Accept What is Given

ONE of the helpers who served me during my three-month waiting period before being opened once said that he, as a Muslim, had abandoned the sharia. I didn’t comment on it because at that time I also didn’t adhere to any religion (I left my religion two years before joining Subud). However, one day I received news that he had gone on pilgrimage to Mecca.

Upon returning to Indonesia, without meaning to ridicule him, I asked him why he had gone on pilgrimage. “I was invited by my daughter, who paid me and her mother for the trip, so I just accepted. Don’t fight back the reality,” he replied.

That answer brought my memory back to the moment I had a chat with the Youth Indonesia coordinator, about ten years ago. He recounted his confusion after presenting Youth Indonesia’s plan to Ibu Rahayu, namely holding the Retracing of Bapak’s Journey from Semarang to Yogyakarta, which participants would do on foot.

According to the Youth Indonesia coordinator, Ibu neither rejected nor opposed, but neither supported as well. “Why do you have to walk? Nowadays it’s not like before—we used to walk, because we didn’t have a vehicle and there were still very few cars. Today, there are lots of cars, there are buses and trains too. Why do you have to walk? Use what you have, don’t make things difficult for yourself,” said Ibu, as told by the Youth coordinator.

I think that’s what differentiates Subud from other paths. Subud does not prohibit or oblige its members to abstain from “the realities that exist in this world”. The principle is simply accept what is given. The Latihan is like that, we just receive and follow that receiving, without arguing, rejecting, or fighting back.

As an example of this is my following story.

I had four years of affairs with four different women. Please, don’t be so quick to judge me, “Oh, how come someone who has received God’s guidance had done something bad like that?!”

Don’t think I enjoyed it; how could I enjoy it when all I got was just trash from the lower forces that came from those women. I was often angry, disappointed, confused, sad, for no reason! I tested myself and found that the negative feelings were coming from my cheating partners, everytime I was thinking about them. To overcome it, I had to surrender the feelings, by doing the Latihan.

Not a few Subud brothers and sisters in Jakarta criticized my behavior, but the helpers in my home group in Surabaya, East Java, asked me to accept it sincerely, because they had tested it and received that I was being “taken apart for cleansing”.

“Just accept it, but don’t violate what is not His guidance. Later you will know why you have to go through this situation. Everything happens for a reason,” explained the Surabaya’s senior helper.

With the advice of that senior helper, I patiently accepted a very painful mental torment for four years. Miraculously, not long after this painful process was over, I met a helper in Cilandak who lent me a photocopy of Emmanuel Williams’ book, Loving: The Spiritual Aspects of Sex. That book confirmed everything that I had gone through in those four years. (Contemplating the contents of the book would be of great use to members in Indonesia, I eventually spent ten days translating it into Bahasa.)

That was when I understood the meaning of the expression “Receive and Follow”. Just accept the reality, so we can get used to appreciate what we already have or what we are facing in our life.

I remember talking about the turmoil the above-mentioned Youth Indonesia coordinator was going through, when a number of Subud brothers and sisters and I went to Sukamulya, last March 19, 2023. When many asked me to walk along with them from the Latihan hall near the gate of the complex to the hill where Bapak’s grave is located, I replied calmly, “There are cars here, I will use it. Why bother going on foot.”©2023

 

Pondok Cabe, Tangerang Selatan, 23 March 2023