to the old common fields
around English villages, before the enclosures. Every villager would graze his
or her animals on the common. Let’s say each villager has five animals, and the
common could sustainably support five hundred animals. One villager may think,
‘If I graze six animals, nothing bad will happen.’ And that’s true, with one
extra animal. But it’s also true that if every villager thinks and acts that way,
there will a hundred too many animals, the common will be overgrazed, and the
village will suffer.
A real life example happens with modern national
healthcare systems. Your grandmother is suffering from some rare condition, and
the doctors say that if they apply a very expensive treatment, they can cure
her, and she’ll live a few more years. What do you say? Of course, you say yes.
Everyone does, which is why healthcare has grown to consume thirty percent of
the US GDP. Now, health and long life are good things, but—as with the
commons—resources are finite. What happens is that health costs crowd out other
common goods, like education, social welfare, and public libraries. In fact, in
places like Oregon, with high percentages of retired people, schools are
seriously suffering as the ageing population votes again and again for more
health, and less schools.
At some point, in these systems, people will be faced
with very difficult decisions —either individually or collectively. Do I choose
not to accept very expensive treatments late in life, because I am
‘overgrazing’ the commons? Do I put aside my own interests, in favour of the
next generation? And most important: what
are other ways in which I can meet my needs, which do not have this impact when
replicated by all my friends?
In Subud, most members seek to tread an individual
path. Not satisfied with conventional spiritual offerings, they chance upon the
latihan. Now they start to practice. They have experiences. They’re curious.
Who do they turn to for answers? Of course: the founder, Pak Subuh. He tells
them what he knows, and what he thinks. Now each person thinks they are acting
individually. And they feel they are getting individual benefit. But what they
do not see is the overall effect of this.
Let’s examine a simple case: name-change. The
wonderful Halimah Collingwood told me the story that one day at the Anugraha
Congress, she turned up at a meeting, to find that the majority of the women
there had the name ‘Halimah’—or its variant, ‘Halima’. They were bemused by
this, and established a tradition, at every Congress, of the Halima(h)
luncheon—all the Halima(h)s together. Now I think this is an incredibly warm,
funny and adaptive response to a funny situation.
One result of this tradition is that at the Spokane
Congress, a local reporter heard about this, and asked for an interview. As
part of the interview, the reporter took a photo of all the Halima(h)s, with
the caption: ‘First row: Halima, Halimah, Halimah, Halima, etc. Second row:
Halimah, Halima, Halimah, Halima…and so forth.’
So for an individual, it may make sense to change
one’s name as part of a process of personal transformation. It’s also true that
of all the different cultural tools for effecting personal transformation,
name-change is much favoured in Java, and little-favoured in the West. It may
also make sense for that person to ask for advice from someone to choose a
name. But when many individuals all adopt a Javanese practice, asking the same
person to name them (or their children), the result can look like just the
opposite to an individual spiritual path: it can look like an Islamic cult or a
Javanese sect.
A little more complex case: harmony. Few of us enjoy
conflict. Surely, any spiritual path should offer a reduction of conflict.[4]
Once again, it makes sense in seeking a solution to take the lead from the
founder. The anthropological texts on Javanese culture tell us that harmony is
the prime Javanese mystical value, and that this translates into the Javanese
approach to governance. So from Pak Subuh’s perspective, he’s giving good
advice—as he knows it, within his cultural frame. Again, when many individuals
take the lead from one person, they will start to manifest similarities. As a
result ‘harmony’ becomes a frequently manifested Subud value.
There are several problems with pulling ‘harmony’ out
of its Javanese context, and inserting it into a Western context:
The Javanese mystical and political philosophy of harmony works when
combined with other components of Javanese culture, including (a) childhood
training to be self-effacing and non-confrontational in interpersonal dealings,
(b) strongly hierarchical social relations, with deference ‘upwards’, and (c) a
practice of consensus-building under strong patriarchal leadership. These do
not necessarily exist in the Western cultural context.
It involves a turning away from the equally profound, equally deep,
and—more important, far more accessible and culturally appropriate—Western
cultural tools for minimising, managing and alleviating the consequences of
conflict. I personally believe that much of the entrenched conflict I see in
Subud could have been resolved years ago if people had availed themselves of
what is readily available. I also see that those individuals in Subud who use
those Western techniques (psychologists and management consultants) are indeed
as adept at conflict management within Subud, as they are outside of it.
Again, the source of the problem lies in the mechanics
of the tragedy of the commons: what makes sense for an individual, may have
unintended side-effects when multiplied. In setting up a Subud group, or Subud
governance, it’s perfectly natural for those doing the setting up to seek
advice. It’s also natural for them to turn to the founder for advice. And
finally, it’s perfectly sensible for that founder to give advice, in accordance
with his best knowledge and experience.
But when we step back and look at the whole, what we
see is thousands of individual members going to one person for advice, and that
one person comes from a different culture. The effect of that larger pattern of
interactions is to imbue Subud governance with the concept of ‘harmony’—a concept
that is very Javanese in tenor, and which cannot necessarily be made to work
well in a Western cultural context.
Where to from here?
If we want to leave behind any image of Subud as a
cult, then:
We need to be both aware and wary of the processes of cultural
diffusion, the charismatic authority, and the influences of our own history. We
have to become, in fact, what we always claim that Subud is (but in fact is not
yet): a spiritual exercise open to all comers, free of dogma, teaching, and
religious conflict.
We need to avoid the tragedy of the commons, and follow our individual
paths not only with reference to ‘Does this work for me?’ but also to ‘Does
what I am doing work for my community, if thousands do what I do?’
Dealing with cultural diffusion and
charismatic authority
We are caught in a number of double binds, in which
our stated values are in conflict with our history: our Javanese history, and
our Coombe history. It seems to me that we need to simply acknowledge these
histories openly, and deal with them openly. As long as they remain covert,
they will cause us trouble, and lead us to look like (and maybe even be) a
cult.
On the one hand, we have labelled Subud, so publicly
and so often, ‘not a religion’ and ‘not a teaching’, that it’s very difficult
to know what to do with Pak Subuh’s talks, which are certainly religious and
certainly teachings. It doesn’t take much investigation to discover that the
experiences, world-view, advice, values, theology and cosmology which inform
the talks are—unsurprisingly—very Javanese. All we need to do is overtly
acknowledge that these are the explanations of the founder, framed within his
Javanese religious world-view.
Once we acknowledge this, all kinds of problems melt
away:
Such an acknowledgement clarifies why some people find parts of the
talks alien or offensive. Why would they not? If you understand Pak Subuh’s
talks as imbued with the world-view of another culture, then of course there
are aspects of that culture which will not agree with your own. Big deal. What
else would you expect?
Such an acknowledgement would make it clear both why the founder’s talks
might be of interest (they are, after all, the founder’s point of view!) but
also why they are in no way binding, nor constitute a dogma. In fact, because
they are framed within a particular religion, they cannot be Subud dogma,
because Subud is not a religion, and is open to all.
Such an acknowledgement would also defuse the conflict with religion
that has messed things up for a number of members. We can say that we are
publishing these talks not because we are trying to promote the religious ideas
they contain (which is the assumption, for instance, of two State Governments
in Malaysia), but merely to make available the views of the founder, without
endorsing in any way his religious ideas, nor indeed those of any person or
religion.
In making clear the distinction between the religious views of the
founder (you can find them in the talks) and the religious views of Subud
(none, thank you very much), we also start to dispel what Lilliana has called
an absence of integrity, and Helen the ‘bait and switch’.
At the same time, we need to address the messianism
that comes out of the Coombe history. This is a little more complicated,
because on the one hand, everyone has their own religious beliefs. On the
other, within Subud, everyone also has the right not to have someone else’s
religion imposed upon them, either overtly, or unconsciously, or through the
Subud organisation. To abide by our own published values, we need to maintain a
situation where all religious beliefs are treated with equal respect, and none
are allowed to dominate.
The conflicts arise as follows:
Some members believe that Pak Subuh was sent by God, or was the
recipient or possessor of some kind of higher knowledge. These beliefs in
effect make him a messenger (a role which he seemed to struggle with in his
talks, at times affirming and at other times denying it), and ipso facto
constitute the establishment of a new religion. From this perspective, all of
what I previously said about dealing with the Javanese historical influence
makes no sense, because what we are hearing in the talks is not Javanese
religion, but divine inspiration.
Other members believe no such thing, and feel directly the ongoing
impact of the ‘bait and switch’. They were attracted to Subud in part at least
because it claims not to be a religion, but they find instead a religion
complete with prophet, scriptures, and injunctions prefaced by ‘Bapak says…’. They
cannot honestly promote Subud, because of the ‘bait and switch’. The problem
for newcomers is the same: they are not told what they are buying into. If they
have a religion, then likely the teachings they find promoted within Subud will
be in conflict. They will be members of an organisation that is constantly
investing money in the promotion of theological and cosmological teachings to
which they may take strong exception.
I think we need to discuss this situation openly. If
we can resolve it, I believe it will have a profoundly liberating effect on the
possibilities for Subud in the world. I believe the outcome of such a dialogue
could have significant implications for the way we operate, with benefits for
all.
Dealing with the tragedy of the
commons
Do you drink the coffee,
or does the coffee drink you?
—Joke once current among Subud members
Copying from one person: that’s
plagiarism;
copying from many: that’s research.
—Joke still current among university
students
In editing earlier drafts of this paper, my fellow
editors kept on at me: ‘Isn’t the point that you can hold any belief you want;
just don’t pressure others to agree with you?’ and ‘It's not about getting
individuals to give up their beliefs; it's about getting the organisation to
stop promoting them, while at the same time preserving the historical record
for those who want it.’
But this section is very much about giving up beliefs.
The way that the tragedy of the commons works is that as long as seventy percent
of Subud members (say) believe in seven heavens, or life forces, or that
everything is divided into inner and outer, then Subud will continue to take on
the tenor of a Javanese sect, because knowingly or not, for better or worse,
that is where such beliefs come from.
The question then becomes: ‘Is it good for Subud to
look like that? Is it in accordance with its stated aims and ideals?’
If the answer to that is ‘no’, then the next question
is: ‘How can we change that?’ I believe that the answer to that is: ‘We can
only change that if each of us starts to change our beliefs.’ As long as each
villager overgrazes his or her bit of the commons, the commons will suffer. In
Subud, overgrazing means to draw one’s beliefs from the same source, thus creating
an imbalance in the set of beliefs current within Subud: too reflective of one
Indonesian island; not reflective enough of the full spectrum of the world’s
beliefs; too alienated (in most countries) from the particular society in which
Subud is operating.
Since beliefs are not lightly arrived at, what could
this possibly mean, in practice? To answer that, let me sketch a process.
1. I assume at the beginning that you
acquired your beliefs through a considered and responsible process, and not
just because The Boss (as Mardiyah Tarantino called him) told you to. You
accepted certain beliefs because they made sense in terms of your own
experience, and helped you on your way.
2. The Subud saying ‘Do you drink the
coffee, or does the coffee drink you?’ means: ‘Who’s in charge here, you or
your desire for the coffee? Who’s running your life?’ If we take this into the
realm of belief, we might ask, ‘Do you hold the belief, or does the belief hold
you?’ One way to find out is to ask: ‘Are you able to let go of the belief?’
3. Beliefs have positive value. They can
help us make sense of our experience. They can help us to grow in ways that
otherwise might be difficult. The question then isn’t letting go of a belief in
favour of no belief. (To my knowledge, no human has no beliefs: to be human is
to believe.) Rather, the question is: is there another belief that might serve
this same purpose for me; to make sense of my experience, and help me grow?
4. Where will we find such related beliefs?
One of the nice things about the religion of Java is that it is syncretic—it is
a mish-mash (harmonious, no doubt!) of other religions: animist, Hindu,
Buddhist, Sufi, Islamic. Thus, one can find in Kejawen and in Pak Subuh’s talks
the threads of other traditions. By following these threads, one can find a
deeper understanding of the concepts to which Pak Subuh alludes. I give two
examples in Note [5].
5. By turning from the reliance on a single
source (plagiarism, as the joke goes), to many sources (research, so the joke
goes), one can not only understand better the tradition from which Pak Subuh is
speaking, and thereby the meaning of his words, but one also starts to connect
to the broader traditions of mankind, and in so doing, focus less on one man,
and more on the broad river of human insight as embodied in many religions.
This section is in essence a request to go past Pak
Subuh’s talks to the traditions to which those talks allude. By going further,
you not only help yourself, and expand upon what has been helpful to you; you
also help Subud, by broadening it away from Bapak-centrism, to a real
connection with the religious, spiritual and mystical traditions of ‘all of
humankind’.
Becoming ordinary
In Bennett’s book, one thing that impressed him about
Pak Subuh was his ‘ordinariness’. I think ordinariness has merit. If spiritual
growth has to do with susila budhi dharma—then it is not necessary to encumber
oneself with alien clothes, alien words, alien theologies, or alien value
systems. An American Subud member who has really ‘got it’ might be
distinguished solely by her being an American with the qualities ‘susila’, ‘budhi’, and ‘dharma’ (or
should we say ‘of good character, refined insight, and attuned to the way the
universe works’, whether you attribute that to God or not). No baggage.
Similarly a truly American Subud might also appear
very ordinary—but at the same time very excellent. There are, for instance, an
amazing array of democratic forms of governance in the United States. I was in
Massachusetts recently, and was introduced to the ‘town hall’ meeting, and the
strengths, weaknesses and history of that particular form. It seems to me that
an American Subud serves Subud very well when it takes American forms and
invests them with quality. (I’m thinking just now of a hamburger I had in
Skymont in 1970—possibly the best hamburger I ever had.) An American Subud that
exemplifies the best in American culture, but done with exceptional quality,
would lead observers to say ‘Man, this is how things should be
done in America!’ In other words, Americans might see in
Subud how to be an exemplary human being without in any way ceasing to be an
American or having to become a faux Javanese in either form or belief.
We will never to get to this if we keep on copying the
forms of another culture. Learning from other cultures is great. But the
difference between plagiarism and research is: are we learning from just one
source, or from many?
Notes
1. A broader range of topics sampled in the
Subud USA circular on Pak Subuh’s talks:
The story of the seven heavens and the
angels, and why God created God’s will within human beings • Why people
are unable to find one path to God for all humankind • … • Why God created
angels • How the will of God was placed in all things—including human
beings—and what stops you from being able to experience it • How the one
human race became divided into many, and the need to reunite them within
ourselves • The reason why God has given us the latihan now • How the form
of God’s gift changed in keeping with the ages • What the letter alif and
the sign of the cross symbolise • Where Islam and Christianity came from
• … • How what happens as a baby grows up affects that person’s belief in
God, heaven and the angels • The reason why, in the latihan, we learn
everything again • How some stones, plants and animals are considered to
be of more value than human beings • … • How not to be affected by demons
• … • Why human beings were placed in this world, and what happens
when they leave it • The story of God creating the seven heavens, the
angels, and why God placed God’s will in everything He created • What is
necessary in order to reach God • How you will know when you have reached the
level of having a genuine human soul • How you can know if counsel is
coming from God • … • The story of the angels and why God’s will was
manifested in human beings • … • Why the angels could not go with the
prophets on their journey to God • How surrendering, being cleaned by and
following God’s will affects a person’s reaction to illness and sadness
• Why the latihan is easy to receive, and why it is wrong to do strange
things to try to get to know God’s power • What the latihan will give us
in our work • Why people sing in church and the mosque.
2. See for example: http://www.unification.net/ws/theme036.htm
3. An extract from Chapter 2 of Concerning Subud:
In the present chapter, I shall give an
account of the experiences that led me by the end of 1955 to expect that in the
near future an important event connected with the New Epoch was to occur in
England, and that this event would be heralded by the arrival from the East of
a man endowed with special powers…. In one of her later books, The Reappearance of the Christ,
published in 1948, Alice Bailey declared boldly that throughout the world
preparations were being made for the Second Coming of Christ who would appear,
not alone, but with helpers with different degrees of spiritual power…. The
second coming is imminent and, from the lips of disciples, mystics, aspirants,
spiritually-minded people and enlightened men and women, the cry goes up, ‘Let
light and love and power and death fulfil the purpose of the Coming One.’…When
we bring together the various threads, we can see that the human race is about
to enter a new Epoch, and that people are looking for an inward change rather
than for some reform of the outer life…. The prediction embodied in this
passage was to be fulfilled within ten years—much sooner than I myself dared to
expect…. Finally, in September 1956, I met Rofé himself, and was confronted
with the question whether or not his Master or Guide, Muhammad Subuh, was the
one whose coming Gurdjieff and others had prophesied.
4. Personally, I’m not so sure that seeking
conflict-reduction in itself is a worthwhile end. The lives of the Abrahamic
prophets were full of highly dramatic conflict, without which the stories of
their lives would have been less significant. The Hindu Mahabharata is the
story of conflict, its centrepiece a war, and the centre of the war a dialogue
on human duty in the face of conflict. In the modern science of post-conflict
peace-building, conflict is understood as a necessary and unavoidable aspect of
human life. The emphasis is away from conflict-avoidance, and even from
conflict-resolution (some conflicts cannot be resolved), and towards ensuring
that (a) the nature of the conflict is understood, and (b) it is worked through
in a way in which no harm is done.
5. Two
examples of following Pak Subuh’s allusions to their source:
(a) Emptiness
Some of Pak Subuh’s talks concern
‘emptiness’.
Pak Subuh’s engagement with emptiness is
not a casual one. Long before Subud was called Subud, it was called Ilmu
Kasunyatan. The ‘sunyata’ in
the second word is a Sanskrit word, and means emptiness. It is a central
concept of Mahayana Buddhism. In Mahayana Buddhism, the central truth is to
realise that all phenomena are empty of inherent meaning, or of permanence.
Realising this allows one to let them go, and thereby cease to be controlled by
an attachment to the ten thousand things.
What one gets from Pak Subuh’s explanations
of emptiness, one might also get in great depth from Buddhist texts on sunyata. From sunyata, one can be led to other understandings present in Buddhism which shine
a unique light on ‘emptiness’ but in fact are not touched upon by Pak Subuh because
he was, after all, just one human.
(b) Providence
Pak Subuh also makes allusions in a number
of place to the notion that God will take care of you. A narrow interpretation
of this is that God will take care of some people. A broader interpretation of
this is found in Christianity, in the concept of ‘providence’. Perhaps the most
famous and lyrical expression of this is in the Sermon on the Mount:
So why do you worry about clothing?
Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin;
and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like
one of these. Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and
tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of
little faith?
Here we see too a Christian expression of
surrender, which is free of that awful English connotation of ‘passivity’ or
‘giving up’, but which focuses instead on freedom from fear, on trust, and
understanding the world as gift.
If we confine ourselves to Pak Subuh’s
attempts to explain these deep spiritual truths, we remain disconnected from
the broad river of human understanding which is available to us. When we
reconnect with that river, we can tap into Buddhism, to Christianity, and to
many other pools of understanding. Doing that not only helps us each
individually. It helps Subud move away from cultish parochialism, towards
inter-religious dialogue.