The Meme God

Commenting on someone’s post on the Facebook Group “SUBUD AROUND THE WORLD”  on June 16, 2023, regarding how Subud responds to atheism, I wrote the following.

 

I know a member well, who passed away in 2020. He was opened in 1968 in Cilandak by Pak Darto. He told me that he was an atheist when he joined Subud. He was never introduced by his parents to religion or teachings about divinity, because his father was a sympathizer of the Indonesian Communist Party and his mother adhered to Javanese mysticism.

It was his mother who took him to Wisma Subud, to meet Pak Darto to open her son. The mother had joined Subud earlier—she was opened by Ibu Sumari in London. The mother was a nurse on the hospital ship USS Hope which was anchored in England at the time.

His mother brought him to Subud because he had had a stomach ache and had not recovered even though he had been treated by doctors.

The member said to me, “If at that time Pak Darto had explained anything about God, I would not have wanted to join Subud. But Pak Darto instead told me to go into a room where thirty people were waiting to be opened.”

The member also shared that he did the Latihan for 12 years without “believing in God” and still received strong vibrations. One day, while speeding on the highway, he had a terrible accident, which normally would have killed the driver. But the member instead felt extraordinary peace and calm, which made him resignedly surrender to whatever would happen to him. He even had time to think, “Wow, this is how death feels like. So wonderful.”

Before he passed out, he saw a bluish light envelop him. Then, he heard screams of people, saying, “Hey, the driver is still alive!”

The member was amazed to see that he was completely unharmed, both outside and inside his body. From then on, he began to believe that there was an existence beyond human life, but he was reluctant to call it a god.

I myself have experience with atheism. Two years before I was opened in Subud, my chaotic, pain-ridden life had led me to decide that God didn’t exist and religion was bullshit.

After doing Latihan for four years, I again did not believe in God. It may be an expression of the cleansing I was going through—one that cleared my mind of human teachings about god and led me to know the true god, which is beyond the reach of our minds. But in my “not believing in a meme* god” state, my Latihan felt really strong—maybe because my mind wasn’t shackled by teachings; I felt very free.

I shared this experience with a member who also didn't believe in God at the time. He confirmed me by stating that his Latihan experience was very similar to mine. And I noticed that those who stayed in Subud (especially native Indonesians) are those who don't believe in a meme god, a god that was conceived by reason through man-made teachings.©2023

 

Pondok Cabe, Tangerang Selatan, 24 July 2023

 

*) A meme is an idea, behavior, or style that spreads by means of imitation from person to person within a culture and often carries symbolic meaning representing a particular phenomenon or theme. A meme acts as a unit for carrying cultural ideas, symbols, or practices, that can be transmitted from one mind to another through writing, speech, gestures, rituals, or other imitable phenomena with a mimicked theme.