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Lusijah Rott - Presence in the World

Pay heed to Susila... From Marcus Bolt, September 26, 2007. Time 20:20

I like your article, Lusijah - can't fault its analysis or its synthesis and can only add, 'I second that.' However, I have to also add, sadly, 'Yeah. In my dreams.'

In the last paragraph you ask:

'Is Subud to be an inward-directed organisation only intent on the needs of its own members? Or is Subud’s presence in the world better served by putting effort and resources into support of individuals or projects that, guided by the latihan, do good works that go beyond our own community?'

This touches a nerve for me, and is something I touched on in my essay for Subud Vision (Process not Prozac).

One of the most well known sayings in the New Testamant is (from the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew. 7:20) 'By their fruits ye shall know them.'**

It is my observation that we in Subud behave just as well at times and just as badly at other times as those outside our community. So, how are we different? Where are the cumulative effects of the latihan going? How (and where) are our combined years of worship manifesting in the world? Where are they apparent within our Subud community even? People quote Bapak verbatim; they dogmatically defend the structures he put in place; they religiously follow our wide range of quirky rituals (from removing ones shoes before latihan regardless of where one is, to... attending World Congresses, say, and the whole spectrum in between) yet often absolutely fail to attempt, enact, pay heed to - even discuss or understand - Susila... the one thing Bapak actually urged us to be, to develop, to put into practice, flatly saying (I paraphrase) 'You ain't going nowhere without Susila, baby.'

Frankly, until we get that right by getting rid of attitudes such as stating, when someone's suffering, hurt, struggling, in pain, in trouble, 'Oh, they are merely being purified', thereby leaving them to their own devices (what a cop out for the helpers, eh?), I can see the world will just see us as another bunch of fruitless weirdos. An outfit with a particular attraction for just .000006 percent of the world's population.

** It's worrying that Christ was here referring to 'false prophets'. We run the risk of having Bapak declared as such if we don't get our act together and produce some fruits soon. That would be a travesty, because I know, from my own experience, that he's not.

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