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Ramon Kubicek - Boushma

Subud Petrification. From Sahlan Diver, October 18, 2007. Time 23:48

Ramon

To quote from your article "We rationalize our misconduct and sloppiness and give it special names like “crisis” and “purification”. We separate ourselves from the world by suggesting that ... being “opened” our inner natures are moved by divine guidance and so our stubbornness is actually strength, our indolence is surrender, our judgment of others is really perception, our feelings about life are not just feelings, but “receiving” direct from the source. However, were that to be true, surely there would be more concrete evidence, other than people’s intense convictions."

For those members who read and are happy with Bapak's explanations of the lower forces, isn't all this an example of the lower forces being supremely clever? They want to usurp the human soul's rightful place, but rather than just persuade us Subud members to be idle, judgemental, arrogant in a normal, average-Joe way, they give us a special "spiritual" justification for it all. We can behave like this "because it is meant", "because we must be patient", "because it's all part of God working out his plan for Subud", "because we should just mind our own business and do our latihan diligently". So the great potential threat to the supremacy of the lower forces, the latihan, which should be a source of life, growth and individuality, becomes a means for petrification, to make Subud a dead and constricted thing with very little long-term prospects, outside of the imagination.

From Marcus Bolt, October 19, 2007. Time 9:15

That's a neat way to put it, Sahlan. And interestingly, I read in 'Bapak's Advice and Guidance for Helpers' (1988 Edition) that the real meaning of 'opening' (where DID that odd word spring from?) is 'to release or relieve the pressure of the nafsu always exerted on the self...' (Ibid: Page 62) And, as we know, it's the lower forces that detrimentally use the nafsu (passions) - it's OK if the jiwa uses them. That's my take on the 'cosmology', anyway.

Secondly, great use of the word 'petrification'. It stems from the Latin petrus, a rock. (Calcification would be good, too). In other words, it's the bad old material forces turning hearts to stone. Bad, that is, in the sense of being in the wrong place, just as weeds are flowers in the wrong place and animals are vermin when they get in the larder.

Ain't nothing bad, essentially, in a cathedral, a great piece of sculpture, money for our kids' education and so on.

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