Subud Vision - Discussion

Merin Nielsen - Genuinely Open

On not jettisoning cultural accretions. From Iljas Baker, May 8, 2009. Time 5:42

All of this, that Merin mentioned, is true to some extent. But the cultural shift proposed I don't think is the solution. From one orthodoxy to another is no real solution. People do at times seemingly put all the current cultural accretions before the essence, which is the latihan, but doing away with the current cultural accretions will only lead to new cultural accretions, not necessarily more healthy ones, even if they seem like that at first. Humans cannot live without culture. Ultimately, it depends on people's openness and jettisoning the current Subud culture is no guarantee of this. Those who would like to jettison the culture are not necessarily more open than those who adhere to it in some way and few people adhere to all facets, beliefs etc anyway. One thing you might expect of the new orthodoxy somewhere down the line is the latihan becoming another technique rather than a complete path of surrender that needs no adding to. I know I am showing my bias here but any objections will equally be based on someone's bias. After all, we, as the latihan seems to reinforce time and again, know very little.

I believe the best way forward is to bring the latihan forward in our own lives and the life of the organization, and to see other people's choices, where they don't agree with ours, as tests of our ability to surrender and show understanding and tolerance and not as a stimulus to break up.

If Buddhist adherents, for example, shows me love and understanding I don't reject it because of their beliefs and I wouldn't reject love and understanding from athiests because of their lack of belief in God. What is more important than changing a lot of the culture directly is loving and understanding our fellow humans.

We need to bring this to the front and it won't necessarily appear automatically by jettisoning the cultural accretions

If some feel you are more open than others please stay and be the window you think you are, don't be a door that closes on the others. Studies show that when the more tolerant leave an organization the organization become more intolerant.

From Sahlan Diver, May 8, 2009. Time 9:27

"...One thing you might expect of the new orthodoxy somewhere down the line is the latihan becoming another technique rather than a complete path of surrender that needs no adding to...."

Iljas,

That is a very interesting point. How do we explain or justify things that we do or recommend for the practise of the latihan if we take away the foundation "explanations"?

Years ago, I had have no trouble saying what the latihan is. I would have launched into an explanation of the lower forces and the latihan putting the influence of these forces back in the right place, and so on. However, if I want to avoid an explanation based on a set of esoteric assumptions, it is very much more difficult.

Similarly this point you are making. It is very easy to justify to people why we should just do the latihan and do it persistently and sincerely, without mixing in other techniques, when our base explanation is that this is something that comes from Almighty God. The implication is of surrender to and trust in a higher force or source of knowledge. But if you take away this explanation with a view to removing a religious bias, then what is the reason why we would recommend just doing the latihan? Certainly not experience, because most of us have diligently just done the latihan and do not have experience of combining it with other techniques.

I disagree with some of the other things you say. You use phrases like "From one orthodoxy to another", and "jettison the culture" that imply Merin is asking us to replace the Subud culture in a stroke with something else. This is not what is being suggested in Merin's article. He hasn't lined up in it an alternative set of beliefs which he is proposing we adopt. He is merely critcising certain aspects of what we do, which he believes will be an obstacle to the latihan reaching more than just a small minority of mankind, and suggests therefore that those things should be changed.

You say "If Buddhist adherents, for example, shows me love and understanding I don't reject it because of their beliefs and I wouldn't reject love and understanding from athiests because of their lack of belief in God." I assume from this remark that you are neiher a Buddhist nor an atheist, so it is relatively easy to be tolerant of those beliefs as you are not directly involved in them. But what if for example you had been brought up as a Catholic but had issues with the teachings of the Catholic church. Then it would not be so easy.

This is the situation in Subud where members find there are things they disagree with to the point of thinking that Subud is actually wrong about those particular matters. Your recipe in this situation would apparently be "What is more important than changing a lot of the culture directly is loving and understanding our fellow humans". But loving and understanding means listening to the individual points a person is making and engaging in a shared search for the truth. A blanket admonishment that we shouldn't change anything is in direct contradiction with that, because what we are effectively being asked to do is have a very nice feeling towards others but reject all their suggestions out of hand as if they are not of any value.

"Studies show that when the more tolerant leave an organization the organization become more intolerant." In one sense that statement is a tautology, but in another sense isn't it also cause and effect? An organisation that favours intolerance is by its nature going to drive out the tolerant people? Don't shoot the messengers. Tolerance is not the issue, however. What is being criticised is not the individual opinions of members but the way Subud officially presents the latihan. You seem to be concerned about disagreement being a "stimulus to break up", but I would say Merin's concern is more that if we don't examine and change the way Subud presents itself and the latihan, that Subud will just fade away by itself,

Regards

Sahlan Diver

From Iljas Baker, May 9, 2009. Time 4:54

Hello Sahlan,

I think we need to keep some of the foundational "explanations" as you call them. Certainly they resonate with me so yes I am biased. I am not saying we need to use words like nafsu and jiwa etc.I don't have a problem with them but I don't have a problem with saying passions and soul or or inner self or whatever. We can have parallel explanations. The latihan is for me a long, difficult journey and I have found Bapak's and Ibu's explanations very very helpful and would like others to have easy access to them and to give them an important place in Subud culture.

I was not, I believe, suggesting that Marin had an alternative culture ready to impose on a new look Subud. I was suggesting that a culture is inevitable and jettisoning the old is no guarantee that the new will be better or more healthy. There are some things I am happy to change but there are things I am happy to keep. Ultimately, I don't believe it is those aspects of the culture that most critics refer to that is a serious barrier to the growth of Subud or the spread of the latihan - people don't stop watching CNN because most of the newsreaders have strange non-English names and Buddhism and Islam are growing quite nicely despite all the exoticisms, as are many other spiritual orgs including sects. I think the problem is us - we are not loving enough, we don't attempt to offer understanding.Perhaps we should be asking why this is the case. I don't think a wholescale change in the culture is the answer. I think emphasising bringing the latihan into daily living and loving and respecting each other ( as Bapak and Ibu emphasise) is much more important.

Regarding tolerance - I wasn't really talking about religious tolerance but about religion not being a consideration when people offer me love and understanding. I am Muslim, my wife and children are Buddhists. We love and try to understand each other, we don't have religious arguments. I was born a RC and I have very warm relations with an extended RC family whenever I return to the UK. There are many aspects of RC that I can't accept but my extended family and I have very warm relations and religion is important to all of us but we don't argue about it. Can't Subud be like this? I have no doubt that it can.

Another thing: I used to mix the latihan and Tibetan Buddhist practices. No one told me to stop my Buddhist practices as I didn't talk about them and they didn't ask. Later I moved to a city where I had to do latihan on my own. I went through a relatively mild crisis the result of which I gradually and spontaneously gave up being a Tibetan Buddhist, first the meditation (visualizations), then the rest. Bapak's talks helped me a lot during this time. Subsequent difficult times have been eased a lot by Bapak's and Ibu's talks. But of course I try to read them in the way Bapak advised, I do not treat them as discourses to be analysed and criticised. During Ramadhan once I had a very clear experience of Bapak's soul communicating to mine when I was listening to a talk on tape. I respect that receiving, but it does mean I see the talks as being therefore 'special'.

I am willing to listen to people's grievances about Subud and I think I can do this respectfully, if you find evidence of me doing otherwise show me and I will apologise.

I do find it difficult to communicate about these things, especially in this medium and worry that I am not really making things clear but just adding to the problem.

Sahlan my email address is iljasbaker@gmail.com if you send me your email address I will send you a piece which I prepared for SV. It was rejected as being too long. It consists largely of extracts from the journal of a Mevlevi Sheikh who used to do the latihan and who indeed opened a number of others, both male and female. I seem to remember you wrote something about Subud and the brother of Idris Shah so you might find my piece interesting.

From Sahlan Diver, May 9, 2009. Time 7:14

Iljas,

We would be interested to look over that article, and I have sent you my email address for it. For the record, articles can also be attached to the form on our articles submissions page or emailed to editors@subudvision.org.

You say "there are many aspects of RC that I can't accept", but you also say you are a Muslim. That was my point entirely, you are outside of RC, so whereas tolerance and respect of RC beliefs is praiseworthy, it is a whole different ball game from when you are a member of something
and have issues with the beliefs or ideas it appears to be imposing on you. Bapak was always saying "Subud is yourselves". As Subud members, we don't have to show tolerance to stuff that we believe is wrong. We can change it if sufficient of us are persuaded that it is a good idea to change.

I think language is very important when discussing Subud and use of particular words and phrases can be strong indicators of where a line of argument is coming from.

For example

"listen to people's grievances about Subud"
This phrase has been used before in relation to writings critical of Subud. It puts you on a level above the other person. They have a complaint or self-centered grievance and you are listening to them with love and understanding in an attempt to ease their complaint. This is "tolerance" in the sense of putting up with something, suffering it gladly, but not really giving it any place. Whereas what we are asking for is a debate amongst equals about stuff that may (or may not) need change and improvement for the benefit of us all, and, more importantly, for the benefit of others who don't yet have the latihan. Forget the "love and understanding", listen to the specific points a person is making. That is the way to show respect for the other person. Like when you raised the matter of if we dropped Bapak's explanations, what was to stop the latihan becoming just another technique and not a complete path. That's the kind of specific counter-argument that we need, but don't get enough of, on Subud Vision.

"I think emphasising bringing the latihan into daily living and loving and respecting each other ( as Bapak and Ibu emphasise) is much more important"
Why is it necessary to say this? There is an implication (whether intentional or not) thar the other side of the debate are somehow lacking in these qualities? In fact it may be the other way round. The latihan may have made them sufficiently aware to realise there are things that are wrong and sufficiently caring to be ready to speak out and try to so something about them. I am not saying it is like this, just pointing out that it is very easy to put a spiritual stamp of approval on vague moralistic exhortations, and equally easy to spiritually downgrade anything that appears to be rocking the boat.

"jettison" "wholesale change in the culture"
This kind of language blocks debate by sidestepping the need to debate or to change anything. There is an implication of irresponsibility, of chucking everything out without properly considering the replacement. But in practise change does not need to be wholesale, nor irreversible, it can be experimental, piece by piece, step by step,

Sahlan

From Iljas Baker, May 9, 2009. Time 9:43

Hi Sahlan,

I am not saying show tolerance for everything that we feel is wrong in Subud. My point was about loving and understanding those whose ideas we may not agree with. More on this below. Why can't we live with diverse ideas?

Where do you get your definition of grievance from? It no way implies self-centredness or one party treating the other as inferior. We can listen genuinely to a person's grievances/complaints/dissatisfactions and take a course of action together to address them. Just as we can listen to a defense of the status quo and find it persuasive or otherwise.

I can't forget about love and understanding because that is the "specific point" I am making. Don't you hear that? I feel this is more important than making major changes in the culture.

Bring the latihan into daily life and loving and respecting each other has to be said because that is another "specific point" I have to make. I don't think it implies that one side (the status quo) displays this and the other side doesn't. Although clearly and problematically some may feel it does. I think it is an area where most of us are lacking, not one side. And again I feel this is more important for spreading the latihan, than making major changes in the culture.

Having said that I am not against making some changes.

Saying "jettisoning wholesale the culture" doesn't really block the debate - you unblocked it fairly easily. Sometimes it feels that some people are asking for this to happen. Not being a robot or a bodhisattva I do react emotionally sometime and I guess we better learn to accept this to get on with the debate and not get caught up in a sideshow.

I must say Sahlan most of your response to my comments were based on what you think they imply or on your interpretation of what I am saying based on what other people have said. I think the medium makes it very difficult to debate these complex matters. If you go through all the posts you will probably find none of us uses our posts to ask what the other means, we use them to get our point across. In face to face communication we might spend more time asking for clarification, accepting that people don't always say exactly what they mean and we don't always hear what they are saying to us.

I like your last sentence Sahlan. I can agree with that.

I can't prove that the latihan will become simply another technique in a repertoire of techniques but that is what I see. J G Bennet opened both his sons after he left Subud because he believed the latihan was very good for some aspects of spiritual development but not others. As far as I know Bennet did nothing to spread the latihan to large numbers and his sons do not seem to be involved in Subud. People will say perhaps Bennet was right. Others have taken a similar position. Bapak says otherwise. I accept him as my spiritual guide. My experience of the latihan doesn't really enable me and I presume the majority of us to make pronouncements of this sort. I would not want Bapak to play no or only a minor role in the development of Subud or the spread of the latihan.

From Merin Nielsen, May 9, 2009. Time 12:0

Hi, Iljas,

Please, what do you mean when you say you'd not want Bapak to play no role or only a minor role in the development of Subud or the spread of the latihan? Do you mean you'd like Bapak to play a major role? If so, then for whose betterment would that be?

Bapak already played a crucial role. Now, I find the latihan more useful without Bapak or his perspective, and I expect that many other people would prefer that their practise of the latihan be likewise unencumbered by what seems to be an unnecessary cultural embellishment. It amounts to a barrier that deters people from even trying out the latihan, let alone avoiding peer pressure to discover whether or not they may have a genuine affinity for Bapak's worldview.

This is not to deny individual practitioners the privilege of regarding Bapak as their spiritual guide. It simply calls for disengaging Subud-as-a-community-organisation from the subtly aggrandising promotion of Bapak and his talks. There's no suggestion of introducing a new orthodoxy or of rejecting Bapak -- merely of freeing up latihan practise from any particular, exclusive spiritual emphasis.

You wrote === I believe the best way forward is to bring the latihan forward in our own lives and the life of the organization, and to see other people's choices, where they don't agree with ours, as tests of our ability to surrender and show understanding and tolerance and not as a stimulus to break up.

I think these are wonderful sentiments if the ability to surrender extends to respecting other people's spiritual views such that any particular perspective -- including Bapak's -- is not set up or contrived so as to dominate the community of latihan practitioners. Maybe that's a tall order, but in any case I think it's obvious that Subud will otherwise disappear.

Merin

From Iljas Baker, May 9, 2009. Time 14:4

Hi Merin,

I mean I believe that Bapak's guidelines and explanations about the latihan should be an important part of the Subud culture. (I acknowledge that we disagree on this point.) I believe this would benefit many many people who practice the latihan. I do believe it would help them to face the difficulties of the experience that transforms us and would help them stay in the long run. I am only saying "help". But obviously that alone is not enough. Ultimately I believe we need to care more for each other. And obviously some people would not benefit as is the case with every spiritual path.

Why do you think it's an encumbrance? I don't suppose people in your group force you to listen to Bapak's talks or read them. Are you not free to come and go and participate or not as you please? What is the encumbrance that prevents you and others having a really free latihan? Can you not do your latihan in the way you wish? Is the problem only outside the latihan? Please explain.

And why do you think so many people are put off receiving the latihan by Bapak's vocabulary? There are many many people joining groups and sects with quite elaborate systems of thoughts, teachings, clothing etc. Is Subud somehow an exception? I don't really understand the strength of this feeling that is being expressed about how people are turned away by the Subud vocabulary and other aspects of the culture. Of course some will be and that's normal I would say. And I don't really see that most people leave because of it. Don't they leave more because they didn't have a deep enough experience, or have a personal conflict or feel there is not enough companionship or a whole host of reasons. Why do you mention one in particular? I ask this sincerely.

I respect that people see the latihan and Bapak and enterprises and all differently from me. How can we reach agreement on a form of community that satisfies all of us? is that possible? Should we simply split up? perhaps it is inevitable. When I lived in the UK I always felt the Subud culture was rather lite as they say. No pressure really and not much of a superstructure. Has it changed so much?

Iljas

From Merin Nielsen, May 9, 2009. Time 14:48

Hi, Iljas,

You wrote === Why do you think it's an encumbrance? I don't suppose people in your group force you to listen to Bapak's talks or read them. Are you not free to come and go and participate or not as you please? What is the encumbrance that prevents you and others having a really free latihan? Can you not do your latihan in the way you wish? Is the problem only outside the latihan? Please explain.

Yes, the problem is only outside the latihan, and it's a huge problem in that Bapak and his talks are incredibly prominent for an organisation that says it has no teachings and says it is about making the latihan available. Bapak's talks contain lots of spiritual teachings. Sure, members aren't required to believe what's in the talks, but the talks nevertheless get extraordinarily high profile through the helpers, through Subud newsletters and websites, through tape-evenings and even through our post-latihan small talk. The indoctrination process is perhaps mostly non-deliberate, but it's as plain to see as the ocean, if you're not a fish.

As a result, the overall prominence of the talks in the Subud community, to the point of being strongly promoted, makes them a significant deterrent to newcomers from trying out the latihan -- that is, any inquirer who may turn up with his or her own personal perspective on religion or spiritual reality, and who does not wish to be identified with an organisation that actively, and even sometimes officially, endorses the teachings of one particular person. Most inquirers are turned off by this reality, and as such it is obstructive to most people trying out the latihan. That's a very big problem because the latihan might be of value to so many more people if only they weren't hindered from trying it in this way.

You wrote === I don't really understand the strength of this feeling that is being expressed about how people are turned away by the Subud vocabulary and other aspects of the culture.

There's no need for the organisation to place any cultural emphasis upon one specific spiritual interpretation. If there were no such dominant perspective, then there'd be no culture by which people are turned away. Accordingly, the celebration of Bapak throughout Subud represents an encumbrance. The latihan can clearly be practised in a context that's free of spiritual bias, and any organisation that happens to caretake the latihan can similarly be free of religiosity. If only Subud were thus, it would be in a position to present to the world something potentially useful and compatible with modern times, whereas currently it sustains an unnecessary obstacle.

Merin

From Sahlan Diver, May 9, 2009. Time 15:37

Iljas,

I accept that you personally may have not intended the word "grievance" in the sense and context that it has ocassionally been used against us by other parties, but it is an unfortunate choice of word nevertheless.

Dictionary definition:

Meaning of grievance (noun)
form: grievances
a complaint about a (real or imaginary) wrong that causes resentment and is grounds for action.

"complaint" "resentment". The word does carry connotations of a person feeling wronged or hard done by in some way, and also there is an implied element of self-centredness, you can feel resentment for yourself, but you can't in quite the same way feel resentment on behalf of another person.

If a government inspector carries out an inspection on a car and draws up a list of problems that he thinks should be fixed, for the safety not just of himself, but for the safety of the car owner and his fellow citizens as well, do we describe the inspector as having grievances? No. It is an inappropriate term. Similarly, most of our Subud Vision writers it seems to me are drawing up a checklist of problems in Subud that they think ought to be fixed, not because they are personally aggrieved, they in fact might not be, but because they believe their suggestions are for the good of Subud as a whole.

"My point was about loving and understanding those whose ideas we may not agree with...... Why can't we live with diverse ideas?"

Well it depends on the ideas. If we are talking about religious ideas, then Subud already does that very well, deosn't it. Where else can Muslims, Christians, atheists etc etc meet and put aside their different philosophies to share in a common beneficial experience? I think it was on our new listserver that an applicant remarked on being impressed by this, because it was natural, not just people trying very hard to be "ecumenical".

But there is also such a thing in the world as right and wrong, good decisions and bad decisions, good policy and bad policy, and on such matters there has to be an open debate so the issues can be properly examined, without prejudice and maybe new policies formulated and actioned. People can hold different, opposing opinions, sure; they can also be persuaded their former opinions were wrong; even better a mix of people can each individually elucidate an aspect of the truth, but ultimately when the decision is made, some opinions are going to end up being selected or favoured over others, coexistence of opinion on an equally favoured basis is simply not possible. The only way it is possible in fact is to hold to a polite standoff where people hold different views, but nothing gets changed for fear of upsetting one side or the other. But that is not a neutral situation, it is effectively a decision made by default, and without debate, to retain things as they are. And that is a recipe for organisational stagnation and decline.

You say you are not against making some changes. At the same time I am sure you would not be in agreement with making changes blindly - e.g. "we'll allow you to change any 3 aspects of Subud of your own choosing, but after that no more changes" So how is it possible to set a limit on the amount of change other than through a process of debate and throughly examining all the issues. We might need to change 20 things, we might need to change 200 - what is important is to try to make the right decisions, not to set some entirely arbitrary personal limit on how much should be done.

"Bring the latihan into daily life and loving and respecting each other" This sounds grand, but it is too abstract, too high-flown. In what ways are members not doing this? Give some examples. Where is your evidence that members are in fact lacking on this in a big way,

Sahlan

From Iljas Baker, May 9, 2009. Time 15:56

Merin you didn't really answer my question, you simply repeated that most enquirers are turned off by a focus on Bapak's talks. Most? What numbers are you talking about? In which groups? In which countries? Males or females or both? People already practicing a path or having no affiliation with any? How did they find out about Subud? Did these "many enquirers" specifically say that it was the emphasis on Bapak's talks that caused them not to receive the latihan? How many said this? To whom did they say it? Many enquirers these days seemed to have learned about Subud through the internet so I'd guess they know what we're all about in terms of our respect for Bapak. Is it really a revelation for most when they actually meet helpers? It would take a lot of hard evidence to convince me of that. So although I do think some things could be changed, I am still not convinced of your basic premise.

In my group of the last 9 male enquirers 6 have been opened (more than 50%), one declined at the last moment as he decided to give his existing path another chance, another was advised to be opened in the country he was going to live in and we contacted the helpers there to explain the situation and another didn't reappear which didn't surprise us as we felt he was a grazer so to speak. No one has expressed dissatisfaction with the place of Bapak's talks or the sense of religiosity emanating from us (the helpers), which doesn't of course prove that they weren't dissatisfied.

Iljas

From Iljas Baker, May 9, 2009. Time 17:8

Hi Sahlan, my dictionary (Concise Oxford) doesn't mention resentment. It simply defines it as a real or fancied cause for complaint. To complain means to express dissatisfaction. It could be over the treatment of others, no implication of self-centredness. But I know what you mean. Words can disable as well as enable.

You ask for examples, but perhaps I should better have put my statement as a question: Do we love and respect each other enough? Some of the groups I have been in haven't been strong on love, I accept my own share in that situation. I used to contribute to one of the early Subud discussion groups and clearly people described there many experiences in their groups which would support this. On the Vision web site Marcus Bolt's experience with his group seems to support this. Isn't there always complaints in SV about people visiting groups and more or less being ignored, or is that a thing of the past? Groups all over the place seem to be arguing and breaking up for one reason or another. Sorry I can't offer more than that. The view actually relates to my receiving and I know saying that is pretty useless in terms of debating.

Do you think we love and respect each other enough or do you think it doesn't matter? Or do some other things matter more?

Will someone eventually summarise everything on the web site or compile a list of the most desired changes or what?

Iljas

From Sahlan Diver, May 9, 2009. Time 18:32

Iljas,

Well the first dictionary definition I found supported ny own understanding of the word, but if we searched a lot of dictionaries that might not be the majority verdict. I don't know.

Now that you give examples on the love and understanding subject it is much easier to comment.

People visiting groups and being ignored still happens I believe. Only last week a correspondent, a new member, complained to me privately about this happening to him at a group he hadn't visited before. But is the reason lack of love, or just social ineptness, or groups not having their own premises to feel relaxed in, or maybe people feeling others need to be quiet after the latihan and not wanting to disturb them, or some complex mixture of the above factors and more?

A reason that I do know of is that members in many groups don't get on with each other, so they are not inclined to be socialable anyway, whether they have a visitor or not. That of course is evidence in favour of what you say is your receiving on this matter, and your previous experience in discussion groups, and I think there are plenty of other stories, some in Subud Vision articles, that would back you up on that.

A point that I make in some articles is that we don't have adequate procedures for dealing with grievances (and I do mean personal grievances this time) I am not going to repeat my case here, just to say that I think a lot of the trouble is caused by our lack of skill at resolving disagreements, I suggest in one article that while testing can be very valuable in disputes, applied inappropriately it might even worsen a situation.

But yes a big additional factor may come down to lack of love (in the sense of people not caring enough). So I am partly in agreement with you on this. People have got to want to care enough to feel it as intolerable that these long term disputes go on causing disruption. At the same time I believe that we don't always go about resolving disputes in the right way, so even where there are member who do care and make efforts, these efforts are hampered. But although you can preach (in the nicest sense of the word) to people about the need to have a better attitude, I am sceptical that this can make any real difference in practise. We can however set guidelines, standards and procedures for dispute resolution. What we have at the moment is test together, or wait for the latihan to sort it out. The evidence shows this clearly isn't enough. I am no expert on dispute resolution, but I have suggested we need an additional procedure, for example the availability of independent bodies to appeal to - not so they can apportion blame, but simply so they can help the parties to resolve the problem and learn from the dispute for the future.

"Will someone eventually summarise everything on the web site or compile a list of the most desired changes or what?"

- I am in the process of attempting this myself in the form of a set of proposals for change to be submitted to World Congress, although as Subud Vision has no official status, the article will be presented as a set of suggestions for proposals, rather than actual formal proposals,

Sahlan

From Merin Nielsen, May 9, 2009. Time 22:15

Hi, Iljas,

You wrote === Many enquirers these days seemed to have learned about Subud through the internet so I'd guess they know what we're all about in terms of our respect for Bapak. Is it really a revelation for most when they actually meet helpers? It would take a lot of hard evidence to convince me of that. So although I do think some things could be changed, I am still not convinced of your basic premise.

Fair enough -- I don't have formal statistics. By 'inquirers', I'm thinking mainly of all the possibly thousands of people in Western countries who inquire by looking on the internet. These days, that's how it's initially done. Having come across the name 'Subud' somewhere, their next stop is the internet. I've spoken with many people about their impressions of Subud on the internet, and I know that by and large they never go past the first typically pious introduction to Bapak and his talks -- for the very reasons I've mentioned above. There are also family members, relatives and friends of members who can't help but be aware of the exotic, pseudo-religious, I-dare-say cultish nature of this organisation. For each Subud member, these people represent perhaps dozens more who might have been interested enough to give latihan a go -- if only . . .

Merin

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