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Post subject:
 Posted: Apr 23, 2004 - 01:00 AM
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A long way to the 7th Level
Joined: Aug 18, 2003
Posts: 56
Location: Lisbon
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How do I not do the Latihan!!
How do I not believe in God!!
These are impossibilities to me!!
Latihan, God... Words right? Nothing but words. Words with meanings. The meanings is what matters here, just the word. Coming to this simple conclusion:
The Universe. All that there is and that there is not is Latihan, is God, is Love, is Pure Energy, is Flower Power, is whatever word with the right meaning is.
So everybody, everything does Latihan all the time.
I found clearness and freedom in braking all these words. Cause we're giving to much meaning to words and it should be the opposite.
But now talking about that Latihan that you do in the middle of four walls a ceilling and a floor(a door would be nice)... To me it's like Life unworried. It's purity. It's an art gallery!! Where you see the big picture!! 
I find the expression "bringing the Latihan to the outer Life" a bit... Wrong? Cause Latihan is everything, and when I say Latihan I mean the meaning of it. Latihan is just a word. So we don't bring it out, cause it's everywhere, we just keep in tune.
We have a brain that tells us that we should go to Latihan to feel better, to connect with God. I'm connected to God 24/7, how can I not be connected to God? I am God.
It sounds as if I'm preaching cause the way I'm writing things. I write like I speak. This is my way of seeing, believing and feeling!! These are my ings. |
_________________
.: STRAPAU :.
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Post subject:
Posted: Jun 05, 2004 - 07:55 AM
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Directed Jiwa
Joined: Feb 27, 2003
Posts: 31
Location: Hong Kong, S.A.R., PRC
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Latihan is so much in my life that I haven't questioned 'Why I do it". Someone returning to UK last year asked me but, partly because we were in the HK Philosophy Cafe, I simply said "For 200 reasons." As we had previously talked about Subud and I had referred him to Subud sites, he did say later that he would make enquiries from the Oxford group.
Synchronicity is near the top of the list. If things don't fit or activities don't connect I move on. My wife tells me that I am so detached that she thinks I am not part of this world.
Another is the wonderful state of Being - similar to water, metaphorically. I cannot frankly recall when someone "got my goat". It must have been about 20 years ago.
The impression when waking each morning that I am born to a new day. There is harldy any baggage from yesterday - I genuinely live NOW as if there will be no tomorrow.
Anyone who gets the impression that I am here and others are elsewhere can be relieved to know that I was opened in HK in 1964 under direction from only God knows because no one had told me anything about Subud. I attended latihan bi-weekly to the extent that my wife told me it was the only thing that I did consistently. I attended faithfully for decades before a glimmer of Self-realizatiion came to my consciousness with heightened senses in 1986. I mean dozens of senses which we all know but rarely are more than slightly aware.
So if it is of any meaning to rank the benefits, the most important would be Guidance. It is sometimes referred to as the Conscience but there is more to it than the "wee voice inside".
Like the evening I rushed to leave our apartment to join my wife with guests at the restaurant. As the lift door closed, I suddenly remembered I forgot to bring something. Mechanically I plugged my right thumb in the square edged door, stopping it but not touching the center which would have reversed it. Clamped as I was, it was not possible to reach the control panel at the right side of the lift with my left hand. At that moment, with the throbbing pain of my thumb, I realized I would be trapped, it occurred to me to kick with my right foot which hit the Door Open button on about the third try.
Sucking my thumb, I retrieved whatever I had thought was important and joined the dinner. The only time I related this was with Varindra a short time later during his visit to HK. My recollection of his comment is suitable to post in this thread.
"Michael, in your state of distracted mind, if the lift door had not trapped your thumb you might have very possibly walked out into the street to be struck by a taxi." I had been given a lesson.
There have been other times less dramatic when I believe I have received Guidance. Rather than taking it for granted, I struggle to follow it as best I can. After 40 years together, this last February my wife gripped my hand telling me: "You and I are all we've got." Serendipity!
Kind regards,
Michael |
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Post subject:
Posted: Jul 04, 2004 - 08:02 AM
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Jiwa Walker
Joined: Feb 08, 2004
Posts: 14
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You know, that’s a surprisingly provocative question. Off the top of my head I have no idea. I know of many people my age (far too many in this area) who have a laundry list of reasons why they don’t go to latihan, but I can’t come up with a ready set of reasons that I still go. Except perhaps that I couldn’t possibly not go. That is not to say that I go because I am expected to or for any external reason that is just to say that I cannot put into words exactly what I get out of going.
It’s not that I haven’t had some really big experiences in Latihan. And it’s not that I haven’t done really great things and met wonderful people that I otherwise wouldn’t have because of it. But I can’t know what my life would have been without it so I can’t claim that my life is any better that it otherwise would have been. In some ways I imagine that it’s harder. I think that a certain level of unconsciousness might be really quite nice occasionally. I guess the best way to begin to explain it is that before I was opened when I would pray it felt like there was a barrier that my prayer couldn’t go past and after I was opened that barrier was gone. When I am doing my Latihan it is not about the people who I am with (or not with) or how much frustration I might or might not have at various things within the group (my peers who left did not leave without reason) or about any tangible or at least definable benefit it might bring into my life. It’s about that barrier not being there, and it’s not just about the feeling that my prayers go up, but the feeling of what comes back down in return. Even if I knew for a fact that my path in life had been made more difficult, that I had been given more challenges in life, that there were absolutely no quantifiable external benefits in my life because of the latihan; I would still do it. Because what comes back down? is worth everything. |
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Post subject: Calling all people opened within the last five years
Posted: Dec 02, 2005 - 09:22 AM
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Site Admin
Joined: Jul 14, 2002
Posts: 295
Location: 世界 Shijie
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Calling all Youth, all recently opened members - so anyone who has been doing the latihan for less than five years. Tell us why you do the latihan?
Perhaps you can share your ideas and expectations. If you manage to come without expectations, what motivates you to do your latihan?
How do you feel there is logic within your life for doing the latihan?
Do you wonder how likely you think you’ll be doing the latihan in 20 or 40 years?
Is your latihan effortless?
You could even share how you were opened.
Anyway lots of ideas aside what brings you to do your latihan?
This thread is just to share perspectives and experiences with Youth and new members doing the latihan. |
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Post subject:
Posted: Dec 02, 2005 - 07:32 PM
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7th Level Skirter
Joined: Apr 17, 2003
Posts: 161
Location: Britain
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Surely it's not right that an oldie such as yourself should put the younglings on the spot like this Harun!
Who am I kidding. I'm peeved that your definition has made me too old by a year to be youth.  |
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Post subject:
Posted: Dec 02, 2005 - 11:06 PM
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Site Admin
Joined: Jul 14, 2002
Posts: 295
Location: 世界 Shijie
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I feel younger than everybody. 
Young, young at heart, young in nature, is no issue.
Five years is a rough number, that will include as many recently opened people as possible. The idea of this forum thread is to get people talking about the latihan in a nice way.
There's already been lots of sometime opened people previously here, it might be nice for new members to share their thoughts with other people in a similar situation.
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Post subject:
Posted: Dec 08, 2005 - 02:13 AM
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Jiwa Walker
Joined: Aug 19, 2005
Posts: 7
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| Certainly, I was opened more than five years ago, however the latihan itself, at least for me, has never had an age attached. That is one reason I love it so much. :>) Hamilton |
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Post subject:
Posted: Dec 10, 2005 - 09:23 PM
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Newbie
Joined: Dec 10, 2005
Posts: 3
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Hmm...I thought that i might just kick my side of the ball around the room for a bit. New user here on Subud Life, though not to Subud...
So, the big question, why I do Latihan:
Growning up in a Jewish household, I have believed in God (or whatever you might happen to call it) since about forever. Perhaps thats why I am saved from the life I see so many lead these days, and are ruled by it. I speak none other than of drugs. Not that any hard drugs have ever past my way.
But lets go back a bit.
When I was 15 I began to smoke weed quite often (progressing with the years into a very heavy smoker), and dug myself a hole of depression, self loathing and laziness around me. And it took hold me. It was so easy to take something to help me forget. When I was 18 I was opened into Subud and began praticing the Latihan. I had stopped smoking everyday like I had been about a month prior to my opening, now it was more of 'whenever it came' thing. Which became quite often.
I stopped doing Latihan, for even then I could feel that I was not to mix the two. That it would be a breech in something I did hold very sacred since my childhood.
I wandered then with many questions and no way to recieve any answers.
Then before my 20th birthday I planned to go live in Switzerland for half a year. I had begun smoke regularly about a month and a half prior to my flight, and about a week before I left, something incredible happened to me. I don't know if to imagine that it was possible that I recieved something while being stoned, or if something from deep down finally clicked on, but as I sat there smoking and feeling so bad about smoking, but not really knowing what to do, telling myself I should stop but never really completely doing so (for I had been smoking on and off for about a year then). It was as if I was being shown what the difference was between being high on weed and being high on life, purely and emphatically in the joy that only God may bring us. I was shown myself, pure.
So as any human of some normality would do; I cried. Oh, did I cry, and it was good.
So why do I do Latihan? It helps me to keep myself. Because it good to have one more thing in this life that is good. Its an extension of everything I find good in this life.
Plus its great to have an excuse and say, 'but I can't possibly work this summer, I have a World Congress to go to. It only happens once every four years you know.' 
Cheers my brothers and sister....
This is long enough for my first post
Peace out |
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Post subject: Why do "I" do the latihan
Posted: Dec 10, 2005 - 11:42 PM
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7th Level Skirter
Joined: Jan 01, 2005
Posts: 142
Location: Brisbane
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The simple answer is that I no longer do.
I came to Subud because I felt - on what I had heard and read - that Subud could really change my life and renew me.
Raymond van Sommers - someone I know, like and respect - has recently said more or less the same thing on Australian ABC National Radio.
When I came to Subud in Melbourne 35+ years ago I was a rather sweet, innocent, unworldly university dropout. If I "suffered" from anything it was a sensitive and somewhat mildly anxious temperament. I had not "done drugs" or had sex.
In retrospect, I am absolutely sure that proper treatment by a skilled health professional - psychologist or psychiatrist - which translates into learning simple relaxation techniques and applying them to life would have dramatically changed my situation.
Ibu Rahayu - one of the sanest of Subud members - is reliably reported as saying that most Subud members' problems are either psychological or financial. How true! I think many would relate to that.
The latihan gave me the experience that "it": "God", "reality" whatever was within me rather than outside me.
I certainly had some, to me, quite remarkable experiences in the latihan, doing testing with Bapak and in life.
Doing the latihan for 35 years more or less also gave me a realization that "religion" or "spirituality" is not strictly hierarchical. When I lived in Perth, Western Australia for 13 years the Group was definitely dominated by some very strong willed ex-Gurdjieff/Bennetite old lags who really ran things with an iron fist. Not disimilar to the way Irish/Irish-Australian Catholic priests ran their parishes. Terribly sad and destructive. Because of geographic isolation, the problem was worse. When I got back home to Eastern Australia and the Sydney Group I realized that this dead, controlled, bitter, hierarchical Subud was crap.
Subud, Islam, Buddhism are all dependent on whether their practitioners can really "see" and "transform" their lives.
Most ordinary people can see a fake - in Subud or out - quite easily.
I effectively left because I found that the Brisbane Group was recreating the situation in Perth of old. I did try to change things but realized people were happy with what was and I wasn't. So I cut my losses and left.
I don't feel "lost", "sad" or that I have done something awful and that God will punish me.
There is a marvelous Buddhist phrase: "Walk On!"
I know there are many decent wonderful people in Subud. I find a lot of the younger ones pleasantly unconstipated spiritually. I wish everyone the best. It's just that I felt the need to walk on.
There is life after Subud!
I hope my piece does not enrage anyone.
Best wishes,
Ismail |
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Post subject: Why I do the latihan
Posted: Apr 28, 2006 - 06:38 AM
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Jiwa Walker
Joined: Aug 02, 2004
Posts: 14
Location: Kelowna, B.C. Canada
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Apparently I was asleep when this forum took place, so without further adieu, let me revive the topic, for I fall within the "relatively new to latihan" criteria.
About 9 years ago, a friend of mine had travelled to Indonesia and was opened. When he returned, I could not be in the same room with him without trembling. Upon departing from the Vancouver Folk Festival, he asked to be dropped off at the "Subud" hall. The name rung like a bell in my ears, and I had never heard it before and needed to know more.
You see, I had been searching for some time to resolve an experience that I had in the early hours of March 23, 1993. I had been wound up about exams and was having trouble sleeping, so I tried some breathing exercises to help me relax. Next thing I knew, my head was filled with a white-blue light and a deafening high-frequency vibration. In fact, my entire body felt electric, as I began to transcend my skin, coming out of my chest, mouth open ready to sing, or cry out. It was the single most ecstatic experience of my life, like being born, utterly undescribable. For a brief moment, I realized what was happening to me, and with a miniscule moment of fear and electric shock, I was snapped back into my body, a force that practically lifted me from my bed. From this moment on, nothing was the same. I never returned to that experience, dispite many attempts.
I never stopped thinking about Subud, or Djubaidah, or my friend who had travelled to Indonesia. I was reluctant however to make the commitment until a low point in my life, where I behaved so badly, that I realized that I no longer loved myself. Coupled by a dream of Magnolias that took flight in the form of birds..........I recieved the message........
That it was time to visit Djubaidah and be opened.....
that was 4 years ago
the rest is an adventure.....
to be continued..... |
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Post subject: Esaias is agahst!
Posted: Apr 28, 2006 - 07:14 AM
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Site Admin
Joined: Apr 04, 2006
Posts: 19
Location: Brighton
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Harun - you're 26?!!
Now that's something I did not know.
G.B
E.x |
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Post subject:
Posted: Apr 28, 2006 - 08:48 AM
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Site Admin
Joined: Jul 14, 2002
Posts: 295
Location: 世界 Shijie
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G.B
E.x
Esaias O Divine Qi Magnet
On May 03, 2003 - 10:12 PM I was 26 years and 10 months.
Esaias will shortly be telling us about Why he does the latihan
Watch this space with suspense and awe at its prospect....
Anyone else.  |
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Post subject: Why do "I" do the Latihan?
Posted: Apr 28, 2006 - 11:24 AM
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Newbie
Joined: Dec 19, 2005
Posts: 1
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Hello everyone
I might be too old to be on this site (35) but anyway, the answer to this question, for me, is simple...I thought the purpose of doing the latihan regularly was so that your actions/feelings in life will be influenced by God rather than the lower forces. Isn't this why we are in Subud?
And also it makes me feel alive/happy which keeps me going back for more.
Love Claire |
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Post subject: RE: Why do "I" do the Latihan?
Posted: Apr 29, 2006 - 05:49 AM
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7th Level Skirter
Joined: Jan 11, 2006
Posts: 136
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Well, I was opened about 1980 when I was 20 something y/o but only stayed in Subud a year or so before I dropped out and stopped attending group latihan. I came back into Subud in January of this year, and have been attending group latihan fairly regularly since then. The only "problem", for lack of a better word, that I have with group latihan is that it seems to be unnecessary for me. That is, I can stay home and practice latihan and reach the same state of consciousness I do in the group latihan. In fact, I suspect that I never stopped doing the latihan, I have been doing it all along - for 20+ years now - and calling it "meditation" or something.
What's more - and some will consider this heresy - I'm not sure the movements, etc., that spontaneously occur in latihan are all that important. I think the state of consciousness one attains is what's really important and I don't need to formally practice the latihan to tune into it. It is a natural state of consciousness that one can access at any time. Now, I'm not saying that I can access it at any time, just that it is possible to do so, which gives me hope that progress is possible for the human race. I'm not sure how the human will fits into this picture though... but I'm starting to ramble.  |
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Post subject: RE: Why do "I" do the Latihan?
Posted: Apr 29, 2006 - 08:51 PM
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Jiwa Walker
Joined: Jul 13, 2003
Posts: 10
Location: London, England
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The reason why I do the latihan is out of necessity. I feel it is my obligation to worship God, to improve my own situation and to allow the faults within me to be put right. The only way for this to occur is through the movements I recieve in the latihan, either inwardly or outwardly. The movements that I feel while I practice the latihan allow me to realise that God is working on me, and in me. That God is showing me that parts of my own self are now alive, are being moved by the power of God, and not by the power of my desires or passions. The vibrations that I feel due to this movement also show me the proof of my situation, that I am a creature created by God and humbly powerless before Him.
I am not trying to become special or aquire extra knowledge or enlightenment, I just want to know how to live life in the correct way, according to Gods Will.
With Love
Samuel |
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