What I so often read and heard is about Subud members doing testing in advance of starting enterprising ventures. Enterprises, as Bapak persistently suggests to members, are meant for us to recognize and benefit God's guidance upon us. Bapak said when he was in Mexico (77 MEX 2), "...that enterprises are not purely directed towards commercial undertaking, but rather they are a training ground to get Subud members used to receiving the guidance of God Almighty, both in the kejiwaan and also in their outer life."
A testing in Subud is like any ordinary Latihan Kejiwaan. The difference lies in that a kejiwaan testing is performed when a helper or a member has a problem that needs to be asked, which by so doing they would receive answers in any form whatsoever, while during an ordinary latihan the mind should be emptied. Bapak has always advised against too much testing. In her talk to the Dewan of International Helpers (Cilandak, July 1984), Ibu Rahayu said that there is no new recipe for testing -- it is only surrender. "Deal with ordinary matters in a practical way. Look at each situation and maybe by talking about it with [other members], in a quiet state, you will arrive at the right answer -- without testing," Ibu notes.
So often, mostly among Subud members in Indonesia where I come from, are enterprises commenced through prior testing to find out whether one venture is all right to be undertaken or not -- whether one try would end up in "umph" or, on the contrary, a breakdown. Testing is usually acted upon as well in the course of the endeavor, merely to make sure everything will go well.
So frequently too, "pre-tested enterprises" wind up in collapse. Now, what or who is ultimately to blame when such mishaps ensued? The testing? God? Or simply the men-behind-the-work who aren't quite proficient in handling the trade? Let's brood over this later. Now, I'm just in the frame of mind to mull over enterprises without a practical kejiwaan testing, both prior as well as at some point in time.
In my experience, a kejiwaan testing, as it would in learning, may occur when you simply undertake your enterprise. A testing -- in Subud's sense of the word -- is practicable by plainly doing your thing. I always hammered into myself Bapak's advice that members should constantly niteni (Jv. observe) their latihan and living out the latihan in daily life. When you observe with awareness everything you do, you will eventually get the notion that you are in reality always under constant guidance from the Divine. Every step of your way will then be directed.
If it is failure that befell you, don't mind too acutely. Failures are one way or another just one stage of the path towards accomplishments. Unbeaten entrepreneurs build their successes on heaps of failures. Being indomitable in times of failure is what distinguishes entrepreneurs from the run-of-the-mill business undertakers. Fine entrepreneurs know that what awaits them in the near future, both pleasant and disagreeable, is just part of their learning process -- it will lead them to something that carries great weight for the benefit of their enterprise.
In short, failures or successes reveal the Divine guidance that is everlastingly bestowed upon us. This may imply that the kind of enterprise that Bapak always recommends us to do is another way of testing yourself!©
