Designing the New
By
Sahlan Diver
Document Version 2.0 22-Oct-12
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Introduction
This is the second version of an
article presenting an outline description of a new organisation for the latihan, based on ideas that have come out of recent
discussions.
The
original document was less than clear on the spiritual aspects of the
proposed new organisation, so it has been re-written with added information in
the hope of avoiding any misunderstanding.
Scope of the document
The document tries to cover the content of
recent discussions on the subject of a new latihan organisation and tries to
provide a comprehensive summary of the required characteristics of such an
organisation.
It is important to appreciate that there
is a difference between the internal detail of something and the way that
something is experienced by its consumers. For example, a huge amount of
technical, management and financial expertise goes into an airline flying
people across the world, but from the point of view of the passengers none of
that is of direct interest -- all they want is comfort, good food and drink,
and a swift, safe journey. Similarly, this document is engaged with designing
the internal detail of a new organisation. It is a necessarily long
document. For those who have difficulty extrapolating from the detail to
imagining how the new
organisation might be experienced by the average latihan
practitioner, there are provided some imaginary case-studies that show how
simple it all is in practice.
Intended Audience
It is expected that the document will be
of interest to three main audiences:
1) Subud members who are disenchanted with
Subud, for whatever reason, and are looking for a new organisation under the
auspices of which they can do latihan with others.
2) Subud members who are concerned that
the formation of a new organisation might disadvantage Subud, and wish to be
informed about the plans currently being made.
3) Open-minded Subud members interested in
how it might be possible to 're-package' the latihan, independent of Subud and
Bapak's teachings.
Nature of the new organisation
It should be stressed that what is being
planned is not a "breakaway" Subud, not a 'Subud-with-all-the-faults-put-right';
rather there are ideas for a completely new form of latihan organisation, which
will be unlike Subud in many respects.
Future Developments and
Timetable
The small group of people who have been discussing
the new organisation in depth since the beginning of this year will probably
widen out the discussion to invited contributors via a special web site being
planned. Later the discussion may be widened out further so that anyone can
participate. It's possible that the new organisation may be formed quite soon,
say within a year.
Contents
To aid readability, the article is divided
up into themed sections, as follows:
· Characteristics
· Names
· Form
· Membership
· Spirituality
· Principles
· Beliefs
· Aims
· Aspirations
· Tradition
· Implementation
· Testing
· Applicant Period and Opening Words
· Structure and Reporting
· Legalities
· Authentication
· Objections
· Case Studies
· Starting Up
· Conclusion
· Appendices
o What has been agreed
o Describing the Latihan
o Some miscellaneous comments
o Mini discussions
o A final thought
Many sections are sub-divided into a
numbered sequence of statements, with typical questions raised, and the answers
to those questions.
Disclaimer
Although this article reports on recent
discussions, it very much represents the author's opinions on those
discussions. Other discussion participants may disagree with some of my
conclusions.
CHARACTERISTICS
The new latihan organisation should
possess these key characteristics:
a) Lightweight - latihan practitioners should
not be burdened with excessive
procedures and obligations - whether administrative or personal. The
organisation exists to facilitate the practice of the latihan - no more than
that.
b) Non-prescriptive - the organisation has
no business to preach, to recommend, or to favour, any beliefs, teachings,
spiritual advice, morality systems or personal behaviours. It is neutral on all
these matters. The corollary is that individual latihaners should feel free to
reasonably express their beliefs and opinions about the latihan, without
organisational favour or censure.
c) Flexible - the organisation must be
adaptable to the differing sizes and circumstances of its constituent groups.
For example, a small isolated group of family members does not need the same
organisational structure as a large city group.
d) Dynamic - Instead of the imposition of
"one-size-fits-all" procedures, groups should have the freedom to
experiment, within reason, with their local arrangements. The organisation as a
whole will benefit by encouraging the creativity of its members. Innovation is more likely to proceed when it
is bottom-up, by experiment and proven example, rather than top-down by
imposition of rules.
e) Effective - To have a raison d'etre,
the organisation must be more than just a nominal collection of latihan groups.
It needs to provide facilities, services and support that individual groups can
benefit from but would not be able to provide on their own.
f) Safeguarded - The organisation needs sufficient
constraints and adequate means of enforcing those constraints that it can't be
derailed or diverted by individuals or cliques seeking to push their own
agenda. At the same time the organisation must not possess undue powers. Governance has to be done in such a way that
it is by consent, not by sufferance, of the organisation's members.
NAMES
1) Name of the new
organisation
No name has been decided yet. There have
been some suggestions ( e.g. "The International Latihan Network"). For
the purposes of this article, we will refer to the organisation as "The
Latihan Association", or as "The Association" for short. (We
were going to use "The Latihan Federation", but the shortened form,
"The Federation", sounds like something out of "Star
Wars". )
Would the proposed association
use the name "Subud"?
No. For two reasons. Firstly, the new
organisation will be fully independent of and operate quite differently from
Subud. Therefore it would be misleading to use the word Subud as part of the
name. Secondly, the name "Subud" is a registered trademark and can
only be used by Subud.
Would the proposed association
use the "Subud" symbol?
For reasons of copyright, and because the
new organisation would not be based on any cosmology or belief system (i.e. the
seven levels), the new organisation would not adopt the Subud symbol.
Would the proposed association
use the term "latihan"?
An advantage of the word
"latihan" is that, at least outside of Indonesia, it is a jargon word
that has no unwelcome implications. Even a seemingly harmless alternative, like
"spiritual exercise", can be open to objection on a number of
grounds. However, at this stage it cannot be stated categorically whether the
word "latihan" would be used to describe the latihan exercise or not.
FORM
2) The new association can
never be an alternative Subud
Subud is a spiritual association, but
nobody, however much they are disenchanted with Subud, will want to join Joe Blogg's
spiritual association, or a new type of spiritual association designed by an
arbitrary committee. The spiritual aims of Subud get their authority from the
perceived spiritual status of Bapak. No contrived, alternative set of spiritual
aims could garner widespread acceptance and support, so no point in trying.
3) The new association will be
a service organisation
In Subud probably the majority of members
are "just there for the latihan". Only a minority dedicate time
enthusiastically to the aims of Subud. The new association will recognise this
phenomenon and will exist only to provide a service - the provision and support
of the latihan.
What's the justification for
the term "service organisation" ?
We are using the term "service
organisation" in its broadest sense to mean an organisation that is
providing latihan facilities as a service rather than as part of a movement
with spiritual aims. Individual practitioners are still free to regard the
latihan as being spiritual, but the organisation does not concern itself with
that, it is only concerned with making the latihan available.
Exactly how many services
would the association provide?
We repeat we are using the term
"service organisation" in its broadest sense. It should not be taken
to imply the burden of provision of a large number of services. In fact, it is
expected that the new organisation will have a lesser burden than Subud. For
example, helpers in Subud often act as personal advisers and counselors. The
equivalents of the helpers in the new organisation are expected to deal with latihan-related matters only.
"Service
organisation" sounds rather impersonal. Wouldn't it be somewhat unfriendly
compared to Subud?
In Subud, because of people's involvement
in the various ventures and initiatives inspired by Bapak's vision, many close
friendships have been built up over the years. On the other hand, not everyone
has enjoyed Subud in this way. There are many who never subscribed to Bapak's
teachings or ideals, who have felt very much on the edge of things, and maybe
it's even possible that large numbers have left Subud because they haven't
fitted well into the Subud mould.
By not requiring any allegiances or
commitments the new association may
turn out to have the advantage of allowing people to be fully themselves, so
what at first sight may seen somewhat impersonal could provide a framework
where people can relate to each other naturally, without feeling
straight-jacketed.
Would there be national and
regional sub-organisations?
Initially the aim will be to get a few
groups going, regardless of country. The Association would have a web site that
will help to coordinate international efforts. If the organisation grows, there
may arise sub-divisions, but the emphasis would be on keeping everything simple
at first.
MEMBERSHIP
Warning:
The next few statements, about the nature
of membership of The Association might seem to some to be unnecessarily
theoretical. They are in fact fundamental, and should be read carefully. The section
is not long, and it is summarised at the end. Everything else in this document
is built round and flows from understanding the distinctions made in these few
statements.
4) The Latihan Association
will not offer individual membership
Here's the problem. A group of people want
to offer membership of a new organisation. How do they devise a set of aims
that people would be happy to sign up to?
Subud didn't have this problem because it had a founding authority
figure who decided what the aims of the organisation should be. Clearly an
arbitrary group of individuals setting up a new organisation is not going to be
able to present a set of aims with the same kind of authority as Bapak. Even if
such a group were to agree amongst themselves, how certain could they be that
other individuals would be happy to sign up?
The solution to this problem is: "no
individual membership of the organisation". Thus, there are no principles
or aims for an individual to personally agree or sign up to. Not providing individual membership has the
further advantage of removing any appearance of, or tendency to be, a cult. You
can do latihan without being required to join anything or to give allegiance to
somebody else's ideas.
How can you have an
association without members?
We are not saying there will be no
members, just no members who are individuals.
5) The Latihan Association
will have group membership
The local latihan group organisations will
be the members of The Association.
(Note that we use the word "group"
here in its broadest sense to mean a group of people in the same geographical
area who have organised themselves to do regular latihan together. There is no implication of property
ownership -- they may own a premises, or they may latihan in hired premises, or
just in each other's homes)
What's the difference between
an individual being a direct member of The Association and an individual being
a member of it as part of a group?
We repeat that The Association will not
offer individual membership. You cannot be a member of The Association in any
form, including "as part of a group". It is the group organisation, as normally represented by the
group committee, that will be the member of The Association.
The distinction between an individual,
and an organisation that includes individuals, is widely understood
outside of a Subud context. For example, a company or corporation has a
separate legal identity and has different legal obligations from the employees
of that same company. This commonplace distinction is perhaps not so easily
understood in Subud, whose members have been taught to believe that everything
their organisation does is merely an extension of the sum of its individual
members' spiritual states.
6) Local latihan groups will
offer individual membership
For insurance reasons, for security in a
large group, or maybe because of local laws, a local latihan centre will
probably be obliged to run a membership scheme. i.e. in order to do latihan at
a group you'd need to become a member. So
whereas the Latihan Association does not offer individual membership, it
is expected that each local group will offer individual membership.
So we're back to individuals
becoming members?
Yes, but not in the same way as in
Subud. Membership of Subud is a bit
like membership of a political party. It implies alignment to a set of aims and
ideas (as represented in Subud by the meaning of the name "Susila Budhi
Dharma" and by the spiritual cosmology portrayed by the Subud symbol). You
join Subud primarily, and your membership of a local group is a secondary
consequence.
The Latihan Association turns this on its
head. It does not have any aims or ideas that it requires an individual to sign
up to. Local membership of a group is
more like membership of a gym.
Let's look further at the gym example: It
may be that there is a national gymnasium association that all the gyms in a
country belong to. However someone using a gym just gets a membership card for
their local gym. Membership of a gym does not imply signing up to any ideas and
aims of the national association; membership is just a convenience, an
entitlement to use the gym's facilities.
Membership of a Latihan Association group would be similar - an
entitlement to do latihan at the group -- you join the latihan group - it is
only secondary that you are joining a group whose organisation happens to be a
member of the Latihan Association.
Could group members latihan at
other Latihan Association groups?
It is expected that the Association will
require, within reason, that its member groups will allow individuals from
other Latihan Association groups to latihan with them.
We say "within reason" because
we should never be dictatorial; we should recognise there always have to be
exceptions. A group of frail elderly people would probably not want to invite
visitors (there is actually in Subud a group where this same restriction has
been applied for decades). A family group latihaning only at home might not
want to invite strangers into their home. And so on.
Could visiting Subud members
latihan at Latihan Association groups?
Within the provisos above, it is expected
that the Association will require member groups to allow Subud members to
latihan with them also. Remember that the Association does not discriminate
against people on the basis of their beliefs, so it is of no consequence to the
Association if visitors having the Subud belief system want to latihan at an
Association group.
Could interested Subud groups
also become members of the Latihan Association?
In theory they could, but it will be seen
when reading down this document that many of Subud's operational procedures are
in direct contradiction to the proposed principles of the Latihan Association, so
that a Subud group is unlikely to meet the criteria for membership unless of
course it was willing to align its operations to the principles of the Latihan
Association, which might then bring it into conflict with Subud.
Summary
To summarise so far
(it's very simple:)
The Latihan Association
has
its members
which
are local latihan group organisations.
Each local latihan group
has
its members
who
are individual latihan practitioners.
Membership of a latihan group is a matter
of expediency, as described above. The
individual member of a latihan group has no obligation to the Latihan
Association. Similarly the Latihan Association has no direct obligation to the
individuals who belong to its member groups.
SPIRITUALITY
The question of the place of
"spirituality" in the Latihan Association has been a vexed question.
It led, in the first version of this article, to much misunderstanding, so this
section has been added to clarify matters.
Will the new association be a
"spiritual association"?
Subud is a spiritual association. The
Subud symbol represents Bapak's explanations of the spiritual world, and the
name Subud is a contraction of words representing the three qualities members
are supposed to aspire to. Remember that in his talks Bapak constantly refers
to members aspiring to "be" Susila Budhi Dharma. The name is more than just a label; it
represents a spiritual goal.
As already hinted, no "Joe
Bloggs", nor any committee of Joe Bloggs's, is going to be able to draw up
a list of spiritual aspirations that would have the same authority as Bapak.
Even if the founders tried very hard to come up with a set of general-purpose
aspirations, the likelihood is there will always be those who say those
aspirations won't fit with their religion or personal philosophy. Also, since the Latihan Association is being
formed by people who mainly want to get away from the teacher-follower
situation of Subud, it would seem ridiculous for them to immediately be setting
themselves up as originators and guardians of a new spiritual creed.
What do you mean by
"spiritual"?
That's a good question, which the author
would also like the reader to answer. I bet your definition of the word is
different from mine, maybe even quite a lot different. This shows a second problem
of The Association stating it is a spiritual association. Suppose someone turns
up at an enquirers' meeting or visits a web site and wants to know in what
sense we claim to be spiritual. This
can be a lot more tricky than it appears at first. Where is our evidence or
authority to claim that the latihan will benefit us in the after-life, since
none of us have died yet, nor have had a major ascension as Bapak claimed to
have had? And if we want to re-interpret "spiritual" as just meaning "making
us better people in this life", then, sure, individuals can offer their
own stories, but as regards official claims, we can't wheel out a nice,
official spiritual explanation of how the latihan works to make us better
people, for example there are these things called nafsus which are out of
place, the latihan life-force puts them back in order, and hey-presto you
become a new human being.
What I am trying to say is that if The
Association makes a claim that it is a spiritual association it has to
be able to back up its claim, and this is very difficult to do without
introducing some sort of authoritative teaching, which is the very situation
that its founders are trying to get away from.
"Spiritual" can be a
major turn-off
There's a third reason why it might not be
a good idea to claim the Latihan Association has the special characteristic of
being "spiritual". Admittedly for some this is an attractive
adjective, but for possibly a much greater number in today's world it is a
major turn-off, having connotations of preciousness, religiosity and maybe
already sounding the danger signal that what is on offer is, likely, a funny
cult or sect.
Remember that latihan practitioners
generally regard the latihan as coming from "beyond the mind", so in
that sense it works regardless of what you think it is, so putting obstacles in
the way of the practice by expecting people to align with one viewpoint or the
other seems fundamentally inappropriate.
I'll always think of the
latihan as spiritual whatever anyone tells me !
And so you may! The important distinction
made in the Membership section was that the Latihan Association does not offer
individual membership. Therefore, it has no influence over what individual
practitioners think of the latihan. If they want to bear witness that, in their
view, the latihan is a spiritual exercise, so be it. The Latihan Association will make no categorical official
statement that the latihan IS spiritual, but likewise, will it make no official
statement that the latihan IS NOT spiritual. It will be neutral on such
matters.
As described above, individuals cannot be
members, so they do not have to concern themselves with agreeing to this or
that philosophical / esoteric pronouncement. The personal philosophy of a
latihan practitioner is none of the Latihan Associations' business. The members
of the Latihan Association will be groups and its relationship with the groups
is in terms of maintaining the service of the provision of latihan. More of
that below.
Could a latihan association
that is not explicitly spiritual be viable?
John Elwyn Kimber discusses just this
question in his latest article, to which the reader is referred.
It's possible that without an attached
spiritual or religious element, or without the attached idealism of enterprise
and social welfare projects, or without the trappings of an exotic
mini-religion, or without an attached exclusive and cosy social scene, the
latihan by itself may have insufficient holding power to keep new people beyond
more than a "school term's"
duration. The jury's out on that one as far as this author is concerned.
The new association may have to be creative in the means by which it can keep
people interested long-term.
PRINCIPLES (of the Latihan
Association)
7) The Principles relate only
to the provision of a service
The word "Principles" can have a
connotation of people signing up to a personal code of behaviour. We definitely do not mean
"Principles" in that sense. Remember that the members of the Latihan
Association are not individuals, therefore the Association can apply no
principles to individual behaviour. The members of the Latihan Association are
groups, and the Principles we are talking about relate to provision of a
service by those groups.
What are the Principles?
No precise list has been firmed up yet,
but the final list will be probably be quite short, maybe somewhere between
five to ten principles, the minimum number that is necessary to describe the quality
of service that the Association expects its groups to provide.
Three principles were suggested initially:
1) The latihan will be provided without
any attached, recommended or favoured cosmological belief system or teaching.
The group organisation must not promote or recommend any such belief system,
nor should it censor any of its latihan practitioners against expressing their
personal beliefs about the latihan.
2) The group organisation has a duty of
care towards any of its practitioners who require assistance with any matter
regarding the latihan.
3) The group organisation has a duty of
care to enquirers to give them a proper introduction to the latihan, sufficient
for them to make an informed decision
as to whether they want to do latihan or not.
The wording of the above is somewhat
scratch. As we said, nothing has been firmed up yet, but note how the three
principles quoted refer only to the responsibilities of the group organisation.
They make no expectation of individuals latihaning at the group.
How would the principles be
applied in practice?
Let's take no. 3 above, the "duty of
care to enquirers". As with all things of this nature there is no hard and
fast right or wrong, but there will be procedures that are broadly unacceptable
and others that will be broadly unacceptable.
Suppose a group organisation decided that
it needed to meet an enquirer three times before it was ready for the enquirer
to join the latihan. Maybe in the first meeting, the enquirer gets a formal
explanation, maybe in the second they get to hear the opinions and experiences
of the latihan from individual latihaners, maybe the third meeting is a final
Q&A to make sure they are happy to start doing latihan. (This is just an
example, not a recommendation.) It's likely
that the Association would regard such a group as satisfying principle no. 3.
Another group might do things differently, having, say, two meetings, at both
of which the enquirer gets to meet a
mix of group officials and many other latihaners and ask questions. Again the
Association would probably regard such a group as also satisfying principle no.
3.
What the Association would almost
certainly not be satisfied with was a group where somebody was taken straight
into the latihan without enquiring of their background or expectations and
without offering any prior explanation. At the other extreme, the Association
would probably not be satisfied with a group that kept an enquirer waiting for
six months or so before it got round to organising the enquirer's first
latihan. Neither of these behaviours are likely to satisfy the principle of
duty of care.
What about the principle no.
2, of "duty of care" to existing practitioners?
We stress that this is meant to be limited
to matters relating to the latihan. For example, suppose somebody was being
woken at 4 a.m. each day by going into spontaneous latihan, they might be
worried and wish to seek advice on why this was happening. There is a duty of care for the group organisation
to provide advice and reassurance in a circumstance like that. However,
"duty of care" is not meant to cover non latihan-related activities
such as counseling somebody on a recent bereavement or losing their job.
What happens if members of a group
decide they disagree with one or more of the Association's principles?
Remember that the Principles are binding
on the group organisation, not individuals, so we are talking about the
situation when one or more individuals object to their group being run
according to the Association principles. An option open to them is to campaign
for a change to the principles they don't like. Periodically, the Association will schedule a debate on its
principles and aims with the groups
voting for or against any proposed changes. In this way the groups are in
control of the Latihan Association, not the other way round.
Suppose the vote goes against the
proposers of a change in the Principles. What they then do, whether they stay
latihaning at their group, or leave in protest, is their decision. The
Association is only concerned with ensuring that groups implement the will of
the majority in terms of the Association's principles and aims, it is not
concerned whether individual members of groups happen to agree or not with the
principles and aims of the Association.
How are votes counted?
The members of the Association are groups,
not individuals. However, it seems unfair that a group of, say, three people
should have an equivalent vote to a group of, say, 200 people.
A suggestion is to base a group's voting
tally on the number of its members voting "yes", and the number of
its members voting "no". For example: if 60 members in a group of 100
vote "yes", and 10 vote "no", with 30 abstentions, then the
group's contribution to the total voting tally would be 60 "yes"
votes, and 10 "no" votes.
BELIEFS
Before going any further, some
clarification is needed of what this article means by "not promoting
beliefs", because past discussions on this point have caused some
confusion. Like a lot of English words, the word "belief" has several
applications of its meaning, so it is important to be clear, especially as
"belief" is a fundamental concept in spiritual and religious matters.
It's best to give an example:
· Many people take up yoga because they believe the claim that it's good
for their health.
· Many people take up meditation because they believe the claim that it
will help them to feel calmer and more centered.
· Many people do tai-chi or Qigong because they believe the claim that
these practices increase energy level.
None of these benefits involve believing
anything that you can't prove through your own experience.
What about the benefits people claim for
the latihan ?
These include:
· You will get a feeling of calmness and inner peace.
· Over time you will have more control over your emotions, less likely to
get unnecessarily angry, and so on.
· Your relationships with other people may improve.
· Various faults in your character may be eliminated over time.
These are all verifiable, or not, by a new
practitioner's own experience, and they are all good points in favour of the
latihan. More importantly these claims are unlikely to cause controversy and
discord amongst practitioners. If someone says they haven't felt the inner
peace aspect but they are sure the latihan has helped their marriage, and
another person says the latihan didn't stop them getting divorced but, on the
other hand, it did help them to cope with the divorce, there's hardly likely to
be any difficulty about this; we can accept that the latihan may affect people
differently, according to their personal makeup and their differing background
and life circumstances.
So in publicity material, the association
and/or its groups can certainly point out the most common benefits reported
by people who do latihan.
Where there is difficulty is when you
attempt to explain why the latihan has an effect:
· The atheist may want to say it is some inner psychological force that is
being released, some sort of wisdom of the subconscious.
· The mystic may say it's some universal life force.
· The religious person may say the force must be a direct gift of Almighty
God.
There's no harm in the association and/or
its groups suggesting the possible explanations, but it's clearly going
to be impossible to get a compromise, a kind of middle-way statement that will
please everybody. Much more intelligent, and inclusive, is to suggest several
alternatives and leave it to the individual to settle on any explanation that
satisfies them.
Subud has a back-story, that Bapak was a
great and holy person given a mission by Almighty God of bringing the latihan
into the world as a last chance to save mankind from the lower forces leading
mankind to destruction. The presence of
this back-story leads to the conclusion that, if Bapak was specially chosen, it
follows that he must be a high person and therefore we had better believe and
trust in everything he says. These beliefs - elevating the founder to guru
status, and making holy cows out of his suggestions - have been an ongoing
cause of confusion and disillusionment in Subud, both for applicants and for
members. The new association's principle about "not promoting
beliefs" refers to just this kind of belief -- belief in the rightness or
truth or a particular set of spiritual theories as promoted by one or more
spiritual teachers. The principle is intended to prevent just such a situation
arising again, to create a space for people to do latihan without implying an
obligation to study and respect a spiritual teacher and his teachings. What
remains are statements about verifiable benefits and speculative explanations
about what the latihan is in essence. Such reports of experiences and
individual explanations as to what the latihan might be (including Pak Subuh's
explanation) can be offered, but
in a way that is interesting and provocative without being dogmatic.
AIMS (of the Latihan
Association)
8) Aims are different from
Principles
Whereas principles relate to the standards
set in respect of the quality of the venture, aims are more related to what you
intend to achieve from a venture, what is the purpose of engaging in it.
Again no firm list of aims has been
established yet.
We repeat that we are talking about aims
of The Association. The Association has no business to dictate or imply
what the aims of an individual practitioner should be.
An example of an aim that has been
suggested is:
To
share the latihan as widely as possible.
Are the Association's aims
binding on its member groups?
The aims would be that of the Latihan
Association. Some groups might not have
the circumstances or resources to be actively engaged in the aims. For example,
a group of a few family members latihaning in their home would be
understandably cautious about publicity that might find them overwhelmed with
enquirers. The Association would expect its groups to support the aims, but
only within the context of each group's means to do so.
How would the latihan be
promoted?
This could be through newspaper
advertisements or an advert in the telephone directory, group web sites, a
radio interview, latihan practitioners giving the occasional public talk, and
so on; all the normal means of promoting, in fact.
A note of caution has been sounded by one
of the discussion contributors, who warns that it is very easy for promotion to
become proselytising. Even though the
Association might do its best to avoid any suggestion of religiosity or cultishness,
undue fervour for spreading the latihan can be just as off-putting and suspect
to an outsider as any blatant attempted religious conversion.
Other discussion contributors have been
sensitive on this same point. They feel that any advertising of the latihan,
whether in print or by personal encounter, should not make claims for supposed
benefits, such as "you will make spiritual progress", "the
latihan will benefit you after you have passed over", "the latihan
will improve your character", "the latihan could change the
world". We should instead be
taking a position more akin to "many people have tried this and found it
to have benefits for them. We are informing you of its existence because you
might like to try it too".
ASPIRATIONS
The following, written by John Elwyn Kimber,
I believe sums up a situation that members of the new organisation would like
to see aspired to:
" ...Even where an
individual acknowledges an influence or influences, as we all may, the question
of the correct blend of those influences and their relationship with the
individuated psyche is one that should not be short-circuited with
pre-conceived notions and dogmatic formulae. These may of course include being
dogmatically anti-dogmatic: so the essential rule is not to expect to be able
to avoid the influence of others, but to work through all influences and arrive
at one's own conclusions as to their relative value. Such influences may
include, of course, the views of Bapak on the inner life. But nothing can be
beyond question and examination. Durable values can neither be arrived at nor
conserved by blind faith in unexamined assumptions. An individual's inner truth
cannot be expressed in secondhand words. A latihaner may be influenced by many
things but is unlikely entirely to subscribe to any of them on the terms which
will usually be offered: suppression of doubt, blind acceptance for the sake of
group solidarity, and other such tests of 'loyalty'.
It has to be implicit that a
vital and authentic 'spirituality' needs to be radical, empirical, exploratory,
and therefore not constrained by pious precedent and foregone conclusion. ...
"
Some discussion contributors are concerned
that it is not enough for the Association to set standards for the group
organisations -- they say that unless standards of behaviour are expected of the
individual, in particular a standard of tolerance and respect for other
people's viewpoints, then the whole venture is likely to come to grief through
the disruption engendered by individuals attempting to dominate with their idea
of a "correct viewpoint" concerning the latihan.
This fear is understandable after the
experience of Subud, where anyone who speaks in criticism of the predominant
Bapak-originated ideas is likely to find their opinion marginalised or
summarily ignored, and where there is
strong peer pressure, through the official Subud press and through the helpers,
for people to read and respect Bapak's talks.
However I believe that any proposal to
require individual latihaners in the new Association to sign up to a code of
behaviour when they join their group would not only be very wrong, it will
would ultimately be ineffectual. Let me give the reasons why:
Firstly, here we are complaining that
Subud is straight-jacketed by a Bapak-based belief system, and immediately we
want to replace that with a code of our own devising. Please don't say to me
"well it would be optional" because that's exactly what many of us
have been complaining is the problem in Subud - a strong attachment to a set of
ideas, while simultaneously pretending "they aren't all that important,
really".
Secondly, if you ask me, "How could
you possibly object to principles of tolerance and respect for other people's
views?", you are thereby showing what is wrong with your proposal, because
frankly it's none of your business to enquire what my moral guidelines are and
whether I will or won't support this or that set of guidelines. None of that
should have relevance to my desire to do latihan. Suppose I am a Christian who
believes "Christ is the only way to God" and that the latihan is in
fact a manifestation of the Holy Spirit, am I to be prevented from doing the
latihan because I don't have the slightest interest in taking an inclusive
attitude to other spiritual ideas?
Getting people to sign up to a code of
behaviour won't work anyway. Sure, it would work for the reasonable people, but
the nature of the fervent person is to believe they have a God-given mission to
educate people as to "the truth". Being thus in contempt of reasonable
discussion, they'll similarly have no interest in honouring any aspirations
they once signed up to.
My belief is that the proposed structure
of the Latihan Association provides adequate means for dealing with individuals
or cliques who disrupt the intended inclusive nature of the group by pushing
their own spiritual agendas. When somebody becomes a member of a group, they
should be given a leaflet informing them that the group organisation is a
member of the Latihan Association, and supports the principles and aims of that
association, including the aim that no latihaner should be pressurised into
adopting any belief system. The leaflet will inform the latihaner that if they
are unhappy with any aspect of the group they have a right to make a formal
complaint to the group organisation, and, if the matter is not solved to their
satisfaction, they have a right of appeal to the Latihan Association itself.
Does the Latihan Association
have any powers to deal with disruptive individuals?
With individuals, no; because individuals
are not its members, but it can require the affected group organisation to take
action against the disruptive situation. The Association’s web-links will
enable those doing latihan to share experiences about resolving conflicts and
personality clashes, and to consult with other groups and individuals. In an
extreme case, when communication and mediation fails, then – as a final resort
– the group may threaten the disruptive individual with expulsion. Ultimately
if the group fails to act to effectively improve the situation then the
Association could threaten to expel that group as no longer upholding its
principles and aims.
This article has been mainly focused on
the disruption caused by people attempting to weave and promote a religion
around the latihan. There are of course other types of disruptive behaviour,
e.g. a person turning up for the latihan in a drunk and disorderly state, but
it is assumed the Association does not need any special principles for that to
be dealt with, that groups will have common-sense procedures, and rules where
necessary, for dealing with anti-social behaviour, as would any organisation.
How likely is it that a new
organisation would eventually become like Subud?
In the author's opinion, possible, but
unlikely, for a number of reasons.
Firstly, the Subud organisation give
strong tacit support to anyone who sticks to the party line. An individual with
a different viewpoint is not just up against people in their group who disagree
with them, they also have to face the weight of the entire organisation. The Latihan Association would be neutral on
viewpoints about the latihan and would neither lend nor withdraw support
because of somebody's viewpoint.
Secondly, if some groups of the Association
publicly advertise to get new members, there is every chance of an influx of
new members who from the start will be practising the latihan without a
teacher/guru background, and who would probably strongly resist any subsequent
attempt to introduce what they would see as an alien philosophy.
Thirdly, the Association's principles do
not require the provision of a Subud-like helper system. Meeting of enquirers,
assisting with testing, and so on, may be carried out by periodically voted-in
officials, or by volunteers on a rotation basis, whatever system the local
group has devised. So the Association groups would not have the dominance of
the helper-hierarchy and traditional helper viewpoint stifling freedom of
thought, that Subud has.
How does a group ensure that
its official representatives do not act out of line with the Association's
principles?
A group organisation should not seek to
control the reasonable expression of opinion by its members. However, when some
of those members are also group officials there is the issue of what happens if
an official speaks out of line.
How would it be distinguished between when
an official is merely giving a personal opinion and when they are making a
statement of official policy? Sometimes there is no clear distinction, but an
example of a situation that would not be acceptable is if an enquirer turns up
a group and hears a group official loudly proclaiming his/her personal opinion
that "people really should read
Pak Subuh's talks or their latihan won't progress" -- the enquirer could
be forgiven for thinking this was an officially approved statement.
One discussion contributor suggested all
officials should sign a pledge that during their term of office they will not
express any personal opinions about the latihan, whether acting in an official
capacity, or whether "off-duty". A pledge seems over-kill for a small
group, but maybe in a very large group of a hundred or more it is not such a
bad idea. For this reason, it's best if the matter is left to each group to
sort out according to its size, circumstances and local culture.
TRADITION
A valid and pertinent question is to ask
how the starting arrangements for latihan under the auspices of the new
Association should be decided. Should
there be two group latihans a week, three a week, or maybe only one a
month? Should men and women still
latihan separately? Should there be a quiet before latihan, should the latihan
still be 30 minutes? And so on. It has
been suggested that as well as the Principles that are binding on the groups,
the Association should also draw up a set of recommendations, which are based
on current best practice, but which are nevertheless non-binding. We can think of these recommendations as being
latihan "tradition".
How do you decide the recommendations?
Fortunately, with the background of 50 years of Subud, that is not so
difficult. It is all those things which are not contentious and which people
seem mainly to be happy to accept. It is interesting, for instance, that with
all the criticism of the Subud organisation on the Subud Vision web
site, there is almost no criticism of the latihan itself, or of the regular
arrangements for doing latihan.
We say the recommendations should be non-binding
because, although they would be offered in good faith on the basis of
experience, nobody is in a position to say that these practices must be
followed precisely, for ever and ever. It is expected that the guidelines would
be subject to review and the Association’s members may vote to change them in
various ways as time goes on, on the basis of the benefit of further
experience, and to adapt to the changing conditions of society in the future.
IMPLEMENTATION
This section should be much more detailed,
but, in the interests of brevity, it attempts to answer just a few common
questions about how the principles of The Latihan Association would be
implemented in practice by the member groups.
Would there be helpers?
To quote one of the discussion
contributors "Experienced members may act as helpers to assist newcomers.
Helpers are simply there to help; they are in no sense priests, ministers or
elders . . ." If elected by the
members the authority they have is not an authority over the members, but
rather an authority to act on behalf
of the members.
This again is a matter for the local
groups. Their system of care may be very similar to the helper system, or it
may be a rotating volunteer system, or some other system. Unlike in Subud,
helpers would have no influence on policy-making through testing (see below),
their job would be purely to assist individuals on latihan-related matters. The
term "helper" may, of course, be replaced by one that more
appropriately describes the new role.
Who would speak to enquirers?
As suggested near the start of this
article, this again is a matter for the local groups.
What about mixed latihans?
This may be a facility developed by one or
more groups. Whether it becomes an acceptable practice in the organisation may
depend, as with other matters of organisational policy, on a majority vote of
the group organisations.
TESTING
Here is a proposal from John Elwyn Kimber
about how the new organisation should regard testing:
The process known as TESTING is divinatory
in function, but as it is an application of the Latihan the procedure is
simpler and more direct than with well-known traditional divinatory methods
such as the I Ching. The main requirements of testing are that the individual
or individuals affected by the question being tested shall all have an
opportunity to test, and shall all be free to reject the result if it proves
insufficiently convincing. Experience has shown that the results of valid
testing must make common sense before they make any kind of uncommon sense, and
that there is something wrong with the testing if this proves not to be the
case.
To test on behalf of others not present,
or to attempt to act on behalf of others as a result of testing with which they
may not concur, cannot under any circumstances be recognised as a due and valid
process of testing by Latihan Association standards.
Testing may clarify an issue, but
"receiving" is rarely perfect and the results of testing must
accordingly never be regarded as infallible or binding on others.
Of course, John is referring to testing in
general, but in the discussions about a new organisation particular attention
has been paid to the undesirability of allowing collective decisions to be
determined by testing. I won't repeat the arguments here; they are well covered
by Subud Vision articles. Suffice it to
say that the proposal is that a principle of the Association should be that
organisational decisions should not be decided by testing.
In a recent discussion about testing, I
made these relevant comments:
Let's say that while the Association
does not censor an individual's beliefs it does not permit
group decisions to be determined according to cosmological
belief systems . That would include doing everything as Bapak said
because of a belief that he received it from God and doing everything according
to testing because of a belief that God is guaranteeing the rightness of
the answer. Categorically stating this may lose the Association some "converts"
from Subud, though I doubt in any significant quantities, but it is too high a
price to pay to allow testing in as a means of manipulating people against
their better judgment. A group can of course vote to run its affairs
according to testing results, and then it would simply be expelled from the
Association. As regards to what Michael Irwin has referred to in the past,
people doing individual tests for guidance on which way they should vote,
I'd say group officials should not pro-actively organise such testing
sessions because that is equivalent to promoting the use of testing, but on the
other hand if an individual tests for guidance for themselves only, then
the initiative is coming from that individual for their guidance alone, and
it's probably ok to do it. However, whether any individuals have tested or not
for guidance on an issue to be voted on, they will still need to cast their
vote along with those who haven't tested.
Would groups test whether it
was right to open someone?
Testing the "rightness" of an
opening may be seen to be in direct contradiction to the Association's
principle that groups should not impose belief systems on their members. It's
effectively saying "we believe there is a higher intelligence out there
that we can tune into and get yes/no answers for what we should do". This is not to say that testing in general
would be wrong, because an individual can decide once they have started latihan
whether to try the practice of testing and they can then form an opinion
whether, for them, it is a useful and valid practice. But the individual, by
definition, cannot test before their first latihan, and therefore the group
would effectively be obliging them to share a belief system for which they as
yet have no evidence and might not be willing in any case to subscribe to.
APPLICANT PERIOD AND OPENING
WORDS
It's already been hinted above that the
period of introduction for enquirers before they do their first latihan will be
a matter for individual groups, provided they satisfy the principle of a duty
of care to the enquirer / newly opened person. It is expected that, after
experimentation, groups may settle on similar procedures which are found to
work best in practice, though there may still be local variations. It is not
the purpose of the Association to dictate procedures. However, it also possible
that one or more groups might propose a vote that all groups in the Association
should adopt the same procedures for new enquirers, to provide them with
consistent information about the applicant procedures, whichever group they
consult.
Regarding the "Opening Words",
it's difficult to imagine a form of words that would satisfy the Association's
principle that no cosmological beliefs about the nature of the latihan should
be officially sanctioned. Maybe the
enquirer has signed an application form indicating their willingness to do
latihan, and that in itself is sufficient.
STRUCTURE AND REPORTING
The structure of the Latihan Association
is designed to be as simple as possible. There are only two layers, the groups
and the executive committee. It is
suggested that the executive committee has five officers who are elected on an
annual basis by majority votes of the groups.
The Latihan Association adopts a hands-off
approach to organisation. Groups make all decisions about how to run their
affairs. The executive committee's task is only to ensure those local
arrangements do not violate the Latihan Association principles that the group
signed up to as a member. To this end each group must fill in an annual
questionnaire where it describes its current latihan arrangements, location,
frequency etc, its procedures for meeting with enquirers and starting new
people in the latihan, how it advertises itself, whether there have been any
disputes and how they were dealt with and resolved, and so on. Should the
executive committee feel that any aspect of the group is departing from the
Association's principles they will discuss the matter with the group committee.
Ultimately in cases of a serious breach that cannot be resolved, the executive
committee has the power to expel the group from the Association. When the
Association is big enough, such a decision should be made by a plenary meeting
of the member groups.
The executive committee also arbitrates in
cases of complaint from a group member about the way a group organisation is
running its affairs. It is hoped that such disputes will be discussed and
resolved locally, but, if not, the executive committee provides a route of
appeal.
The committee will also appoint a
webmaster to organise a web site where Latihan Association groups can share
news and ideas with each other.
Finally the executive committee is
responsible for organising a vote of the groups on any proposed changes to the
principles and organisation of the Latihan Association. Note that the
Association is not set in stone. Groups can propose changes.
LEGALITIES
Our discussion of matters concerning the
formation of a new organisation would be incomplete if we did not consider the
legal implications.
Certainly, in the author’s current country
of residence and also in his country of birth, an informal association of
people has a shared, unlimited liability for any damage caused by their
association. Put simply that means that if one of a group’s members is painting
the latihan hall and a visiting member of the public trips over a carelessly
placed paint pot and injures themselves, the whole group would be legally
responsible for footing the medical bills, even though the injury was caused by
the carelessness of just one of their members.
Depending on variations in law from
country to country there may be ways to legally constitute a group so as to
limit liability to the group’s assets, rather than individual member’s assets.
A major responsibility of the Association would be to draw up a template for a
group constitution that is legally sound and advantageous in the different
countries where its groups are situated.
This would be of great assistance to groups wanting a solid and
unambiguous basis for their foundation. Fledgling groups will not want to get
into lengthy and uncertain research and discussion about how to constitute
themselves. The Association can make it easy for groups to start on a sound
basis.
AUTHENTICATION
Another advantage that the Association can
provide groups is that a by-product of their membership of the Association is
an implication that they provide an authentic latihan.
Let’s explain what is meant by
"authentic" in this context.
Anybody could read a book about the
latihan, devise a practice where the body goes into spontaneous movements, and
call it "latihan". (The author tried out just such a practice some
months before being opened, an exercise for actors where they just follow
wherever the body takes them – he found himself racing round the room with arms
flailing.) However such an exercise would not be latihan in the sense of the
latihan practice that the Association exists to protect and facilitate. Just as with yoga, or with any other similar
experience, newcomers have the right to be able to verify that what they are
being offered is genuine and not a scam by imitators or charlatans. The
Association has no control over charlatans, unless they try to pass off their
groups as being approved by or representative of the Association, but it can
provide safeguards by being clear about what distinguishes the latihan that it
provides against any other practice claiming to be in essence the same.
It is interesting to note that the
question of authenticity probably cannot be divorced from the question of
origin. We know there are a very small number of exceptions in Subud of people
who claim to have experienced an opening before encountering Subud, but in the
main it is accepted that “I can do latihan because it was passed on to me by a
man who had it passed on to him by another man, who had it passed on to him by
another man, who ……………………………….. had it passed on to him by Pak Subuh.”
OBJECTIONS
This section contains replies to some
common objections raised by Subud people to any discussion about forming a new
organisation.
Subud is guided by God. It
will grow when God decides it is the right time.
A lot of Subud people hold to this belief.
Interesting that it is so common in Subud, which claims to have no belief system. Needless to say, the people interested in
forming a new organisation probably no longer find the belief convincing.
There's no point in arguing about it, since the new organisation will be
independent of Subud and no longer constrained by the belief system that
determines how Subud run its affairs.
Subud will grow when our
latihan has reached a sufficient level
The implication is that all efforts in the
meantime are doomed to failure. Again this idea is part of the belief system
that Subud says it doesn't have. There's an alternative view about the latihan,
that it's up to us to put our latihan into practise to the best of our
abilities, to create something that works. The new organisation is likely to
appeal to people who have this alternative belief, as well as to people who
think the latihan has nothing to do with it: skill, experience, know-how,
compassion and concern for others being more important factors determining the
likelihood of success or failure.
You can't dictate to people
I always smile when I hear this old
chestnut. It's a bit rich coming from Subud, which has a glaringly bad record
of dictating. We can't choose our helpers -- we are stuck with them for life on
the basis of somebody else's supposed receiving ability. Similarly we are stuck
for two to four years with a chairperson chosen by testing -- no consultation,
the decision is forced on us by the accepted practice of chairperson selection,
even against our better judgment. Subud people are fearful of straying too far
from the approved procedures laid down by Father and Mother. Try changing just
one tiny thing in Subud and see how the status quo will close ranks to resist
it - a friend of mine tried this recently; she asked for one tiny change in her
group; she said the experience was so unpleasant she won't even bother to try
again. Subud, in fact, is a living
example of how easy it is to find people who will readily consent to being
dictated to. By contrast the Latihan Association will decide everything by vote
of its member groups. There will be no paternalistic hierarchy either laying
down the law or finding ways to obstruct democratic change.
However much you make plans,
you can't control people
The statement is usually made to imply
that in any collection of people, and particularly of Subud people, each person
will always act entirely individualistically, without reference either to other
people or to rules.
In practice that almost never happens.
Usually, when there are no proper organisational constraints, what will happen
is that the stronger-willed people battle for dominance while the weaker-willed
either resign themselves to a position of subservience, or they leave the
organisation. Look at Subud groups. You
don't see a great variety of flavours forged by the local mix of personalities.
On the contrary there is a recognisable sameness, a recognisable Subud-ness,
that comes about through acquiescence to the dominant philosophy pushed by the
more devout and zealous members.
A badly constituted organisation will reinforce
the dominance of factions, either by being too weak to do anything, or by
approving and aligning with those factions. A well constituted organisation
will have built in safeguards that make it difficult for individuals or cliques
to willfully push their agendas.
CASE STUDIES
The following examples attempt to show
that all the organisational detail above is there for a purpose, to provide a
framework for the practice and dissemination of the latihan that is experienced
as something clean, clear and straightforward from the point of view of the
average practitioner.
The case studies also demonstrate that the
proposed organisational model can be both flexible and scalable.
Case Study no 1: The Greenhill
Group - number of members = 6
The Greenhill family, mother, father, son
and daughter-in-law and uncle and aunt do latihan twice a week at the rural
farm house which is the centre of their family business. Their group is a
member of the Latihan Association, whose aims and principles the family are
keen to support. Since it is a
close-knit family group, they have no need for a committee or any other
official roles. All their arrangements are decided amongst themselves. One of
the family acts as liaison officer for the very few occasions when they need to
communicate with the Latihan Association.
Because of their isolated location, the family do not consider it
appropriate that they should take on new members and they are considered to be
a "private" group who are not listed in the Latihan Association's
directory of latihan groups.
Case Study no 2: The Blue River Group - number of members = 30
The small town of Blue River has a Latihan
Association member group started by four ex-Subud members. These members took
the initiative to give talks at a local community centre. The talks attracted a
lot of interest and as a result many enquirers were able to experience their
first latihan after a weekend induction course. Sufficient of these people continued with the latihan, with some
introducing their friends to it, so that the original four ex-Subud members
were soon outnumbered by twenty six new members. The group hire rooms in the community centre for twice-weekly
latihan, and their affairs are run by a committee who carry out any necessary
administration. Additionally there are the group "assistants" --
these are four volunteers, two ladies and two men, chosen by annual vote of all
the group members. Assistants meet with enquirers, time the latihan, assist
with personal testing if requested, and carry out any other latihan-related,
non-administrative tasks. The
committee, like the assistants, is chosen annually - the chair by vote of all
the members, and the chair then chooses people to help -- as the group is small
this usually means that only a treasurer is a necessary additional role. The committee communicates matters for
discussion by a mixture of email and face to face meetings - that way they
ensure that everyone is included. Voting is by email ballot so that everybody
gets a chance to vote.
Case Study no 3: The Big City
Group - number of members = 200+
Big City has a population of three
million, and the latihan group, which is a member of the Latihan Association,
owns a meeting place right in the city centre.
As with all other Latihan Association groups it is free to organise its
own affairs as it sees fit, as long as it supports the principles of the
Latihan Association. For the Big City group this means a number of special
procedures which would not be necessary in
small or medium-sized groups.
Firstly, latihans are not at fixed times
but on a drop-in basis. The latihan rooms are permanently available for
latihan. Usually different sub-groups of members informally arrange amongst
themselves to meet at certain times for latihan. People who work in the city
have chosen Tuesday and Friday lunchtimes, there is a mid-morning latihan twice
a week mainly attended by older members, and there are some early evening times
favoured by members who are students at a local college. Some other members just turn up and latihan
alone at times when the centre is quiet.
Secondly, the group decided it was not
necessary to have any helper-like officials attending latihans. However, newcomers to the latihan are
required to only latihan at certain times where volunteers who are experienced
latihaners are present. The role of talking to enquirers is carried out by a
separate set of volunteers. The committee have reserved Wednesday evenings as
"enquirer-only" occasions. An enquirer is required to attend four
successive enquiry meetings where they get to meet group officials and a
variety of members, then they can attend a separate first latihan before
joining the specially organised latihans for new people. After two months, the
group allows them to attend for latihan at any time.
Thirdly, because of the large size of the
group, discussion of issues by email and by face-to-face meeting is considered
too cumbersome. The group have appointed a webmaster who has devised an
excellent discussion forum on the group's web site for discussion of any issues
that come up. Voting is by an electronic voting system, which ensures that it
is very easy for people to vote, despite the group's large size When face-to-face meetings are held they are
also broadcast by Skype conference call so that any member with a Skype
connection can listen in to the discussion.
The mix of people in the group reflects
the cosmopolitan nature of the city, and one of the members recently organised
a series of talks where members talked about their religion. The best attended
was the talk by a visiting member of Subud, about Pak Subuh and the origin of
the latihan. Two members expressed an
interest in finding out more about Subud, another member said he had felt a lot
of benefit from the short time he had been doing latihan and didn't want to
confuse his mind with someone else's ideas. Some others commented that although
the history of the latihan was interesting, they already had a religion and had
no interest in what they saw as the somewhat dated teachings of a guru figure.
Some trouble was caused recently by a new
member who got hold of copies of Bapak's talks and started to take a very
preachy and superior attitude that some other members found disturbing, especially
because said member had been officially appointed to talk to enquirers and
abused this position of trust by telling new people that they wouldn't get the
full benefit of the latihan unless they studiously read the talks of its
originator. A complaint was made to the
group committee, but for various reasons the committee did not act on it
effectively. A further complaint was then made to the Latihan Association who
discussed the matter with the group chair. The member in question was relived
of their official duties and asked to tone down their anti-social behaviour.
The member was not happy to do this and left the group to join a Subud group
instead.
STARTING UP
Some may quite reasonably ask "It's
all very well to talk about the theory, but how would such an organisation get
started in practice?"
This could happen in several stages:
1)
The people who have been involved in discussions draw up a constitution
for the Latihan Association according to principles, aims and procedures similar
to those discussed above. (In fact, a new web site for drawing up a
constitution will be announced some time in Autumn 2012.)
2) They vote for an initial executive
committee of five people.
3) The committee create a web site as a
resource for people who are interested in setting up an independent latihan
group under the auspices of the Latihan Association. The web site is the means
by which people can share ideas, discuss the problems of forming a group, and
so on.
4) Eventually some small groups will be
formed, most likely consisting of families or friends, or groups of disaffected
members who have decided to break away from Subud and give the new organisation
a try.
5) Some of these groups will decide to
advertise the latihan and new members will be obtained that way. As groups grow
it is possible that their more lively and more relaxed attitude to the latihan
will attract members, particularly younger members, away from Subud.
6) Gradually the Association, through the
shared experience of its member groups will become more adept at starting new
groups, more savvy about knowing how best to promote itself, and a steady
growth in numbers may be expected from that point on.
CONCLUSION
Some people may understandably feel sad
that we are now discussing the formation of a new organisation that might lead
to the demise of Subud as the main provider of the latihan. While sympathising with that point of view,
this author questions whether Subud, even if it decided to put right all its
flaws and problems, could ever have had wide appeal. With its enthusiasm for the talks, teachings and ideals of its
founder, its "funny" name, and mysterious symbol, Subud is always
going to look to outsiders like an esoteric religion or guru-led sect or cult.
This is not a sale-able proposition in the modern world. Because of that,
"large numbers joining Subud" ain't never going to happen -- at its
best it will only ever attract a minority.
If the latihan is truly to be accessible
to "all of mankind" it cannot do so within the confines of a narrow
package promoted by well-intentioned but mistaken people who expect others to
convert to their spiritual viewpoint.
When the latihan arrived in the world it
seemed to promise the dawn of a new age, yet it has become increasingly
embroiled with an organisation that can only conduct its affairs on old age
lines. What is needed now is people with the courage, conviction and especially
the vision to see that the latihan should be provided through an organisation
that reflects the latihan's essential open-ness and universality.
APPENDICES
What has been agreed
When working through my notes for this
article I came across this neat summary from Michael Irwin of what appears to
have been agreed so far in discussions about a new organisation:
We have accomplished this much as far as I
can see: We have agreed that eventually there should be an association of
groups adhering to a set of principles. We have agreed that nascent groups will
have different processes of growth concerning their internal membership and
decision making arrangements and that larger groups will need to find different
models from those of small groups. I
think we have agreed that the principles are more likely to be aspirational for
nascent groups while they decide whether they want to continue with them or
not. Once committed to the principles,
as groups get larger and more formal in their organization, the relationship
with the Association of federated groups would develop more formally also and
involve decisions about enforcement of the terms of membership in the
Association.
Describing the Latihan
An important debate that has been going
on, both parallel and relevant to the debate about forming a new organisation,
is "How do you describe the latihan?".
We don't want to make claims for it, we
don't want to describe it terms of this or that spiritual theory, so what do we
say? The general conclusion seems to be that it is best to give only a very
basic description, accompanied by individual accounts of people's experience.
There is this warning from Rosalind
Priestley about making basic statements about the latihan too basic:
A superficial description of something
that is more than a superficial experience is not factual, just superficial. We
should avoid describing the latihan as seen only from the outside. The latihan
also has an inner dimension. To set out only the external facts is like
describing the experience of eating in terms of forks going into one's mouth
and food disappearing, without any mention of tasting and swallowing and
enjoyment or lack of it. Just because it's not possible to arrive at a
one-size-fits-all conclusion about what goes on in the consciousness during the
latihan, doesn't mean that it's okay to omit this part of the experience.
Here's a basic description, suggested by
Stefan Freedman:
The latihan is an experience which varies
greatly from one person to another and for the same person on different
occasions. In many cases the effect includes sounds and movements which arise
spontaneously. Unlike similar sounding activities participants report that
there is no trance, no frenzy, and no loss of control or consciousness, and
that often a sense of calm ensues.
For some this may be viewed as a naturally
occurring experience while others may see it as 'spiritual' or 'sacred'
(according to their individual beliefs). Participants are invited to experience
latihan directly in order to form their own views. It is not widely known, so
those who take part are co-exploring. Those who find a benefit generally agree
that the process deepens over time.
And a comment from Marcus Bolt:
Stefan's attempt is brave, but left me
wondering (pretending I was a newcomer) - 'Well, what's the point of it? What's
it for?' (ref. Rosalind's comments about superficiality of description).
I know this area is a minefield and there
would be as many 'descriptions' as there are members (not counting those who
opt for the one-fit 'Worship of God'... ). I have no immediate answers, but
feel it's something that needs tackling in some way.
Some miscellaneous comments
I am including below from my notes some
snippets of comment from other people. These don't fit into the framework of
the article but nevertheless are valuable points. They are included in no
particular order.
SF: If people don't first see the
liberating intention they won't buy the apparent restriction of having
principles.
SD: I think it's possible to make too big
a deal out of the principles. It's not like Subud where you are trying to
design a constitution that has to formulate the place of helpers,
the status of Bapak, the ideals of Susila, Budhi, Dharma, the relationship
between the org and the wings, the place of the zones and national
structures etc. We should be talking about something very simple. There's no
reason why people should have to go on for years thinking about principles. The
local detail, where groups experiment with the way things are done, is where I
see the evolutionary process occurring. Yes, principles may be changed over time,
but the org needs to start with solid and strong principles that people can
feel are reasonable and not over-bearing, so the member groups can get on with
their real and more interesting job un-distracted by constitutional
uncertainties.
SF: Ideally there'd be a team in at least
one area who could start things up. It seems a slow and daunting prospect to
start it as a solo practitioner.
RP: Incidentally, (as in my article about
choosing officials) I would strongly recommend that when people stand for
election they should be asked to make their platform clear and be willing to
answer questions, so that people are not just voting for a man or a woman but
for a known set of policies.
MI: I think the approach to design was to
be acutely aware that the circumstance that has to be always present was the
worst case. That didn't mean that the worst case would happen very often
but it set the boundaries. Once the worst case is prepared for, then I think an
explicit statement has to be made where and in what ways the parts of the
design allow for complete freedom of choice.
SF: It seems to me a website with lots of
input about the latihan, latihan experience, latihan problems and solutions,
etc. is actually a very radical move that ought to have the biggest impact of
anything we've done yet. The free sharing of information is not something that
happens easily in Subud and it's badly needed. People will consult the website,
and become used to looking to it for pragmatic rather than dogmatic answers to
their problems. That would be a big shift!
HP: I think the biggest influence is that
from the members' point of view testing is the way Bapak arrived at his
answers. We mostly assumed that much of what he said was received from on
High. It's not like we saw him entering into debates about issues. He
didn't make a decision and then have the members vote about it, or if he did,
it was only a rubber-stamp. So now we have members looking at what Bapak
modeled and trying to be mini-Bapaks. (Umm, now where could that go
wrong?!) Didn't Bapak see that coming? Maybe he should have spent a
little more time warning "don't try this at home, kids"! To be
fair, he regularly told us how bad our own receiving was, but people have
chosen to ignore that.
Anon: I'm willing to 'come out' and see
whether any are interested to start a non-Subud latihan group in xxxxx. I
anticipate that many of my longtime local cell-mates will feel shocked and
'betrayed' which is unfortunate. But if I continue to do nothing I am colluding
with an approach to latihan that's restrictive and seems unsustainable.
Mini discussions:
Question: Isn't the best protection for
the principles a free and open atmosphere where the principles are known and
discussed among all those that might be affected by them.
MI: I assume you refer to policies.
The protection of the principles is an Association matter. The adoption of the
principles is a group matter.
Reply: I don't have much confidence in the
survival chances of principles that are followed in a perfunctory way,
according to prescription rather than out of conviction.
MI: The survival of the principles is a
matter for the Association. If they are followed in a perfunctory way by
a group, then the group would risk losing its Association membership.
--
Question: This week we've pointed out a
couple of major turning points in Subud: (1) the decision to elevate Bapak to
guru status, and (2) the decision to replace some democratic processes with
testing. These have changed the course of Subud, yet have not been
adequately discussed, nor voted on by the membership. I'm starting to
wonder if there was a group (cabal?) that functioned behind the scenes to bring
these about, probably with good intentions, e.g. the membership is losing
interest so we have to do something, etc. That's what the Koontz article
implies.
MI: How (2) happened is a really good
question and I doubt that it can be answered. My own theory is that the
developments come from the seductive and encouraged attitude that God is in
charge and that therefore proactive action is not needed. In other words
the false notion (to my eyes) that the practical world is subject to the same
force as the movements in the latihan and all that is needed is to kick back
and watch it unfold. In short, a nice lazy, comfy new world where one
need do nothing. This view is not peculiar to Subud. Karen
Armstrong has clearly outlined the scenario in her discussion of religions and
their failure to make a distinction between the temporal and the secular
world. "I'm not responsible; God is responsible". So, helpers,
as the best intercessors with God, can make all the decisions and I am not
responsible.
A final thought
A vital aspect of the way the
Association and its groups should present and promote the latihan is that it
shouldn't feel like there is anything strange you have to join to do it, or
that you are mixing with some secretive and enclosed clique with special ideas,
rituals or allegiances; it should feel like latihan is a well-known and
respected practice that anyone can try without obligation or commitment, in
other words: "Oh, you do latihan? I've heard of that. I might go along and
give it a try some time."