CONCERNING
SUBUD

BY

J. G. BENNETT

REVISED EDITION
with additional material

LONDON

HODDER & STOUGHTON LTD

COPYRIGHT © I958 BY J. G. BENNETT
REVISED EDITION WITH ADDITIONAL MATERIAL © 1958 BY J. G. BENNETT

First published March 1958

Reprinted July 1958

Second Edition (revised) December 1958
Reprinted March 1959

Made and Printed in Great Britain for

Hodder and Stoughton Limited London by

Wyman and Sons Limited London,

Reading and Fakenham

CONTENTS

Chapter                                                                              Page

PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION                                                7

FOREWORD                                                                                13

INTRODUCTION                                                                          I7

I THE NEW EPOCH                                                                    21

I. The Conscious Direction of Evolution—2. The
Theory of Epochs—3. Divine Providence—4. Times
and Seasons—5. The Ages of Mankind—6. The
Coming Epoch

II A PERSONAL APPROACH                                                 35

1. Gurdjieff—2. Alice Bailey and the Arcane School—
3. General Expectancy in the World—4. Personal
Experiences—5. Emin Chikhou—6. Sheikh Abdullah
Dagestani—7. Hadji Ahmad al Tabrizi—8. Intima-
tions from the Far East

III     THE COMING OF SUBUD                                                          53

1. Birth and Early Years of Muhammad Subuh—2.
The Beginning of the Latihan—3. Transmission of
the Contact—4. The Foundation of Subud—5.
Susila Budhi Dharma—6. The Expansion of Subud—
7. Subud in England—8. The Arrival of Pak Subuh—
9. The 'Healing' of Eva Bartok—10. Subud in Europe
—11. The Influx from Overseas—12. Subud goes
round the World

IV     WORKING FROM WITHOUT AND FROM WITHIN                    78

1. Two Principles of Existence—2. The Human
Personality—3. The Variety of Influences that act on
Man—4. The Twofold Flow of Influences—5.
Working from Without—6. Schools and Teachers—
7. The Inner Working

V THE LATIHAN                                                                 95

1. The meaning of 'Latihan'—2. Approach to Subud
—3. The Opening—4. Helpers—5. Openers—6.
Conditions of the Latihan

PREFACE
TO THE SECOND EDITION

Little more than a hundred days have passed since this
book was first published, and during that time much has
happened. Subud has completed its first circuit of the
earth, and I have been able to witness its progress in the
United States, Australia, Indonesia, Singapore and
Ceylon. There are now active Subud centres, branches
and individual members in more than half the countries
of the world. In London alone, letters are being received
at the rate of more than two hundred a week and nearly
all of them express the sense of need and urgency with
which the prospect of a positive spiritual action is wel-
comed by people of all races and religions. An account
of my own observations has been added to Chapter III,
and I have also made a few corrections of fact in the light
of fuller information about the origins of Subud.

I have removed several paragraphs from the Foreword.
As often happens, in trying to avoid offence I have tended
to create confusion. There is no need to look for a
causal or historical link between Subud and Gurdjieff's
System, the Thibetan Teachings, or any other of the
movements that have prepared the coming of the new
epoch. Whether or not the coming of Subud was
foreseen and predicted by Gurdjieff is irrelevant to
the fact that the psychological contents and methods of his
system and Subud are mutually complementary. The
two fit like the two halves of an apple. This can easily
be verified by anyone who will take the trouble to study
Pak Subuh's own book Susila Budhi Dharma and the
substance of explanatory talks he has given in several
countries in parallel with Gurdjieff's own writings and
lectures. Students of the latter have for the most part

failed to remark that—unlike his commentators—he
avoids explicit reference to the potentialities for human
experience and development beyond the level of the
normal balanced man. Similarly, Pak Subuh, writing
of the forces that act in man's life, cuts short his expo-
sition at the human forces, designating the three super-
human levels, but declining to enlarge upon their nature.
The possibility for man to evolve beyond the level of
normal humanity is not denied, but there is no profit in
attempting to describe in language forms of experience
and modes of action that are beyond the reach of the
mind. The evidence that such experience and such
action are real and do occur here and now on the earth
is to be found in the results.

Innumerable events connected with Subud have
occurred that only can be accounted for either by stretch-
ing the arm of coincidence to circle the world or by ad-
mitting the action of a Directive Consciousness far beyond
the mind of man. I hope that it may be possible to
collect and record these events in a later book. Hundreds
of men and women who have come to Subud are aware
of a directive, dynamic pattern that is shaping their lives
and have no doubt that this action is a direct consequence
of their association with Subud. It is impossible to convey
to others a private conviction that has grown out of the
knowledge that a man has of his own life. He can see for
himself that something new has happened to him, not
only in his inner state but also in his outward circum-
stances, and he can be sure that this could not have
happened fortuitously or as a result of his own sagacity.
He can see a change of 'shape' and very often others
who know him well can see this change also; but neither'
he nor they could convey this in a few sentences. Auto-
biographies are needed and not everyone is competent to
write one; but I know that several people have undertaken
the task and if, as I hope, some of these are published,
they will be more convincing than anything that I can
convey at second hand.

The general conclusion to which I have come is that

there is a Conscious Power now working in the world,
and that Subud is a means whereby individuals and
communities can come into contact with that Power, to
be helped by it and eventually to serve it. The action
of the Power is observable in many forms and each one
of us is naturally inclined to regard the manifestation to
which we are nearest as the principal and, sometimes,
even the only true one.

This raises the question of the connection between
Subud and organized religion. We are not yet wholly
free from the old intolerance which regarded all faiths
but our own as heresy or worse. It is still, for many of us,
hard to admit the possibility that spiritual gifts may come
to us from outside our own communion. Yet times have
greatly changed and there are millions throughout the
world ready to accept that faith in God and love towards
man are the essentials of religion and that men should be
free to choose the form of their worship. We can accept
without reservation Pak Subuh's assurance that Subud
is not a new religion and that it does not take the place
of the faith we have each received from our parents or
the society to which we belong. Subud is a means
whereby faith can be renewed and I have seen ample
proof that as a means it is effectual. Many Christians
who had ceased from religious observance have, through
Subud, been brought back to their Church and especially
to the Sacraments. Not only this: priests of more than
one denomination have sought and found in Subud a
renewal of strength. Others have written approvingly
of Subud and of their hope that it will be taken seriously
by the Churches as an ally in the struggle with the
material forces that threaten mankind.

We are still at the beginning and must be prepared
to regard Subud as an experiment with great potentialities
and as such be ready to wait patiently for further evidence.
Pak Subuh himself has said that with the great majority
of people three years are needed before the deeper strata
of personal character begin to be purified and harmon-
ized. I can only give my general impressions. After an

absence of four months, during which I travelled round
the world and saw the action of Subud on men and
women of many races, I returned to England and began
to observe the effect on several hundred people with
whom I had previously worked. I am satisfied that there
has been a general, sustained improvement both in the
physical condition of these people and in their mutual
relationships upon the reactional level. By this I mean
that the frictions and misunderstandings between people
of different ages, education, social class and attitude
towards the responsibilities of life have certainly diminished
and mutual trust has begun to develop. It is, however,
true that the deeper forces—those described by Pak
Subuh as the animal or motivating forces—have for the
most part remained unchanged. It may well be that we
shall have to wait for another two years before positive
evidence of a fully harmonious development can be
expected. Perhaps the most remarkable change that I
have observed in people who have been following the
Subud latihan for more than a year is the acquisition of
confidence and self-reliance and the marked diminution
of suggestibility and dependence upon others.

The third important addition made in this edition is a
section on the experience of death. The reality of a
continued existence after death cannot be doubted by
those who have 'exercised for the dead'. It is also
certain that the condition of man after death can vary
from a state of bitter desolation and confusion to one
of clarity and full consciousness. Modern man is afraid
of death, but does not take it seriously. The almost
universal indifference to the condition in which death is
approached is appalling to anyone who has experienced
the true state of affairs. In this respect the cleavage that
has become universal between the medical profession and
the priesthood is one of the most terrifying manifestations
of present-day materialism. Children do not understand
their duty towards parents who have died, husbands do
not realize that dead wives need their help, nor do wives
understand their connection with a dead husband. Most

people probably believe that some kind of existence
continues after death and the immense growth of the
spiritualist movement is proof that many are deeply
concerned with the problem of the after-life. But attemp-
ted communication through mediums is perhaps the most
unsatisfactory way of probing into the unknown. A
positive action is needed and one of the most amazing
and awe-inspiring experiences of the Subud latihan is
the direct evidence that is received of the true nature of
the connection between the dead and the living. I have
attempted to summarize this evidence in a new section
of Chapter VIII.

Life on this earth that does not take full account of
death and its consequences is far more foolish than that
of a man imprisoned for a short term who will not prepare
for the time of his release. The prisoner will at least have
hands and feet, eyes and ears when he re-enters the world
of free men. The man who dies unprepared is lost in
utter confusion and desolation from which he has no
power to liberate himself. The full realization of the
situation combined with the knowledge that those who
survive have the power to help the dead would do perhaps
more than anything to restore to mankind a sense of our
spiritual obligations. It may well be that we have here
the beginning of a new development that will have a
profound influence on human life in the future.

Finally, a question that has been raised by several
reviewers and many correspondents needs some explan-
ation here. It has been suggested that since the Subud
latihan requires nothing of us except the act of surrender
to the Will of God and the acceptance of an action which,
we believe, comes from the Holy Spirit, nothing remains
for us to do except wait patiently for the results to come.
Such an attitude, it is argued, leads to quietism and an
unhealthy passivity in life. It is contrary to the principle
that everything worth having must be paid for and, worst
of all, it undermines the sense of human responsibility.

These arguments are based on the false premise that
to surrender our will to the Supreme Will implies also

surrender of our will in regard to our own inner and
outer world. One of the great merits of Subud is the
clear distinction that it makes between what man can and
must do and what he cannot and should not attempt to do.
Man can and must work both inwardly and outwardly,
but he cannot understand the Power of God or the working
of the Holy Spirit, and he should not attempt to rely upon
his own strength to achieve his own purification. We
receive a power that is not our own, but the exercise of
the power remains our responsibility. This is made
abundantly clear in Pak Subuh's own book Susila Budhi
Dharma, but I have thought it necessary to add two
sections to Chapter VIII in the hope that any doubts on
the subject of human responsibility may be removed.

The objection that Subud is 'too easy' and does not
demand effort, is a strange aberration to those who have
practised it. It is easy to start, but to persist week after
week and month after month is a real task for those on
whom life presses hard. Patience is a great spiritual gift,
and it is not easy to be patient when for long months
nothing seems to happen. To be brought to see oneself
in the light of Conscience and to experience repentance
for all that one has done, and for all that one is, must be
for everyone the hardest trial. But without repentance
we cannot be saved. Those who seek to live according
to their religious faith know well that sincere repentance
is not achieved merely by wishing for it. The miracle of
Subud is that all these things are made possible for us—
but to do them remains and must always remain a free
act of our own will. No one should come to Subud who
imagines that salvation can be bought cheaply; but for
those who are willing to pay the price the reward is the
growing awareness of being sustained in all trials by the
Power of the Holy Spirit of God.

Coombe Springs
Coombe Lane
Kingston-upon-Thames
September 1958

FOREWORD

Working on this book, I have sometimes felt like a
traveller who discourses on the affairs of a country in which
he has spent seven days as a tourist. Subud is new to me
as it is to all western countries. My personal contact is
less than eighteen months old. I agreed to write Concern-
ing Subud partly to correct many false impressions that
have been formed from newspaper articles, and partly
because the obligation to share with others what we our-
selves value can only be discharged if we are ready to
disclose our experiences. It is easy to shelter behind
theories and what other people may have said or written,
but this does not pay our own debt.

The obligation to make public one's own—often very
private—reasons for following a certain course of action,
has a salutary effect in making one answer the question
"What really are my convictions in this matter ?" I have
set down my own conclusions, and some of the considera-
tions which have led me to them; others, indeed the most
cogent, cannot be expressed in words.

It is hard even to entertain the notion that a prodigious
event has now occurred on the earth. The external
evidence is meagre, but it has ever been so in the past.
As Albert Schweitzer wrote in his Quest of the Historical
Jesus, "What this something is, which shall bring new
life and new regulative principles to coming centuries,
we do not know. We can only dimly divine that it will
be the mighty deed of some mighty original genius, whose
truth and Tightness will be proved by the fact that we,
working at our poor half thing, will oppose him might
and main—we who imagine that we long for nothing
more eagerly than a genius powerful enough to open up
with authority a new path for the world, seeing that we

cannot succeed in moving it forward along the track which
we have so laboriously prepared."

In my opinion, the true significance of Subud is not
to be sought in its connection with special ways or
methods of self-development, but in the possibility it
opens to us all of witnessing a return of religious faith in
the world. Since Subud has no distinctive dogma, and
Pak Subuh himself repudiates any suggestion that Subud
is either a substitute for religion or itself a new religion,
it can be followed by those who seek to deepen their faith
in Divine Providence irrespective of their specific beliefs
or professions. When it is really understood that Subud
does not undermine a single article of the Christian faith,
but gives Christians a new understanding and a new force
in their own worship, it can do for the Church what no
amount of propaganda or pressure could ever do—that is,
deliver it from the prevalent empty observances which
come from the intellect or the emotions, and thereby
restore the true worship of the soul. The same applies to
Islam and the mosque, and to Judaism and the synagogue.

Men of all religions have succumbed to the spirit of the
old Epoch, and have sought to worship God with mind,
emotion and body—the same instruments that they use
for the study of natural phenomena, or for doing their
business—and the inevitable result has been the disappear-
ance of true religion. When people come to understand
not only that worship must come from the awakened soul
and from the conscience of man but that means are
to hand whereby the soul can indeed be awakened, we
may expect changes so far-reaching and so rapid that
within our present generation we may witness the birth of
a new world.

My qualifications to write about Subud are meagre, but
as no one is in a much better position, I have accepted the
task. I owe very much to Pak Subuh—he has told me
many things concerning himself and his work and about
the future of Subud about which I cannot write. I hope,
however, that by setting down my own impressions and
interpretations and by abstaining from giving incomplete

quotations from unpublished material, I may have suc-
ceeded in making it plain that no one except myself is
responsible for the opinions and conclusions expressed in
this book. It would have been easier to write had the
second volume of The Dramatic Universe been already
published, because, although written before I met Subud,
the conclusions reached in it are fully in accord with
those in the last chapter of this book. The final revision
has been delayed by the coming of Subud, which has
brought with it so many new tasks and so many new
problems that it seems impossible to accomplish all that
needs to be done.

I believe that a great blessing has come to mankind, not
through the mighty deed of some mighty original genius,
but by the will of God, and because of this belief I have
been prepared to set down my own experience for the
benefit of others. I have written only what I believe to
be right—not what I assert to be true. If in doing so I
have offended any susceptibilities, I hope I may be
forgiven.

INTRODUCTION

Modern man is a success. He can produce far more food-
stuffs and more goods than his forefathers at a fraction of
the cost in bodily and mental effort. His scientific and
technical achievements have not only given him leisure,
but provided endless means of enjoying it. He has
accumulated so great a store of knowledge of the world in
which he lives that he can never exhaust its possibilities.
And still new knowledge and new techniques keep pouring
in. Moreover, modern man has built up vast organiza-
tions for international co-operation, for health and social
welfare, for the production and distribution of wealth and
for the regulation of world economy—all of which should
ensure him against the risks of war, revolution, slumps,
epidemic diseases, and guarantee social justice and human
progress on a scale and at a rate never known before.

Yet modern man is unhappy, and lives in fear rather
than in hope as he looks towards the future. He is in this
condition despite the optimism that is almost universally
proclaimed by the leaders and thinkers of the greatest and
most powerful nations of the earth. People no longer
believe in their leaders, either political or philosophical
or religious. They feel like the child in Hans Andersen's
story, who, despite the acclamations of the courtiers, can
see for himself that the Emperor, for all his new clothes,
rides stark naked in his carriage.

Neither view of man can be denied. Man is successful,
and still he is unhappy and afraid. Yet happiness and
freedom from fear matter to him more than success. He
might even sacrifice his prosperity if he were sure that he
would be delivered from fear and unhappiness. But he is
sure of nothing.

The cause of all this malaise is easy to trace, and many

people are well aware of it. Man is outwardly rich and
inwardly poor; strong in what he has and can do, weak in
what he is and can feel. The outer world forces in human
life have grown enormously; the inner world forces have
not grown—perhaps they have even dwindled. Man's
contacts with the visible, tangible world of matter and
bodies have increased in every direction, his contact with
the invisible, suprasensible world of the spirit is less than
in any previous period of history.

If the material world were reliable, and if man could
obtain from it all that he needs or wants, then the loss of
the spiritual world might be no great hardship. Materia-
lists in recent decades have asserted that the greatest
blessing that has ever been enjoyed by mankind is libera-
tion from religious superstitions and naive beliefs in a
spiritual or non-material world. They have said that,
once set free from the illusions of religious belief, human
progress need know no limits. A boundless horizon of
technical achievements would make man Master, not
only of the earth, but also of the whole Solar System, and
perhaps even of the stars also. With limitless potentiali-
ties of new experiences and new powers, each generation
could not only enjoy the present, but possess in their
children the glorious future of mankind.

Today, these voices are no longer shouting their mes-
sage from the housetops with the same assurance, or, if
they are shouting, it is rather to keep up a courage that
from year to year is undermined with doubt and disillusion.
New voices are being heard that proclaim the downfall of
mankind, the End of the Age. These prophets of doom
are listened to, above all by the younger generation, that
sees with bitterness that it has been brought into a world
where success spells fear, and progress is the harbinger of

misery.

There is only one way out, and that is the renewal of
inward, spiritual vigour. Everyone knows this, and no
one knows how it is to be achieved. Good counsel there
is in plenty, but practical suggestions that will actually
work are utterly lacking. Everything has been tried.

Religious revivals within and outside the Church have
proved ephemeral. Universal education is a boomerang:
the more we know, the more we want and cannot have.
United nations and welfare states are losing their glamour.
So far from gaining an inner strength, man becomes from
decade to decade more and more dependent upon external
supports.

The majority of people can no longer eat what they
wish, furnish their houses as they wish, use their leisure as
they wish—but only as it is dictated to them by some
form of propaganda. An American lady was standing in
Piccadilly at the traffic lights, evidently in a state of help-
less uncertainty. When asked what was the matter she
replied, "In New York, we wait until the sign says walk:
then we walk. Here they don't tell you, so I don't know
how to cross." Such is modern man in almost all that
he does. However comical such situations may appear
to others, they are not a laughing matter, for we are all in
the same boat. Unless there is some extraordinary change,
there will, within a century, be very few men and women
left able to do anything unless they are urged to it by some
effectual form of propaganda. Since freedom of judg-
ment and the power of choice are the marks of a human
being, we are bound to conclude that, within three or four
generations, mankind will have ceased to be human.

Sheep at least do not think. At present some people
still think a little and they are sometimes even appalled at
the universal lack of initiative. Then they feel that for all
our successes there is something terribly amiss with human
affairs.

Such people turn to their religious leaders with the
reproach: "You assure us that God is in His Heaven—tell
us then why all is not right with the world." If there is
no answer to this question, then man is thrown back upon
his own resources, with the slender hope that if he can
weather the threatening storm, a spiritual revival based
upon a broad humanism may yet be promised.

But we all know too much of past history to have any
confidence in such promises. Man has never yet lifted

himself out of the mire by his own shoe-strings. The great
renewals of the past have always come by the providential
intervention of Sacred Beings who have been able by some
incomprehensible power to re-establish faith, hope and
love as the motive forces among their immediate followers,
and these in their turn have been a leaven that has brought
a new spiritual vigour to the multitudes. We cannot, at
the present time, look for help in any power inferior to
that of the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life. But
we are closed to the Spirit, just because the very qualities
of faith, hope and love are lacking in us. Our hearts are
hardened, and our ears are dull of hearing, and who shall

deliver us ?

Ten years ago, I gave a series of lectures in London,
published afterwards as The Crisis in Human Affairs. Then
I said, as now, that only Divine Intervention can save
us. But then I added that we had not yet heard the voice
of one crying in the wilderness. I received a letter from
the late Dean Inge in which he wrote: "I agree with
nearly all you write in your book—but I cannot promise
a new revelation."

Now I am writing again after having seen many new
things, and passed through prodigious experiences, to
tell those who wish to hear that I believe that a new
light has appeared on the horizon. In this light we
can see the outlines of a great plan, or Purpose. There
seems at last to be the possibility of a practical method or
means whereby the hungry can be fed. It is all so new
and so astonishing that it would in many ways have been
better to wait for clearer proofs and a fuller understand-
ing. But there is really no time to lose. If there is
indeed a hope that very large numbers of people—in fact,
all who ask for it—can receive the spiritual awakening that
can begin a new life, then this hope should not be the
treasured possession of a few.

CHAPTER I

THE NEW EPOCH

1. The Conscious Direction of Evolution
Thanks to the achievements of archaeology, anthropology,
prehistory and several auxiliary sciences, it is now possible
to reconstruct with some confidence the story of mankind
for at least seven thousand years; and, with many gaps
and uncertainties, for twenty-five thousand years, that is,
back to the time when Aurignacian man first left evidence
of a high culture. The human story goes back still
further for at least half a million and perhaps one or two
million years, but it is known only from a few hundred
skeletons and a very limited range of stone implements
that give us little idea how our remotest ancestors really
lived. The whole story of life on the earth covers the hardly
imaginable span of much more than five hundred million
years. During this time prodigious changes have occurred
in the dominant forms of life on earth and in the oceans.

It is no longer possible to account for the sequence
of events on the supposition that no agency save blind
chance has been at work, and that consciousness and a
directive will were entirely lacking on the earth until men
appeared. In Volume II of The Dramatic Universe, I
endeavour to show how much simpler and more satisfying
is the theory that the entire story, from its earliest begin-
nings, has been directed by Conscious Powers that have
known how to make use of the uncertainty or freedom
inherent in the operation of all the laws of nature, and
bring about the progressive development of the living
forms that were required at each successive stage of the
evolution of the earth itself.

We cannot represent to ourselves the nature of such
Conscious Powers, and we should certainly be wrong to
picture them as individualized beings in any way resem-
bling men—that is, having a body with limbs, organs, and

perceiving by way of senses like ours. But it is no new
thing for science to accept the reality of entities of which
we can form no mental picture at all. Indeed, the
recourse to 'unthinkables' has been one of the strangest
developments of science since Planck introduced his
mysterious quantum of action, and Einstein based his
relativity theory on a Riemannian geometry that cannot
be pictured by the senses or grasped by the mind.

We shall start then from the supposition that there always
have been and still are Conscious Powers that regulate
events upon the earth without violating the laws of nature.
It may shock the susceptibilities of scientists—who are very
touchy about supernatural entities that they have not them-
selves invented—if I call these Powers by the name of
angels. I do not know who or what angels are, but for
many years I have had no doubt that there are such beings,
and that it is possible to be aware of their presence. I am
equally sure that the angelic powers work within the frame-
work of the natural laws of geometry, physics and biology.*

As we survey the past, with its vast time scale of cosmic,
geophysical, palaeobotanical and palaeontological history
flowing into the early prehistory and later history of man
on the earth—we can observe one common and indeed
universal phenomenon. This can be called 'progress by
explosion'. History never has been continuous. The
great changes in the families and genera populating the
earth have come about suddenly, and have been followed
by long periods of relative quiet. It would be out of
place to review here all the evidence for the 'explosive
theory of progress'. Indeed the theory is not new, and has
been adopted in many branches of science.

2. The Theory of Epochs

If we combine the Theory of Conscious Directive
Power with the Theory of Explosive Progress we arrive

[* In Volume I of The Dramatic Universe I have shown that the 'natural'
geometry of six dimensions has several degrees of freedom that allow full
scope for a regulative consciousness even in the rigorous sciences of kine-
matics and electromagnetism.]

at the notion of Creative Cycles. This is simply illus-
trated in the working of an internal combustion engine
which alternates between phases of compression, explo-
sion, expansion and renewal. The sudden explosions
which occur in history can best be interpreted if we
assume that the Angelic Powers direct natural energies
for a certain time into a phase of concentration and com-
pression that accumulates enough energy to make an
explosion, the results of which then expand and grow
until their force is exhausted. Explosions that occur
without any system of regulation are inevitably destruc-
tive; and the incontrovertible fact that explosions have
occurred over and over again in the history of the stars,
of the earth, of life in general and of mankind in particular,
and have resulted on the whole in progress towards higher
levels of consciousness and a greater freedom, is the best
evidence that the Conscious Directive Power of the angels
has seldom been absent.

From the notion of Creative Cycles in general we come
to that of the Epoch* in the life of man. By 'Epoch',
I understand a period when all humanity is dominated by
a certain creative attitude towards life. This I call the
Master Idea of the Epoch. For example, the middle
Neolithic Epoch, from about 11,000 to 8,000 years before
the present, was marked by the idea of the Earth Mother.
Until that time, nearly all the people of the earth were
nomadic hunters or gatherers of fruit or sea foods. From
9000 B.C., serious agriculture began, and men first
realized that it was possible to claim ownership of the land
they worked and to accumulate material possessions.
Since generation, i.e. birth-death-resurrection, is the
essence of the agricultural cycle, men were able in that
Epoch to receive the notion of birth-death resurrection as
applicable to their spiritual life also. Thus the so-called
'fertility cults' were a real step forward in the spiritual
development of man. The mutual need of the sexes in
the spiritual life was an obvious fact to people who began

[* The Theory of Epochs is discussed in The Crisis in Human Affairs,
Hodder & Stoughton, 1948.]

to see the continuity of the family in their village settle-
ments. The idea of the Earth Mother encouraged a
matriarchal social system such as existed in the Neolithic
Epoch.

The middle Neolithic Epoch began with an explosion
that probably coincided with considerable disturbances
of the earth's surface. It ended when a fresh change of
climate led to the desiccation of the densely populated
areas of Central Asia and North Africa, and it was suc-
ceeded by the Epoch of the Great Migrations that lasted
from 6000 B.C. to the middle of the fourth millennium.
This time the Master Idea was that of the Search, of which
fragments remain to us in ancient myths and legends
and epics in which man is depicted as searching for the
secret of immortality. The instability of external con-
ditions created a natural background for the realization
that life on earth is precarious, and that salvation must be
sought in the invisible world. It was during this Epoch
that knowledge of the mysteries of life and death began to
reach ordinary people from the hidden societies that were
still in conscious relationship to the Angelic Powers.

The next Epoch coincides with the beginning of written
history, and the appearance of priest-kings or semi-divine
beings as rulers of the various nations of the earth. The
founders of the earliest dynasties of Egypt, Mesopotamia,
India, China and the Malay Archipelago were looked
upon as half-god, half-human, and for this reason I have
called the era that lasted from 3200 B.C. to 600 b.C. the
Hemitheandric Epoch. Its Master Idea was that of the
dependence of the common people upon the Hero for their
welfare in this life and in the life beyond the grave.
History proper begins about the same time, towards the
end of the fourth millennium B.C., not only in the form of
written accounts of dynasties and their achievements, but
also in clearly decipherable records of events preserved
in the ruins of ancient cities and monuments.

Mankind entered upon the Heroic Epoch with an
immense heritage of languages, cultures, techniques and
social organization built up over thousands of years.

Once again there was an explosion. During a brief
period of a few centuries, extraordinary advances were
made in every department of human life. The Hemi-
theandric Epoch ended about two thousand five hundred
years ago with the unspoken discrediting of the notion of
the Semi-divine Ruler. It was followed by the Megalan-
thropic Epoch, of which the Master Idea was that of
Individual Salvation. We shall return to this later, since
it leads directly to the theme of the present book.

3. Divine Providence

The theory of Epochs as a cycle of concentration,
explosion and expansion requires that there should be a
concentrating force that accumulates the energy needed
for the explosion. This we ascribe to the Angelic Power,
but the theory is not complete unless we go further and
assume that the source of the Power itself is altogether
beyond this visible world. An internal combustion engine
is constructed so that compression comes from its own
momentum, but the fuel that produces the explosion
comes from beyond. Similarly in human affairs the new
impulse that comes with each succeeding Epoch reaches
mankind from beyond the earth itself.

Arnold Toynbee in his great Study of History reaches
virtually the same conclusion: that we are forced to
believe that human history has been directed by a Merciful
Power that comes from God and manifests through the
Saints, Prophets and Founders of the great religions of
the world. Without presuming to challenge Toynbee's
deep historical insight, I would say that through fixing
his attention upon Civilizations, which are but secondary
human consequences, he has overlooked the significance
of the Epochs that are the primary manifestations of
Divine Providence in human affairs. Nevertheless,
Toynbee strongly reinforces the argument for conscious
intervention of the Angelic Powers by the distinction
he makes between true and arrested civilizations. He
estimates that there are now on earth many hundreds of

human communities that were formerly under the direc-
tion of conscious leaders, but having at some time lost
contact with them, failed to develop, and so have lingered
on, preserving, in the form of customs now almost devoid
of sense, traces of an ancient wisdom whose origin may
go back before the beginning of written history five
thousand years ago.

We are thus not leaving explored territory when we
add to the theory of Conscious or Angelic Powers the
principle of belief in Divine Providence. This belief
cannot be called a 'theory', for it belongs to a realm that
the mind of man is powerless to explore.

4. Times and Seasons

We know the history of the earth from a most fragment-
ary and unequal record, but even this is enough to con-
vince us that from the remotest past, organic life on this
planet has adapted itself to great changes of climate, has
survived prodigious catastrophes and has gradually but
surely moved forward to prepare a place for the coming
of mankind. We cannot fail to be impressed by the
timeliness of the explosions that have occurred as one
form of life has given place to another. To an obser-
ver with ordinary human understanding watching the
course of events, it would have seemed, time and again,
that life on the earth must perish or degenerate into a
miserable remnant of forms too insignificant to challenge
the cataclysmic forces that disrupted the earth's surface
and played havoc with its climate. And yet each time,
by far-sighted manipulation of the genetic potentialities
inherent in existing families and orders of plants and
animals, the Angelic Powers brought forth new genera
and species that could not only survive, but prosper in
the new conditions.

When man appeared, our earth entered the great ice
ages, when at times all life was threatened. According to
some theories, such as that of Hoerbiger, there were other
catastrophes caused by the destruction of a former satellite

and the capture of our present moon. Whatever may be
the truth of such theories, it is certain that during the
million or more years of his existence on the earth, man
has survived appalling changes of climate that required
powers of adaptation quite different from those that
saved the plants and animals of earlier ages.

I am sure that Saurat* is right in concluding that
survival was achieved only by the timely direction of
human energies into the sole channels which gave hope of
safety—as for example in the Epoch of the Great Migra-
tions away from Central Asia and North Africa when these
regions dried up and fertile soil became desert sand.

Guidance in the outer life has always been based upon
the renewal and strengthening of the inner life, and we
can trace the gradual penetration of religious belief from
the inner circle of those who had direct revelation of the
Divine Purpose, into and through the masses of mankind.
In the earliest periods, the superhuman beings who guided
human destiny were very far removed from the savage
hunting tribes that looked to them for help. They were
disguised as magicians, and their rule was based upon
dread of the powers that they were able to evoke. During
the Neolithic ages—which probably included three dis-
tinct Epochs—there was a great transformation of social
conditions, and the new stability and continuity of exter-
nal life made it possible to impart to the masses forms of
religious worship, of private and social morality, based
upon belief in the presence in man of a mortal and
an immortal part, each having a different destiny.

Many students of the early history of mankind are now
convinced that from the earliest times man has believed
in one God, the supreme power in the world, and that
the crude animism observed in many savage tribes is
not primitive at all, but the result of degeneration in the
absence of guidance from conscious beings. If this
conviction is justified, it must follow that there have
always been teachers of mankind who have gradually
prepared man to understand the true significance of our

[* cf. Denis Saurat, Atlantis and the Giants, Faber & Faber, 1957.]

life here on earth. Such teachers could not have re-
ceived their knowledge from any human source, for it is
not given to man to know the Divine Purposes. It is in
this sense that teachers or prophets are termed Messengers
from God. The proof of their mission lies not so much
in the loftiness and grandeur of their ethical teachings
as in the timeliness and efficacy of their intervention. We
do not attempt to teach metaphysics to infants, nor did
any of the prophets throughout history attempt to teach
men truths for which they were not ready. Each explo-
sion that inaugurated a new Epoch corresponded exactly
to what people were able to receive at that time.

We can take one or two examples to illustrate this
theme. The city of Ur upon the river Tigris was already
a great city at the beginning of the Hemitheandric Epoch
in 3200 B.C. It flourished for more than two thousand
years and was the centre of high cultures. When the
Epoch was moving towards its period of degeneration
about 1500 B.C., there was an exodus towards the west of
which an account has been preserved in the book of
Genesis, and of which hints can be found in old cuneiform
writings of Chaldea. The leader of this exodus was a
prophet whom we know by the name of Abraham. The
story of Abraham is both true history and also an allegory
of the power of faith. Through Abraham, the ancient
monotheism was preserved from the universal degenera-
tion that finally destroyed the hopes of the Epoch. The
lesson for us in the story of Abraham consists in the ex-
treme simplicity of his faith and his childish inability to
understand the working of Divine Providence. Abraham's
very simplicity was precisely what the age required, and
it is to be contrasted with the marvellous scientific
attainments of the Chaldean Magi and the Egyptian
priests of the eighteenth dynasty who were his contem-
poraries. A similar contrast is to be found in the story
of Moses, illustrated by his legendary contest with the
Egyptian priests.

The Hebrew Torah is concerned to show how the
prophets were endowed with a power from God that does

not depend upon human science or human abilities. It
insists upon the duty of preserving the ancient traditions,
and calls for belief in the One God and in His providential
ordering of human affairs. Nevertheless, if we were to
attempt to transfer into our modern world the message
and the example of Abraham, Isaac and Moses, we should
see at once that they belong to a different Epoch from
ours, and that the validity of their message is attested
precisely by its combination of timeliness and timelessness.
The fundamental truth that God will help those who turn
to Him belongs to all Epochs, but the form of Abraham's
message belongs only to the Epoch when men could
readily believe that their prophets could 'speak with
God', and were therefore ready to accept their autocratic
leadership.

In order to grasp the significance of the Message brought
to mankind by the early prophets of the next, that is the
Megalanthropic Epoch, we must picture to ourselves
the almost universal wretchedness of the peoples of
China, India, Assyria, Egypt and Greece at the beginning
of the first millennium b.c. Some of the prophets, like
Confucius and Solon, were mainly concerned with the
social misfortunes of their nations, but the greatest of all
were sent with a deeper message of hope for the afflicted.
This was no less than the promise of individual salvation for
every man and woman who was ready to pay the price.
We are the descendants of a hundred generations who
have lived with this promise, and we cannot readily
picture the misery of those who believed themselves to be
entirely dependent upon the Hemitheandros or Divine
Ruler, and yet could see in their own kings and pharaohs
only monsters of cruelty and oppression. The words of
the prophet Isaiah, "Ho, everyone that thirsteth, come ye
to the waters, and he that hath no money come ye, buy
and eat" conveyed an entirely different meaning to the
children of the Captivity to that which they would bear
in our modern world. We cannot understand that the
very hope of eternal life was destroyed for those who
believed that only the Divine Ruler could ensure welfare

beyond the grave and saw that their priests had become
servants of the oppressor, extorting impossible payments
for the performance of complicated rituals believed to
be indispensable for the welfare of the dead. It was the
hope of liberation from spiritual oppression that drew
the Indian multitudes to Gautama Buddha and the
Israelites to their prophets.

Within five hundred years was fulfilled the sombre
prophecy of Gautama Buddha that his Dharma would
deteriorate and the Sangha break up into warring sects.
All over the world the gospel of individual salvation had
been misinterpreted and misapplied. And yet every-
where there was a sense of expectancy, made explicit by
the Jewish belief in the coming of the Messiah and the
neo-Buddhist doctrine of the Bodhisattva. The Greco-
Roman world was disgusted with itself and its own moral
failures. The Persian empire of the Seleucidae was sunk
in impurity. India had lapsed grievously from the
reforming zeal of King Asoka. Those who sought for
purity, the Jains, the Pharisees, the Stoics, were dis-
covering that purity could not be achieved by any human
striving.

In response to a desperate human need, Almighty God
sent into the world Jesus Christ, whose perfect purity is
symbolized in His virgin birth. The message of Jesus was
as simple and direct as those of His predecessors—by faith
alone can man be purified in body and soul. Jesus was
endowed with the power to work miracles because He was
completely free from the impurities that in ordinary man
obstruct the working of the spirit of God. What He
taught He practised, and He proved by His death and
resurrection that the pure spirit is indestructible. His
message and His evidence gave an entirely new meaning
to the doctrine of individual salvation, liberating it from
all worldly considerations, placing the hope of mankind
in the invisible world of the spirit, the Kingdom of
Heaven.

Another six hundred years passed and once again the
message had been distorted. The Kingdom of Heaven

had become an earthly power, salvation was no longer
sought in pure faith but in the toils of an enforced external
discipline. Worst of all, the message of pure Love had
been twisted into a mass of superstitions that even a true
man of God like St. Benedict was powerless to overcome.
The dark ages had descended upon the western world,
and men were again living without hope and yet obsessed
by the fear of damnation. A cardinal error had crept
into Christian dogma—the belief that the celibate state
is pleasing in the sight of God. Strangely enough, the
repudiation of marriage and the belief that only ascetic
practices can lead to liberation had taken possession also
of the eastern stream of spirituality—-especially in the
forms of Buddhist monasticism and the solitary withdrawal
from the world recommended by the Hindu Sannyasis
and Yogis. Even those who still were seeking salvation
did so in ways that can only in the rarest of cases lead
to the complete human being that each man must become
in order to enter into eternal life.

Once again a new message was needed, and it was
brought by the Prophet Muhammad. He exemplifies the
complete man who fulfils all his earthly obligations and
yet whose will is wholly surrendered to the service of God.
The message of Islam cannot be understood by those who
have not realized something of the meaning of the complete
man. Muhammad was rejected and denied by those who
saw in his very completeness a lack of perfection, and who
imagined that asceticism was a necessary mark of holiness.
Nevertheless, the power of the Islamic revelation was so
great that within two centuries a great belt of Islamic
peoples stretched from end to end of the inhabited world
from Morocco to the Malay Archipelago. By the tenth
century a.d. Islam had become the greatest spiritual
power in the world, but unfortunately Moslems, Christians
and Jews, destined to unite and demonstrate to the world
the invincible power of the Sacred Impulses of Faith,
Love and Hope, succumbed to the disruptive forces of
materiality, lust for power and fear. From the end of the
first millennium the degeneration of the Divine Message

of Individual Salvation into the cult of human self-
sufficiency had become inevitable.

5. The Ages of Mankind

During recent centuries, the material forces in human
life have gradually gained the mastery over the spiritual
forces. Thus we have before us in the history of our own
times the demonstration of the twofold nature of human
potentialities. The Master Idea of an Epoch is the
highest expression of man's capacity for understanding
his destiny at the spiritual age he has reached. Taking
the rough estimate of twenty-five million years for the
entire life-cycle of the genus Homo on this earth, the two
or three thousand years occupied by an epoch is the
equivalent of one week of our ordinary lives. Each week
brings a new lesson that the child assimilates as best it
may. So in each great epoch a new message is sent to
mankind. Owing to the youth and inexperience of the
human race, and to our inability to perceive what is
beyond the senses, we make over and over again the
mistake of interpreting the message in terms of this visible
world and its passing values. If we look back to the
messages of the past, we can see how this hazard has
always been present, and how mankind has never learned
to value the eternal above the temporal. But this must
not be regarded as 'failure'. We do not expect children
to acquire at one step the same learning as their teachers.
Week by week new lessons are given—and mostly forgotten
—but the process of education goes on.

If we look at history upon too small a scale of time, it
looks like a story of material progress and social improve-
ment, but of spiritual stagnation. Many people today say
that although we have far more knowledge and far better
social conditions than those of two or five or ten thousand
years ago, we are just the same human beings; as selfish,
as short-sighted and as discontented and full of fears as
people have ever been. This diagnosis is valid only if
we think of humanity as an already fully developed adult

being. We must lift ourselves above the preoccupation
with our immediate present. If we wish to understand
human destiny, we must study it in relation to a much
greater time-scale than that of the history of the past few
centuries. When we are able to survey—even with our
meagre knowledge—the history of mankind over half a
million years and by applying the general law of cycles to
make some estimate of future time, we begin to see a
great and consistent pattern emerge from the confusion,
and our faith is confirmed that Divine Providence has
never failed to intervene at moments of need to give man-
kind new lessons and new opportunities.

6. The Coming Epoch

The 'End of the Age' or the 'End of the World' are
strange phrases that have been on men's lips for thousands
of years. Sometimes they have conveyed a sense of
urgency, as when the early Christians were awaiting,
literally from day to day, the coming of the Lord, and
thought it foolishness to be occupied with the affairs of a
world that was soon to be destroyed or superseded by the
Reign of Christ. Even when the 'latter days' belonged
to some indefinite future, the belief remained that history
would have an end, and utterly different conditions of
existence would await those who 'endured to the end'.
Belief in the Second Coming was not confined to the
Christian churches. The Prophet Muhammad also fore-
told the future degeneration of religion and the coming
of a time when men would give themselves up to the
material or satanic forces. When certain signs were
fulfilled, Jesus was to come again to the earth and separate
the believers from the unbelievers, after which the final
conflict of the good and evil powers was to come and end in
victory for the righteous. According to some traditions,
this victory was to be the signal for the immediate end
of the world. According to others, it was to inaugurate
the millennium, when the earth would be peopled only
by the righteous, and only after a thousand years of

earthly felicity was the last trumpet to sound. Since
these prophecies are preserved only in the form of verbal
traditions collected long after the death of Muhammad
we cannot hope to reconstruct with any accuracy what
he really foretold. Moslem eschatologists of the present
time attach great importance to the hadisat—traditions
of the Prophet—to the effect that in the latter days men
would invent carriages that would run without horses
and build houses as high as the hills. These and other
portents of the End of the Age have now been accom-
plished, and I have met many Moslem learned men who
believe that the Second Coming is imminent.

It is not possible to draw any definite conclusions from
all the Jewish, Christian and Islamic traditions of a future
'End of the Age' beyond the most important of all—that
is, that the future degeneration of religion was clearly
foreseen by Those whose messages founded the Megalan-
thropic Epoch, and that they predicted a fresh inter-
vention of Providence at the very time when the material
or satanic powers would seem to be in the ascendant.

Again and again, men have believed that the latter
days must have come and have expected the end of the
world. The perennial disappointment of these expecta-
tions has led in modern times to a complete distrust of
any literal eschatology, and those who look for the early
Second Coming are generally regarded as dreamers or
cranks.

Nevertheless, we have still with us the mysterious
warning of Jesus that the Son of Man would come as a
thief in the night and that few would recognize His coming.
It is scarcely surprising that the world has failed to under-
stand a message that was 'told in darkness'—that is, to
people who had not yet been awakened to the spiritual
realities.

CHAPTER II

A PERSONAL APPROACH

1. Gurdjieff

In the present chapter, I shall give an account of the
experiences that led me by the end of 1955 to expect that
in the near future an important event connected with the
New Epoch was to occur in England, and that this event
would be heralded by the arrival from the East of a man
endowed with special powers.

The story begins with my return to Gurdjieff in July
1948, after twenty-five years of separation. At our first
meeting, he asked me to read three times the Ashiata
Shiemash chapters of All and Everything—then still in
manuscript form—adding that these were most important
for me. Later, he returned to them often in conversation,
and from his explanations it was clear that he regarded
the awakening of Conscience in the soul of man as the
only hope of achieving the 'Harmonious Development of
Man' which was and is the aim of his system.

Here it is necessary to add a few remarks upon Gurdjieff
himself. He was a real teacher—that is, one who brought
an original lesson that he himself had learned from some
higher source. Gurdjieff was no mere syncretist who
weaves, more or less skilfully, into a single thread, strands
taken from many older traditions. It is true that nine-
tenths of what he taught could be traced to known sources
—Greek Orthodox monasticism, Sufi mysticism, the
Kabbalistic cosmology, neo-platonism, the Areopagite,
Pythagorean and Egyptian numerology, Buddhist and
Lamaist psychology—to name only a few of the best
known—and that his psychological exercises, including
his remarkable rhythmic movements and ritual dances,
were mostly of Moslem Dervish and Central Asiatic
origin. But, when all that is derived from the past has
been accounted for, there remains in Gurdjieff's system a

residue of authentic innovation, not so much a specific
doctrine as a new point of view that breaks with the
past and sees beyond the disputes that have divided
the religions of the world for the past thousand years.
Gurdjieff points the way to the New Epoch, even
though he himself may not have been permitted to enter
the promised land.

Who and what Gurdjieff himself was, has always been
an enigma. Those who were closest to him were the most
certain that they had never understood him. I myself
met him for the first time in 1920 at Kuru Tcheshme,
the palace of Prince Sabaheddin of Turkey on the
Bosphorus. Later I spent a short time at his Institute at
Fontainebleau in France. I saw much of him at the end
of his life, and was with him for the last time a few days
before he died. I have read his unpublished autobio-
graphies—for there are more than one—and I have heard
stories of his early life from members of his family, and of
the period before 1920 from friends who had known him
since the early days of this century. Each person gives
a different account of him. He is already a legendary
figure—the hero or villain of fantastic stories connected
with the Dalai Lama, Stalin, the Emperor Nicholas II,
Hitler and George Bernard Shaw. Some say he was
admitted to a hidden brotherhood in Central Asia, whose
secrets he stole in order to set himself up as a teacher in
the West. I am sure that all such tales are wide of the
mark. The mystery of Gurdjieff was much deeper than
sham occultism or political intrigue. He made upon me
the impression of an exile from another world who must
always be a stranger in any company. There is un-
doubtedly much autobiography in Beelzebub's Tales to
his Grandson, and when asked outright if Beelzebub were
a portrait of himself, Gurdjieff often hinted at an affirma-
tive reply.

I am not concerned here to make an assessment of
Gurdjieff or his teaching, but only to suggest that he must
have foreseen the coming of Subud and even drew in
Ashiata Shiemash a picture of the messenger who was to

come in our time.* Apart from the predictions made in
his writings, Gurdjieff in the last months of his life referred
many times to his own imminent departure from this world
and to the coming of another who would complete the
work that he had started. He even said once that the one
who was to come "is already preparing himself a long way
from here" (i.e. from Paris). At another time, in 1949, he
gave a clear indication that his pupils should seek for links
with the islands of the Malay Archipelago. I must say
that I did not at the time believe that Gurdjieff was soon
to die or that the coming of the promised Teacher would
occur in my own lifetime.

It will, therefore, be understood that after Gurdjieff's
death in 1949, many of his followers+ awaited the coming
of another teacher who would take up the work that
Gurdjieff had left unfinished.

2. Alice Bailey and the Arcane School
Gurdjieff was by no means the only writer to predict the
imminent appearance on earth of a Messenger who was to
renew the hope of mankind. One of the chief exponents
of the doctrine of a spiritual hierarchy now working in the
world to prepare for the second Coming of Christ was
Alice Bailey, Founder of the Arcane School. I had hoped
to meet Mrs. Bailey when I went to New York with
Gurdjieff in January 1949, but unfortunately she was then
near the end of her earthly life, and I know her only
through her friends and her writings.

In one of her later books, The Reappearance of the Christ,
published in 1948, Alice Bailey declared boldly that
throughout the world preparations were being made for
the Second Coming of Christ who would appear, not
alone, but with helpers with different degrees of spiritual
power. She starts with the doctrine of Avatars which she
interprets to mean Messengers "coming down with the

[* cf. All and Everything, pp. 347-90. Gurdjieff explained that these
chapters are prophetic and that Ashiata Shiemash, the Prophet of Conscience,
was still to come.

+ cf. Kenneth Walker's Venture with Ideas, the last pages.]

approval of the higher source from which they come and
with benefit to the place at which they arrive".

The prediction is made in very general terms: "Human-
ity in all lands today awaits the Coming One—no matter
by what name they may call Him. The Christ is sensed
as on His way. The second coming is imminent and, from
the lips of disciples, mystics, aspirants, spiritually-minded
people and enlightened men and women, the cry goes up,
'Let light and love and power and death fulfil the purpose
of the Coming One'. These words are a demand, a
consecration, a sacrifice, a statement of belief and a
challenge to the Avatar, the Christ, who waits in His
high place until the demand is adequate and the cry clear
enough to warrant His appearance.

"One thing it is most necessary to have in mind. It is
not for us to set the date for the appearing of the Christ or
to expect any spectacular aid or curious phenomena. If
our work is rightly done, He will come at the set and
appointed time. How, where or when He will come is
none of our concern. Our work is to do our utmost
and on as large a scale as possible to bring about right
human relations, for His coming depends upon our
work."*

Although the general conceptions set out in Mrs.
Bailey's book are not very original and have much in
common with the earlier prophecies of the founder of the
Theosophical Society, Helena Blavatsky, there are sug-
gestions of a more specific insight into the nature of the
task to be accomplished. Thus she writes: "We can freely
aid in the reconstruction work which the Christ proposes,
if we will familiarize ourselves and all men whom we can
contact with the following facts:

"1. That the reappearance of Christ is imminent.

"2. That the Christ, immanent in every human heart,
can be evoked in recognition of His appearance.

"3. That the circumstances of His return are only
symbolically related in the world Scriptures; this may

[* Alice Bailey, The Reappearance of the Christ, Lucis Press, 1948, p. 188.
There are also references to the Second Coming in her Autobiography.]

produce a vital change in the preconceived ideas of
humanity." She adds "a world at peace" as a fourth
requirement. Mrs. Bailey further recognizes that the
mind of man must of necessity be unreceptive to the new
message. "It is possible surely that the ancient truism
that 'the mind is the slayer of the real' may be funda-
mentally true where the mass of humanity is concerned
and that the purely intellectual approach (which rejects
the vision and refuses to accept the unprovable) may be
far more at fault than the anticipation of the Knowers of
God and the expectant multitude."*

The central theme of Alice Bailey's writings is the
presence on earth of a Hierarchy of conscious beings
responsible for guiding human destiny and, at the present
time, of preparing the coming New Age. At the head of
this Hierarchy is Jesus Christ, but Alice Bailey also refers
to a mysterious Power, the Avatar of Synthesis, incarnated
for the first time on earth, with the task of bringing about
the unification of humanity.

She affirms that, "As a result of Christ's decision and
His 'spiritual fusion' with the Will of God, The Avatar of
Synthesis has become for the time being His close Associ-
ate. This is an event of supreme and planetary import-
ance." She describes the coming task as comprising
three parts, functions or activities:

"(a) The production of a human synthesis or unity
which will lead to a universal recognition of the one
humanity, brought about through right human relations.

"(b) The establishing of right relations with the sub-
human kingdoms in nature, leading to the universal
recognition that there is One World.

"(c) The anchoring of the Kingdom of God, the
spiritual Hierarchy of our planet, in open expression on
Earth, thus leading to the universal recognition that the
sons of men are one"+

The Avatar of Synthesis seems to be a symbolical
representative of Subud in much the same way as
Gurdjieff's Ashiata Shiemash. Alice Bailey refers also

[* Ibid. pp. 58-9. + Ibid. p. 78.]

to a new Group of World Servers whose functions seem
much akin to the Brotherhood Heechtvori of Gurdjieff.

3. General Expectancy in the World

If we should not attach too much importance to the
predictions of occultists and kabbalists and astrologers, we
cannot disregard the universal expectancy of some great
event that is to change the course of history and save man-
kind from what otherwise would seem inevitable destruc-
tion. The expectancy of an Event has been particularly
strong throughout Asia, South America and Northern
Africa, but it has not been absent in Europe and the
western seaboard of North and South America. That
there really is a general sense of expectancy can be tested
if we compare the present state of the world with that of
thirty to forty years ago when the peoples of East and
West emerged from the Great War hoping that their
problems had finally been solved and that a tranquil,
prosperous future awaited them. It seemed then that the
future would be like the past—but exempt from the fears
and injustices that had marred the social life of the nine-
teenth century. Even when these hopes were shattered
by revolutions, economic crises and war, it still seemed as
if a solution might be found. But by 1948 the threat of
a disastrous third world war had cast its shadow over all
people, and the great majority could see no way of escape.
Indeed, according to all precedent, war should have
come during the tense years from 1948 to 1957. The
piling up of weapons of destruction has been on a more
alarming scale than ever before in history: the statesmen
of the world have made the same grievous mistakes that
they have always made; the perennial suspicions among
allies have been no less rife than they have always been
since Thucydides wrote, and yet war did not come. Only
arrogance near to madness could lead any nation or any
statesman to claim credit for the continuance of a pre-
carious peace. Much the same could be written of threat-
ening economic disasters, of food and population crises

and of racial conflicts. The world has been in a terribly
disturbed state, and the simple truth is that human affairs
have gone far better than anyone had the right to expect.
We are too close to events to see how strange they are, but
if we view them from the perspective of all human exist-
ence on the earth—as we have attempted to do in the first
chapter—we are bound to recognize in our present time the
intervention of a Higher Power that is protecting mankind
from the worst consequences of its own folly and unbelief.

Evidence of the real presence of a new force in the world
can be found in the very great numbers of people—
hundreds of thousands in each of the greater nations of
the world—who have been moved to search for a way of
salvation that they cannot find by conforming to the
precepts and rituals of organized religious bodies. The
revolt against Christendom inaugurated by Kierkegaard
in 1850 was profoundly religious, and so also is the revolt
against the churches that is so widespread in all countries
today. It is very far from the indifference that emptied
synagogues, churches and mosques in the years between
the two wars. The best way to test for oneself the truth
of the assertion that a new force is working in the world is
to travel in many countries and mix with many people;
one then sees that the phenomenon is not confined to any
one continent, or race or creed, and that it is all the more
significant in that for the most part people are unaware
that their experience is shared by millions of others.
There is a general thirst for a new life, combined with the
belief that it must be possible to find it.

When we bring together the various threads, we can see
that the human race is about to enter a new Epoch, and
that people are looking for an inward change rather than
for some reform of the outer life. The clearest indication
of the form this change will take comes from Gurdjieff—it
will be the awakening of the sacred impulse of conscience,
made possible by the appearance of a man himself
awakened and capable of transmitting the contact to
others. Concerning the change of Epoch, I will quote
what I wrote in 1947:

"... our responsibility towards ourselves, towards other
people, and towards those things which are beyond our
personal concern, is that we should seek a way to ensure that
our ears shall not be closed and that our eyes shall be able
to see when the time comes. This is the aim of the psycho-
kinetic attitude to man, the opening of possibilities in our
essence, the opening of the inward eye and of the inward ear,
which are able to perceive indications coming from a different
level. If we have seen the character of the situation which con-
fronts the world, and if we look ahead over the next period,
we see that we entirely depend upon help of a very different
kind from any that we can see around us today. The essential
difference between an Epoch and Civilizations is that the
former originates in Revelation from beyond humanity, while
the latter are the work of schools within humanity itself. If
I am right in the conclusion that we are witnessing the end
of an Epoch and not the transition from one form of Civilization
to another, we must place the hope of the world in a fresh
Revelation of the Divine Purpose of Mankind and prepare
ourselves to be ready to receive it."*

The prediction embodied in this passage was to be fulfilled
within ten years—much sooner than I myself dared to
expect.

4. Personal Experiences

In the last section, I tried to show that there have been
many indications that we are about to witness positive
manifestations of the Master Idea of the New Epoch, as
distinct from the break-up of the Old Epoch that dates
back to 1848. No one will be convinced by these indica-
tions unless he himself has felt the urge to search for a new
way of life. Those who have found this are under an
obligation to show the way to those who are still searching,
and it is in fulfilment of this obligation that this book has
been written. Since the content cannot be conveyed by
words, and the outer form has no importance, the best I
can do is to describe as well as I can my own experience
before and since meeting with Subud.

It was Gurdjieff who first taught me and many others

[* cf. Crisis in Human Affairs, pp. 230-1.]

to look for the awakening of a higher consciousness, or
higher centres, that cannot be reached by way of thought.
It was he also who led us to expect the advent of a man
who would hold the key to this awakening. In conversa-
tions during the last weeks of his life, Gurdjieff impressed
upon me personally my obligation in connection with
these future events. He told me certain things that have
in part been fulfilled—others, including the most impor-
tant, are still to come. The time has not yet arrived when
these predictions can be disclosed.

When Gurdjieff died, he left behind him numerous
groups of followers that he had made no attempt to weld
into a single body. On the contrary, he seemed to have
entrusted each group with different tasks to be accom-
plished independently. As far as I was concerned, it was
clear that my duty was towards several hundred pupils
who had gathered round me at Coombe Springs, the
headquarters of the Institute for the Comparative Study
of History, Philosophy and the Sciences, that I had
founded in 1946 with the aim of studying "the factors
making for development and retrogression in man". The
lectures and courses given at the Institute were based
upon Gurdjieff's system for the Harmonious Development
of Man. Numerous study groups were organized.
These, by 1957, had more than five hundred members
in London, the provinces and abroad, who were being
trained on the basis of Gurdjieff's psychological and
physical exercises.

5. Emin Chikhou

I must here mention that throughout my life I have
received indications in the form of an inner voice that I
recognized as not coming from my ordinary self. Long
experience has taught me that whenever I have neglected
these indications I have run into trouble, and when I have
trusted them I have been shown very clearly the way that
I should go. It was in response to such an indication that
in the autumn of 1953 I left for a time my work in England

and travelled in South West Asia, where my knowledge of
the languages of these countries enabled me to meet
people not usually encountered by European visitors.

This journey was for me an extraordinary experience,
for it brought into the open all the vague intimations of a
coming event that I had previously placed in the distant
future, long after my own death. I met members of the
Nakshibendi Order of Dervishes, and spent three weeks
with one of their brotherhoods whose headquarters is
in Damascus. I found another group in an Anatolian
village near the Euphrates, and yet another in Mosul on
the Tigris. All these dervishes or sufis were convinced
that the End of the Age was imminent and urged me to
prepare myself for the arrival of the Prophet of the Latter
Days, who they assured me was already living on the earth
and had sent news of his presence to the heads of the
brotherhood. While in Damascus I met almost daily the
Sheikh of the brotherhood, Emin Bey Chikhou, who spent
most of his time endeavouring to prove to me from the
Qur'an and the Hadisat that the signs of the end of the
age were now being fulfilled. All this did not surprise
me, for I was aware that Arabs are addicted to such
speculations. I was, however, astonished when he assured
me that I, John Bennett, was destined to be an opener of
the way for Western people, and that when the chosen
one arrived I was to stand beside him and be one of the
witnesses to the authenticity of his mission.

6. Sheikh Abdullah Dagestani

I must say that Emin Bey's arguments did not convince
me, and when I returned to England I said very little
about this part of my journey. Two years later, however,
I again received an indication: this time that I should go
to Persia, and again I met several remarkable men, among
others a Sheikh Abdullah Dagestani, whom I found under
strange circumstances.

The whole story is worth recounting, for it is linked with
many later events connected with Subud. On my journey

to Persia by way of Damascus and Baghdad, I received a
message through a complete stranger I met in Nicosia
that I should visit in Damascus a certain Sheikh Abdullah
al Dagestani. I was given no address, but told that I
should ask for a barber called Ali the Turk whose shop
was opposite the Tomb of Sheikh Muhiddin ibn Arabi. I
decided I could not go, as my time-table did not allow a
stay in Damascus. However, the transport over the desert
was delayed, and I found myself with a free evening. I
went up to the Kurdish quarter of Damascus which I know
fairly well, and found Ali's shop, only to learn that he had
been taken ill to hospital, and no one knew where I could
find him. No one I asked had heard of Sheikh Abdullah.
This did not surprise me, for in that quarter they are riot
very forthcoming to strangers.

Before returning to the city I went through the Mosque
down into the crypt, where the Tomb of the Saint is
\isited by pilgrims. On an impulse, I prayed before the
tomb, and felt once again the presence of a living force
that I had experienced on my previous visits. When I
came out of the Mosque again, I ran into an old hadji
who had been my guide on an earlier visit, when I went
up to Arbaein, a place of pilgrimage for Muslims as the
legendary site of Cain's killing of Abel. There, according
to tradition, the rocks were about to fall on him to avenge
the fratricide, and were stayed by the Archangel Gabriel
since it was the Will of God that Cain should live and beget
children. This time the same guide was waiting as if
expecting me, and asked where I wanted to go. When I
told him, he said that he knew the Sheikh well and would
take me to his house. Being sunset, he would probably
be in a tiny mosque built for his private prayer beside his
house. However, when we arrived Sheikh Abdullah was
waiting for me on the roof of his house. I was relieved to
find that he spoke excellent Turkish, and after the usual
greetings he began to speak to me about myself.

Sheikh Abdullah is a true saint in whom one feels
an immediate complete trust. With him there were no
lengthy arguments or quotations from the scriptures. He

simply said to me, "I was expecting you. Last night an
angel appeared to me and told me to give three messages
to a stranger who would come to my house." The first
two messages were clear and unmistakable answers to
very important questions that were troubling me about
my work in England, and about which the Sheikh could
not possibly have known by any ordinary means. They
convinced me that he must have powers of a kind that
I had already seen in Gurdjieff and one or two others,
and prepared me to take very seriously anything that he
might say.

We were sitting in the evening on the open roof of
a house on the hills overlooking the ancient city. The
Sheikh was a man of over seventy, dressed entirely in
white, with a turban and white beard but with a youth-
ful complexion and a steady humorous eye. One could
scarcely imagine a setting more appropriate to the trans-
mission of a solemn message, and just as the sun was setting
he began to speak to me of the manifestation of the power
of God in the world. The Old Age was dominated by
satanic influences, but the time had come when all was to
be changed. He spoke of the man who was soon to appear
and through whom the power was to be manifested. It
would not be right for me to set down here all that he
actually told me, for the event is not yet complete. My
only reason for telling the story is that it was an important
factor in my subsequent decisions.

After saying that someone would come from the East,
Abdullah startled me by telling me that not only was I
chosen by God to be an immediate helper of this 'some-
one', but that he would come to England and even live in
my house. He added that when I returned to England
I should prepare a place for him, and assured me that
henceforward I would be guided and protected in all my
doings. It is hard to explain why I found myself taking
seriously such a fantastic story and why, on my return
to England, I began, without explaining my reasons,
to prepare Coombe Springs to receive an extraordinary
visitor.

7. Hadji Ahmad al Tabrizi

Kerind in Northern Persia is an ancient village set in a
mountain gorge of uncommon beauty. For more than a
thousand years the villagers have worked in steel and
copper. It is a blessed place where there are no news-
papers or radio and where a hundred yards from the
main street a foreigner will draw crowds of amazed
onlookers.

Through Kerind village gush innumerable streams, and
waterfalls are everywhere. Above the village the valley
opens and Kurdish herdsmen come down from the
mountains with their flocks. Living in a hut beside the
tomb of a forgotten Moslem saint, I met an old Dervish,
Hadji Ahmad al Tabrizi, whose North Persian Turki
dialect was reasonably easy to understand. He has a
place in this story because, looking back three years, I
see him as a link between Gurdjieff and Subud. Ahmad
Tabrizi is a man whose inward peace and complete
surrender to the Will of God cannot be doubted by anyone
who meets him—even if they cannot understand what
he says. I had a long talk with him—arising from my
question: "What makes the true dervish?" He replied:
"I can only speak from my experience. I have never
belonged to any brotherhood, but have wandered over the
world from the Gobi to the Arabian Desert. Wherever I
have found someone from whom I could learn, I have
stayed with him as long as was necessary—then I resumed
my wanderings. This continued for forty years and then
I found that I would not receive the teaching I needed
from anyone except God. For the last ten years I have
lived where I happened to be, when I was no longer
wanted I went away. Now I am in this place and I would
like to stay to the end of my life—but if it is not the Will
of God I shall move again. Wherever I am, I have peace
and prosperity for I can supply all my needs with my own
hands. I am now more than seventy years old, but I
could walk ten thousand parasangs to visit Kerbela again
or Mecca, if it should be the Will of God.

"You ask me the secret of the true dervish. I say that
it is surrender to the Will of God. Some people believe
that it is good to enter a brotherhood such as the Djellalis
or the Kadiris. Even in these present days there are
good brotherhoods devoted to God's Will and whose
dervishes call constantly upon His name. But we do not
really need such practices, for His angels will protect us in
everything. The man who does not surrender to God's
Will becomes inevitably the slave of this world and cannot
escape from it even if he unceasingly calls upon the name
of God."

These simple statements, made as if they were self-
evident, produced a strong impression on me. I could
see for myself that I was sitting with a man in whom
Conscience was awakened, and who lived by his conscience
at every moment of the day. I had met one other such
old dervish, a Mevlevi, Farhad Dede in Aleppo. Though
both these old men had never been in contact with Euro-
peans, I felt that if I could bring them to England they
would be witnesses to many of the powers that enter man
when his personal self-will is surrendered. Moreover, I
realized that both would cheerfully have faced the com-
plete disruption of their peaceful existence and would have
accepted my invitation, had they felt that in doing so they
would be serving the Will of God. When I left Hadji
Ahmad Tabrizi, I knew that I had received a lesson that I
must never forget. All my life I had tried to 'do' too
much, and was still the slave of my own self-will. If I was
to make a step forward, I must find the way to leave
my self-will behind. In some way Hadji Ahmad had
reinforced the feeling that when I returned to England
many things would begin to change.

8. Intimations from the Far East

During 1956, I first began to receive indications that a
new force had appeared in the Far East. Letters from
Japan referred to a 'Master' whose pupils were following
Gurdjieff's teaching without having heard of Gurdjieff.

A friend in Hong-kong wrote guardedly about a strange
invitation to take part in 'spiritual exercises' which he
did not understand. Later another old friend in Cyprus
told me that he had made contact with an English
Moslem, Husein Rofe, who had spent some years in
Indonesia and claimed to be able to transmit a contact
with a great Force, and who seemed to be familiar with
the works of Ouspensky and Gurdjieff. Several references
to Indonesia reminded me of Gurdjieff's hint that we
should keep in touch with the Dutch Indies. Finally, in
September 1956, I met Rofe himself, and was confronted
with the question whether or not his Master or Guide,
Muhammad Subuh, was the one whose coming Gurdjieff
and others had prophesied.

In November that year I went to America to see
Madame Ouspensky, the widow of P. D. Ouspensky, who
is recognized by the pupils of Gurdjieff throughout the
world as the wisest counsellor and friend of all those who
follow his system. I told her much of what I have written
in this chapter and asked her advice. She said, "Ever
since Mr. Gurdjieff went, I have been expecting someone
to come—now seven years have passed, and no one has
come. Whether he will come during my life or not, I do
not know. But we must try everything and see for our-
selves. If you wish to try this, why not do so ? I advise
you to keep it to yourself and a few friends with long
experience."

On my return to England, I joined with eleven other
former pupils of Ouspensky and Gurdjieff who had
previously asked Rofe to give them the contact of which
he had spoken. It was clear to me from the start that we
had met with something very different from anything we
had known before. After a few weeks some of us met to
talk over our experiences, and we all agreed that they
corresponded to the 'awakening of Conscience' that
Gurdjieff had described.

In March 1957 I went again to America and met there
both Madame Ouspensky and Madame de Salzmann, who
is the recognized leader of the Gurdjieff groups in France,

England and America. When I had recounted my
experiences and impressions, both ladies agreed that it was
necessary to investigate Subud thoroughly. I said that
we had learned that Pak Subuh himself would come to
Europe if he was invited. It was agreed that we should
send the invitation and withhold judgment until we had
met him.

Madame Ouspensky asked me how I would recognize
a real teacher. I said that I had met many unusual men,
but none so extraordinary as Gurdjieff. I did not think I
could be deceived if I met a man who might have strange
powers but not real Being. Madame Ouspensky said,
"That is perhaps true. But you cannot rely on yourself.
My advice to you is to pray. Only prayer will help before
such a question."

The stage was set and the invitation was sent. Pak
Subuh with his wife and three Indonesian helpers arrived
in London on the 22nd May, 1957. I met him at the
airport, having received permission to go through to
'Immigration'. I found him sitting quietly on a chair
waiting for the others to come through. In the midst of
the usual tumult of arrival, I was impressed by two things:
one was the ordinariness of his appearance, and the other
was the sense of complete calm and detachment which not
only came from him but entered into me also as soon as I
saw him.

From the first evening of his arrival, I saw and learned
many things that convinced me personally that I was on
the right path. My conviction was not shared by others
who are leaders of Gurdjieff's groups, and to whom it
appeared that Subud was something new to be entered
only at the price of breaking away from Gurdjieff. Since
respect for the beliefs of others is common ground for any
sane attitude towards life on this earth, I do not question
the decision of those who have elected to follow strictly in
the path traced by Gurdjieff and his principal exponents,
P. D. Ouspensky and Maurice Nicoll. I have given my
own reasons for believing that the coming of Subud was
foreseen and foretold by Gurdjieff. These reasons are

necessarily subjective, and cannot be valid for another
person who has not passed through the same experiences.
In any case it is quite clear that Subud was never
intended to be transmitted only to Gurdjieff's followers.
Pak Subuh himself says that it is not tied to any religion
or method. For Christians, Subud can be a means—
indeed a miraculous means—for deepening their Christian
faith and enabling them to see the literal truth of words
that are too often uttered without inward conviction.
The same is true for Jews and Moslems as well as for the
followers of the Eastern religions. For those who follow
special ways and systems, such as that of Gurdjieff, that
seek the awakening of the higher consciousness latent in
man, Subud seems to me to offer a most powerful instru-
ment for achieving what they know to be necessary but
find in practice to be beyond their powers. The value
of prior preparation has been made abundantly clear to
me after nearly two years experience of Subud. Eighty
per cent of those who came to Subud with previous train-
ing in Gurdjieff's system have persisted through the initial
difficulties and still follow the latihan. Less than 40 per
cent of those without such preparation can see the
necessity for passing through the difficult and painful
process of self-observation and the abandonment of the
illusions of one's own importance and even of one's own
existence. I can say for myself that not only has my
Christian faith been strengthened, but I have found it
possible to achieve much of what I had for many years
striven for through Gurdjieff's method. Moreover, I
have seen for myself—what I have always believed to be
true—that the Christian faith is in no way incompatible
with the beliefs of Judaism and Islam. The more one
sees, the more one understands that all the great religions
are deeply and fundamentally true. It is not only their
ethics or their belief in a higher human destiny, or even
the belief in God, that is true, but the very dogmas that
appear to be in contradiction with one another—each is
true, and true, moreover, literally and with no need for
gloss or compromise.

It is the growing realization of the unity of the Divine
Purpose throughout all human history that is for me the
strongest evidence that Subud is also a manifestation of
the Divine Purpose, and has been sent to the world at a
time when help is most needed.

CHAPTER III

THE COMING OF SUBUD

1. Birth and Early Years of Muhammad Subuh*

The events recounted in this chapter up to 1956 are known
to me only through what Pak Subuh has told me of his
own experiences, and what we have heard from his
Indonesian followers. I cannot reproduce all that we have
been told, for Pak Subuh wishes that 'hearsay evidence'
should be as far as possible excluded from this account.
I am obliged therefore to confine myself almost solely to
those events which, having been witnessed by others than
Pak Subuh, could, in principle at least, be verified
independently. The deep impression made upon those
to whom Pak Subuh has spoken of his own personal
experiences is necessarily lost by this restriction, but it
seems right that some account should be given of the
manner in which Subud came into the world. Of
course, this can only be known 'externally', that is, on
the level of our sense experience which belongs to the
lowest or material world. What we call 'facts' are
really only shadows of shadows—but since they are all
that we see, they are all that we can describe. My facts
are meagre, but they may help the reader to form his
own picture.

Though of noble descent, Pak Subuh's parents were
small farmers in Kedung Djati near Semarang, a town in
Middle Java. He was born on 22nd June, 1901, and it is
recorded that many volcanoes erupted and earth tremors
were observed in Java in those days. According to
custom, his father chose his name and called him Sukarno.

[* SUBUH, the personal name, comes from an Arabic word meaning
sunrise or dawn. SUBUD, the name given to the activity as a whole is
the contraction of three Sanskrit words explained in Chapter VI. To avoid
confusion, I shall use the prefix PAK which means father, a common
Indonesian term for respected elderly gentlemen, to designate the man
Muhammad Subuh.]

The child fell sick and for several days could not take food.
His death seemed inevitable and the women of the house
were wailing their laments, when an old man passing by
asked the reason, and on being told that a child was
dying, asked his name. He said that the name was
wrongly chosen and that he should be called Muhammad
Subuh. His father accordingly changed his name and,
from that moment, the child began to take food and grew
up strong and healthy.

His mother being occupied with her younger children,
his upbringing was mostly left to his grandmother.
As soon as he could speak, the child gave proof of clair-
voyant power, discovering lost objects and foretelling
events that were to occur to people he met. When asked
by a journalist to give an example, Pak Subuh said that
when less than three years old, his grandmother had taken
him to a betrothal ceremony. He declared that the
couple, who had not yet seen one another, were incom-
patible and would separate within a year. When his
prediction was duly fulfilled, his grandmother refused
to take him to any more betrothals. Apart from such
external manifestations, the child frequently received inner
indications about his life and behaviour. He found
especially that when he was in the company of other
children who told lies to hide their faults and misdeeds, he
could not bring himself to imitate them. He even tried,
as an experiment, to see if he could speak falsely and
found that his voice always refused to make the required

sounds.

When about sixteen years of age, Subuh received clear
and repeated indications that he was to die on reaching
the age of thirty-two. Since his experience had led him
to accept such indications as completely reliable, Muham-
mad Subuh decided to leave school and search for the
reason for his strange fate. In Java, there were many
teachers or Gurus. There were Christian priests, Catho-
lic and Protestant, orthodox Moslem Ulema, as well
as Sufi murshids. There were also Chinese Taoists
and Buddhist monks, Hindus, and ancient Javanese

communities that had preserved traditions of the Far
Eastern archipelago that probably go back more than
five thousand years. Muhummad Subuh went from one
to another of these teachers. One of these was Sheikh
Abdurrahman of the same Nakshibendi order of dervishes
as Sheikh Abdullah Dagestani. This is now the most
flourishing of all the Sufi orders, with members throughout
the Moslem world. Muhammad Subuh soon observed
that the Sheikh would not impart to him the same
teaching that he was giving to other pupils, and was sad
to feel that he was neglected. When he asked the reason,
Sheikh Abdurrahman replied, "You are not of our kin—
it is not meet that I should teach you." Muhammad
Subuh wondered what this could mean, and even asked
himself if he was of the kin of Satan that no one should
wish to teach him. Another time, when he was only
twenty years old, he visited an old woman in East Java
who was famous for her wisdom and spiritual gifts, and
to whom many of the Ulema and learned men came for
teaching. When he entered the room, where she sat
surrounded by her pupils, she astonished them all by
rising, paying reverence to him, and asking him to occupy
her place.

Again and again, he found that the teachers he went to
refused to answer his questions and declared that he was
not of the same stuff as they. When pressed, they told
him that his answers would never come from man, but
by direct Revelation from God. None of this satisfied
Muhammad Subuh, for his chief wish was to be an ordin-
ary man and to live an ordinary life.

Realizing finally that his quest was fruitless, Muham-
mad Subuh decided that his right course was to undertake
and fulfil the normal duties of man on this earth—that is,
to take care of his parents, to marry and beget children,
to earn his living and to take his place as a member of the
society to which he belonged. He became a book-keeper
and worked for fourteen years, first in commerce and
later in local government service as assistant to the
treasurer of the town of Semarang. In speaking of his

years as a householder, Pak Subuh has described the
success of the various undertakings he served. In his
last post, he saw within two years a municipality that
had always been insolvent, balance its budget and find
money for various undertakings needed for the people's
welfare.

2. The Beginning of the Latihan

In Muhammad Subuh's twenty-fourth year, he had the
first of a series of remarkable experiences that led to his
final understanding of his mission in life. One night in
the summer of 1925, he was walking in the open under a
moonless sky, when he saw high above his head a ball of
brilliant light that seemed brighter than the noonday sun.
While he was wondering about the meaning of this
apparition, the light itself descended and entered him
through the crown of his head, filling his body with
radiance. The vibrations produced in his body and
feelings by this experience were the first intimation of the
working of the spiritual exercises which later were to be
known by the name of Subud. That the apparition of
the ball of light was not a subjective hallucination peculiar
to himself is indicated by the fact that many friends in
the town and even many miles away also saw it and came
the next morning to his house to enquire what had hap-
pened. On subsequent occasions, others, especially his
mother, witnessed the same phenomena as himself and
often could verify and amplify his own descriptions.

For nearly three years, such experiences were a nightly
occurrence, so that he scarcely slept by night, and yet he
found the strength to fulfil his life obligations by day.
He neither sought nor welcomed the inner working,
chiefly because he did not wish to be different from others
or to receive gifts that were not given to all men. He tried
to drive away the experiences by going to the cinema, but
found that however he might keep his attention on the
screen, the inner state would return and remind him that a
quite different process was present in him also. He sought,

by throwing himself wholeheartedly into his professional
duties and his family life, to bring about the cessation
of his inner experiences. During this time he studied
accountancy more seriously, and five children, two boys
and three girls, were born to him and his wife, whom he
had married in 1922.

The nightly visitations ceased early in 1928, and for the
next five years he almost ceased to be aware of the inward
working that had started in his twenty-fourth year.
Nevertheless during this time his friends began to resort
to him for advice and help, recognizing that he had the
word of truth which could penetrate to their real needs.
He was not regarded at that time as being above the
ordinary human stature, but as a man of exceptional
insight and understanding of his fellow men and their
problems. As the years passed he came himself to feel
that he had found his place, and although he realized that
his abilities were wasted as a book-keeper in a small
municipal office, he had no ambition to achieve worldly
success.

To avoid any misunderstanding as to the nature of
Pak Subuh's experiences between the ages of sixteen and
thirty-two, it may be said that during the three years from
twenty-four to twenty-seven, the spiritual exercises,
subsequently given to thousands of others, were enacted
in him almost nightly and he experienced in himself
the completion of the four stages of purification to be
described later. Indications are often received in the
exercises that show what is necessary for one's own inner
and outer life. One example cited by Pak Subuh, from
his own experience, may give some idea of the combination
of symbolic or pictorial representation with a more direct
prehension that frequently occurs. About one year after
the process started in him, Muhammad Subuh began
to be troubled by his inability to understand the meaning
of his experiences and the impossibility of receiving help
from any outside source. One night, he received the
answers that he needed, and realized also that he was
neither to receive nor to transmit a new 'teaching'.

This raised a new question for him. He was fully aware
of the importance of the transformation that was taking
place in his own nature, but he felt that it could not be
right that he alone should receive the contact. If he
was not to teach anything, how was his experience to be
transmitted to others? He felt that he would rather not
receive it at all, than enjoy it alone.

After some time, he received clear indications that he
had been chosen as a means whereby everyone who wished
to do so could receive exactly the same contact and pass
through the same process of transformation as he had
himself. This is indeed what occurred later, and herein
lies the crucial and extraordinary quality of Subud that
distinguishes it from any other kind of spiritual work of
which I have heard or read—namely, that it can be
transmitted integrally and without diminution from one
human being to another. This is contrary to reason, for
it seems to violate the principle, exemplified in the second
law of thermodynamics and the aging of living beings,
that every irreversible action must involve a diminution
of quality or intensity. Therefore the contact is what
matters, since, unless it be made directly from the source,
diminution, adulteration and distortion are inevitable.
Such is the common lot of all teachings, and it can well
be understood that Muhammad Subuh found himself
shrinking from the possibility that he might become a
teacher, having the contact himself and seeing others
deprived of it.

When he reached his thirty-second year, Muhammad
Subuh had become, to all appearance, a normal house-
holder busied with the cares of a growing family and his
everyday duties. On the night of 21st/22nd June, 1933,
there occurred an event of which it seems wrong even to
attempt a description. We have heard Pak Subuh speak
of it several times, but always in conditions when our own
consciousness was set free from its usual limitations.
Nevertheless, this date is so important for the history of
Subud that it is necessary to record the fact that on this
day Muhammad Subuh became aware of the true signi-

ficance of his life on earth. He understood that it was
his mission and his task to transmit to everyone who asked
for it the inner working of the spirit that he himself had
received.

3. Transmission of the Contact

From this time onward, Pak Subuh began to withdraw
from his official duties; and, after the time needed to
train his successor, resigned from government service,
and devoted himself thenceforward to the transmission
of the spiritual contact. The first to receive it was the
chief disciple of the Nakshi Sheikh to whom he had gone
for explanations. Later the Sheikh himself, by then a
very old man, set out on a journey to receive the latihan,
but died before he could meet Pak Subuh again.

Since Pak Subuh himself made no attempt to propagate
a teaching, and indeed repudiated the role of teacher, the
spreading of his work was at first very slow. Only a few
friends and former fellow-seekers came to him, and of these
not many could grasp the simplicity and universality of
what he had to give. It was not until 1941, when Java
was soon to be occupied by the Japanese, that news of the
benefits bodily and spiritual obtained in the latihan began
to spread abroad. The Japanese occupation once again
retarded the extension of the movement and it was not
until after the war that it moved to Jogjakarta, the capital
of one of the ancient kingdoms of Java.

An incident of the Japanese occupation illustrates both
Pak Subuh's submission and the difference between his
role and that of a teacher. At one time, it appeared that
no one's life was safe in Java, and Pak Subuh thought that
it might perhaps be his duty to write down all that had
been revealed to him concerning human and cosmic
mysteries, lest it all be lost if he should prematurely leave
the earthly scene. He accordingly set himself to write,
and in six months had completed twelve note books of
manuscript. Soon afterwards he left home to spend a
few weeks in another town. When he returned he found

that the family, being short of fuel, and mistaking his
manuscript for waste paper, had burned it all. He realized
that this was an indication that he was not intended to
transmit a teaching and wrote no more of the mysteries of
heaven and earth.

4. The Foundation of Subud

On 1st February, 1947, Subud was established in
Jogjakarta as a Brotherhood with simple statutes, the
main theme of which was that the aim of the movement is
to enable people of all races and creeds to share in the
worship of God. For this no organization is needed, but
since we have to live in the world, it is necessary to provide
external conditions for a harmonious social life. The
wording of the preamble to the original statutes gives an
idea of Pak Subuh's intention in founding it:

Preamble to the Statutes of the First Subud Brotherhood 1947.

"Inasmuch as we are certain with all our being that it is
the Will of God that we should rightly fulfil our earthly
obligations, we must in the conduct of worldly affairs make
the fullest use of all the instruments bestowed upon us for that
purpose by Divine Decree.

"Inasmuch also as, for the perfecting of eternal life, we have
been endowed by God with a Spiritual Essence, this essence
also requires both the means and the opportunities necessary
for its harmonious development in such a manner as to give
true meaning and significance to all our inner impulses and
outer activities in the station that we happen to occupy in life,
as well as in our relationships with our fellow men, in our
attitude towards ourselves and also in our way upon the path
that will lead us back towards our Source.

"In the course of our search for Spiritual Development and
in our desire to share with all Mankind the common aim of
true Worship of God, we are confronted with the world and
with its questions. Upon the path, there thus arise sundry
questions concerning, for example, the formation of groups
and hence of directors and those under direction, the respective
needs of young and old—in general, all questions that concern
the organization of people who are brought together by a

common aim: namely, in this instance, that of achieving unity
of understanding leading to the performance of our duties
in perfect harmony of intention and action."

5. Susila Budhi Dharma

Soon after the foundation of Subud, Pak Subuh was
inspired to write a lengthy poem in high Javanese with
the title 'Susila Budhi Dharma'. The subject matter of
the poem is the array of forces that act upon man during
his life on earth. A recurring theme is the working of the
latihan as a means of liberating man from the sway of all
the lower forces, and of bringing them under his control.

High Javanese is rapidly becoming a dead language,
known only to those of royal or noble descent, and even
among these it is now seldom taught to children. Those
who know the language affirm that the poem Susila Budhi
Dharma is a literary masterpiece, but we read it only in
an Indonesian version which is a prose interpretation of
the contents of the poem, written by Pak Subuh himself.
The book is intended for the guidance of those who follow
the Subud spiritual exercises. When carefully studied,
it proves to contain a profound psychological analysis of
the forces—conscious and sub-conscious—that dominate
human life, and shows how these forces are gradually
purified and harmonized when thought is put aside and
the inner consciousness of man is awakened. True to
the principle that one should not attempt to put into words
that which is beyond the mind, Pak Subuh stops the
exposition at the point where the human consciousness
begins to become aware of the Divine Mysteries.

6. The Expansion of Subud

After the independence of Indonesia was proclaimed
in 1949, Subud first began to acquire an international
character. Husein Rofe arrived in Java early in 1950 and
soon was received as a member of Subud. After spending
nearly two years as a member of Pak Subuh's own house-
hold, Rofe became an active missionary and helped to

make Subud known, first in Indonesian islands outside
Java and later in the Far Eastern countries. According
to letters received from people in Singapore and Hong-
kong who met Rofe at that time, it seems that his journeys
were made under conditions of extreme personal hardship
and at first showed very little fruit. It was at this time
that news of Subud first began to reach Western countries,
chiefly through articles written by Rofe for various
Islamic journals. Several Dutch and other European
people came to the latihan. By 1954, branches had
been established in several of the Indonesian islands, in
Hong-kong, and in Japan. An article by Rofe attracted
the attention of Meredith Starr, a well-known authority
on methods of spiritual training, then living in Cyprus.
Starr invited Rofe to Cyprus. Arriving there towards
the end of 1955, he transmitted the latihan to a number of
interested people. This in turn led to the decision that
Rofe should come to England, where he arrived in the
summer of 1956.

Meanwhile, the expansion of Subud in the Indonesian
Islands was proceeding steadily. More than two thousand
men and women had received the latihan, which was
regularly practised in Djakarta, the capital, as well as in
many outlying places. Reports of remarkable cures of
illnesses were undoubtedly one of the main factors in the
growing interest in Subud. On the whole, the orthodox
Moslem authorities, the Ulema, were lukewarm towards
a movement so catholic in its scope as Subud. Pak
Subuh did not make, and has never made, any distinctions
of race or creed among those accepted for the latihan,
emphasizing that Subud is not a new religion nor a
system of thought, but simply a means whereby the
spiritual life can be awakened and strengthened in each
person according to his or her personal faith and practice.
Since it is very hard for most people to separate the pure
religious experience as such from some particular dogma
concerning Divine Mysteries, the simple message of Subud
often seems like a call to abandon, or at least to change
one's own beliefs and practices. It is only by degrees that

the real significance of Subud as the way to find the
true content of every teaching and every creed becomes
apparent. This may perhaps account for its relatively
slow progress in the twenty-one years from 1933 to 1954.

7. Subud in England

When Subud came to England, it found a propitious
soil among many hundreds of followers of Gurdjieff's
system for the Harmonious Developments of Man. Gurd-
jieff's system is catholic, and founded on the belief that in
all men there is the potentiality of a conscious awakening
of the powers that can remain dormant throughout life.
Thus, Gurdjieff's pupils were familiar with the notion that
man is unaware of his true nature, which can be developed
and perfected only by a lengthy conscious process.

No previous preparation or spiritual training is re-
quired for admission to the Subud latihan, and its action is
as effectual in those who have had little or no experience
of spiritual exercises as in those who have devoted all their
lives to such matters. Nevertheless, it also cannot be
gainsaid that the working of Subud is mysterious and
incomprehensible to the logical thought of the average
cultured man or woman of our times. For those who
have already grasped the distinction so clearly made
by Gurdjieff between the higher and the lower centres,
between the essence and the personality, between con-
science and morality, the working of Subud, though still
mysterious, is nevertheless wholly acceptable. Gurdjieff's
insistence on the uselessness in the spiritual life of that
which he calls the 'formatory apparatus', that is, the
mechanism of associative thought and linguistic analysis,
fully accords with Pak Subuh's reiterated advice to put
aside efforts of thought and feeling and await the experi-
ence of a purified and therefore empty consciousness.

It was, therefore, not surprising that when Husein Rofe
arrived in England he found the readiest response in a
small number of men and women who for many years had
studied Gurdjieff's method, but were convinced that it was

not complete unless a way could be found to achieve the
awakening of the higher centres of consciousness through
direct contact with a Higher Source.

8. The Arrival of Pak Subuh

Muhammad Subuh with his wife and helpers arrived
from Indonesia on 22nd May, 1957, and within a week had
accepted an invitation from our Institute to make his
headquarters while in England at Coombe Springs.
Many members of the Institute were soon admitted to the
latihan, and it seemed possible that all the groups in
England interested in Gurdjieff's ideas would join forces
in Subud. I have already described the events that led to
the suspension of this expectation.

I may be forgiven if I describe one strange incident that
occurred during the first week of Pak Subuh's stay at
Coombe Springs. Though the house is not old, the
grounds contain very ancient springs, the waters of which
were believed to have healing power. In 1514, when
Cardinal Wolsey built Hampton Court Palace, he sent for
an Italian engineer—reputed to be a pupil of Leonardo
da Vinci—to bring water from Coombe Springs to the
Palace. Numerous oak conduits lined with lead collected
the waters from Coombe Hill and brought them to a
central point now in our grounds where two conduit
houses were erected, joined by a long subterranean tunnel.
Two lead tanks were sunk in the ground to enable, so it is
said, the local people to maintain the practice of dipping
sick children in the water. Round the conduit houses
oak trees were planted, some of which—now nearly four
hundred and fifty years old—are still standing. There
has always been an atmosphere of mystery and constraint
about this corner of the grounds, and some have believed
that ghosts or troubled spirits haunted it. I myself, going
to the springs in the middle of the night, have often experi-
enced a strange unease, as if entities both friendly and
unfriendly were aware of my presence.

In the middle of June, a sense of oppression and fore-

boding seemed to have invaded Coombe Springs. One
evening, there was an extraordinary force present in the
latihan. Everyone living at Coombe went to bed with
the feeling that they had been witness of some gigantic
though invisible struggle. At about three o'clock in the
morning, nearly all the fifty or so people living at Coombe
Springs were awakened by the sound of an explosion that
was like a thunderclap in the very grounds, and yet some-
how different. Someone compared it the next day to the
sound she had heard during the war of an aircraft ex-
ploding overhead. It transpired that neighbours in the
adjoining houses had heard nothing. And yet one woman
living ten miles away telephoned the next morning to say
that she had heard the explosion at three o'clock and had
somehow connected it with Coombe Springs. Everyone
noticed next day that the atmosphere had lightened and
that the sense of oppression had entirely disappeared.

When Pak Subuh was asked about this, he explained
that evil forces had been resisting the coming of Subud to
Coombe, but that they had now been destroyed. Such
incidents can mean little to those who hear of them at
second hand. They are not 'evidence' of anything; but
those who were present that evening could not doubt that
some kind of battle had been waged and that the 'good'
forces had conquered. This is but one of the many
strange experiences that occurred both to individuals and
to groups of people during the months of June and July.
I have included it only so that the record may be reason-
ably complete.

These were weeks of intense activity that made us recog-
nize the change of tempo that is characteristic of Subud.
One of Ouspensky's former pupils having, in April 1957,
attended a film of some of the Gurdjieff rhythmic dances
at which nearly a thousand of his followers were present,
remarked that it had taken thirty-six years since Ouspen-
sky first came to England in 1921 for the movement to
grow from forty to a thousand members, and predicted
that to establish Subud in the West might take no less time.
In the event, Subud has established itself in England in

fewer weeks than other movements have taken years. It
is already known throughout the world, and the chief
difficulty is to keep pace with its growth.

9. The 'Healing' of Eva Bartok

Obvious contributory factors to the growth of Subud
have been, first, that several hundred people were able, at
least a little, to understand the significance of Subud, and
second, the publicity given by the press in November
1957 to the circumstances attending the birth of Eva
Bartok's child Deana. A far more important reason for
the spreading of Subud has been the rapid and unmistak-
able action of the latihan upon all sorts and conditions of
men and women. The greater number of those who have
come to the latihan after the initial stages have done so on
account of the clearly visible changes for the better in their
friends and relatives who had already started.

In view of the interest that has been aroused in the case
of Eva Bartok and the misleading accounts that have
appeared in the press, it may be wise to include here the
history of the events as we witnessed them ourselves. Miss
Bartok has for several years been interested in Gurdjieff's
method, and had impressed us by the tenacity with which
she has held to the work under the most adverse life
circumstances. A refugee from Hungary at the time of
the Communist occupation in 1946, exposed inevitably to
pressures that would either have turned the head or
ruined the character of most women, she retained never-
theless her religious faith and the belief that a way of inner
life could be found. The more sensational events of her
life are well known and need not be recounted. Her first
chance of making a film in Hollywood, still the Mecca of
film stars, came in the summer of 1956, but she went there
a tired and distressed young woman, having failed to
achieve a harmonious marriage with a charming and
brilliant, but headstrong, German film actor. In April
1957 she telephoned to me from Hollywood to say that she
was very ill, and that a serious operation was unavoidable.

She wished to have the operation in England, but only
after she had spoken to me about preparing for death. As
she was speaking, a clear indication came to me that she
was destined to be cured through Subud, and that this
would have many consequences that I foresaw with very
mixed feelings. Ever since April 1946, when the Institute
was founded at Coombe Springs, we have carefully avoided
publicity, and indeed had been remarkably successful in
turning aside requests for permission to photograph and
write articles upon our work. It had always appeared to
us that spiritual work could prosper only if it were kept
out of the limelight. At that time I did not understand
that Subud was under different laws from those of most
spiritual undertakings.

Miss Bartok reached England on 19th May, a week
before Pak Subuh arrived, and having grown considerably
worse consulted two surgeons, both of whom appear to
have advised her very earnestly to submit to an operation
without delay. Although her disease was not malignant,
there was a danger of complications that might prove
fatal.

In this situation a very grave decision had to be taken:
one that I would not wish to be faced with again. A
young woman was threatened on the one hand with the
danger of fatal complications, and on the other with the
virtual certainty that if she had the operation she would
lose her child and even all hopes of motherhood. There
was the possibility that the Subud latihan might save her.
Pak Subuh himself had not then left Java, and our only
direct evidence of the healing power of Subud came from
three or four cases in the original small group, whose
members had found an undoubted improvement in their
health. The position was explained to Miss Bartok, and
she elected to wait, saying that it seemed that she had now
the possibility of the spiritual awakening for which she had
been waiting since her early youth, and that she would
take any risk rather than lose this chance.

When I was driving Pak Subuh to London from the
airport I told him of Eva Bartok's situation. After

waiting, as he always does when confronting serious
questions, for an inner indication, Pak Subuh said that she
should receive the latihan, and for this she should be moved
down to Coombe Springs. The next day Pak Subuh sent
his wife Ibu and Ismana Achmad to the Lodge at Coombe
Springs where Miss Bartok was staying with Mrs. Eliza-
beth Howard. She was thus the first person in Europe to
receive the latihan directly from Ibu Subuh. The only
visible change was a relief of certain distressing symptoms,
and for a fortnight very little seemed to be happening.
Her own doctor, who saw her daily, confirmed that she
was in no immediate danger, but added his own advice to
the recommendations of her surgeon that she should agree
to the operation as soon as possible. She accepted this
advice, and arrangements were made for her to enter a
London hospital on the evening of 10th June.

During these nineteen days Pak Subuh himself did not
once see Miss Bartok. The absence of any apparent
improvement in the clinical symptoms only seemed to
emphasize the reality of the inner psychic change. Every-
one who saw Miss Bartok at this time was impressed by
the change in her expression, and by the serenity with
which she was facing the prospect of a dangerous operation.
It is here worth remarking that several months later a
distinguished prelate who asked for information about
Subud affirmed that his interest had been aroused by the
unmistakable spiritual transformation that was revealed
by the photographs he had seen of Miss Bartok before and
after she came to Subud.

When the hospital arrangements were reported to Pak
Subuh on the morning of 10th June, he personally went
down to the Lodge, and with Ibu, Ismana, Elizabeth
Howard and myself, entered into the latihan standing
round Miss Bartok's bed. This was for the two English
people the first demonstration of the indescribable power
of the Subud latihan. The little bedroom was charged
with energy that annihilated all personal feeling and pro-
duced a state of consciousness in which all seemed to be
sharing in one and the same experience as the sick woman.

We felt the same physical pains, the same fears and the
same weak but growing faith in the power of God. None
of us could have said how long the experience lasted, but
afterwards we found that it was barely forty minutes.
Then without having spoken a word Pak Subuh went
away. Miss Bartok herself was in acute pain which
persisted through the day. When Pak Subuh was con-
sulted, he said, "Let her doctor give her a good sedative.
It will not interfere with the exercise. Now the crisis is
over, and she will not need an operation."

It occurred as he predicted. From the morning of
11th June, Miss Bartok's condition began to improve, and
within three weeks she was confident that she would
have a living child. This was soon to be confirmed by
experienced obstetric surgeons, and the baby was success-
fully delivered in October and is strong and thriving.

For those of us who were witnesses of the whole event, it
was far more astonishing than can be described in words.
It was not the fact of a cure that impressed us, but
the unmistakable evidence that the psychic or spiritual
change preceded the somatic. The healing of a distressed
soul is more remarkable than recovering from an illness.
When one sees the two in juxtaposition and can follow the
course of the transition from the psychic to the somatic,
one cannot doubt that a very great and a very good force
is at work. Since then we have seen many other such
cases, and the link between the psychic and the somatic
has always been clearly in evidence.

10. Subud in Europe

The principle that the Subud contact can be given only
in response to a request extends also to its entry into new
places. When he came to England, Pak Subuh had ex-
pressed his intention of returning home within three
months unless invited to some other country. We did
not at first understand the significance of this declaration,
as we supposed that, like most people, he would make his
own plans and go where he thought best. In July a few

members of our Dutch group came to Coombe Springs
to be opened and invited him to go to Holland, where
many who could not travel to England wished to receive
the contact.

He then explained that he had received no indication
from within that he should go to Holland but, in the
absence of an invitation to Germany or to America, both
of which he expected, he would go to Holland. We thus
began to learn something of the extent to which Pak
Subuh is obedient to the command to undertake nothing
of his own volition.

On the 1st September the Indonesian party went to
Holland for a visit of six weeks, and new branches of
Subud were established at the Hague and in Eindhoven.
These have grown out of groups studying Gurdjieff's
system and connected for many years with Coombe
Springs. During this time I went to Germany, having
spoken of Subud to friends in Stuttgart, Munich and
Nuremberg, and returned with a letter of invitation
signed by Frau Ruth Gruson, Count Manfred Keyserling
and Baron Christopher von Tucher. On 16th December,
Pak Subuh went to Munich where he remained for seven
weeks, apart from a short visit to Zurich, St. Gallen and
Berne in Switzerland. During this time the German
press published sensational but not unfriendly stories of
Subud. The effect of the publicity was to deter many
serious people from coming; nevertheless more than two
hundred were opened in Munich and more than a hundred
in Switzerland. Active Subud centres were established in
Munich, Zurich and St. Gallen.

The heaviest burden both during and after the visit
fell on Ruth Griison, herself a follower of the work at
Coombe Springs of many years' standing. To those who
knew how seriously ill she had been previously it was
impressive to witness the new strength with which Frau
Gruson was endowed. We saw also how, lacking any
pre-existing organization, Subud in Germany began to
take an external form that corresponded to the needs of
the German character.

Invitations were now being received from all over
Europe: from France, Norway, Italy, Spain and Greece.
But Pak Subuh was waiting for something to come from
America. Some of us had written to friends in the
United States, but without a personal visit it seemed
impossible to convey the significance of Subud, and we
began to prepare for Pak Subuh's return by way of
Cyprus and Turkey, leaving the New World to a later
visit.

ii. The Influx from Overseas

The story of the coming of Subud would not be com-
plete without reference to the remarkable influx of people
from all parts of the world—in many cases without prior
knowledge of what they were to find. A mere list of the
countries from which men and women have set out to find
Pak Subuh is sufficiently impressive. They include Singa-
pore, India, Ceylon, Pakistan, Turkey, Cyprus, Italy,
Switzerland, France, Spain, Holland, Germany, Sweden
and Norway, Morocco, Egypt, Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana,
South Africa, Canada and the United States, and finally
two came from Kodiak Island in the North Pacific,
having travelled 11,300 miles. But the circumstances of
the visits were more extraordinary than their number and
variety. One or two examples must suffice.

An Indian lady, Mrs. Bulbul Arnold, came to Coombe
Springs at the suggestion of her sister-in-law, and asked
for advice on behalf of her husband, who was suffering
from an acute asthma with complications for which no
medical remedy had been found. He had been flown to
Switzerland to see a famous specialist, but could get only
temporary relief. In the outcome both husband and
wife joined Pak Subuh in Holland, and not only was Mr.
Arnold's condition radically improved, but remarkable
changes occurred in their lives that have already benefited
many others.

About the same time, a well-known journalist from
Ceylon felt during June a strong urge to come to England,

although he had no clear business reasons for leaving
Ceylon. On arrival, he telephoned to Coombe Springs,
and that evening was told about Subud and at once
recognized that it was for this that he had come to
England. Returning home after four weeks, he was
instrumental in preparing several score of people, and a
letter was received inviting Pak Subuh to visit the country
on his way back to Indonesia. In January 1958, Subud
was taken to Ceylon by Icksan Ahmad and Bulbul Arnold,
and within three weeks three hundred and twenty-six
people had been admitted to the latihan. Thus from two
apparently unconnected and personal impulses, Subud
has reached a country where the sense of expectancy in
recent years has been exceptionally strong.

George Cornelius, who had come in 1940 to Gurdjieff's
work while working in the office of the American Naval
Attache in London, had retired with his wife Mary to
Kodiak Island, and we had little news of them for seven
years. There seemed to be no likelihood of their return-
ing to England. Friends at Coombe Springs had written
to Mary about Subud, but her impressions had apparently
been unfavourable. Nevertheless, in November 1957,
both George and Mary had begun to feel unaccountably
drawn towards England. News of her mother's illness
was a reason for Mary to make the journey, but her
husband was occupied with a new business undertaking
and could not get away. Suddenly an unexpected oppor-
tunity presented itself—heralded, as has often happened,
by a symbolic dream. When they arrived in England,
Mary Cornelius said that she did not wish to come near
Coombe Springs for fear of becoming involved. Almost
in spite of themselves, both did come, and were so strongly
impressed by the change that they found in their friends
whom they had known seven years before, that they asked
to be opened. In both there was an unusually quick and
positive response, and they returned to Kodiak after a few
weeks convinced that their coming to England had been
providentially ordered. I have recounted this story to
illustrate what frequently occurs—the personality is reluc-

tant and wishes to escape, but the essence is drawn by a
force that cannot be denied.

Such events taken singly could scarcely be evidence of
a conscious directing power working behind the scenes in
Subud. When scores of similar cases can be cited, it is
still possible to invoke coincidence or the natural tendency
of man to generalize from inadequate premises. When
taken in conjunction with the altogether unusual and
inexplicable experience of more than a thousand people
from many races and religions drawn from all parts of the
world, it is hard to explain the events except by invoking
the action of a Conscious Angelic Power, the presence of
which man himself in his ordinary states of awareness and
sensitivity does not even suspect.

It should not be inferred that all who come to Subud
continue with the latihan. A proportion—less than one-
tenth—go away almost at once, either because they are
afraid or because they expect some strange or miraculous
experience which they do not find. The chief obstacle is
the tendency to 'compare' and so to be influenced by
what appears to be happening to other people. Indeed
with so many reasons for giving up, it is really remarkable
that so high a proportion has remained.

Subud has made its mark in Europe more rapidly and
more surely than any other movement that, having
originated in some remote Asiatic country, has been
brought to the West. Once, when an Englishman com-
mented to Pak Subuh upon this rapid assimilation of a
foreign movement, he replied: "Subud is not foreign. It
belongs to no country, just as it belongs to no race or creed.
It did not 'originate' in the East, and it did not 'come'
to the West. It comes from the Spirit of God, which is
nowhere a stranger. So when we arrived in England we
did not feel ourselves as foreigners, nor did you feel that we
were strangers from a strange land. From the beginning
we could be like brothers, because there is one and only
One Spirit that works in us all. That is the true meaning
of Subud."

12. Subud goes round the World

Before the end of January 1958, an invitation to San
Francisco was received from John Cooke, a descendent of
the Cooke who was one of the first missionaries to Hawaii,
whose life is a hardly credible story of adventure of the
spirit. Pak Subuh promptly accepted and decided to
pass over the eastern states and bring Subud straight to
California. A Canadian, Bob Prestie, went ahead and I
followed a week later with Elizabeth Howard. Pak
Subuh and his party arrived in San Francisco on
22nd March, just ten months after his first landing in
England.

Within a few weeks, centres had been started in San
Francisco, Los Angeles, Carmel and in Sacramento, the
State capital. In California, Subud has had to overcome
a new kind of obstacle, due to the disillusionment of
thousands who had sought for a spiritual way of life and
had over-enthusiastically embraced the innumerable new
movements and sects promising quick and easy ways of
achieving salvation or enlightenment that had come to
the west coast of America during the past thirty years. It
was very natural that Subud should appear as just another
such movement, and that Californians should be wary and
suspicious in their approach to it.

With his usual insight into local conditions before even
encountering them, Pak Subuh had recommended that
in the U.S.A. all publicity should be avoided; and it is
remarkable that throughout our two months' stay only
one mention of Subud should appear in the American
press. Nevertheless, men and women from all sections
of the community began to arrive and between three and
four hundred people received the contact. The openness
and sincerity of Americans make them responsive to
Subud, and before we left it was clear that a strong
nucleus of helpers had been formed in three centres.
Moreover, people were beginning to hear of Subud in
other States and Pak Subuh was invited to go to the mid-
west and east and south, and even to Canada.

However, he had a fixed date to keep in Java on 10th
June and we expected him to go straight back. Then an
invitation was quite unexpectedly received from Australia,
from Dr. Philip Groves, leader of a group that for years
had been working according to Gurdjieff's system and
methods. The letter conveyed a note of urgent pleading
for help that could not be dismissed, and Pak Subuh
announced that he would spend a week in Sydney.
Realizing that the time would be too short to establish a
viable centre, I offered to go before him, although this
meant deferring important tasks awaiting me in England.

Mrs. Howard, with her two sons, and I accordingly left
for Sydney on 3rd May and, after two days in Honolulu
where we met some of John Cooke's family, who asked
to hear about Subud, we reached Sydney on 7th May.
There we found an extraordinary situation; the Australian
press were making a sensation of Subud and we had to
face a posse of reporters, T.V. cameras and radio inter-
viewers before we could meet some fifty men and women
waiting to be opened the very first night of our arrival.

So began the most strenuous month since the previous
June. Pak Subuh came on 28th May and we all left on
7th June. During the month more than five hundred
were opened. Most of the time we were subjected to a
flood of publicity, some offensive, some facetious and
some serious. The Australians who came to Subud were
amazing in their sincerity and fortitude under really
difficult conditions. Indeed, it was evident that the
Power behind Subud would work with greater intensity
the greater the outward difficulties. People came from
all over the continent—a small group flew 3,000 miles
from Perth to receive the contact. Pak Subuh himself
gave more than in any other city, receiving numerous
visitors every morning, bringing them rapidly forward to
a deeper understanding of the latihan. Several men and
women of outstanding spiritual qualities came to Subud
and now form a nucleus of centres in Australia that will
be important in the future.

From Sydney we travelled—as it happened, in the

same plane with Sri Meher Baba, the Indian Spiritual
Leader—to Djakarta where we stayed eight days, visiting
Jogjakarta, where Susila Budhi Dharma was written,
and Semarang, near the birthplace of Pak Subuh. We
were received in the same house by the river, where in
1933 Pak Subuh received his greatest experiences and
the place where the contact was first given to the pupils of
Sheikh Abdurrahman. In each of the centres we visited,
we could verify the deep and lasting action of Subud on
all levels of the human organism and psyche in those who
had been following the latihan for many years. To say
that there was nothing foreign in living and exercising
with Javanese and Sumatrans only half-describes the
conviction that was steadily growing in us that Subud is a
truly human action that goes far deeper than any differences
of race or creed or even of personal character and qualities.

This conviction was reinforced in Singapore, where
most of the Subud members are Chinese and Indian.
Never before having known intimately any Chinese, I
was impressed by what I can only describe as the 'inner
strength' of the Chinese. They come to Subud more
directly than we do, but they need it no less. Though it
is hazardous to generalize from fifty individuals about a
nation of five hundred millions, I formed the impression
that the Chinese will more readily accept a religious
experience that can be shared by all races and creeds than
many other races of mankind. If I am right in my feeling
that the Chinese people in general—and not just a few
individuals—have an exceptional strength in respect of
human qualities, then China must have a supremely
important part to play in the spiritual regeneration of
mankind.

We arrived in Ceylon to find a nation still deeply
shocked by the recent communal riots. We saw many
Tamil shops and even whole areas in remote villages burnt
to the ground and heard pitiful stories of beatings and
murders—all done, as one devout Buddhist said sadly,
"in the name of the Compassionate One".

The external conditions only served to throw into relief

the absence of any sense of conflict between the Buddhist,
Tamil, Muslim and Christian members who share in the
Subud exercises. One story of the 'protection' that
covers those who surrender their personal will in the
latihan is typical of many. A Tamil civil servant was
going to work by tram on the worst day of the riots. The
tram was stopped by a crowd of Cinghalese who started
to drag out and beat up the Tamil occupants. The
Subud member found that the exercise started in him
spontaneously, and continued to sit quietly. Although
his Tamil features are particularly evident, he was not
noticed by the rioters who dragged all the other Tamils
out of the tram while he was left in peace. He gained
such confidence from this experience that he refused to
go into hiding, and he never was molested. Indeed, not
one Tamil belonging to Subud was touched throughout
the troubles.

The stay in Ceylon was crowded with strong experiences
which brought home to us both the strength of the
'sub-human' forces that are in us all against our own
will, and also the purifying and strengthening action of
the latihan.

Short visits to India, Pakistan, Switzerland and
Germany completed an experience that brought us in
touch with half the races of the world. My impressions
of India are based on too few contacts and too short a
time to be worth recording, but Pak Subuh himself has
referred to the special role of India and the presence
there of men of exceptional spiritual qualities who are
aware of the coming of Subud.

The social and political tensions that oppress all
mankind become more and more acute. The recon-
ciling power of Subud has shown itself on a very small
scale—having touched a few thousand people spread
through a dozen countries. It has come into the world,
but no one can yet tell what it may do in the future to
allay the fears and renew the hopes of mankind.

CHAPTER IV

WORKING FROM WITHOUT
AND FROM WITHIN

I. Two Principles of Existence

The significance of Subud can be understood only if we
recognize the distinction between two processes by which
man can fulfil his destiny here on earth. The first can
be called 'working from without' and it comprises all
the actions undertaken by a man directed towards an
ideal formed in him as a result of external influences.
Such actions can range from conforming to a code of
behaviour dictated by religious convictions or by social
responsibility, to the search for a complete inner trans-
formation or liberation by way of some self-imposed
spiritual discipline of effort and suffering. The second
process can be called 'working from within', and it
operates from some source within man himself. In its
true sense, working from within is the action of Divine
Grace operating in the depths of the human soul. There
can, however, be other modes of spontaneous inner
working where the contact with the Source is indirect only.
This distinction is an ancient one, for it is the origin
of all theological controversies concerning salvation by
works and salvation by faith. The distinction is beyond
human understanding, for it involves comparison between
two completely unlike factors or effects. We can see and
know what it means to go by the way of effort and suffer-
ing. Even when efforts are directed towards a right state
of consciousness, they are not different in their essential
character from the muscular efforts made by a plough-
man or a blacksmith. All effort requires attention,
choice, decision and persistence and these are operations
of the will of man. It is quite impossible to reduce the
action of Grace to similar terms, for it does not operate
from but by the free consent of the will of man.

For those who are familiar with the distinction between
time and eternity, it is possible to say that all working
from without is temporal, but that the action of Grace
is eternal and can never be observed as an event.* Man
in his ordinary state of consciousness is 'eternity-blind'
and is unaware that there are different levels in eternity.
Unconsciously he projects all his experience on to the
level of sensation and thought, and this creates a tendency
to believe in 'works' which can be seen, and to mis-
understand the very nature of 'faith'.

2. The Human Personality

Before birth, all influences that act upon the foetus are
of human or superhuman origin—apart from the possi-
bility that animal soul-substance may enter at conception.
After birth, the first influences are animal in character.
They are mainly concerned with warmth and food and
come from the mother or some other large mammal such
as a cow. After a few weeks the child begins to be aware
of its own body, first however with the animal and vege-
tative functions, and only much later does it begin to
recognize material objects and to acquire a relationship
with the inanimate world. It can be said that the
incarnation of the human spirit is not complete until it
recognizes the material world as the environment in
which its life-pattern on earth is to be worked out.

The world of our familiar experience is a world of
material objects—including of course living animal and
human bodies—but this is not the world entered by the
new-born child. That world is not visible and tangible
—for the child does not yet know what seeing and touch-
ing are. It is a series of worlds composed of human, animal
and vegetable essences, in which forces are working that
cannot be reduced to the play of atoms and quanta.

We are not yet ready to discuss these unseen worlds,
and must pass to the arising of the common experience
of man as a person. The new-born child is impersonal,

[* cf. The Dramatic Universe, Vol. I, p. 161.]

but very soon people about it begin to elicit personal
reactions. From them it learns that its cries can attract
attention. They engage its interest in them as persons.
Thus, little by little, a new personality is formed. This is
an artificial construction that is produced by influences
completely different from those that formed the essence.
The personality comprises all that one learns from the out-
side world; and, since the child learns mainly from or
with the help of other people, the personality inevitably
bears the imprint of all the other personalities that it
meets during its formative years.

The main instruments of the personality are the associ-
ative mechanism of the cerebral hemispheres, that is
what we usually call the 'brain', together with the com-
plex apparatus for emotional and instinctive reactions
furnished by the autonomic nervous system and the endo-
crine glands. The head brain is supplied with means
for storing sense impressions, and for sorting and classi-
fying them with the help of signs. Signs take the form
of language, which again the child learns from other
people. Although sense impressions themselves are re-
ceived directly, they are put into the form of usable
memories almost entirely by what is learned from others.
Thus the innate capacity of the essence to perceive the
real world is gradually supplanted and replaced by
thinking about sense impressions with the help of language.

3. The Variety of Influences that act on Man
A simple but valuable distinction can be made between
two kinds of external influences that act upon man.
This is based on the assumption that there are levels of
experience that have a direct contact with real or essential
worlds higher than this earth. These influences are
transmitted through human sources, and their effect is
to awaken in man the realization that his destiny is not
to live, grow old and die and perish on this earth, but
to attain the conscious freedom or immortality of the
human soul as the vehicle of the spirit.

Some such assumption is common to all religions and
to all philosophies that acknowledge God as the Creator
and Ruler of all worlds. But, as Kant showed in his
Critique of Practical Reason, it is even prior to belief in God,
for it derives from the conviction that we men have an
obligation to live our lives according to certain standards
that are in themselves of more than human origin. This
obligation, the categorical imperative, is not reached by
way of thought or even experience, but, because it comes
from within ourselves, it is the only sound foundation for
all ethics and all morality. If it is denied, then ethics
reduces to the unworkable doctrine of the 'greatest good
of the greatest number', that would find few defenders
or advocates today.

We can all see that we live under two kinds of influence
which differ, not merely in their form, but in their origin,
their action and their result. They can be described as
the worldly and the other-worldly, as the temporal and
the eternal, as the material and the spiritual, and as the
religious and the irreligious. But we must make sure
that such names do not mislead us. It is by their origin,
their action and their results that such influences must be
judged. The first kind originate in the mind and feelings
of men who see only the visible world. They act upon
the personality to strengthen its belief that there is no
other world but this. The result of their action is to
bind man to the earth and deprive him of his essential
birthright. The influences of the second kind originate
beyond the mind and feelings of man, and they act to
undermine and eventually to destroy the slavery of the
personality. Their result is to open man's eyes to the
possibility, latent in his essence, of dying to this world
and of rebirth to another and better world.

Since influences of the first kind leave the psychic
nature of man unchanged, they have been called psycho-
static. The second kind set the psyche in motion upon a
path that can lead to an endless progress, and so have
been called psycho-kinetic* Unless this distinction is

[* cf. The Crisis in Human Affairs, pp. 131-44.]

4. The Twofold Flow of Influences

All the scriptures insist upon the need for a positive,
conscious and decisive act of choice, and it is the dis-
regard of this uncompromising demand that has in all
ages caused the downfall of religion.

We thus come to the question of how the choice is
made. The personality is formed under influences of
both kinds, and it has no power of distinguishing between
them. But the essence has elements that do not belong
to the temporal, visible world. By the action of those
elements each man has an urge to seek for the invisible,
the imperishable and the eternal. In so far, therefore,
as the essence is not wholly trapped in the personality,
there arises a discrimination that can recognize the value
of those influences that draw man towards the fulfilment
of his essential destiny.

We are drawn towards eternal life because there is in
each of us a part of our being that is eternal. But that

part is potential only, and it is covered and closed by the
experiences, memories, desires and thoughts of the person-
ality. So long as we live in our personality the essential
reality sleeps. If the awakening comes in the person-
ality there remains a long process of preparation and
purification before the way to the essence is opened. If
the awakening comes in the essence the same process is
still necessary, but it is accomplished through the far
greater powers that operate in the essence. These are
not so much two ways as two opposing directions of flow of
forces. The origin of the force is always the same—it is
the Will of God that man should be enabled to return to
his Source—but when the force flows in from the outside,
it has first to pass through many channels, each of which
takes something from it and adds something to it, so that
by the time it reaches the human individual it is not and
cannot be pure. When the force flows from within, it
enters the spirit of man directly in its full and perfect
purity—so awakening the soul to consciousness of the
Presence and the Power of God. Herein lies the differ-
ence between justification by works and justification by
faith. The first is contingent and hazardous, the second
is complete and infallible.

5. Working from Without

We are not concerned with theories or explanations,
but with the actual experience of the man or woman
who chooses to fulfil his or her true destiny. The choice
is made not once but incessantly, until complete unity of
being is attained, and he is able to choose finally and
utterly with the whole of himself. It is very necessary
that we should realize that the final choice is indeed
final, and that it belongs to the end and not to the begin-
ning of the way. Even in those ascetic orders which
require complete renunciation of the world and all
external attachments, and which, because of the austerity
of their rules, impose a long period of probation upon
their aspirants, it is well understood that the habit does

not make the monk and that choice, which is really the
same as repentance, must continue to the very end.

When we represent to ourselves an ideal state of being
that is remote from what we now are and yet inherently
attainable, we may choose to impose on ourselves a disci-
pline that will bring us nearer to the ideal. This is the
type of all 'working from without'. Even the Imitatio
Christi is working from without, for Christ as the ideal
Man is a representation of our own minds, and the
efforts we make to follow in His footsteps are our own
efforts. When the Yogi sets out to find the Great Self,
the Atman that he represents to himself as identical with
Brahman, the One that is beyond all form, he is still
making a mental image, and his self-discipline is self-
imposed.

We men and women, who fancy that we decide and
act from our own choice, do not pause to ask ourselves
how the possibility of choosing comes to us. If we were
to do so, we should see that it has come through our
senses; through what we have seen and heard and known
of. If we are Christians, we are so because we have been
brought up in a Christian community. If we have ideas
of right and wrong, it is because from earliest childhood
such ideas have reached us through hearing what people
say, through watching what they do, and later through
reading books and through participating in the life of the
community to which we belong. As a result of all the
external influences we may have formed some picture of
the ideal man or woman, and we may try to make our
own lives conform to that ideal. Whether the ideal is
supremely great, as when we survey the life of Jesus
Christ or of the Prophet Muhammad, or whether it is
the glamour of a film star that attracts us, the action is
the same. The ideal is outside of us, but somehow like
us and attainable. The same applies to all ethical and
moral codes. The Ten Commandments, the precepts of
Confucius, the Oath of Hippocrates, the American Consti-
tution—all are the same in principle: they prescribe forms
of external behaviour that we accept willingly or un-

willingly as obligatory upon ourselves, and we try more
or less faithfully to discipline our lives accordingly.
Receiving from without applies also to our beliefs. Each
religion has its own creed, and each sect within each
religion its own variant of the creed. Some are more
and some are less tolerant of the beliefs of others—some
are more sincere and wholehearted than others in their
acceptance of the creed and dogmas of their own faith.
But whatever these may be, all are received from outside
in the form of verbal formulae, symbols or pictures. No-
where is it recorded that anyone has professed the
Christian or any other faith except he were first taught
the creed and its meaning.

It follows, beyond possibility of dispute, that all disci-
pline that derives from

(a)  The contemplation of an ideal Man or state of
existence,

(b)   Obedience to commandments or moral codes,
and (c) The acceptance of creeds or dogmas of whatever

form or content,

can belong only to the category of working from without.
The phrase 'working from without' must not be under-
stood in a disparaging sense. The whole structure of
human society depends upon discipline, and it is only
redeemed from tyranny when there is at least as much
self-imposed discipline as external constraint. But we
must not overlook the limitations of any way of self-
perfecting that depends upon external influences. Since
it comes from our own will it can only liberate us from
our own will by way of failure. Thus Kierkegaard: "To
tear the will away from all finite aims and conditions
requires a painful effort and this effort ceaseless repeti-
tion. And if, in addition to this, the soul has, in spite of
all its striving, to be as though it simply were not, it
becomes clear that the religious life signifies a dedication
to suffering and to self-destruction." Thus also Gurd-
jieff: "We men, owing to the data crystallized in our
common presences for engendering in us the Divine

Impulse of Conscience, 'the-whole-of-us' and the whole
of our essence, are, and must be, already in our foun-
dation, only suffering." Gurdjieff goes on to explain
that suffering is inevitable so long as we remain under
the action of two incompatible sets of forces—those of the
temporal world acting on our bodies and those of the
eternal world that act upon our Conscience.

Those who follow any way of self-perfecting that is a
form of working from without, must come to a point
where they are powerless to go further because they can
never, by their own will, overcome their own will. If at
that point they are resolute and choose the impossible ideal
in place of any possible compromise, they can die to their
temporal earthly self and be born again to their eternal
other-worldly self. Without such 'death and resurrection'
no transformation of human nature can be completed.

There are many ways by which a man can arrive at
the 'point of no return'. One of the attractions for
modern people of Zen Buddhism is that it makes this
position perfectly clear without dogma and without even
the demand for religious faith. The works of my
honoured friend Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki abound in exam-
ples of the working of such methods as the Koan exercise.
The system of exercises used by St. Ignatius Loyola and his
followers is equally clear in its purpose: to confront the
impure sinful human soul with the image of the absolutely
pure and sinless Saviour in such a manner as ultimately
to destroy all hope of attaining such purity by one's own
will. By such means the experience of death and resur-
rection is repeated at each retreat and especially during
the second novitiate. The exercises taught by Gurdjieff
have a more flexible quality than those used in Zen
Monasteries or in the Society of Jesus. They aim at the
awakening of the essence in such a manner that the
ability to 'see one's own nothingness' is attained together
with the strength to bear the experience. Moreover,
Gurdjieff attached special importance to the balanced
development of body, feelings, mind and consciousness,
so that his exercises are constantly varied and adjusted

to meet the changing needs of the pupil who works
seriously and makes real progress.

6. Schools and Teachers

At this point I should refer to the role of 'schools' and
'teachers' in the work of self-perfecting. Any 'teaching'
whether it is of the most general kind like the 'Ten
Commandments', or whether it is a specialized system
of self-discipline, is inevitably standardized, that is to say,
it is received in a set form that is the same for all those
who wish to follow it. But human beings are not stand-
ardized. There are very great differences in the capaci-
ties and limitations that each individual brings to the
task of self-perfecting. Thus anyone who follows a fixed
system of teaching must submit himself to a procrustean
bed on which he will be stretched or chopped until he is
made to fit.

The world is full of psychic misfits who have attempted
to adapt themselves to some standard code of discipline,
whether moral or practical. Those who try to achieve the
highest perfection suffer most from this deep incompati-
bility of their individual powers and limitations with the
requirements of the way they have set themselves to
follow. One of the chief causes of the decay of religion
lies precisely in the general rigidity of religious discipline.
Even those who are capable and desirous of adopting a
severely ascetic way of life seldom find what they need in
any standardized discipline.

The true significance of schools lies not in the possession
of special methods, exercises and the like, but in having
the knowledge and experience requisite to ensure that
the methods are adapted to the needs of the individual.
It is this understanding that marks the true spiritual
director or teacher. Such teachers have always been
rare, and they can hope to give the necessary detailed
and intimate guidance only to a few chosen disciples.
Those who receive only indirect or distant indications
from a school cannot go far without danger of losing the

vital harmony of the many partial processes within the
total process. Man is a most complex being who exists
on several levels, each of which is governed by its own
laws. These laws, though quite distinct in their opera-
tion, are connected with one another. A simple example
will show what is meant by the 'laws of different levels'.
The activity of the human body is governed by mechanical
laws (levers, heat engines, hydrodynamic apparatus), by
physico-chemical laws (digestion of food, oxygenation of
blood, synthesis of special proteins and amino-acids, etc.),
by biological laws (development, regeneration, reproduc-
tion) and by psycho-nervous laws (thought, feeling,
instinct, etc.). These laws belong to different levels yet
they are interdependent and we cannot understand the
activity of the organism unless we recognize both their
distinctness and their interaction. Besides these, there
are also higher laws connected with the attention, with
the power of choice and its exercise, with the will and
the understanding, and the still higher realms of the soul
and its powers. Each and all of these laws is involved in
the process of self-perfecting, and if a man seek to direct
this process by his own will and understanding, he needs
to know—if not the laws themselves—at least the critical
phases of their operation.

Those who believe that it is possible for man's nature
to be transformed by self-discipline usually take far too
lightly the complications involved in the harmonious
development of body, spirit and soul. They may point
to the lives of saints and mystics as examples of the
attainments possible with little or no knowledge of the
laws of the human psyche, but they forget that for one
who attains to blessedness or sainthood, there are many
thousands who fall by the way. Moreover, the saint is
not necessarily a complete man. Some like St. Francis
or St. John of the Cross died young, having destroyed
the equilibrium of their bodies by excessive austerities.
Others were lacking in practical judgment, as we see in
St. Bernard of Clairvaux in his direction of the second
Crusade. Moreover, the greatest saints must not be

regarded as examples of 'working from without'—on the
contrary, their strength and their guidance came from with-
in and were bestowed upon them through faith. Their
lives are truly unfathomable by the ordinary mind of man.
If we confine our attention to all ways of self-perfecting
that are either wholly or predominantly working from
without, we must conclude that:

1.    A school and a teacher is always necessary.

2.    Persistent austerities, physical, mental and emo-
tional, are needed over a long period in order to
purify the lower nature.

3.    It is at the present time hard to find conditions
that make such work possible.

4.    It can be successful only with comparatively rare
people specially gifted for such an undertaking.

These four conclusions have been amply confirmed in
my own experience by the observation, over a period of
more than thirty-seven years, of many thousands of stud-
ents who have followed Gurdjieff's system for the Har-
monious Development of Man. I am convinced that
this system offers the most complete and effectual method
of working from without known in the world today, and
one moreover that is particularly well suited to the needs
of people of western culture. It has attracted men and
women of high mental attainment, emotional sensitivity
and practical ability—scientists, doctors, writers, artists
and successful men of affairs, besides a solid core of
'ordinary' people. All who have persisted in following
the discipline, under the guidance of Gurdjieff's own
approved instructors, have attained some measure of har-
mony and a better understanding of life, and few feel
that their efforts have been wasted. But, out of many
thousands, only a bare handful have achieved any high
degree of spiritual development. No defect is to be im-
puted to Gurdjieff's system on this account. The truth
is that any and every form of working from without is
beset with hazards and few can hope to surmount them
successfully—even with the strongest desire to do so.

Folk-lore and legend, from the old epic of Gilgamesh
that speaks to us from the Epoch of the Search, have
always contained allegories of the quest for eternal life as
being full of perils that only the rare hero is able to
survive.

We need to see the present situation clearly if we are to
appreciate the change that has to come. We may be
certain that the completion of his being and the fulfilment
of his destiny is possible for the man who finds the right
teacher for him and who brings the necessary gifts of
single-mindedness, sincerity and humility; but we must
acknowledge that for the majority, even of those who set
out resolutely upon the way, only very few can hope to go
far by the methods of working from without.

7. The Inner Working

There are seven principal functions or centres in man:
instinctive, motor, emotional, intellectual, sex, higher
emotional and higher mental. The first four of these
operate in our ordinary states of consciousness; they are
essentially instruments for the present life, and they are
incapable of giving us true knowledge either of our own
destiny or of objective reality. The sex centre occupies
an intermediate position in that it can be an instrument of
the lower world, but also a means of lifting man into the
truly human world in which there is no separation. The
two higher centres are the true instruments of the eternal,
imperishable 'Man of the Soul'. The first is the instru-
ment whereby man can know his own true nature and
everything that concerns his own destiny, and that of all
other men with whom he is related. The second instru-
ment gives access to the eternal mysteries; it is conscious
of the Objective Reality that is beyond eternity as it is
beyond time.

The distinction between lower and higher centres,
between temporal instruments for use in this visible world
and eternal instruments that can serve in all worlds is vital
for the understanding of inner and outer work, and it has

been, to me, of the utmost value in my approach to Subud.
We can find much to instruct us on the subject in the
mystical writers, and especially in the Sermons of Meister
Eckhart. "According to the philosopher who is our chief
authority upon the soul no human wisdom ever can attain
to what the soul is. That requires supernatural wisdom.
What the powers of the soul issue from into act, we do not
know: about it haply we do know a little, but what the
soul is in her ground, no man knows. Any knowledge
thereof that may be permitted to us must be supernatural;
it must be by grace: God's agent of mercy." It would
indeed be sufficient to refer to Eckhart all that has to
be written in this section, for he is wholly concerned
with 'working from within' and came nearer to express-
ing the nature of this work than I could ever hope to
do.

The starting point can be stated in Eckhart's words:
"There is something in the soul, intimate, mysterious, far
higher than the soul herself, whence emanate her powers
of intellect and will." The lower centres, or ordinary
self of man and his lower nature, are cut off from this
mysterious 'something'. In it lie sleeping, or more truly,
still unborn, all the potentialities of eternal life. The aim
of all religion, of all asceticism, of all 'work on oneself',
of all the striving of man for perfection, is to reach and
awaken this inner 'something'. And this is equally true
of working from without and of the working from within,
that we are trying now to understand.

In the truest and fullest sense, working from within can
start only when the inner 'something' is awakened.
There then flows from within a stream of influences that
act first upon the higher centres—the instruments of the
soul—and from them penetrate into and through the
lower centres and the bodily organism. These influences
then produce reactions in the lower centres exactly simi-
lar to those of intentional self-discipline except that they
are not standardized. Each individual is subject to an in-
fluence that, having passed through his own higher emo-
tional centre, corresponds exactly to his own needs, and,

moreover, to his needs at each stage of his inner develop-
ment. Thus working from within is analagous to the
development of the embryo from the time that the ovum is
fertilized. The organism with all its limbs, organs and
functions is not imposed from without, but arises under the
influence of the genetic pattern with which the child is
endowed at the moment of conception. Modern embry-
ologists with their marvellous techniques are still quite
unable by 'working from without' to reproduce a thou-
sandth part of the minutely adjusted regulative process by
which the embryo develops.

This analogy might seem to suggest that 'working from
without' is as useless as the attempt to 'synthesize'
a human child in a laboratory. The growth of being must
always occur spontaneously from within. Our efforts can
create favourable conditions for this growth, but they
cannot compel it to occur. We have many obstructions
that have accumulated in us—some from our heredity and
the influences of our early lives—others the results of our
own voluntary or involuntary submission to negative
impulses coming from without. We can do much by our
own efforts to remove these obstructions so that the life-
giving energy can flow freely through all our centres and
all our organs. All this is true, but when we try to go
further and mould ourselves upon some ideal pattern
received from without, we run into the danger of stan-
dardization and are liable to find ourselves stretched
upon the procrustean bed without power to rise from it
again. This is called by Gurdjieff 'wrong crystallization',
and he paints a vivid picture of the plight of those who
make the mistake of relying upon their own strength.
Right crystallization means the unification of the whole
being and nature of man according to his own essential
pattern, and it is achieved by a process of development
that must be directed from the pattern itself and not from
without. But although 'we', that is, our ordinary self,
cannot direct the process, we can watch over it and protect
the being in us that is later to be born and become the true
self or man in us. When working from without is under-

stood in this way, it is more than useful—it is necessary.

The emphasis placed upon the awakening of the soul
and the rebirth to which it leads requires also that we
should state plainly how the awakening comes about.
Here we have all the authority of Scripture and the evi-
dence of the great mystics that it is only the Holy Spirit
that awakens the mysterious something that initiates the
train of events that I have called 'working from within'.
Indeed, as Kant showed in his Critique of Practical Reason,
it is the awakening of the soul that validates our belief
in God and Eternal Life. The central point of all
religious experience is the contact between man and God,
mediated by the Holy Spirit and made through that
mysterious 'something' in the soul that is in neither time
nor space, and cannot be said to exist at all until it is
awakened.

It seems to me that we come nearest to the truth if we
say that the ordinary man has no soul but only the possi-
bility of acquiring one, and that he cannot enter into
eternal life unless and until his soul is born. The saying
of Christ, "What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole
world and lose his own soul?" can only mean that the man
who closes himself to the contact with the Spirit of God by
attaching himself exclusively to the values of this world
loses the opportunity of gaining the soul that is—until it
is awakened—a possibility and no more.

The phrase: 'working from within' refers to the process
that starts in man when his soul is awakened. He is
brought thereby into contact with the power of the Holy
Spirit—the Lord and Giver of Life. This gift of life
streams downwards from the highest point of the man's
being and flows through all levels. Because it is a life-
giving power it brings to life every part that it reaches.
Thus there comes about a true rebirth that is also a
resurrection.

In this operation, the only act of will required of us must
be that of consent and acceptance. We cannot 'will' the
process, nor can we direct or regulate it. It regulates itself
by the very fact that the life-force flows through our essence

pattern, thereby acting constantly to restore us to our-
selves, to enable us to become the real man or the real
woman that from the moment of conception we were
destined to be.

Although we cannot, from our ordinary self, initiate or
direct a process that has its source at an immeasurably
higher level of consciousness, it does not follow that we
remain unaware of the process or unable to co-operate
with it. We experience the working from within as an
inner urge or prompting that shows us what we have to do
and gives us, moreover, the power to do it. I cannot do
better to end this chapter than by quoting Meister Eck-
hart's final message to his friends. He said: "I will give
you a rule which is the sum of all my arguments, the key
to the whole theory and practice of the truth.

"It very often happens that a thing seems small to us
which is of greater moment in God's sight than what looms
large in ours. Wherefore it behoves us to take alike from
God everything he sends us without ever thinking or
looking to see which is greatest or highest or best but
following blindly God's lead, that is to say, our own feeling,
our strongest dictates, what we are most prompted to do.
Then God gives us the most in the least without fail.

"People often shirk the least and prevent themselves
getting the most in the least. They are wrong. God is
everywise, the same in every guise to him who can see Him
the same. There is much searching of heart as to whether
one's promptings come from God or no; but this we can
soon tell for if we find ourselves aware of, privy to, God's will
above all when we follow our own impulse, our clearest
intimations, then we may take it that they come from God."

Herein lies the best assurance for those who are beset
by doubts and scruples about following the promptings of
conscience, lest that which seems to be the voice of
conscience may be the voice of the tempter.

We have come now to the threshold of the Subud
experience, and I shall try to show how we may recognize
that this is really the awakening of the soul for which we
all search.

CHAPTER V

THE LATIHAN

1. The Meaning of 'Latihan'

The Indonesian word latihan cannot adequately be trans-
lated into English. Its root—latih—conveys the notion
of becoming familiar with something, to assimilate and
take it into oneself. The nearest equivalent is probably
training. The common translation 'exercise' is mislead-
ing in so far as it is associated with the idea of some set
form of work such as physical exercise, mental exercise or
religious exercise. All these relate to the 'working from
without' that is the exact opposite of the latihan. After
the initial act of will by which we submit to the process,
the training received in the latihan does not come from
any intentional action of our own. In the latihan, we
are gradually pervaded and permeated with the life force
that flows into us from our own awakened soul.

Although latihan is a training of the whole man, it is not
undertaken for the sake of the result. Pak Subuh insists
that the true meaning of the latihan is worship of God.
The training is the result of worship, but it is worship that
is essential; the result is incidental. The phrase 'worship
of God' requires explanation, especially in these days
when so many people have revolted against religion
because they imagine that worship is incompatible with
any acceptable conception of Deity. They argue that a
God who demands worship of His creatures is an anthro-
pomorphic conception; a relic of tribal theology, when
God was pictured as a King reigning in the heavens and,
in His demands, little different from a human tyrant.
"For I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the
iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third or
fourth generation of them that hate Me." When we read
such passages we must remember that they belong to the
Hemitheandric Epoch, whose Master Idea was that of

human dependence upon Heroic help. With each
succeeding lesson, infant humanity has gained a deeper
realization of the meaning of Deity. If we no longer enter-
tain such naively anthropomorphic conceptions of the
Creator, it does not follow that worship has ceased to have
a meaning. It has already long been clear to theologians
that God does not demand worship because He needs it or
desires it, but because it is the means whereby the soul of
man can return to the Source from which it came. It is
also well understood that worship is the state or condition
in which man stands in the presence of his Creator: it is
the recognition or awareness that there is an immense
Power that is greater than all other powers, and that this
Power is benevolent towards all creatures, including man.

What is not so well understood, even by theologians, is
that the state or condition of worship cannot be reached
by the temporal instruments of man—that is, by the lower
centres. We may with our minds and feelings, and even
with our bodies, wish to worship God, but these are merely
instruments; they cannot be the worshipper himself.
Worship is a power exclusive to the soul of man, for it is
only in the soul that there can be a direct consciousness of
the Power and Love of God. Worship cannot originate
in the mind or the heart, however much we may know
with our minds that worship is necessary and feel with our
hearts the desire to worship. True worship is the con-
scious acceptance of the condition we shall be in at the
moment of death when our personal will is taken from us.

A simple observation can convince anyone of the truth
of this apparently hard saying. Sometimes in the presence
of a great natural phenomenon such as a mighty storm at
sea or even a great range of mountains white with snow,
the sense of our own nothingness in comparison with the
powers of nature overwhelms us, and we experience a state
of awe that is at the same time filled with peace and thank-
fulness that such great things should be revealed to us. It
is easy to verify that such an experience does not originate
in the mind or the feelings, nor is it the result of our own
desire to admire or 'worship' nature. If we begin to

'think about' the experience into which we have been
lifted, we fall back at once into our ordinary state; like-
wise, if we begin to enjoy the state, it changes into some-
thing personal and false. If earthly nature can lift us to
an intensity of experience that is beyond the mind and the
feelings, how much more should we expect that worship of
God should be a condition entirely beyond the reach of
our ordinary functions.

It does not follow that in the latihan the body, feelings
and mind have no part to play, but they are the instru-
ments, not the actor. When, and only when, the higher
centres are awakened, an action begins in the lower centres
that eventually brings them into harmony with the higher
centres. This is the 'training' to which the word latihan
refers. When all the organs and their functions are
trained to be receptive to the fine influences and impulses
that proceed from conscience in the depths of the soul,
then all participates in worship. True worship comes
from the whole man from his highest soul powers to the
skin and bone of his body. Worship is training, but it is a
training that comes wholly from within.

Religious people tend to assume that, if their minds and
feelings are active in worship, then their soul is worshipping
also. They refer to mind and feelings as 'powers of the
soul' and this leads to the error of supposing that the soul
must be awake whenever the powers are exercised. The
truth is that whenever worship originates in and is directed
by our own will, it can only be worship by and of the
instruments, not worship by and of the soul. This is a
hard saying, but unless it is understood, the defects of
human worship can never be grasped.

2. Approach to Subud

Since we cannot of our own will initiate the 'working
from within' of the Subud latihan, the question naturally
arises, "What then is the role of our own will, of our
own power of choice and of our ability to make efforts?"
The answer to this question must be understood by

everyone who wishes to approach Subud rightly. We
cannot do anything, but we can ask. To ask is to
commit oneself to the results that will follow if we receive
what we ask for. Thus, to ask should be a responsible
exercise of the freedom of choice that is man's most pre-
cious gift. In order to ask responsibly, we should at least
know what we are asking for and be able to foresee and
understand the consequences of receiving it. But who
are 'we' that ask? The ordinary man is not one. He
exists on various levels, but is aware only of two: that of
material objects and that of his thoughts and feelings.
On each level, he has different functions that are only
loosely connected with one another. He is a multiplicity
of selves, a succession of states, a being who does not and
cannot know himself. There is no 'I' that rules over the
many selves, for the 'I' that should be the ruler lies un-
born in the depths of his unawakened essence. Since at
any given moment one of the many selves that make up
our personality is uppermost, that single self can ask.
Later, another self may repudiate the asking, if its needs
and wishes lie in quite a different direction. Those who
do not understand this, and who trust themselves and
believe that whatever they say and do comes from the
whole of their being, may not feel the incongruity of asking
from some transient, superficial self for the awakening
of their innermost soul. Those who have begun to under-
stand their true situation are likely to be very diffident in
asking and to doubt whether their power of choice can
extend to so momentous a decision.

To protect those who with the impulsiveness of ignor-
ance are ready to ask for what they cannot understand,
and to give confidence to those who have realized some-
thing of their own limitations, the approach to Subud is
made subject to a period of probation. Under special
conditions—as in the case of people coming from afar
with little time to make the contact—the probation may
be reduced to a nominal period of waiting. Nevertheless,
the principle is unaffected: it is that one must first ask
oneself the question whether one truly wishes to receive,

and only after receiving from oneself an affirmative answer,
to ask from another that the contact should be given.

Let us suppose that William Jones enquires about
Subud, having read in the papers or heard from friends
an account that is almost certainly misleading in many
aspects. After sundry attempts he finally receives ex-
planations of the kind given in this book. It is impressed
upon him that Subud is not a kind of faith healing nor a
system of mental or spiritual exercises. If, after various
misunderstandings are cleared away, William still wishes to
enter Subud, he places his name on the probation list, which
entitles him to put any questions he wishes and to receive
answers, even if these involve Subud members in speaking
about their own personal experiences in the latihan.

Here it is necessary to explain why such answers can
be given freely, whereas it is usually understood that
schools possessing knowledge of spiritual methods are very
careful in selecting those to whom these methods should
be transmitted. Herein lies one cardinal difference
between working from without and working from within.
The effect of spiritual exercises should be to break down
the crust of illusions and bad habits that separates the
personality from the essence. This often requires a
powerful action that can be very disturbing to the psyche.
Again it is sometimes necessary to awaken a particular
function by forcing it to attain—for a time—a high degree
of activity. Unless great care is taken this may disturb
the working of other functions.

An example of the dangers is provided by breathing
exercises. The human organism is so constituted that
there is a delicate instinctive balance between the rate
of breathing, the speed and volume of the pulse, and the
discharge into the blood of hormones and other substances
known and still unknown to science. The respiration is
also closely related to the rhythms of the brain and
nervous system. If the rate and pattern of breathing are
intentionally altered, all the other functions connected
with it must be adjusted, or harm to the organism will
result. But those who teach so-called Pranayama, or

the control of breathing practised by Yogis, seldom know
about all these connections. Therefore in true Yogi
schools—with which, it must be said, western students
scarcely ever come in contact—the secrets of Pranayama
are carefully guarded. The most powerful exercises are
never taught except to specially selected disciples, who
must remain under the close supervision of a guru. The
same applies to mental and religious exercises. Many a
yogi and many a monk has died prematurely or lost his
reason through following such exercises without an
experienced and responsible guide.

The reason for these precautions becomes evident if we
reflect that exercises are standardized, whereas man is
not standardized. The only safeguard against the
dangers is secrecy, and there is no other motive for secrecy
except to protect people from forces that they do not
understand and cannot direct.

It is entirely different with 'working from within'.
First of all, there can be no imitation, no stealing of ideas
and methods before the pupil is ready. Since the work
proceeds from within and adapts itself to the needs of
each person, there is no need for secrecy; and there is no
need for precautions, except to ensure that the seeker
abstain from introducing his own ideas and bringing his
own wishes, his own will into operation. If he were to do
so, he would expose himself to a mixed action that comes
partly from his own soul and partly from his self-will, and
that would create a danger; but it is not a danger that can
be averted by secrecy. On the contrary, the more people
know about the experiences of others, the less are they
likely to mistake their own self-will for the Will of God.
Therefore, in Subud, everyone is free to speak of their own
experiences and of what they receive in and from the
latihan. Since no one can induce for himself the action
of the latihan, whatever may be told remains 'outside'.
Nevertheless, it enables those who wish to approach Subud
to understand what is needed before they ask to be
admitted.

The need can be stated very simply. We ask that we

should be put in contact with the Holy Power that gives
Life to the soul of man. We recognize that the contact
must be made beyond ourselves—not 'beyond' in the
sense of outside—but beyond our minds and feelings, in
the higher, the eternal part of ourselves. Since we are
imprisoned in the lower, temporal part of our nature, we
cannot, of our own will, reach the place where the contact
is to be made, and therefore we must ask for help. This
asking is an act of our own, and we can only make it with
that part of us which is aware of what it means. That is,
for nearly all people, their personality, since the essence
is still asleep. Thus, our asking is inevitably incomplete.
The latihan itself is the means whereby the incomplete,
imperfect asking can be completed and made perfect.

If all this can be made more or less clear to our William
Jones, he sees that he must ask not for results, but for the
opening of possibilities. He does not ask because he
understands what he wants, but because he realizes that
he does not understand.

3. The Opening

It seems to me that the easiest way to understand the
'opening' is to compare it with Christian Baptism. The
mystery of baptism is that the child is received into the
number of Christ's flock without understanding or even
being aware of what is being done for it. Even in adult
baptism the mystery remains, for it implies a profound
change of the entire nature, of which the person received
into baptism can be only dimly aware.

In baptism, the question is put and answered, not by
the child but by the godparents who stand as witnesses.
They are presumed already to have experienced the in-
ward change that comes from the awakening of the soul's
powers, and when they ask for baptism on behalf of the
child they bear witness to the truth and reality of the
transformation. Unfortunately, baptism, this holy sym-
bol of the Christian faith, has lost nearly all its meaning,
so that even sincere Christians do not understand their

responsibilities. The very form of the Christian service
suggests 'working from without', since the godparents are
enjoined to see that the child is taught the Creed and the
Commandments, and is brought to the bishop for confir-
mation. Thus what is, in reality, a matter of faith in
the Grace of God is made to appear as a promise to fulfil
certain external obligations.

Those who have received the latihan come to under-
stand from their own experience the meaning of faith and
of Grace, and if they belong to the Christian profession,
they find that all the Sacraments of their religion acquire a
new depth and a new power. If they are called upon to be
godparents, they see for themselves that the moment of
baptism is indeed a moment of opening, when the Holy
Spirit enters and gives birth to the new man.

In Subud the opening is performed without ceremony
and without any kind of ritual. The trainees stand—or,
if they are aged or infirm, sit—and the man or the woman
who is to open them reminds them that they have come
because they wish to find the way to the true worship of
God.

Many people have asked how the opening is 'done'.
The answer is that nothing at all is done, either by those
who receive the contact or by those who are witnesses.
Faith cannot be transmitted from one person to another.
But the 'witness' has been accepted by God as an instru-
ment, and the faith which has been given to him makes the
contact possible for the other.

Although the contact itself is made not in time, but in
eternity, the latihan itself lasts for half an hour or more.
This makes it possible for the inner working to begin, even
though most of those who receive the contact are at first
aware of nothing at all. When there are physical sen-
sations and movements, or new states of feeling, the new-
comer recognizes that 'something' has happened, but the
true nature of this something cannot be grasped at all.

When the opening is completed, many trainees enjoy
a feeling of deep relaxation and peace, and realize with
astonishment that they have been more fully conscious of

themselves, for a longer time and in a more continuous
state, than is possible by any effort of attention that they
are capable of making.

There are a few, very few, whose experience is much
stronger and deeper, and who have no doubt from the
first that they have been in the presence of a Holy Power.
There are also many trainees who at first experience little
or nothing and are disappointed that "nothing seems to
have happened". To such, patience is advised and
persistence, for our practical experience has shown that
not one in a hundred who persist with the latihan fails,
within two or three months, to become aware of a new
force working in him, and sees results that convince him
that something has occurred that has not come from his
own thought, feeling or desire.

Some experiences of the opening are definitely un-
favourable or painful. Some trainees are convinced that
there is indeed a force, but an evil one. Others are simply
afraid. Others again feel resentful or suspicious, or
simply are embarrassed, and do not wish to continue.
Those who have seen much of Subud and its action on
many people, recognize that these are all reactions of the
personality which soon cease to trouble those who can
bring themselves to persist. Since everyone, sooner or
later, encounters difficulties due to the reactions of the
personality, the act of will that consists in choosing to con-
tinue, has to be repeated. This is indeed important, for
it makes it clear that the transformation of man does not
take place against his own will or without his consent.
Indeed, Subud demonstrates in the most practical manner
what St. Augustine and other theologians have taught
about Grace and the human will.

4. Helpers

Those trainees who have had enough experience to
recognize, if not to understand, the action of the latihan
can become 'helpers' to those who are still at the begin-
ning. The role of helpers is very important. It is they

who can answer the questions of probationers from their
own experience. They can also reassure those who are
beset by fears and misgivings in the early stages. Helpers
also have a part to play in the latihan itself. They are
chosen by Pak Subuh himself or by his appointed repre-
sentatives, and they are permitted to do the latihan more
frequently and to receive explanations that will help them
to fulfil their duties.

It is a principle of all true spiritual work that he who has
received must repay, but this can be done only by helping
one's neighbour. The work of a helper is onerous, for he
has to bear the burdens of others. This burden-bearing
is not a matter only of giving time and attention to the
work, but of being ready to take upon oneself the inner
state of other people. The helper is more open and more
sensitive than those who are still wholly imprisoned in their
personalities and in their physical natures. The latter are
in process of throwing out the poisons that have accumu-
lated as a result of their past lives, and these poisons enter
—in part at least—into more sensitive people in their
vicinity, namely the helpers. This can produce very pain-
ful or unpleasant experiences. One of the reasons why
the helpers are permitted to do the latihan more often
is that they can thereby throw out again, or 'cleanse'
themselves of, the impurities or poisons they have picked
up.

Those trainees who become helpers are soon aware that
Subud is not a short cut to an easy life, but rather the
acceptance of a heavy burden. Gurdjieff's famous formula,
"self-perfecting by way of conscious labour and intentional
suffering", is indeed applicable to Subud. As with many
other such formulae, the real meaning of what Gurdjieff
taught only becomes apparent when a person experiences
for himself the inner working, and sees the true nature of
human freedom. He is then liberated from the illusion
of 'doing', but understands that it is open to him to accept
or reject a burden that no one obliges him to bear. His
acceptance of the burden involves him in 'conscious
labour and intentional suffering'. The suffering is not

of the soul, that is his 'I' or true self, but of the instru-
ments, that is the body, the feelings and the mind.
Furthermore, this suffering is necessary for his own purifi-
cation and completion. It is effectual in this only because
it is 'conscious and intentional'; that is, accepted by his
own free will. Such suffering is compatible with a deep
and enduring happiness. Indeed, those who have been
privileged to act as helpers are all agreed that they experi-
ence a sense of unfailing joy, that comes from realizing that
what they are doing is the best for themselves.

It is essential to distinguish the two parts of the helpers'
role. The first is external and ordinary: it concerns
practical arrangements, advice, consolation and the
bearing of the ordinary burdens of those who are sick,
troubled or perplexed. Help, in this sense, is the obli-
gation of every man towards his neighbour, and the only
new factor in Subud is the inner guidance that enables
the obligation to be fulfilled in a manner that is often
beyond our understanding. The second part of the
helpers' role is inward and extraordinary. It concerns
the spiritual exercises. Pak Subuh has repeatedly
emphasized that no one can help another in the worship
of God. There is no difference, in the latihan, between
the helpers and the newcomers—each submits to the
working of the Spirit. Therefore the helper in the
exercise must never imagine for one moment that he is
helping or can help the others. Everyone needs help,
but that help cannot come from man. It can come only
by submission to the Will of God. The 'bearing of one
another's burdens' is then something spontaneous, it is
a gift that is accepted, not an action that is done.

The role of the helpers in the latihan requires that they
should be able to preserve their own state of conscious
surrender to the inward working of the latihan, while at
the same time keeping some contact with what is happen-
ing to those around them. This is accomplished, not by
letting one's attention flow outwards towards others, but
by intensifying one's own surrender. It is by no means
easy to find the inner balance between one's own worship

and 'concern' (in the Quaker sense) with those about
one. One learns in the latihan that the two command-
ments of Jesus—"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with
all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind"
and "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself"—have a
very precise and literal meaning. The helpers begin to
see that it is in our power to fulfil these commandments
providing we do not attempt to 'do' anything from our
own will. Those who wish to help their neighbours from
their own strength and their own understanding shut
themselves off from the very possibility of helping anyone.

5. Openers

The 'contact' was first received by Pak Subuh him-
self. Later he transmitted it to others. When these in
their turn had reached a stage of clear conviction as to the
reality of the contact and had been strengthened by the
latihan to the point where they could bear the forces
involved, they could become in their turn 'openers'.

When Pak Subuh came to England he soon designated
a small number of men and women as being qualified to
act as openers. As I was one of these, I can give some
account of the opening as it is experienced by those who
are witness for the newcomer.

Those who come to the latihan often ask, "What is it
that Pak Subuh does ? Does he pray for us ? Or has he a
power that he directs towards us?" Some think that
some kind of hypnotic influence is at work, or even that it
is a form of magic. No one who himself has acted as
opener can have any doubt on the matter. We do
nothing whatever to the people, or even for them. The
opener enters the latihan exactly as if he were alone in the
room. Indeed the sense of being alone in the presence of
a great Power is the strongest and clearest element of the
whole experience. It is that Power that gives new life to
the soul, and not ourselves, not anything that we do.
Pak Subuh says that the witness must have true faith, but
I am bound to say that I, for one, am aware of nothing in

myself, not even faith. I can say, however, that I have
been aware, without any doubt, of the presence of angels
during the latihan.

For a time one may cease to be aware of the presence
of the others, but there comes a moment when one is
conscious of participating in their experience. One knows
when someone is being disturbed by his thoughts or his
feelings, or whether he is obstructing the process by trying
to do something of his own. Those who feel that they
'ought' to be doing something to co-operate with the
process communicate their anxiety to the openers. Some-
times there is a feeling of great heaviness, due to the
presence of one or more people who are weighed down by
their own personality.

A most extraordinary moment of the latihan comes
when one is aware that the contact has been made. It is
as though the heat of the human passions is quenched for
a moment, and the coating of the personality is pierced
so that a new life can begin to flow. One is then aware
of the presence of a very fine substance or energy that
itself is conscious. It would not be inappropriate to
describe this energy as a 'suprasensible light'. This energy
envelopes us all and makes it possible to participate in the
inner experience of others.

The burden upon those who open is heavy, for they are
bound to absorb some of the passions or poisons that are
driven out of a person at the moment that the contact is
made. Sometimes one feels ill for several days afterwards.
In the case of one man who rashly took upon himself to
open more people in a given period of time than Pak
Subuh had authorized, several months of ill-health were
the penalty he had to pay. This risk places a limit upon
the transmission of the contact too fast or too often.
Generally the burden is greatly lightened when two or
more act as 'witnesses' in the opening. Indeed, Pak
Subuh lays down as a general rule that one should open
while a second stands beside him to share the burden.
Nevertheless, when the need arises, all limitations are
swept away. Recently, three hundred and twenty-six

men and women were opened in Ceylon within three
weeks by one man and one woman with the help of two
Cinghalese who had themselves been opened during a
brief visit to Coombe Springs.

6. Conditions of the Latihan

The Subud latihan is invariably arranged separately
for men and women. Men are opened by men and
women by women. Not only are the men's and women's
latihan separate, but it is recommended that while the
state of openness persists—which may be for one or two
hours after the latihan—men and women should as far
as possible remain apart. An obvious justification for
this rule is that, when open, men and women are in a
sensitive state and can readily be influenced by one
another. There is a deeper reason connected with the
very nature of man. This will be discussed later in the
chapter on the completion of man. In effect, it means
that in the spiritual life it is necessary to accept a strict
discipline in regard to the relations between the sexes, for
the very reason that deep and strong forces are aroused
when the soul of man is given a new life. These forces are
necessary, but they cannot be regulated by the human
personality. They belong to the essence, and only an
awakened essence can direct them aright.

The latihan can be made at any time, but usually not
more than thrice a week in the early stages. Some twelve
to twenty sessions are usually required before the process
is well established. There are, however, great differences
between individuals, some receiving almost at once,
others requiring many months or even years to become
conscious that a new force is working in them.

It is most important that trainees should understand
that they are completely free in the latihan. It begins in
them because they ask for it, and it stops when they ask it
to stop. Moreover, there is never any loss of conscious-
ness or of the power of choice. It is only when the trainees
try to play tricks with the latihan, whether by forcing the

pace, by imitating others, or by thinking that they already
understand what is still a mystery for them, that they can
bring trouble on themselves. Whoever enters the latihan
and continues with patience and sincerity, experiences no
disturbance. Nevertheless, as I said previously, many
trainees imagine that they are being acted upon by Pak
Subuh or whoever may open them, that they are being
hypnotized or that they are the victims of hallucination.
Such notions can easily be dispelled by the simple test that
any trainee can apply of seeing whether or not he is free
at any moment he chooses to stop the latihan and walk
out of the room. Still more cogent for those who under-
stand something of the meaning of will and consciousness,
is the observation that one remains at all times fully
conscious of oneself—even if one ceases to be aware of
one's surroundings. Since one effect of the latihan is to
bring to the surface of one's consciousness states of mind
usually buried in the subconsciousness, people with hidden
fears find themselves afraid, those with concealed sus-
picions become overtly suspicious, those rooted in self-
concern become obsessed with the idea that they are doing
better or receiving more than they are. All such effects
create problems and embarrassments and put people in
need of help from those with greater experience.

Usually, after a few months, such difficulties have been
overcome and trainees understand clearly that their free-
dom of choice is never for a moment removed from them
and that there is no danger at any time of losing conscious-
ness. They also become convinced that the action in the
latihan comes from within themselves, and not from
any other person. When this stage is reached, people
are authorized to continue the latihan alone in their
own homes. Usually, they can then become helpers for
others.

In this chapter, I have described the latihan, but not its
effects. In later chapters, I shall give examples of the
manner in which the latihan works in people of different
types and conditions. There is no 'normal' latihan.
This is disconcerting for those who are accustomed to

base their judgments on comparisons with some accepted
standard or norm. They want to ask the question: "Am
I getting on better or worse than the others?" But this
question, which is intelligible as applied to working from
without, has no meaning when we enter the process of
working from within. Since there are no standards, there
can be no comparisons; since there is no time, there can
be no 'rate of progress'. Each trainee is what he is, and
his inner development must follow his own laws. The
uniqueness of the human soul is part of its dignity, and
those who seek for comparisons or external tests of their
progress belittle the soul as much as those who imagine
that it can be changed against its will.

CHAPTER VI

THE SUBUD EMBLEM

1. Susila Budhi Dharma

The word Subud is a contraction of three words—Susila
Budhi Dharma. The ancient Sanskrit language from
which these words are taken belongs to the Hemitheandric
Epoch, and has not been a spoken tongue for nearly three
thousand years. Nearly all the wisdom of the old Epochs
has been lost, and we do not understand much of the
symbolism of the Vedas and Brahmanas. Yet the three
words Susila—Budhi—Dharma convey a deep and vivid
meaning as they are interpreted by Pak Subuh.

Susila means literally to have good morals. Pak Subuh
describes it as "Right living according to the Will of
God".

The word Budhi has baffled the commentators. Some
understand by it the Power of the Intellect, others
Consciousness, and others again explain it as the inner
agent, or will of man. Pak Subuh takes it to mean "The
inner force or power that resides within the nature of man
himself". It is not the individuality or self-hood of man,
nor even his soul, but rather the limitless potentiality for
development and progress that is the true motive power
in the spiritual life.

Few Sanskrit words have been so misused as Dharma.
In the motto of the Theosophical Society—Nasti Satyat
para Dharmo—it is translated as religion. It is often taken
to mean law, or the world order. Others again translate
it as duty or even fate. The Pali equivalent, Dhamma,
occurs in one of the most ancient Buddhist scriptures—the
Dhammapada—as the description of the way of life of
the Bhikkhu or Buddhist mendicant priest. Pak Subuh
interprets Dharma to mean "Submission, surrender and
sincerity in receiving the gift of Grace from the Almighty".

When the three words are combined, they denote the

perfect harmony of the inner life (Budhi) and outer life
(Susila) that is attained when our entire being is submitted
to the Will of God as it is revealed to us through the
highest centre of consciousness, seated not in the brain
but in the soul.

Subud is a way of life. It is neither a dogma nor a
creed nor is it a teaching nor a philosophy. It pre-
supposes an act of faith; namely the acceptance of the
possibility that the Will of God can be revealed to the
individual man or woman whose soul is brought to life
and whose lower instruments of thought and feeling have
been purified. It does not require that the act of faith
should precede the awakening, but only that one should
be ready to enter upon a path the end of which may be
the complete transformation of one's inner and outer
life. Subud means not merely to live rightly, which
would apply equally to living according to the command-
ments we receive from without. It means to live rightly
from within, by the Will of God and by His Grace. We
have obligations here on earth—represented by the word
Susila—and we have the power so to fulfil them that we
do not offend against Divine Ordinance. This is the
way that leads to felicity not only in this life, but in the
life to come. The way is limitless, for it is the path of
return to the Infinite.

This suggests a second and deeper meaning for the
word Subud. Pak Subuh has explained that it should
also be taken as a reminder of the great universal law:
"Everything that arises from a Source must return again
to its Source" or "That which proceeds from God returns
to God again".

2. The Subud Emblem

Seven golden circles transected by seven radial lines is
the emblem of Subud. The circle has always been re-
garded as the symbol of endlessness, for it has no stopping
point. The circle as a symbol means that belief in the
possibility of unlimited development, endless progress of

the human soul. The seven circles indicate that this
development implies different levels, and that within each
level there is a source out of which all proceeds and into
which it returns. The seven radial lines indicate that the
qualities of all levels are reproduced on each level. There
are thus seven levels and seven qualities, making forty-
nine different states, stages or conditions.

3. The Seven Soul Powers

The seven circles represent the seven great spheres of
universal life, and they also signify the seven modes in
which this life is manifested.

These can be described as souls or powers. It is always
hard to find a suitable word to describe the quality that
characterizes a particular class of essences. The soul
itself cannot be separated from its own qualities, nor can
the qualities be found elsewhere than in the kind of soul
to which they belong. Nevertheless, it seems best to use
the word power to designate the seven modes of existence
which influence human life. They are:

7 The Power of the Supreme Lord.
6 The Power of Compassion.

5    The Power of the Complete Man.

4    The Human Power.

3    The Animal Power.

2    The Vegetative Power.

1    The Material Power.

Only the four lowest of these seven are accessible to
the mind of man and can, therefore, be described by
means of words and images. The three highest levels
are entirely beyond the apprehension of the human mind,
the fifth and sixth are accessible to the two higher centres
in man, but the seventh is beyond the highest possible
human consciousness.

We cannot have a right attitude towards Subud unless
we grasp one very simple truth. The human mind
cannot know anything except what reaches it through
the human senses: sight, touch, hearing and the rest.
The scholastic philosophers used to say: there is nought in
the mind that was not first in the senses. This truth is accepted
today, as it has always been by anyone who takes the
trouble to examine what our thoughts are made of. It
does not, however, follow that there is no reality that our
senses cannot perceive. On the contrary, we can see
only a small part, and hear and touch a small part of
what is actually around us. Our minds cannot know
this, because they really are limited by our senses. So
that although we may talk and write about an invisible
world, about eternal realities, about life after death, about
the soul and conscience and even about God—we cannot
know anything at all about these suprasensible objects.
Neither can anyone else know them. Our minds are
shut in by a barrier through which thought cannot pass.
But we are not the same as our minds, any more than
we are our head or our hands. All these are instruments
of man, not the man himself.

We could not even suspect the existence of powers
higher than our human powers, if there were not in us
instruments that are themselves higher than the mind.
But, just because these instruments are indeed higher,

they cannot be brought under the control or expected
to obey the orders of the mind. They will obey the soul,
whose instruments they are, but if the soul is asleep or
unborn, then they have no master, and they must remain
suspended until the master comes.

All that can be said about the three highest powers is
that they do not arise and grow out of the lower ones, as
plants grow from minerals, animals from plants and man
from animals. The power of the complete man enters
him from above—it is a gift that depends solely on the
Grace of God. Only when the human soul is filled with
this power can it reach perfection and enter the realm of
the just man made perfect that is beyond anything that
our senses can ever perceive.

The sixth power is far higher and greater than that of
the complete or perfect man. It is universal—not con-
fined within the limits of our solar system. The soul that
is illuminated by this sixth power participates in the
Divine Compassion by which all worlds are sustained.

Of the seventh power we can say nothing at all. It
seems that it must arise from beyond the whole existing
universe—but these are mere words. We cannot even
know what we mean by the 'Power of God'. The soul
into which this Power enters is wholly united in its Will
with the Will of God. But since the soul itself is a
creature and can never be the same as God, we cannot
hope to understand this unity of Will, unless God himself
chooses to reveal it to us.

Even if description is useless, there is a value in setting
before ourselves the names of the Higher Powers, if only
so that we can remember that human nature, even when
raised to its highest level of perfection, is still two degrees
removed from the Power of the Supreme Lord.

4. The Lower Powers

Since in every man one of the four lower powers is pre-
dominant, it is important that we should understand their
nature. The mind of man cannot penetrate to the inward

essence, even of these lower powers, because we are
able to think only about the external, visible forms. The
inward essence cannot be represented by means of images.
We can, however, learn to recognize the working of the
different powers, and so become sensitive to their qualities
as they are manifested in ourselves.

The first of the essential powers is that which works
through material objects. It is this power that acts upon
our senses and enables us to see and touch and form
images. The words we use in speaking and thinking
acquire their meaning from these sense images. Thus
when we say the word 'table', we evoke in ourselves the
forces that act on us when we see and touch a table, and
so we have an image of a table. We have the same kind
of images when we say 'tree' or 'cow' or 'man'. This
means that all our images belong to the power of material
objects.

We cannot doubt that there is such a power, because
material objects are able to attract our attention and
arouse our interests and our desires. Nevertheless, this
power belongs to the lowest world, and for this reason it
is also called the satanic power. Those whose souls are
dominated by the power of material objects feel them-
selves secure only when they have possessions around
them. They are afraid of losing their possessions because
their soul can find no other support. Men will even kill
themselves if they lose their possessions, and they will kill
or harm others in order to acquire them. Even if they
are restrained from such violent actions, by training or
habit or fear, they are nevertheless dependent on material
things, and value themselves and others by the quantity
and quality of the possessions they can collect round
them. Such people cannot even imagine that they are
the slaves of the satanic power, because they have no
other experience with which to compare their own.

It is a hard saying, but true, that nearly all people in
the world today live under the power of material objects
and cannot exist without them. The satanic power also
dominates the earth itself—that is the material planet

with its earth, water and air. Therefore people who are
under the material power are imprisoned on the earth.
They can exist only on the earth, and when they die their
only possibility of further existence is to return to the
earth. If, however, the soul is not brought to life, the
essence cannot easily find its way back into a human
form, and is likely to be absorbed into the material
objects to which it is so much attached.

The second power is that of the plant essence. This
power is far more highly differentiated and more 'alive'
than the material power. It is the support of all life on
the earth, not merely in the form of food for our bodies,
but as the source of all the diverse impulses that form
the 'nature' of men and animals. For this reason the
vegetative power is sometimes called also the force of desire.
Those who are dominated by this power are clear and
strong in their impulses.

The 'world of plants' is far higher than the world of
material objects. It is an invisible world, for it is com-
posed of the essences that are hidden in the plants. To
understand this we must refer again to the Subud emblem,
and remember the seven lines that transect the seven
circles. Thus a man may be under the influence of
plant powers and yet be able to perceive only that which
reaches him through his senses. Then he sees plants
only as material objects and has no respect for the essences
that are hidden in them.

The third power, that of the animal forces, is the
source of the 'character'. Thus, some men have the
character of a dog, others of a bull or a pig or a tiger.
These 'characters' are hidden by the external human
form and by the outer human instruments, especially the
mind; that is, all that I have called the 'personality'.
Consequently, we do not easily recognize the essential
characters of people, and suppose that all 'men' are
really men. The quality of the essence depends upon
the powers that predominate in it. Thus it is possible
for a 'man' to have the character of a dog and to be
dominated by material or satanic influences, and yet he

and other people take for granted that he really is a man.
Many such strange combinations are possible, and when
we begin to acquire the faculty of perceiving the hidden
realities, we understand that 'humanity' is still very far
from being truly human.

The comparison of mankind to a child is far from
adequate for it does not allow for the immense complexity
of the whole human situation. In one aspect, humanity
can be compared to a child of four or five years old. In
another, we must think of the slow emergence from the
animal essence into the human essence that started a bare
million years ago, and may take several more millions of
years to complete. Our human organs and functions are
subject to predominantly sub-human powers in our nature.
Again, mankind is an integral part of the entire life of the
earth—the biosphere—and can never be understood apart
from this whole to which we all belong. In this respect,
the entire human race is rather more in the situation of an
embryo still contained and nourished in the womb, than
a child already born and in some measure competent to
see to its own needs. Thus, the influence upon men of
the animal power is more important and penetrates more
deeply into our nature than those of the material and
vegetative powers. In the Megalanthropic Epoch, with
its emphasis upon the salvation of the individual, the
organic significance of mankind—of the whole human race
—was almost lost to sight. It is a clear indication of the
coming of the new Epoch that men are turning more and
more towards the realization of human solidarity and
interdependence. We may expect that during the next
two or three thousand years humanity will come to the
consciousness of its own unity with the rest of life upon
the earth. Then people will begin to be aware of the
immense significance of the animal essence and the
power that flows through it.

The fourth or human power is that which flows through
the human essence. Inasmuch as mankind has not yet
evolved to the stage at which there is a true social con-
sciousness, the mutual influence of human beings upon

one another very seldom comes from the human power.
Nearly always the action either proceeds from the lower
powers, and especially those of the material world, or
else it comes from the personality, that is, the artificial
covering by which the essence is enveloped. The true
brotherhood of mankind must come from the operation
of the human power—but so long as men are closed up
by their personality and subject even in their essence to
sub-human forces, there can be no 'brotherhood from
within'. Consequently the social relationships of man-
kind as we know them today are almost exclusively the
result of external attractions and outward restraints.

We must not blame people for this situation. It is
inevitable in our present immature state, and thousands
of years may have to pass before a truly human society
can arise on the earth and embrace all organic life within
a single family. Nevertheless, we can already see in the
working of Subud that those who can persist through the
early stages come to a new and essential realization of
what a human society should be, and can begin to experi-
ence the working of the human power in their relations
with their fellow men.

Although nearly all the wealth of experience that enters
through the human power is closed to those whose soul
is not yet brought to life, there is one manifestation that
is necessary for human existence and is therefore made to
operate independently of the inner condition. This is
the power of sex. The relationship between man and
woman is a true human relationship that penetrates
through the personality and acts in the essence. Conse-
quently, the relationship of the sexes, at all times and for
all people, has provided the greatest opportunities and
has also been fraught with the greatest hazards for the
human soul. Pak Subuh reminds us that the sexual force
is the very first to enter man's life, since it is present at
the moment of conception. The Subud Emblem reminds
us that every power cuts through all levels, and it can
therefore happen that a high power in the soul comes
under the domination of a lower power in the essence.

This is indeed what almost always happens with the
power of sex: in nearly all men and women it is directed
by the animal powers, influenced by the vegetative pas-
sions and brought to shame by the material or Satanic
powers. When the human power is rightly manifested
in the human essence, it is the means for the completion
of man and for his preparation for the Divine Grace of
the perfected human soul.

5. The Two Universal Essences

There is in the Subud Emblem an invisible as well as
a visible content. We are shown in the seven circles and
the seven rays how the seven qualities appear in each of
the seven levels, but not how it is possible to pass from
one level to another, nor how all are united into a single
whole. The emblem is completed by the addition of two
further essences that cannot be shown by points or lines
or circles or any other geometrical symbol, for they are
omnipresent, pervading all that exists. These are the
Primal Essence, and the Holy Essence, or Holy Spirit.

The Primal Essence is also called the Great Life Force
that flows through everything from the highest to the
lowest, and from the lowest to the highest. It is called by
Gurdjieff the "common-cosmic-Ansanbaluiazar", which
he defines by the formula "Everything issuing from every-
thing and again returning into everything".* The flow
of the Primal Essence from above below and from below
above is called Involution and Evolution, and it is respon-
sible for the common cosmic exchange of substances by
which the life of the entire universe is maintained.

The Sacred Essence that proceeds directly from the
Will of God, and surrounds and pervades everything, is
the Power that makes possible the return of all essences to
their source. Thus in the Creed it is also called The
Lord and Giver of Life.

It would be useless even to attempt an analysis of the
innumerable ways in which the two Universal Sacred

[* All and Everything, p. 761.]

Essences have been described in the scriptures of all
religions, as well as in the hermetic books of all ancient
schools. There is no new teaching in Subud and it is
unnecessary to spend more time in seeking for parallels.

Although names can be given to the Sacred Essences
and even some kind of description of the characteristics
can be attempted, the truth is that, being limitless and
omnipresent, it is quite impossible for the limited, local-
ized human functions of thought, feeling and imagination
to form any picture of their true nature. Nevertheless,
we can recognize their working in ourselves, and especi-
ally in the latihan, for it is the Great Life Force that
flows through the entire being to give it new life and
new powers. It is the Holy Spirit whose contact awakens
the soul and enables it to conform to the Will of God.
As the Apostle says: "For it is God which worketh in you
both to will and to do of His good pleasure".

Thus, although the Sacred Essences and their Powers
are utterly beyond our understanding, they are not remote
from us. On the contrary, our very existence and all
our potentialities depend upon them alone. Without
them, the whole universe and all its content would
collapse into nonentity and chaos.

CHAPTER VII

THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY

1. First Effects of the Latihan

After the first few latihan, most trainees report that they
observe a sense of deep relaxation and well-being. Both
during and after the latihan, they experience an excep-
tionally clear state of consciousness that persists for one
or two hours. These effects are very different from those
obtained in voluntary relaxation exercises, which usually
produce drowsiness and contentment rather than a state,
of vivid consciousness. Again, many trainees report that
although they may arrive at the latihan tired and out of
temper, they invariably experience a reversal of state and
leave the room fresh and cheerful. Such results are to be
expected from mild physical exercises that can restore a
normal blood circulation after a prolonged period of
mental effort, or other sedentary work. Nevertheless,
there is a quality that distinguishes the latihan from
relaxation exercises and gymnastics, and also from
breathing exercises or the use of special postures such as
those practised in Hatha Yoga. This quality consists in
the progressive character of the latihan. So long as the
process is not interfered with by any effort of attention,
expectation of results or anxiety of any kind, the latihan
progressively changes its action, as if some inner energy
were opening for itself ever new channels through
which to flow. Trainees often show surprise at the
sense of novelty and unexpectedness that accompanies
almost every latihan. This is characteristic of 'work-
ing from within', which reproduces in the outer parts
of the self the changes that are taking place in the
essence.

One difficulty that was encountered at first by many
trainees, but now is gradually disappearing, is in under-
standing what is meant by 'not thinking'. The effort

to exclude thoughts is no different from the effort to
keep attention upon a single idea or image. The psycho-
logical experiment "How long can you not think about a
white elephant?" illustrates the point. So long as one
tries to keep the image or thought of a white elephant
out of one's attention, it constantly recurs. If one ceases
to try, the image soon disappears—we 'forget about it'.
Thus all that commonly passes for 'meditation' and
'concentration' is a form of exclusion and is really
negative. It closes the channels through which influences
of the higher centres should flow. Only in rare cases is
true meditation as a prolonged state of complete openness
and freedom ever attained, even by those who devote
their lives to the practice.

With the latihan, exclusion of any kind is a barrier.
Those who try to hold their thoughts upon any idea—
even that of worship—obstruct the exercise. Since the
inner force is present from the moment of opening, such
an effort is a 'kick against the pricks', and those trainees
who make it, often complain that the day after the latihan
they feel ill or exhausted. These complaints are an indi-
cation that the advice 'not to think' has been misunder-
stood. Such effects in the latihan are mainly responsible
for the negative reactions of about one in ten of those who
are opened.

The preliminary stage of the latihan may last from one
to six months. During this time the effects are mostly
transient, and the trainees experience chiefly a sense of
well-being that is due to an improvement in the instinctive
bodily functions. Even where there are strong emotional
reactions, these are usually due, when positive, to the
release of tensions in the organism, and when negative, to
the resistance of some bodily habit to the inward Power.
Pak Subuh has compared this stage to that of a child's
first visit to a kindergarten where it is shown the various
implements and toys—but has not begun to use them.
In order to understand the further process a little
better, it is necessary to return to the theme of the last
chapter.

2. The Great Life Force

The Primal Essence is the vivifying power by which all
existence is sustained. It is the link between the powers
of the seven levels of Being. All creation is pervaded by
three powers or 'Cosmic Impulses'.* These in the Subud
terminology are:

The Seven Powers that together make the totality of
all Existence.

The Great Life Force that is the Essence of all essences.

The Holy Spirit that is the Power of God enveloping
the world.

The Subud contact is made by the Holy Spirit that
descends upon the soul of man who is opened to receive
it. When the soul is opened, it becomes a receptacle or
a channel for the great life force. Through this force,
an action is initiated that brings to life all parts of man
on all levels, and brings him eventually to the true
human soul.

Since there are four lower powers, there are four stages
of purification or preparation. These can be represented
by the diagram on p. 125.

In the diagram, the four circles represent the four
lower powers: material, vegetative, animal and human.
They also stand for the physical organism, the feelings or
passions, the understanding or intellect, and the true self
of man, or consciousness. The four circles are also
described as four 'bodies', but these must be under-
stood as essences. Thus the material body is not the
same as the physical organism, but is the life force that
regenerates the organism and is the seat of the true
bodily consciousness or sensation.

The point in the centre represents the Spirit, which
is the point of contact at which the Great Life Force
enters.

In the latihan, channels are opened by which the life

[* Cosmic Impulse is the term I have adopted in The Dramatic Universe,
Vol. II, and which I propose to retain for the purposes of my own personal
exposition.]

force or life-giving energy flows from the spirit into the
physical organism, and regenerates or 'reconnects' it.
It is the beginning of this regeneration that is experienced
by a trainee as a sense of relaxation, accompanied by a
vivid consciousness of being 'present' in his body.

The life force is unable to flow freely through the
organism so long as there are diseased conditions. These
vary from recognized pathological states to hidden ten-
sions and trivial physical habits. The life force releases
the tensions and so produces the spontaneous movements
that occur in the latihan. Herein lie the value and power
of 'working from within'. The trainee himself could
not possibly know the movements that he requires—on
the contrary, they are movements that he would usually

avoid—just because of the tensions that they release.
Often movements deliberately made to release tensions
are very painful, for example, when nerves are affected
as in sciatica, or in the many forms of rheumatism and
arthritis, where the tensions affect not only the nerves,
but also the blood circulation and the activity of the
lymph glands. Very often it is observed in the latihan
that trainees suffering from such complaints make move-
ments that would be agonisingly painful if produced
intentionally by force, and afterwards report that they
had felt no pain at all.

Not all the movements in the latihan are externally
visible. Sometimes they are felt like an inner vibration
accompanied by a strong sensation of one or other limb or
organ. Often again they are so fine as to be unobserved
even by the trainee himself. The whole process is one
of cleansing of the organism so that the life force can
enter. This leads to a general state of bodily health.

When the first 'essence-body' begins to take shape in
man, his physical organism is brought to life. This also
means that it becomes 'his' own body. So long as the
life force has not entered it, the body has no contact with
the spirit. It has no master, and the master—that is, the
spirit—has no body. This is a strange saying that cannot
readily be understood with the mind. But the Subud
trainee comes to recognize the truth of it. He realizes
that his hands, his eyes, and all his limbs and organs do
not belong to 'him' except when the life force is present
in him. It can make its home in him only when the
body is purified of its defects-

Since the purification proceeds by stages, it can happen
that a trainee starts by discovering that one of his limbs
or organs has come to life. He recognizes that it is 'his
own' in a real sense, the very possibility of which he had
never previously imagined. When the process is com-
plete, then the essence-body fills the physical body with
life and brings it into submission to the spirit.

This is the true meaning of the resurrection of the body
and of the words of the Apostle: "it is raised a spiritual

body. . . ." The resurrection of the body must be com-
pleted in this temporal life, if it is to be an eternal reality.
This is the first stage of the 'completion' of man.

The second stage is the purification of the feelings,
symbolized in the diagram by the arrow that goes from
the first to the second circle. To this and the succeeding
stages, we shall return in the next chapter.

3. The Latihan and the Body

The first and most obvious change produced by the
latihan is an increase in physical energy and the ability
to do work. When Subud first came to Coombe Springs,
heavy new burdens were placed on an already over-
worked household. A small number of men—resident
students of the Institute—had set themselves to complete
the New Hall several months ahead of schedule to make
it available for the latihan. Visitors began to arrive from
all parts of the world, and all required help which no one
was qualified to give them. Moreover, in place of regular
study groups held on Saturdays and Sundays with rela-
tively quiet evenings during the week, two or three hundred
people were arriving nearly every night for the latihan
and turning the house upside down. Under such con-
ditions one might have expected frayed tempers and
physical collapse. In the event, not only was the burden
carried, but there was an all-round improvement in
health and vigour, and the house became quieter than
ever before, notwithstanding the avalanche of trainees
that descended upon it five nights in the week.

Very soon trainees began to report, with some surprise
and diffidence, that they were observing that various
complaints had disappeared. Often these were minor
chronic conditions of the kind that people get used to
without ceasing to be troubled by them. Since the symp-
toms usually come and go, it is not at once obvious that
they have disappeared for good. It was, therefore, not
for several months that it became certain that permanent
improvements in health had occurred to at least a hundred

of the trainees. Typical conditions cured in this way
include various skin troubles, colitis, gout, haemorrhoids,
lumbago, migraines and insomnia. Only the person con-
cerned can be really sure that something has changed,
and people are often inclined to be over hasty in reporting
an improvement. Nevertheless, after some sixteen months,
it is no longer to be doubted that there has been a
noticeable improvement in health among the trainees.

There is something much more telling than all these
reports, and that is the quite obvious change in appear-
ance that comes when people are really opened. The
impression made upon Mary Cornelius after seven years
has already been reported. It happens constantly that
people are startled to see a friend's face looking years
younger and more beautiful after the latihan. Not only
do the trainees themselves feel younger and full of energy,
but they are seen by their friends to be so. The presence
of the Great Life Force makes itself visibly apparent.
The body that is rejuvenated from within acquires a finer
texture of complexion and more harmonious movements
and gestures.

Nevertheless, it must not be thought that everything is
plain sailing. From the first, we observed that some of
the trainees began to make very violent movements and
to give vent to loud, harsh sounds. The forms of sounds
and movements fall into a limited number of classes, from
observation of which we have learned to recognize various
traits of character that are being eliminated or purified.
The purification itself requires that what is inside should
come outside. The results can be very disconcerting.
A mild, reserved person becomes for a time aggressive
and even violent. Tendencies towards jealousy, fear,
worry, inner criticism of others, self-importance and the
like leave their traces in the physical organism. When
the life force enters, these tendencies are driven to the
surface, and the overt behaviour is at once affected. In
consequence of all this, we have had many difficult
moments—especially when a hundred or more people
were passing through similar crises. Such crises are

usually of short duration, and once they are understood
no one is disturbed by them.

The same applies to the crises that occur in sick people.
In the course of eliminating the poisons, their symptoms
are sometimes aggravated. When this occurs it is a good
indication that the latihan is working in the organism.
Even with people who are not sick, latent traces of old
illnesses are soon brought to the surface. I myself within
the first three months (January to March 1957) twice
passed through two or three unpleasant days when symp-
toms of dysentery and tuberculosis flared up in me. I
suffered a severe attack of dysentery in 1919, and con-
tracted tuberculosis in 1935: though both had been
'cured' I had always been aware that I had weak spots
in consequence. After the two crises (about three weeks
apart), I felt sure that the last traces of these old illnesses
had been eliminated. Later, I had positive evidence that
this had in fact occurred. This helped me to give confi-
dence to others who were disconcerted to find they had
to 'get worse before they got better'.

Subud is not easy to understand, because we are not
accustomed to 'working from within'. Most human
activity consists in trying to 'do' something to get what
one wants. If the results are contrary to expectation,
we either give up or try again. We work 'from the out-
side upon the outside'. Unavoidably, we overlook many
factors, and some we could not discover if we tried,
because they are in the 'invisible' world. This is why
human 'doing' is so hazardous. When the working is
from within, there is no 'doing'—but we have to adapt
ourselves to the results. This is possible, for we can see
the results and we can (if we have been trained to do
so) also see ourselves. Therefore working from within
is really much less uncertain and hazardous than work-
ing from outside. The most difficult part—the adjust-
ment of the visible process to the invisible pattern—is
done for us.

The situation just described may seem strange and
even fantastic, and yet we can confirm from our own

experience that it is possible to live so that we adapt
ourselves to results and do not waste our time trying to
create causes that are beyond our power to control.

A very simple example is the treatment of diabetes.
Some people cannot regulate their sugar metabolism.
They must either avoid carbohydrates, or take insulin
injections, or both. Doctors know the facts, and can
keep people in normal health for many years, but medical
science does not know the causes of diabetes, beyond the
observation that it tends to attack people of a particular
temperament, and is aggravated by emotional disturb-
ances. Diabetes is probably due to a psychic injury, and
the effects on the body are secondary; there are therefore
many ways in which diabetes can be contracted. Doctors
do not know how to deal with the psychic injury, and
therefore regard diabetes as 'incurable'. They can only
alleviate the symptoms by regulating the sugar meta-
bolism.

In the latihan, the psychic injury itself is healed. We
have observed numerous cases of diabetics who after
starting the latihan have been able progressively to reduce
their insulin doses. The improvement has continued
over a period of months. I am told that diabetes is
prevalent in the overcrowded city of Djakarta, the capital
of Indonesia, and that several cases of complete cure
have been observed. Patients have not only discontinued
insulin but ceased to need to limit their sugar intake.
This illustrates what I mean by 'dealing with results'
and not attempting to create or destroy causes.

4. The Hidden Forces in Man

The Subud latihan works deeply in all parts of man's
nature. The manifestations which result from its action
are sometimes disconcerting and even alarming to those
who witness them for the first time.

It is necessary to face the issue squarely. If the inner,
or animal, forces in man are not subdued to the true
human soul, they can be violent, destructive, lustful or

grotesque. We may wish to deny the presence of such
sub-human impulses in the average man and regard their
appearance among people as evidence of a permanent
abnormality or passing psychosis. The facts, however,
do not justify the comforting belief that we are not as
other men are. All human beings who have not passed
through a process of deep purification are tainted with
sub-human forces of which they are only partly conscious
and which they usually wish to ignore.

One person differs greatly from another in the nature
and quality of the sub-human forces present. With a
minority—perhaps twenty per cent of all those opened—
there is a period of very violent action. This may last a
few days to a year or more, during which time the latihan
is accompanied by strong bodily movements and loud
sounds are produced. These sounds may resemble
animals' grunts and cries, or they may be like people in
mental agony, or again, they may be like uncontrollable
laughter or joyful shouting. Such manifestations are
disconcerting to those who have little experience of Subud
and have not realized for themselves the strength of the
sub-human forces hidden in a man's body. Those who
do realize this can also understand that unless these forces
come out of a man, he cannot be helped and his true
human soul must inevitably languish in helpless passivity.
The usurping force must be driven out before the human
master can resume his rightful place in us.

Unfortunately most people are convinced that they are
already truly and fully human and are indignant or
frightened when they are warned that sub-human forces
will be aroused in them and will require to be put in their
right place.

The true situation can best be described by reference
to a conversation which I had recently with a well-known
American war-correspondent and writer. During my
absence from England he was opened at Coombe Springs.
He had declined to come a second time and a mutual
friend asked me, when I returned, to see him and perhaps
resolve his doubts.

He told me that he had been amazed and horrified by
his experience. It seems that on the evening he was
opened, owing to some confusion in the arrangements,
twenty or thirty men of the 'O' group had come into the
hall after about ten minutes and started their exercise.
Here it should be explained, that it has been found better
to separate the men passing through a period when the
action of the exercise is particularly strong in respect of
movements and sounds, and to let them exercise together
as a special group called 'O' group.

Mr. A. said to me, "I had been asked to keep my eyes
closed, but this was quite impossible, and when I looked,
I saw men contorting themselves and shrieking as if they
were possessed. A picture returned to me, that I cannot
bear to remember, of Bucharest after the German with-
drawal, when I saw Rumanians pouring petrol over men
and women, setting fire to them and dancing like maniacs
round the burning bodies. It seemed to me that I was
seeing the same evil forces at work. If that is Subud I
want no part of it. I prefer the gentility of Jesus, and I
believe that religion means love—not madness."

I answered, "Do you really believe that Jesus was
genteel? Have you not read in the Gospels how men
and women acted when they felt the Power that was in
Jesus, how they fell on the ground writhing and screaming ?
Have you not asked yourself whether in those days Pales-
tine was full of maniacs or wild beasts? To me the
picture is unmistakable—in all men there are sub-
human forces which are imprisoned in the whitened
sepulchres of good manners, training and, perhaps most
of all, the fear of public opinion. You have been a war-
correspondent and you have seen how men, and women
too, behave when the outward restraints are removed.
I also have been in more than one revolution and I have
seen three wars. I have seen racial riots, and only a few
weeks ago I was in Ceylon and saw how Buddhists—
taught from childhood to abhor violence—had burned
down Tamil villages and beaten up and murdered their
fellow country-men. Surely you, if anyone, must know

what so-called 'human nature' is really like. Do you
suppose that we English and Americans are at bottom
different from the Rumanians or Germans or the mild
Cinghalese? No, we are all alike—it is only the mask
that is put on us by education and fastened by fear and
training that controls our behaviour. Can you doubt
that the present critical situation of humanity all over the
world is due to the working of the hidden sub-human
forces that paralyse the true human spirit of love and charity ?

"If what I say is true—and you know it to be true—
then the only possible way in which the future can be
saved is by an action deep enough and strong enough to
tame the sub-human forces and bring them into sub-
mission to the true human forces. I am sure that this is
what happened in Palestine two thousand years ago, and
it is the same happening again in Subud.

"I do not ask you to believe what I tell you about the
purifying action of the Subud latihan; but I do beg you
to reflect and ask yourself whether the world can be
saved by gentility or whether just such an action as you
have seen may not be indispensably necessary. Violent
and destructive animal forces are not our only dangers:
egoism, cowardice and lust are also perverted manifes-
tations of the animal forces, and all of these must be
purged out of us before our true human souls can gain
the ascendancy and create on earth a society that can
withstand and make right use of the material power that
we have acquired through the progress of science, inven-
tion, technology and large scale organisation."

Mr. A. was silent, and then said, "Yes, you are right.
It is terrible, but it is true. Will you let me come again
and try the latihan?" He did come, and afterwards
told me that he believed that in Subud there was at least
the possibility of a radical and permanent change in the
human situation.

Not many weeks after this, England was startled and
shocked by the so-called racial disturbances in Notting-
ham and Notting Hill. Such events are too easily dis-
missed as the consequences of a bad environment, of faulty

education, of economic pressure, of sexual jealousy and
so on. The truth is that they are like the smoke that
shows that a live volcano is smouldering deep in the earth.
The eruption of the volcano cannot be arrested by putting
a fence round the crater nor can the animal forces in man
be quelled by external restraint. Man can be changed
only from within, and, moreover, from so deep a place
within himself that the sub-human forces can become
aware of the inner master and resume their true status as
subordinate powers, that is, as servants and instruments
of the human soul. If we do not like the remedy, we
should ask ourselves if we prefer the disease. But we had
best not pretend that mankind is in a state of sound
spiritual health.

Before leaving the subject of sub-human forces, it
should be recalled that violent animal forces dominate
only in a small minority. Most people have very short
periods of violent reaction to the latihan—but there are
many who pass through a prolonged stage of apathy,
despondence, hesitancy or fear. For these, it is very
hard to continue and those who have been able to do so
are to be admired, for they act as if they had faith without
the consolation of the direct experience. When the hard
stage is passed, people previously dominated by negative
forces are completely transformed and are a marvel to
their friends.

5. The Natural Body

Each stage of development reproduces in itself the
seven stages of cosmic completion. Thus, although in
the first stage it is only the first or natural body that is
transformed, the process is experienced also in all other
parts of man. The pure, natural body of man does not
respond to negative impulses. The vivification of the
limbs and organs of the body makes them sensitive to the
quality of the impulses that act upon them.

The sense of relaxation and physical awareness already
described is followed by the observation that small, but

undesirable, bodily habits lose their hold and disappear
by themselves. These are connected with the material
forces, and both time and the exercise of patience are
required before the body is liberated from all the satanic
forces that oppress it. Moreover, it must not be forgotten
that nothing in the latihan happens against our own will.
Once Pak Subuh was asked how it was that certain bad
habits persisted in someone who had followed the latihan
for a long time. He smiled and said, "Because he himself
does not wish to be free from them. He wishes for
spiritual development, but he does not want to change.
Later he will see for himself, and then he will begin to
wish to change."

The second stage is connected with food and breath.
Those with irregularities of breathing—such as asthmatics
—begin to observe alleviation of their symptoms. Trainees
find that they eat more in accordance with their needs and
less according to their appetite. Those accustomed to
alcoholic drinks find that their need and desire for
alcohol steadily diminishes. At the same time, trainees
become more sensitive to the quality of food. They
eat less, but it matters more to them whether the food
is well prepared or not. In this connection, Pak Subuh
has laid emphasis on the great responsibility that attaches
to the preparation of food. "Rightly speaking, the cook
should be himself or herself in a state of purity—then the
food also will be pure, and people will be made happy by
eating it."

There is a further stage in which the eyes really begin
to see and the ears to hear, when the hands really touch
the instruments they use. This quickening of the senses
is something unmistakable which scores of people have
observed without being told to expect it. At first, the
experience is transient, but slowly the new 'natural body'
enters into the old body and the sense of 'seeing with
one's own eyes' becomes an established fact.

When the organs and limbs are filled with the new life,
they begin to obey the voice of conscience, and not that
of our own self-will. Thus trainees begin to notice that

when unpleasant or malicious thoughts arise in their
minds, to which they would habitually give expression,
the words stop in their throats and the expression of their
face changes by itself. It is chiefly due to this, that
friends remark upon the transformation in the appearance
of those who follow the latihan.

6. Elimination

The positive results described in the last section are by
no means the most obvious consequences of the latihan.
There are also negative manifestations, due to the elimina-
tion of impurities, or as it is sometimes called, 'throwing
out'. The physical organism of man is like a sponge
that absorbs all kinds of influences from the moment of
birth. Unless he is able to come under the law of
'working from within', the traces of all these influences
accumulate in him, and enter his 'personality'.

There are, undoubtedly, some very fine sensitive sub-
stances that absorb and store up all these influences, and
are responsible, among other things, for the phenomenon
of memory, that strange and important property of the
great life force. I have called them elsewhere the 'sensi-
tive energies'. These energies thus become tainted with
all the bad habits of movement, instinct, feeling and
thought that are formed in the personality. In the
latihan, the far higher energy that is released from the
higher centres seeks to fill the organism with new life.
It is obstructed by the tainted sensitive energy, which it
drives to the surface. The result is that memories lost in
the subconsciousness and habits that are suppressed in
external behaviour all begin to produce visible reactions.
Put simply, the trainees begin (a) to see themselves as
they really are, and (b) to show themselves to others also
in their true character.

This produces, in the early stages of the latihan, situa-
tions that can be difficult or embarrassing. It has been
observed that in every centre where Subud has started,
there has been a period when every kind of personal

misunderstanding has run riot. People have quarrelled,
and disagreed on all kinds of practical issues that ordinarily
would be settled without trouble. Doubts, suspicions,
jealousy, impatience, wounded vanity—in fact the whole
gamut of unpleasant and negative emotions are brought
to the surface. Among people accustomed to self-
observation, such consequences cause neither surprise nor
consternation. Indeed, they are a clear proof that the
action of the latihan is a genuine purification.

There is no doubt that the elimination is not merely
a change of state, but the effective removal of 'psychic
toxins'. The elimination is experienced by the trainee
himself as producing a state of inner cleanness. Trainees
remark upon the sense of being inwardly clean that they
enjoy after the latihan. But while the poison goes out of
the trainee, it can enter into another person whose purifi-
cation is further advanced, and is therefore more sensitive.
This can result in very unpleasant experiences for the
helpers, who are sometimes even physically sick as a
result of some uncleanness that has been eliminated by
another. Another strange, but unquestionably objective,
proof that an actual substance is eliminated is the foetid
odour that is often observed in the vicinity of a trainee
who is eliminating some unpleasant habit. The odour
is perceived by all the helpers present, and it suddenly
disappears when the elimination has occurred.

The absorption by one person of the poisons eliminated
by another has results that, at first, were very disconcerting.
We found that we experienced various negative states
without being able to trace their origin. Later it was
explained to us by the Indonesian helpers that we were
picking these up from other people, and that we could
easily get rid of the poison if we were to do a latihan by
ourselves or with the other helpers.

For me personally, this threw light upon a problem that
had vexed me for many years. I had observed that when
I was sitting in front of a group of students following
Gurdjieff's exercises, I frequently found myself with a
headache, or very exhausted and sometimes physically

sick. I had asked other people who were instructing
groups, and found that they had the same experience, but
ascribed it to their own weakness, being confident that
when they could be more fully conscious and stronger in
themselves they would cease to be affected. However,
as far as I was concerned, this trouble, instead of improv-
ing, grew steadily worse, until I really came to dread the
days when I had to instruct groups or give general talks.

Very soon after coming to the latihan, I understood for
myself exactly what had been happening, and found the
way to cleanse myself of the poisons that I had been
absorbing. This was for me a real blessing, for I have
since been obliged constantly to be with people in whom
some kind of elimination was occurring, and have never
suffered in the way I did before. Trainees who in the
course of their work have to meet sick, mentally disturbed,
nervous, angry or simply negative people, have reported
the immense benefit it has been to them to be able to
'clean themselves out' by a latihan at the end of such
meetings.

All the experiences described in this chapter refer to
the first stage of purification, by which the natural body
of man is brought to life and filled with the Great Life
Force. This is what I understand by the resurrection of
the body, for it means that within the mortal perishable
body is formed a second body that does not perish when
the physical body dies.

CHAPTER VIII

THE COMPLETION OF MAN

1. The Sacred Impulses

The true man in us is not of this earth and, although
he lies sleeping in the depths of our essence, he has not
lost the thread that connects him with his Source. From
this connection, there arise in us impulses that are truly
sacred inasmuch as they are the means whereby we are
drawn back towards our place of origin.

Four of the Sacred Impulses are of especial significance
for Subud. These are: surrender, patience, trust and
sincerity. They do not originate in the mind and the will of
man, but they are operative in us only by our own consent.
Their connection with the latihan has already been
mentioned and by understanding them better we can
come to appreciate the true role of human freedom in the
completion of our nature.

By Surrender is meant not a state of passivity or irrespon-
sibility, but the recognition that we men are not the
masters of causes—that is, we cannot 'do'. To see for
ourselves that our 'doing' cannot go beyond the machani-
cal processes of this world and to realize that we must put
aside the idea that we can set ourselves free by our own
efforts—these are the conditions of surrender. In its full
significance, surrender is to place oneself wholly in the
hands of God—but we cannot have any idea of what this
means until after we have become conscious of the link
between our own spirit and the Holy Spirit. In practice,
therefore, surrender means to put aside our own desire to
'do' something and to allow the action of the latihan
to proceed in us. This has already been explained in
connection with 'not-thinking'. Many trainees object
when they are told to 'surrender' that they cannot
picture to themselves how it is possible to submit oneself
to a Power of which one is not even aware. What cannot

be pictured or thought about is not necessarily hard to
realize in practice. All that is required is that one should
consciously and willingly allow all one's functions to work
spontaneously and automatically. This 'allowing' is the
beginning of surrender.

Patience is the acceptance of the times and seasons that
are not of man but of God. So long as we look for or
expect results, we hinder the inner working. Impatience
is always a manifestation of self-will. Even if our aim is
our own perfecting or the true welfare of others, we trip
over ourselves if we 'try to go faster than God'. I
have referred to the two streams of life and mechanical-
ness; true patience enables us to be carried safely
and surely in the stream of life. All impatience throws
us back into the stream of mechanicalness that leads to
destruction.

Patience is a sacred impulse. As St. Paul declared, it
is one of the manifestations of charity. But true patience
can come only from within. Patience imposed from
without is weakness.

Trust in God is both the condition and the fruit of
spiritual awakening. Trust, like patience, must come
from within. Trust of the personality is stupidity. The
personality of man cannot trust God and indeed has no
reason to do so, for the personality is merely an earthly
artefact, not a creature of God.

Trust in God is the assurance that His will is accom-
plished in all things. Trust in man is the expectation of
outward actions, but trust in God is the work of conscience.
A pupil asked Ibrahim Khawwas about trust (tawakkul);
the story goes on: "He replied 'I have no answer to this
question just now, because whatever I say is a mere
expression, and it behoves me to answer by my actions;
but I am setting out for Mecca: do thou accompany me
that thou mayest be answered'. I consented. As we
journeyed through the desert, one day an old man rode
up to us and dismounted and conversed with Ibrahim for
a while; then he left us. I asked Ibrahim to tell me who
he was. He replied, 'This is the answer to thy question'.

'How so?' I asked. He said: 'This was the Apostle
Khidr, who begged me to let him accompany me, but I
refused, for I feared that in his company I might put
confidence in him instead of in God, and then my trust
in God (tawakkul) would have been vitiated'."

Within the working of the laws of nature, there is the
manifestation of God's Will directed towards the salvation
of creatures: to trust is to rely upon that manifestation
without expecting the laws of nature to be violated.

Sincerity means harmony between the inner and outer
life. Concerning sincerity, I will quote a passage from
the Kashf el Mahjoub of Al Hujwiri.

"Men in their dealings with God fall into two classes.
Some imagine that they work for God's sake when they
are really working for themselves; and though their work
is not done with any worldly motive, they desire a recom-
pense in the next world. Others take no thought of
reward or punishment in the next world, any more than
of ostentation and reputation in this world, but act
solely from reverence for the commandments of God.
Their love of God requires them to forget every selfish
interest while they do His bidding. The former class
fancy that what they do for the sake of the next world
they do for God's sake, and fail to recognize that the
devout have a greater self-interest in devotion than the
wicked have in sin, because the sinner's pleasure lasts only
for a moment, whereas devotion is a delight for ever.
Besides, what gain accrues to God from the religious
exercises of mankind, or what loss from their non-perform-
ance ? If all the world acted with the veracity of Abu
Bakr, the gain would be wholly theirs, and if with the
falsehood of Pharaoh, the loss would be wholly theirs, as
God hath said: 'If ye do good, it is to yourselves, and if ye
do evil, it is to yourselves.' " (Qur'an xvii, 7.)

Sincerity in the latihan means to be observant and
conscious of the reality of one's actions, so as to be aware
whether they arise spontaneously from within or whether
they are tainted by imagination or imitation. But true
sincerity belongs to the whole of life: it is the impulse to

be the same outwardly as one is inwardly and the same
inwardly as one is outwardly.

Surrender, patience, trust and sincerity are all mani-
festations of the Conscience that is latent in the depths of
the human soul. They are sacred impulses like charity
and good will towards men and faith and hope in God.
These impulses cannot be simulated by the mind and feel-
ings of man, but must arise spontaneously from within.
They work in us only by our consent, but they cannot
work unless they are awakened.

Through these sacred impulses man is drawn towards
his source and to the place that has been prepared for him
beyond all private worlds. They are the means given
to us for attaining to complete Manhood.

2. The Seven Stages of Completion

The Subud Emblem symbolizes the seven levels and
seven qualities of every completed whole. The ultimate
perfection of every created essence requires that it should
return to its Source enriched and transformed by having
passed through all levels of existence and realized all its
possibilities.

Since man is a being incarnated on earth, his completion
begins with his earthly body. The first power is that of
the material soul. This is subject to the mechanical
laws of earthly existence. In Gurdjieff's cosmo-psycho-
logy the material soul is represented by the lower or
mechanical part of the centres of instinct, movement,
feeling and thought. The material soul is earth-bound
and can exist only in conjunction with an earthly body of
which it is the life-principle.

The second power is not, in the ordinary sense, material,
or rather it is composed of substances much finer than
those of the physical organism. It is the seat of the
strength of the essence. When this soul power is domin-
ated by earthly qualities, its strength is no more than the
force of desire. It is polar or dual in nature. For
example, it is subject to likes and dislikes, desires and

aversions, hopes and fears, and all the other 'pairs of
opposites'. When in this state, the vegetative power is
not a true soul, but merely the instrument by which a man
is attracted to the external world while at the same time
enslaved by his own egoism. When the vegetative power
is liberated from its identification with earthly attractions,
it becomes the main source of strength by which man gains
mastery over his physical body.

The third power is that of the animal essence. When
dominated by earthly forces—that is the state of un-
regenerate man—the third soul power is the source of
self-will and all motives that flow from self-will. When
it is purified it gives unity and consciousness by which a
man becomes a stable, independent being.

The fourth is the true human power. Its principle seat
is in the sex function. It is the natural human soul that
is characteristic of man. When the Human Soul is puri-
fied of earthly attachments, it becomes the centre and
source of the individuality, of the 'I' that is truly human.
There are thus two different conditions of the human soul.
The first is that of the man who has become conscious of
his real human nature and in whom all the functions are
harmonized. The second is that of the man who has
achieved individuality and has a permanent self or T.

The fifth degree is that of the complete human being.
This cannot be attained by evolution from below. It is a
gift of Grace that God bestows upon those human essences
chosen to serve His Purposes on the earth. Pak Subuh
has said that during the coming Epoch there is the possi-
bility that seventy thousand men of the fifth degree will
appear on the earth. If this possibility is fulfilled, human
existence on earth will be protected from all disasters that
human folly might otherwise bring down upon the race.

The sixth degree is that of the man into whom the
Power of Compassion has entered. He is complete within
the limits of all finite worlds. It is said that if two hundred
such men were present on the earth, all human life would
be transformed and there would be peace everywhere.
Nothing can be written of the man of the sixth degree, for

his highest soul power comes from beyond the knowable
worlds.

The seventh and final degree is the soul of the perfect
man whose will is eternally conjoined to the Divine Will.
No ordinary man can have any conception of this grada-
tion, for the Divine Soul comes from the Source of Creation
and is not subject to development or transformation.

If we accomplish the journey of self-completion, we
have to pass through the various stages of training and
purification. A fourfold preparation is needed before the
real man—the Man of the Soul—can find a home in our
essence. The fourth degree is a meeting point of the two
streams of evolution and involution. By the first stream,
man rises from the material world to acquire his own
human soul, by the second stream the Holy Spirit descends
upon man to endow him with an immortal spirit. When
the two are joined and become one soul and one spirit,
then comes forth the complete man of the fifth degree.
No man can, by his own merit, pass beyond the fourth
degree. The immortal spirit of the complete man is
bestowed by the Grace of God.

3. Gradations and Stages

In the last chapter I described some of the observations
made at Coombe Springs by trainees who have entered the
first stage of purification. I did not attempt to assign any
particular order or sequence to these experiences—simply
because I do not understand them well enough.

I shall set down some of the explanations that Pak
Subuh himself has given. This is contrary to his own
dictum, "Experience first; explanation second", which
reminds me of my old friend Clarence Seyler's advice to
young scientists, "Facts first, and then more facts, and
theories after". Even this safeguard does not wholly
suffice, for it is not easy to distinguish spiritual realities
from subjective imaginings. However, even this hazard
can be surmounted by patience and persistence—one
great merit of the latihan is that in it we come to see our-

selves only too clearly and to know when it is our own
voice that imitates the tongues of angels.

The first act in the drama of purification is enacted
upon the level of our earthly existence. If experiences
belonging to a higher world come, they do so only as
fleeting glimpses that we must learn to assess at their true
value. They are signs of things to come, not evidences
of attainment.

In the material world are reproduced each of the seven
conditions of the soul. For example, Pak Subuh speaks
of saints and prophets of the material world. Solomon
represents the archetype of the prophet of materiality:
he had great powers, but all came from the material
forces. Pak Subuh called him once "the prophet of the
successful man of affairs!" Those who are satisfied with
earthly existence can, through the latihan, pass through
all the seven gradations and acquire health, wealth and
power, but remain attached to the earth and must return
to it again and again.

The second stage is beyond sense experience. It be-
longs to the world of the Vegetable Essences. This world
is the first of the Abodes of the Blessed. Three transi-
tional stages lead from our earthly existence to this Abode.
Each of these three spheres corresponds to a particular
condition of spiritual purity, when a man ceases to be
affected by material forces. Only when the human power
is liberated from the material forces can the soul enter
these heavenly realms.

The energies of the First Abode are much finer than
those of the world of material objects and they can be
perceived by man only when his senses are purified.
Although a man may have the qualities that correspond
to this world, he cannot enter it until he is prepared.
Thus there can be men whose soul qualities correspond to
the second and third degrees who are nevertheless wholly
dominated by material forces and therefore can know
only earthly existence. We have therefore to distinguish
again between levels and qualities. Failure to make this
distinction can lead to mistakes regarding the stage which

a given person appears to have reached. The Sufis dis-
tinguish between hal or state and makam or station. In
conversations with Arab and Turkish Sufis, I have tried
to get explanations of these two words, but was never
fully satisfied that they were understood. One of the
remarkable features of the latihan is the light thrown upon
the obscurities of various systems and teachings. It has
undoubtedly helped me, more than anything I have met,
to understand Gurdjieff's cosmo-psychology, but it is
equally illuminating in the new meaning it brings to all
mystical literature. It is by an accident of birth that Pak
Subuh has chosen the Sufi terminology to describe the
stages of the Subud path. Systems are like maps—they
are amusement for the man who stays at home and
dreams of travel, but a very real help to the man who
journeys through unknown country.

I make these comments here because it was only
through the latihan that I came to realize the all-impor-
tant distinction between a quality or hal that can be
experienced and a level or gradation or makam that can
be one's home or Abode. Many people are deceived by
'experiences' and imagine that they are evidence of
attainment of a higher level of being. The makam or
station can be occupied only if one has the necessary
powers—that is the organs, limbs, modes of perceptions
and a body of the requisite fineness of substance to be able
to exist upon the level in question.

This is illustrated by the transition region between the
first and second worlds. This region contains three
stations or 'heavens'. These are often described in
mystical literature. When I have read about them I
have passed them over as incomprehensible. In the
latihan, the reality of these intermediate stations is un-
questionable. More than one trainee has 'seen' the
first heaven as a vast expanse of blue ocean, and has
realized that it could not be entered with one's ordinary
body. The value of such experiences is enhanced by the
fact that they occurred to people who had never heard of
these Abodes and their significance.

The possibility of entering the intermediate stations or
heavens while still on this earth depends upon purification.

4. Human Responsibility

Many of us have been shocked by Descartes' supposed
indifference to animal suffering, but if we read his own
words, we can see that he is really concerned with responsi-
bility. Responsibility is an attribute of the soul. It can
be put more strongly: an irresponsible soul is not a soul at
all. Machines, plants and animals are not responsible,
but man is responsible. Hence it follows that man alone
of the four categories of existence has a soul.

This would be sound enough reasoning if men were, in
fact, responsible and if we were quite clear that the word
'responsible' has the same meaning as applied to different
kinds of beings. A young child is a human being and yet
not responsible, but it does not follow that it has no soul;
but only that the soul is asleep, or inarticulate, or unable
to exercise its powers until the child has become a man or
a woman. There cannot be responsibility without the
power of choice, without the perceptions and knowledge
and experience necessary for making a choice.

It seems, then, that responsibility is not a fixed, un-
varying property of the soul. Until it is developed the
child is inevitably dependent on others. There is still
responsibility, but it is directed towards the helpless child
until such time as the direction can be reversed and
responsibility can flow outwards.

Responsibility occupies a very important—indeed a
central—place in Subud: for the point of responsibility is
the centre of the human soul. Only it must be understood
that the outer man, the trained, educated personality, can
have only an artificial, even a fictitious, responsibility.
It is artificial because it comes from outside and not from
within. It is fictitious because it implies the exercise of
powers which the personality does not possess. Des-
cartes was right in his conviction that true responsibility
on earth resides in the human soul but; utterly wrong in

assuming that the human soul is awake and active in all
men and women.

All experience teaches us that true responsibility only
enters a man when his soul is awakened and the subordi-
nate instruments recognize its authority. There is,
however, in Subud a more precise lesson to be learned.
This concerns the limits of our true, effectual responsi-
bility. These can be very simply defined: a soul is
responsible for all that is on a lower level of being than itself: it
is not responsible for what is higher. Thus we are not respon-
sible for the Spirit of God that works in us. We cannot
even co-operate with it, except by being what we are:
as a plant co-operates with the gardener by being itself
and not by trying to understand or do the gardener's
work.

In the latihan, we are not responsible, for we deliver
ourselves freely into the hands of a Higher Power that is
the Source of our existence and can therefore surely be
trusted even with our lives. We have no duty to 'learn
about' the Spirit, nor to seek for It, nor even to try to
co-operate with It or help It in its work. Therefore we
are advised not to 'think', not to 'speculate', not to attempt
to 'do' anything to hasten or help the process of our inner
growth.

But as soon as we turn from the latihan—the worship
of God—to our own outer or inner life, we become
responsible; for we are in front of levels of existence lower
than our own. My human soul is responsible in front of
my vegetative reactions or my animal passions because it
is a higher form of being than they. I am responsible
for all the material objects, all plants, all animals—for
they are less conscious and less understanding than myself.
If I stand before a human being who is under the domination
of material or vegatative or animal forces, I am still
responsible, though in a different way.

But most important of all is my responsibility towards
myself. As soon as the action of the latihan has awakened
in me the power to separate from my own lower forces, I
am answerable for the way I use or fail to use this power.

The phrase 'work on oneself' is often used by people
with no understanding of what it implies. No one can
work on himself unless he is able to separate from himself.
A hammer cannot strike the iron until it has been raised
above the iron. The potter could not fashion the clay
if he were not different from the clay and possessed of a
power that the clay does not have. Therefore the first
condition of working upon anything is to separate the
active agent and the passive material.

The Power of the Spirit acts as the third or Reconciling
force to remove the conflict between the active and passive
sides of our nature, and enables them to exist separately.
It also awakens the inner consciousness that makes the
passive, or sub-human, elements visible, 'outside' our real
selves. When we are in this state we really can 'work on
ourselves' and then we are responsible for our own state
and our own conduct. Evidently, the more conscious a
human being becomes, the more that man or woman is
responsible.

The first responsibility is for our own external manifest-
ations. When we can see for ourselves what is right
conduct and we know that it is in our power to do what
we see to be right—we are obliged to make the necessary
effort. This may mean a struggle with habits, inclinations
and with our automatic reactions. If we evade this
struggle, we deny the Spirit that has made it possible for
us to see.

Later, the separation of affirming and denying forces
goes deeper and we become able to separate, not only
from our manifestations and so regulate our conduct, but
from our reactions. This is the beginning of real freedom,
for it means that our likes and dislikes, hopes and fears,
pleasures and pains all cease to be 'inside' us and are
observed and seen as the working of sub-human or vege-
tative forces. When we are able to be free from likes and
dislikes, a new responsibility enters; for we have then the
obligation of being impartial in all our dealings with
situations and people.

This brief sketch should be sufficient to show that

although in the latihan and in our worship of God we can
do nothing of ourselves, when it comes to our relationship
with the lower forces, whether internal or external, we can
and must be responsible. Work on ourselves, struggle with
our own lower forces, is not merely a duty, it is an inner
necessity if the work of the Spirit is to develop freely in us.

5. The Purification of the Feelings

I shall write about my own experience of the second
stage, without wishing to suggest that I know anything of
its completion or of the experience of higher worlds.

The first recognition that something was beginning to
change in my feelings came when, for several days, I
found myself almost uninterruptedly in a state of self-
observation. Not only could I see myself as I then was,
but I could not help doing so. Moreover, I could see my
past life as a whole, with all the mistakes I had made, and
the harm that I had done to myself and to others. This
was an indescribably painful experience, and I had no
idea when it would end. At that time Pak Subuh was
still in Indonesia, and I was so desperate about my con-
dition that I wrote to him for advice—the first letter that
I had ever attempted in the Indonesian language that I
had begun to study. His reply was to the effect that this
stage was necessary and would soon pass: by the time I
had received his letter, the experience—in that form—
was over. But I began to live in a state of 'separation'
in which I was aware of two distinct lives constantly
present in me. This coincided with a great increase in
sensitivity, so that I found that I was aware of the bodily
and emotional states of people who were near me, or even
about whom I happened to be thinking.

I received at this time one of the greatest blessings of
my life—that is, to find myself liberated from the exas-
perating sexual attraction that Gurdjieff calls 'type and
polarity'. I write of this personal experience because to
me it was clear proof of the purity and Tightness of the
Force that works in the latihan. For years I had wrestled

with this problem, and although I had learned more or
less to discipline my external behaviour, I had never
found the way to be free from the inward action of this
force. The freedom that is received through the latihan
is entirely different from the weakening or mortification
of the sexual impulses that is achieved by ascetic practices.
On the contrary, the natural powers are brought to life and
invested with an entirely new quality. The difference is that
they acquire an inherent discrimination that automatically
stops them from flowing outside their legitimate channels.

Pak Subuh insists with unusual firmness upon the
sanctity of marriage and upon the terrible harm that
results from any kind of sexual promiscuity. I could see
for myself that this is not only fundamentally right, but
attainable in practice without difficulty or hardship by
those who follow the latihan and succeed in entering upon
the second stage of purification. It is impossible to
describe the sense of gratitude with which one becomes
aware that one is free from the action of forces that are so
disturbing an influence in human relationships.

The force of sex belongs to the human world; that is,
the fourth power of the soul. It is the first of all the
human powers, since it enters man at the very moment of
conception before his physical body begins to take shape.
Although it belongs to the essence, it manifests in all
worlds. In the material world, it is simply a force of
attraction between men and women and it is without
discrimination. In our present age, when people are
almost wholly under the influence of material forces, the
power of sex has become divorced from its true human
significance. It is hard to imagine a much greater bless-
ing for contemporary humanity, than that a means should
be given for the purification of the sexual power and the
restoration of marriage to the sacred place that it should
occupy in the life of man. I am sure, not only from my
own experience, but from that of several others, that the
latihan does in fact lead to this result.

During the same period, I observed in myself the pro-
cess of liberation from 'like and dislike'. This is another

of the polarities that dominate in the material world. To
find oneself drawn to some people and repelled by others
is a terrible slavery from which it is hard to free oneself by
one's own efforts. However clear to our minds may be
the need to be free from personal preferences we can
attain this only when we are in a state of inward quiet and
detachment. This can be achieved through spiritual
exercises, but only for a time. When the effect of the
exercise wears off, we return to our usual condition of
inward agitation. We get a taste (hal) of detachment or
non-identification, but we do not reach the Abode
(makam) where it is a natural state. In the second world,
the polar forces of attraction and repulsion are replaced
by the triadic relationship of affirming, denying and
reconciling impulses. Liberation from like and dislike is
far from indifference or apathy. On the contrary, the
qualities of situations and of people stand out more vividly
than ever before. The difference is that a reconciling
force is present that enables one not only to see the positive
and negative aspects of every situation, but also to
see beyond them to the place they occupy in a larger
whole.

This is put rather abstractly. The experience
itself cannot be described. It is to feel the duality and
conflict in all things, and to see quite clearly that be-
yond the duality there is a harmony that takes away its
sting.

Peace of mind and a cheerful heart are not small bless-
ings. They are the first fruits of the second stage of
purification. When Pak Subuh arrived with his Indo-
nesian helpers, we were all impressed by their constant
gaiety and the unruffled calm with which they met the
chaotic conditions of the first weeks. We could see that
these qualities were the outward result of an inner state,
or rather of a station, that they had reached and passed.
Later we saw that this Abode is one where there is genuine
liberation from like and dislike. It is the true non-
attachment that is one of the aims of every discipline and
system of self-perfecting followed by man.

6. Freedom from Fear

Attachment to the material world is the principal
cause of human fears. Men are afraid because they
depend upon supports that have no foundation. The
personality of man can find safety nowhere. It must
therefore constantly suffer, unless it is able to forget its
fears. In order to forget, it turns to what seems secure,
since it is visible and tangible: that is, to the material
world under whose influence it was formed, and to which
it really belongs.

Therefore, people are afraid of one another both indi-
vidually and in the mass—that is 'public opinion'. They
depend upon external possessions and are afraid of
losing them. They are dimly aware that their
personality cannot exist out of this world, and so they
fear death.

When the great life force enters the body it drives out
fear, but the personality continues for a long time to be
the centre of initiative. Consequently, many fears remain
until the personality becomes wholly passive. This is
attained only in the second stage of purification. If we
could see into the heart of man we would find many
fears that are deeper than the personality. These come
from the realization that even in our essence we are still
blind to reality. We do not know who we are, nor
where we are going. Even that part of man—his essence
—which is not destroyed by death, is blind, unconscious
and helpless. Dying in that state, it is lost and bewil-
dered, and must inevitably be drawn back into some
form of earthly existence. To die consciously has always
been the aim of people who had any understanding of
the real nature of man. But the consciousness that is
needed at the moment of death must be of the essence
and not of the personality, and unless that consciousness
is present, fear of death is inevitable. When I was at
school I was made by my headmaster, Lionel Rogers,
a true mystic at heart, to learn by heart Robert
Bridges' Lines on a Dead Child, which I quote,

probably inaccurately, from memory after nearly fifty
years:

"Ah, little at best can all our hopes avail us
To ease this sorrow, or cheer us when in the dark
Unwilling, alone, we embark,
And the things we have seen and have known
and have heard of—fail us!"

These lines were somehow a formative factor for my
understanding. Two or three years after I had learned
them I was severely wounded in France on 21st March,
1918, and I certainly then had the experience of leaving
my comatose body and entering into a state of discarnate
consciousness. In this condition, I was quite unaware of
the presence of other bodies, but I could perceive the
inner experiences that were proceeding in people near by.
I then saw without doubt that the fear of death comes
from the illusion that our real existence is dependent on
our bodies.

Later, when I was slowly recovering and regaining the
use of my paralysed left arm, I remembered Bridges'
poem, and saw how true it is that the "things we have
seen and have known and have heard of fail us", but that
we have in us something that is unseen, unknown and
unheard of, and that this will never fail us. Only, we
need to be conscious of it, if we are to be delivered from
fear of the unknown.

I refer to these early experiences of mine because they
are directly linked with much that happened to me in
the latihan forty years later. I can only describe the
state as one of complete clarity as to the continuity of
consciousness after death, and the realization that it is
the greatest blessing to be able to leave this life and enter
into the next—providing one is ready for it. I was able
to say, with full assurance of its truth, that my happiest
day on this earth would be my last. Constantly to
remember one's death, and to know that one is ready for
it is, I believe, a characteristic condition of the latihan.
With this, comes the end of fear of any of the forces of the
material world.

7. Death

No convincing explanation has been given of the wide-
spread conviction that has persisted since man first
appeared on earth, that death is the separation of the
soul and the body, except that perhaps it happens to be
true. Ancient beliefs as to the manner in which the soul
separates from the body have in Europe at least since the
Renaissance been thrown aside as worthless superstition.
The Christian Church has been in a difficult situation.
The early Christians were firm in their belief in the early
return of Christ and the resurrection of the body, so that
the grave appeared to be no more than a temporary
resting place and death a sleep. The centuries passed
and the Christian Church has never clearly faced the
readjustment that history has imposed on the early belief.
The rise of spiritualism in the hundred years since 1850
has been, in part, a response to the deep need of mankind
for some guidance in facing the mystery of death.
Spiritualism has seemed to many to be a reversion to
superstition, but to others it has offered a hope that some
positive attitude might be achieved towards death and
life beyond its frontier. The doctrine of reincarnation,
imported from the East and very little understood, has
been seized upon by millions as a plausible explanation
of the apparent injustice and incompleteness of life on
earth. But neither spiritualism nor reincarnation have
proved wholly satisfying. Moreover the evidences for
both doctrines once thought to be convincing have
proved on closer examination to be elusive and uncertain.

The consequences for human life on earth have been
very serious, for they have gone far to destroy the sense
of continuity and with it the feeling of responsibility for
our actions, that formerly was the chief regulative force
in human conduct. Modern man is no less afraid of
death than his ancestors, but he no longer takes it seriously
for he has no convictions as to what can be done either to
prepare for one's own death or to help others before and
after they depart from this life. With very few exceptions,

dying people are treated by their own families and by the
doctors, nurses and others who have care of them—as if
the physical body alone were important.

The experience of Subud has brought many of us to
the conviction that the veil of death is not impenetrable
and that it is possible to do very much to help the dying
and the dead and thereby immeasurably to enrich life on
earth and beautify it.

When the first edition of this book was written, our
experience of death in Subud was not sufficient to justify
any reference to the subject. I feel able now to set down
certain conclusions about which I have no further doubt.

The first is that death is certainly the separation of one
part of man from the other. This other consists not only
of his bodily organism but all the powers of the organism
as such—that is, those which depend upon the flesh and
blood, bones and nerves, including sensation and thought.
That which separates is the part which can experience
the inner sensitive material that has received the imprint
of life. This material is not the true soul, but the ghost
or spirit in the spiritualist sense and it may or may not
contain a human soul. It may have a greater or less
degree of organization and permanence.

The second fact which is for me beyond doubt is that
death is utterly different according to whether or not a
human soul is present in the ghost. This is not the only
difference, for death can be terrible or delightful according
to the content that has been acquired by the ghost during
life. For many years I have been aware of this difference
in the presence of a dead body—even if, as at a funeral,
I have not seen the corpse. I have been present at a
funeral where I was overwhelmed with the realization
that the inner content of the dead person had shrivelled
up like a dried pea and the ghost was completely lost and
could have no better fate than ultimately to be dissolved
and disappear for ever. I have also several times ex-
perienced joy and serenity and received the conviction
that all was well with the inner content of the ghost. Far
more rarely I have been aware that the ghost itself has

dissolved and that a human soul had been set free to go
to a higher sphere of existence.

These vague impressions have become far more precise
and certain since I have witnessed the death of a number
of people who have received the Subud latihan. In all
these, I have been aware of the presence of a human
soul, though with very different potentialities for further
progress.

The third conclusion is that a positive action can occur
between the living and the dead. Consequently, the
living and the dead can help one another. Since this
opens practical possibilities of enormous significance, it
is perhaps the most important realization of all. A son
can help his dead father to free himself from his own ghost.
A mother can help a daughter or a husband a wife and
so on. Conversely 'something' from the dead person can
be united with the living and endow them with new
strength and open fresh possibilities for them.

These strange assertions can only be verified by some-
one who has passed through the experience for himself.
I can best amplify them by one or two examples.

A Mr. X received a message that his father had died
that morning in another country. As soon as possible,
one of the Indonesian helpers and I did a latihan with
him. My experience was quite unlike that of my usual
exercise. I felt myself imprisoned. I fell on the floor
doubled up and struggling to be free. Mr. X himself was
lying on the ground, now groaning, now sobbing. The
Indonesian was chanting, in a deep voice unusual for
him, something like a dirge. I felt obliged to struggle
to my feet, but had no strength to do so. My anguish
was more mental than physical. After a long time I was
able to stand and remained with my eyes closed. A
great sense of peace came into the room and I saw a tall
figure—perhaps eight feet high—standing over the body
of Mr. X. It seemed that the figure entered the body
and that X himself had been changed. I was aware that
the figure was X's father. Soon afterwards the exercise
finished.

We were able soon after to speak to Pak Subuh about
the experience, and he confirmed that the father's soul
had not been ready to continue alone and had entered
into X for the completion of his earthly existence. He
also predicted that this would result in changes in X's
life that subsequently did take place.

A very similar case with a Mr. Y occurred much later,
but this time the liberation from the ghost was much
easier. On the other hand there was a greater sense of
confusion and uncertainty. I ascertained later that Y's
father was a clergyman who had lived a good life, but
had not understood his own children. Before the latihan
I had not known any of this, but became aware that Y's
father was confused due to mistaken habits of thought
about life and death.

The third example is the experience of my own wife's
death through which we passed since this book was first
published. This time I was aware that she remained
conscious to her last breath. Unexpectedly and to my
surprise I found that immediately after she died, I saw
the whole of her life as she was seeing it, including events
before I had known her and of which I was not previously
aware. It was impossible to doubt that she was united
with me. For example, I found myself seeing people and
understanding them in a manner of which I was incapable
and which I had often observed in her.

I could cite perhaps twenty different experiences that
have convinced me that a link exists between the living
and the dead that is important for both, and that is
almost entirely ignored in modern life. Pak Subuh has
given us detailed explanations of what can and should
happen, but these would go beyond the scope of this book.
It is, however, really necessary to emphasize the impor-
tance of the process of dying. Here more than anywhere
the separation of the physician and the priest is a disaster.
The doctor whose attention is wholly directed towards
the sick organism can obstruct the task that the priest
should perform. The priest, for his part, is usually at a
loss in dealing with the situation since he does not rightly

understand the process. Recently a priest who came to
enquire from me about Subud told me that going to
hospital to visit a dying man, the sister in charge of the
ward had called him into her room and said "Please,
Padre, don't speak about death: it does so upset the
patient." Such is the absurd situation into which we
have drifted from the failure of physicians and priests,
of the State and the Church, to face the reality of the
most important event in human life.

8. Further Stages

I am not qualified, from my personal experience, to
write about the third and fourth stages. These are the
purification of the intellect or understanding, and the
purification of the consciousness, that is of the true 'I'
or self of man. These stages open the way for man to
higher worlds that are far from any ordinary human
experience.

Nevertheless, before we reach a certain Abode we are
given a taste or glimpse of what it will contain, and I can
write of the states that I myself have witnessed.

The first observation concerns language. Several years
ago in The Dramatic Universe I wrote about three degrees
of authentic language, of which the second belongs to
the realm of Being and is symbolical. I said that symbols
can convey an unlimited range of meanings, and differ
thereby from signs that can have only one meaning.
Signs belong to the realms of science and philosophy,
whereas symbols belong to the realm of consciousness
and being. I added that the third and highest language
is that of gesture, which is the direct expression of the will.
I do not know how I came to make this distinction, which
I certainly did not understand very well at the time.

In the latihan, about the time Pak Subuh arrived in
England, I began to see various symbols; some familiar,
some quite new to me. Some of these symbols seemed
to have a universal meaning—as, for example, when I
saw the disc of the sun with the Cross in the midst of it,

shining more brightly than the sun itself. Several times
I was able to tell Pak Subuh about what I had seen. In
nearly every case he showed me that the symbol was
an indication of my own state, of my own progress
and of my own future, and not a revelation of objective
reality. As soon as he gave these explanations I saw
that they must be right, and yet I had not seen them for
myself.

From this I came to understand in a new way what
Gurdjieff had taught about the higher emotional centre.
I realized, for example, that the language of this centre is
symbolical, and that its power lies in telling us about
ourselves, our state and our needs.

I will give only one example of a 'personal' symbol.
Once in the latihan I put out my hands and felt that
a globe had been placed in them. Its surface was as
smooth as glass, and I turned it over and over to make
sure it was perfectly spherical. Although my eyes were
closed I could see that it was perfectly transparent, like a
crystal. It was heavy and yet it had no weight. As I
was wondering what it meant, I opened my mouth and
this great globe—as large as a pumpkin—entered my
mouth and I swallowed it. I could feel it inside myself
gradually being absorbed.

All this had no meaning for me whatsoever, but the
same evening, after the latihan, I was able to describe it
to Pak Subuh. He said that this was to show that my
understanding had been purified and that in future I
would be able to see the true meaning of ideas presented
to me from outside or from within.

Soon after this, I saw a number of symbols that referred
to Subud. Once I saw an angel appearing from beyond
the sun and bringing a message to the earth, and I
understood that this meant that the origin of Subud was
from beyond the Solar System. At another time I found
myself lifted far above the earth into the space between
the earth and the sun. I saw the earth below me as a
tiny ball, and then I saw that a great force was taking hold
of the earth and shaking it. This I understood to mean

that the Power that had sent Subud to the earth was
great enough to shake it to its foundations. Whenever
such visions have come to me, I have felt myself entirely
detached and unmoved by them—almost as if I were
being shown pictures in a book that did not concern me
personally at all. As soon as the symbols withdrew, the
latihan continued as if nothing had happened.

Many times I realized that what was shown to me
could not have been expressed in words without being
far too definite and committal to be right. Symbolism is
not only a powerful language, but also a protection against
misunderstanding. A symbol may have many meanings,
but we can only apprehend them in so far as we are
ready to do so. Verbal communications can be very
misleading, for words always seem to have a definite
meaning that the mind can grasp. True symbolic lan-
guage is altogether beyond thought and it must lose the
greater part of its content when it is translated into
words.

There is, certainly, far more in the further stages of
purification than to receive new means of communica-
tion. The third stage is essentially that in which our
motives are set free from personal elements. For example,
there is in man a sacred impulse to serve. Often people
come to some form of spiritual training for the professed
reason that they wish thereby to learn how to do the
Will of God and to serve their fellow men. This profes-
sion may be quite sincere, within the limitations of the
personality that makes it. In the latihan, the trainee
begins to see himself as he really is, and he is obliged to
acknowledge the impurity of his motives. In the first
stages, self-observation affects his feelings and thoughts
about himself and perhaps diminishes his self-assurance,
but it does not touch the source of his motives—that is,
his own self-will. It is not until after the purification of
his lower nature that there begins to arise in him a
deeper consciousness that enables him to get inside his
own motives. This is the only way in which he can be
liberated from his self-will and so prepare himself to

become a true normal man—that is, one who acts in
everything from a full awareness of the reason for his
own existence. Then all motives are subordinated to
the single motive of achieving manhood and the 'man'
becomes a conscious individual, no longer a collection
of warring motives hiding a sub-human self-will.

To be a man one must become one whole. This may
seem simple, but it is far removed from any condition
that we know. On this earth, men are not men, but only
shadows of shadows. In the latihan, we begin to see
our own insubstantiality, and realize that we would not
exist at all if we were translated into the world of the true
man. In that world, it is necessary to be oneself wholly
and without admixture of any sub-human elements. Until
this requirement is satisfied we should find ourselves like
Peer Gynt standing before the Button Moulder, compelled
to admit that there is no one to answer to our name.

9. The Way of Completion

Our life here on earth in the midst of material objects
is the lowest to which human consciousness can descend.
It does not follow that material objects represent the
lowest possible level of existence. On mathematical
and physical grounds we can deduce (as is done in The
Dramatic Universe) that there must also be a null-world in
which experience is subjective and illusory. If there can
be experience of such a world it must be incapable of
distinguishing, even in the material sense, between dreams
and reality. Some of us have had experiences in the
latihan which prove that it is possible for man to fall
into this 'outer darkness' and to realize that if a man
descends into that world he loses every semblance of
human nature.

The transition from earthly existence to that of the
second Abode requires a completely new equipment of
organs, faculties, functions and consciousness. Man in
his physical body is an earth-bound creature. He has
in him the materials from which a second body can grow,

but they have neither form nor function. The arising of
the second body is an immense transformation of the
whole nature of man. He is no longer mortal within the
limits of earthly existence, but can enter the next life
conscious of the way before him. He can see and hear
things that our physical eyes and ears cannot perceive.
These possibilities have been tested and demonstrated to
the Subud trainees, who discover that in the latihan they
acquire an entirely new sensitivity to impressions that
leave no trace upon the senses. All this is connected
with what I have called the 'resurrection of the body'.
One of the most impressive features of the early stages of
Subud is the speed with which trainees begin to be aware
of the appearance of a new life within the body, and can
verify for themselves that this new life is endowing them
with powers that seem almost supernatural. Indeed, in
the literal sense, they are supernatural, if we understand
by 'nature' this visible world of material objects.

Pak Subuh has many times enabled selected trainees
to verify for themselves that existence in the second Abode
is entirely different from the world we know; the second
body of man is composed of materials so fine that it
cannot be injured by material agencies. For example, it
cannot be burned by fire. Once, when this was being
confirmed by test, I understood how the martyrs who had
received the second body were able to enter the fire un-
moved, and to pass through death with no disturbance
of their inward serenity and without any loss of conscious-
ness.

It is hard to realize that the second body, so often and
so lightly spoken of as the 'astral body', is really a com-
pletely independent organism that must be equipped
with its own organs of perception, its own functions and
its own consciousness. Contrary to what is so often
asserted in theosophical literature, the second body does
not exist in the ordinary man who has not earned it. It
must be conceived, developed, born and matured before
it can have an independent existence. Without it, the
soul that enters the heavenly regions is completely lost,

and must inevitably return to the earth and re-enter a
body of the first kind.

For man, the way forward is from world to world,
until he returns to his Source. In each world, he requires
a different body and new instruments to fulfil new func-
tions. Beyond the second body, anything I might write
would be mere hearsay. There is no small risk of distort-
ing into nonsense what one has heard but never in any
degree experienced. I shall, therefore, not attempt to
write about the third and fourth bodies of man, but all
teachings that have authentic knowledge agree in affirm-
ing that man must acquire four bodies before the soul is
ready to receive the divine gifts of the Spirit.

10. The Relationship of the Sexes

The complete human being is achieved through the
fusion of the male and female parts of the soul. The
myth of Adam represents the undivided state as primary,
and the separation of the sexes as subsequent. This is a
symbol of generation, for at the moment of conception
the parents are united, and the power of sex acts by way
of fusion of the male and female gametes. Sexual differ-
entiation is subsequent to the fusion. Thus not only is
the force of sex the first to enter the human essence, but
it is also that which reunites the separated parts to
produce the androgyne fourth gradation of the human
essence. This prepares the place for the entry of the
power and attributes of the perfect human soul.

The relationship between the sexes is thus not only the
foundation of human existence here on this earth, but
also the means whereby the completion of man is realized.
This need not imply that the way to completion is closed
to the man or the woman who does not wish to marry
during their present life here on the earth. All that it
does imply is that the unification of the male and female
elements of the soul must be accomplished either before
or after the death of the physical body.

Here I should refer to some misunderstanding of Pak

Subuh's position, owing to his insistence upon the sacred
character of marriage and the part it plays in the com-
pletion of man. It appeared from this that those who
did not marry were in a hopeless situation, and it was
even suggested to us, before Pak Subuh's arrival, that
unmarried women beyond marriageable age should not
be accepted for Subud. In his early talks in England,
Pak Subuh gave special attention to married couples, and
impressed upon them the mutual need of husband and
wife. It was not until later, when we remarked on the
very striking progress made by several unmarried men
and women, that he gave a further explanation. He
said that if the wish to serve God is stronger in a man or
a woman than the wish to marry, and if the wish to
marry disappears automatically in the latihan, then it is
possible for such a person to pass through all the stages
of preparation in this life and come to the unification of
the soul—that is, to meet with their true spouse—after
death.

He added, however, that this is no justification of
the monastic life in general. The monastic vocation is
exceedingly rare, and it happens too frequently that
Christians and Buddhists (the two religions in which
monasticism is widespread) enter the solitary life in
imitation of the Christ or the Buddha. The two situations
are quite different, and Buddhism does not greatly con-
cern us here. Jesus Christ was and is eternally the perfect
Man Who possesses the complete sevenfold nature that is
in the origin of Creation itself. Jesus, alone among men,
was born with the complete soul in which male and
female is undivided. He, therefore, alone among men,
had no need for marriage in order to fulfil His mission
here on earth. He represents, not only for professing
Christians, but for all men of all faiths, the ideal of
human purity and perfection. But this does not mean
that He can be imitated. Indeed, it is blasphemy for
man born of woman to suppose that he can imitate the
life of the incarnated Son of God. Jesus having come to
the world with the complete human soul received also

the Divine Soul from God, and so was in a true sense
both Son of Man and Son of God. All conditions were,
and are eternally, not merely different but infinitely
different, for a Man already complete and perfect in both
the human and the divine worlds and for one who is
upon the way to the completion of his human nature and
preparation for the Grace which was already in Christ
before He came to the earth.

Therefore those who suppose that the virginity of
Christ and His Mother Mary is in any way like human
virginity are in grave error. Their virginity was present
in them because they were already complete, whereas
human virginity is the rejection of completion. The
refusal of marriage can only be justified when it is made
with the humility of one who is conscious of his inade-
quacy, not with the arrogance of one who deems that he
has chosen the 'better way'. When the inferiority of
the unmarried state is fully recognized and accepted, it
need not be a bar to progress any more than all the other
defects that are present in human nature and human life
on earth.

The relationship of the sexes is entirely different in
different worlds. In the material world it is a blind
attractive force without discrimination. In the vegetable
world, it is the polarity of type and essence. In the
animal world, it is the transformation and purification
of motives. In the human world, it is the unification
of the soul. In ordinary human experience, the three
higher modes of sexual relatedness are unknown. But by
the law of sevenfoldness all seven qualities are repeated
on all levels—hence ordinary men and women can experi-
ence some of the qualities of the fuller relationships, but
not possess their essence. From this arises all that sadness
in the lives of men and women that comes from seeing
glimpses of the unattainable. The full glory of the
married state is revealed only to those who can reach the
fourth stage of human completeness and discover for
themselves what is meant by the words: "They shall
become one flesh."

The completion of marriage certainly requires the
procreation of children. Since nearly all men and
women living on the earth are spiritually unborn, they
can have children only upon the material level of exist-
ence—that is, under the laws of this earth. Ideally, a
man should wait to have children until his own soul is
awakened. The reason for this is that at the moment of
conception, when the essence is in a state of pure recep-
tivity, it is open to every kind of influence. A pure state
in the parents is the only protection against the entry of
sub-human soul substance. This is not the only reason
why parenthood can be right only when rightly timed.
We need to be protected against mechanicalness, which
we can visualize as a great stream that flows from the past
through the present into the future, carrying with it the
consequences of all future events. We have no power
to arrest this stream or change its course. But the higher
parts of the soul are not subject to the laws of cause and
effect.

This is why Pak Subuh has said that the latihan is a
frontier through which the stream of causality cannot
pass. It is literally true that the iniquities of the fathers
are visited upon the children unto the third and fourth
generation. The terrible scourge of the past threatens
the health, happiness, character, and the very possibility
of completion of our children and grandchildren. Many
a parent can dimly sense the tragedy of the situation but
see also that he is powerless to change it. One of the
greatest blessings of the latihan is its power to obliterate
the past and set us and our children free to enter the
future without the burden of sins that they themselves
have not committed. The purification of the sexual life
belongs pre-eminently to the fourth stage of completion—
that is, the truly human stage. It is only when they are
truly human beings that husband and wife can be joined
in the full union that is the reality of marriage. Indeed,
it is only to such a marriage that the words "Whom God
hath joined, let no man put asunder" truly apply. Such
people are blessed in their union, and they are blessed in

their children, in whom a human soul can arise even
before they reach the age of responsibility.

We cannot leave this subject without making clear the
position of those who treat the sexual relationship lightly.
In the sexual act there is a contact between the male and
female essences, and whether it is made in wedlock or in
wanton promiscuity it leaves its mark upon the essence.
Since woman is the passive or, more correctly, the recep-
tive element of the complete soul, the results of the contact
are stored up in her. She, therefore, inevitably must
suffer if the relationship is broken. Men who take advan-
tage of the receptivity of woman commit a grave injustice,
for which sooner or later they must atone. That these are
no empty words can be seen in the latihan, when men
whose sexual lives have been irregular have to pass
through a period of purgation before they can be liber-
ated from the results. But in this earthly existence where
the material soul is dominant, it is not men but women
who chiefly suffer the consequences of broken unions.
The mysterious laws of the interpenetration of essences
act in such a way that, if a man comes into sexual contact
with a woman who has had many irregular relationships,
he picks up the influences of the other men, and his own
state is thereby poisoned. We were given a vivid picture
of a wealthy Japanese whose sexual life had been deplor-
able, and who when he came to the latihan began to
throw out the characteristics of many men he had not
even known.

It must, therefore, be understood that it is equally
disastrous for men and for women to allow themselves
sexual irregularity. Nothing traps us more helplessly in
the stream of mechanicalness, or does more to diminish
our potentialities, than to allow our essence to become
contaminated with the results of other people's lives.
This we do when, without discrimination, we come into
the essence-contact that is inseparable from the sexual act.

Thus it is rightly said that the power of sex can be the
greatest curse of man, and that it can and should be the
greatest blessing. By sex our humanity can be degraded

and by sex it can be perfected. As long as people are
still in the early stages of purification, they must be
protected against the power of sex. For the complete
man sex has no longer any outward force, for the cleavage
of the male and female elements has been healed.

When I started to write this section, in a suburb of
Munich, where I have come to be with Pak Subuh, I
would have said that to my knowledge no man had
opened any woman but his own wife without incurring
serious consequences. I had never heard of Pak Subuh
himself opening a woman, not because of possible harm
to himself, but because she might place her trust in him
and not in God.

By one of the countless strange coincidences of Subud,
it happened that I had to speak to Pak Subuh about
some letters I had received, and while I was with him an
old German woman of seventy-eight years came into the
house and asked to see him. Although we were all
snowed under with work, he went and spoke to her, and
learned that she had been for five years a widow, was
totally deaf, and could not sleep for terrible noises in her
head. She begged him to help her. We wrote on a
sheet of paper that Pak Subuh is not a healer, but she
sat weeping in her chair, moaning that she must go mad
if the pains continued. I could see that she was already
afflicted with senile dementia. After testing her condition,
Pak Subuh at first advised that she should drink the juice
of a tamarind every evening. When he learned that
tamarinds are unobtainable in Germany, he told her to
close her eyes. Then, without any explanation, he stood
before her and opened her, with myself and two other
men, who had been trying to interpret for her, standing
by. After about fifteen minutes she was opened. When
told to open her eyes she said that the pains had gone.
An American trainee drove her back to her house, where
she was to renew latihan by repeating the Lord's Prayer
each evening before going to bed. I should add that a
contact had also been made with her dead husband. I also
remembered the saying, "Thy faith hath made thee whole".

11. The Three Higher Constituents of the Soul
The complete man, or man of the fifth degree, is not
a product of evolution alone. Pak Subuh has repeatedly
emphasized that the fifth power is a superhuman soul.
It does not belong to the human world, but descends
upon man from above, when he is ready and when he is
needed. It has already been noted that 70,000 men
endowed with the fifth power of the soul could arise in
the world in the coming Epoch. Beyond the fifth level
is the far higher, truly Sacred Essence of the compassion-
ate soul. Pak Subuh has said that one such soul could
save a million others. The seventh and highest spirit
comes direct from God: it is the soul that distinguishes
the great Prophets from all other beings who have
appeared on the earth.

We have thus a complete scheme to represent all stages
of evolution possible for the human soul. In its ultimate
perfection, the soul is sevenfold. But the lower souls
can be taken up and left like clothing. The three higher
souls are beyond individuality, and can enter into many
human forms at once. The soul of the Saint can enter
into thousands of people and bring them into that
profound unity of will and consciousness that is the
Communion of Saints.

I have already written too much of matters that are
beyond my understanding. I have included these hints
chiefly to give some meaning to the statement that the
way of perfection for man leads on and on without limit.

CHAPTER IX

THE POTENTIALITIES OF SUBUD

I. The Real Miracle of Subud

Amidst the welter of impressions engendered by Subud
and its action upon people, two clearly established facts
stand out as supremely significant. One is the reality of
the contact, and the other its independence of any
particular person—even of Pak Subuh himself. Since
I myself did not believe that such an effect was possible,
and nothing that I had ever heard or read about suggested
that anything similar has occurred before in known human
history, I was for some time sceptical as to its reality.
When I saw for myself that more than a thousand people
were able to receive the contact merely by asking for it,
I was obliged to accept that a miracle had happened.
By 'miracle' I understand the direct intervention of the
Power of the Holy Spirit in human life, in such a manner
as to make possible an event that does not violate the
laws of nature and yet could not be brought about by
any natural agency, including the will of man himself.
There is, I believe, another characteristic of miracles that
is commonly overlooked—that is, their perfect timeliness.
Miracles do not occur either capriciously, without ap-
parent rhyme or reason, nor do they occur just when
someone happens to want them or look for them. They
occur only when they are necessary for the renewal of
human faith. I believe that isolated or sporadic miracles
have occurred and still do occur, and that they are
always timely and effectual. Mass miracles of the
kind attributed to St. Bernard of Clairvaux must surely
have been the work of mass suggestion, and should be
discounted.

The miracle of Subud is neither isolated nor is it
explicable by the power of suggestion acting upon
a crowd. It came to me when I was alone and

completely sceptical as to the possibility of any essential
change in human nature otherwise than by conscious
labour and intentional suffering. It required the cumu-
lative evidence of nearly two months' constant practice
of the latihan to convince me that a miracle had really
occurred. Those who shared the experiment with me
during the months before Pak Subuh came to England
were men and women who for long years had been
trained in impartial self-observation, and were so well
aware of the immense difficulty of an authentic inner
transformation that they had even become doubtful
whether it was possible to follow Gurdjieff's system with-
out his personal help and guidance. We were convinced
by the latihan against our own firmly established belief
that there is no easy way to develop the potentialities
latent in man. This does not mean that we doubted the
possibility, or that we did not believe that the possibility
itself is given to us by the Will of God. We doubted only
that we could hope to find a means that would really
work for us such as we were.

Even when we saw for ourselves that Subud worked in
us, we were still so presumptious as to think that it must
require preparation, and that only those could receive it
who had already gone a long way towards realizing their
own nothingness and were ready to ask for help without
expecting any easy way out. Once again, we found that
the miracle was far greater than we had imagined possible.
Within two months of Pak Subuh's arrival more than
five hundred men and women had asked for and received
the contact. Among them some, with little or no experi-
ence of the spiritual search, made progress that was
clearer and more rapid than that of others with every
apparent advantage of preparation, combined with
greater intellectual powers and more energy and deter-
mination. All our preconceived plans for the gradual
introduction of Subud, starting with a few carefully
chosen and serious people, went by the board.

What occurred was an explosion of the very kind that
I had learned to expect as the first stage of any great step

forward in natural or human evolution. I could see,
moreover, that there was no suspension of the natural
order. The powers that I could see emerging in so many-
people were those that I already knew to be latent in the
very nature of man. The miracle was that the process
should be set in train so surely and so easily just for the
asking. Moreover, I soon realized that my early scruples
were unfounded. There is in Subud no question of
'something for nothing', nor any violation of the principle
that everything worth having must be paid for. One
has to sacrifice and to suffer—but it is consciously and
intentionally that one does so, because one sees where
one is going and what has to be done.* There are great
burdens to be borne, but one sees the reason for them,
and one is given the strength to carry them.

The miracle is thus the total one—that a new possi-
bility has been opened for mankind that is beyond our
power to understand, and that we could never have dis-
covered for ourselves. Isolated cases could have been
explained away. The fulfilment of prophecies and the
realization of predictions carry little weight with the
sceptical. The instances of healing of disease that we
have so far observed have little evidential value. The
strange confluence of people from all over the world
may be no more than a coincidence. The fact that
remains incontestable is that within sixteen months more
than three thousand men and women have found a new
force working in them, the power and the beneficence of
which they cannot doubt. They have seen, moreover,
that this force is quite independent of the presence of
Pak Subuh himself, and that it works in all people who
ask for it and who can find the way to put aside the
obstruction of their own thoughts and imaginations.

[* In the last part of All and Everything, with the title "Life is Real Only
Then, When I Am", that Gurdjieff wrote in 1933, he refers to the difference
between 'voluntary' and 'intentional' suffering. It is not voluntary self-
imposed suffering that is required, but intentional to submit oneself to a
process in which suffering is inevitable.]

2. The Visible Evidence

In Chapter VII, I have tried to describe some of the
inner changes that occur in the trainees. There are also
changes in the outer life that can be observed and veri-
fied by others. After the first influx of people who had
been prepared for Subud by study of Gurdjieff's system,
a new flow began of people attracted chiefly by manifest
changes for the better in their relations and friends. A
group of examples comprising at least two score of people
is particularly significant. Among those who had been
members of groups following Gurdjieff's system were
many whose husbands or wives or parents or children
had been hostile to the work, and painful situations had
arisen, in which jealousy and a sense of injustice at being
deprived of companionship had embittered family rela-
tionships. We observed with real surprise that within
one or two months of the coming of Subud, these 'recalci-
trant' relatives were asking to come to the latihan,
because they observed such unmistakable improvements
in those who had come.

A second group of examples can be taken from a
number of mentally or emotionally unstable men and
women who came to Subud, and were admitted with
some reluctance and trepidation on the part of all but
Pak Subuh himself and his Indonesian helpers. We
feared that the stimulus of the latihan might result in
over-excitement, in outbreaks of manic conditions or of
hysteria. The very opposite occurred. Although the
response was by no means always the same, in the
majority of cases the latihan calmed the excitable and
brought about a marked improvement in sufferers from
mild schizophrenia and manic-depressive states.

On the other hand it also happened that some people
outwardly normal and apparently stable began in the
latihan to show symptoms of some deep-seated disturb-
ance. The effect of the latihan appeared similar to that
of a well-conducted psycho-analysis, without the grave
disadvantages of the latter that a large proportion of

patients remain dependent upon the analyst. The
potentialities of Subud in helping psychopathic condi-
tions are still almost wholly unexplored. I am concerned
here only with the impression made upon people who
have seen their friends and relations, previously disturbed,
made calm and able to meet life with more confidence
than ever before.

One interesting suggestion may here be mentioned.
This is the possibility of rehabilitating criminals. We
have no direct evidence in England, but we have heard
of several cases in other countries where criminals, in-
cluding more than one professional murderer, have come
to the latihan and have been completely liberated from
the impulses to steal, rob or murder. Since the criminal's
problem is usually not absence of desire to change, but
the inability to persist in the face of temptation, there is
no reason why he should not ask for and receive the
latihan and find therefrom the strength that he lacks.

3. Subud and the Family

The degeneration of family life is one of the distressing
symptoms of our modern world. The increasing incid-
ence of divorce—0.2 per cent in 1911 to 6.7 per cent in
1954—is of less importance that the far greater propor-
tion of 'unhappy' marriages which 'somehow or other'
are kept going. The isolation of young married couples
from the parental hearth leads to the breakdown of the
family unit, which should comprise three generations.
It is true that many old people are given homes by their
married children—but this seldom repairs the family
unity which has been broken. Anyone with long experi-
ence of helping people with their personal problems, as I
have had for nearly thirty years, knows that the tensions
of married life are the main cause of all psychological
disturbances, whether in the parents themselves or by a
delayed action upon the children.

Therefore any means whereby a real help can be
brought to a disturbed family should be regarded as a

major blessing for mankind. To facilitate the dissolution
of marriages that fail is merely to admit a deeper spiritual
failure. No evil is cured by alleviating its consequences.
Help can come only from within—that is, by the awaken-
ing of the soul to the reality of the bond between the
sexes.

One of the palpable benefits of the latihan has been in
the help it has given to scores of married couples in
varying degrees of distress. We have even observed
several instances of actual separation where without any
external pressure or persuasion a wife has returned to
her husband or a husband to his wife. Certainly, so long
as the purification is still in the first stage, the difficulties
do not disappear. The change of inner attitude has,
however, in nearly all cases been sufficiently definite and
permanent to enable those difficulties to be faced as they
never were faced before by the people concerned.

The benefits of the latihan are equally evident in happy
marriages. Even at best there cannot be complete com-
patibility between two incomplete people. Pak Subuh
has said that every woman has seven needs that she
looks to her husband to satisfy. These correspond to
the seven basic qualities in every human essence. No
ordinary husband can satisfy all the seven needs. It is
indeed a fortunate couple who can find two points of
true mutual completion. In the latihan, latent qualities
are developed in the husband so that he and his wife
become more fully partners of one another in all that
they need. An exclusive mutual attraction between hus-
band and wife takes the place of the undiscriminating
sexual impulse. This creates a force that can overcome
all difficulties.

When the second stage of purification is reached, the
sexual relation itself is completely transformed. It is
liberated from passion and desire, and becomes instead
the fulfilment of the need for mutual completion.

All these are results that we have actually observed,
and they have given us confidence that the progress
of Subud can do more than any other factor to restore

the sexual relationship to its true position in human
life.

Not all married couples are compatible in essence.
Where there is real incompatibility there cannot be true
marriage. On the whole, such cases are rare, for the
potentialities of each essence are exceedingly great, and
a given man or a given woman may hope to find a true
partner within a very wide range of essences. Incompati-
bilities of personality are far more frequent than those of
essence, but even where a really painful or unpleasant
tension exists between two personalities, the purification
of the feelings can uncover the essence-possibilities of a
successful union. Properly speaking, therefore, divorce
should be reserved for cases of proved incompatibility of
essences, and not based upon an artificial code of marital
behaviour. Adultery and desertion are not sufficient
grounds for divorce, nor are their absence any assurance
of a true marriage. It will be a long time before these
fundamental principles are understood and acted upon.
Meanwhile we can look to Subud as a very present help
for all married couples. This is important not only for
the man and wife, but even more so for their descendants.
Subud is a frontier at which the past is arrested, and it
can make possible a fresh beginning in almost every kind
of human trouble.

4. Subud and Society

Social problems are mainly connected with motives.
Difficulties arise because people's motives are not pure,
and so they suspect one another. Moreover, through the
operation of various kinds of magic, imaginary motives
are created. People come to believe that many things
are indispensable for their happiness that are not only
useless but often causes of the very unhappiness or unrest
of which they complain. Fear, suspicion, jealousy, false
pride, ambition, greed, indifference to the sufferings of
others and the other evil forces in human life, distort
all motives and bring about the degeneration of every

attempt to create a normal, harmonious human society.
The sacred impulses that are really present in all men
include kindliness, good will, the desire to serve and to
help one another. The two kinds of motives become
mixed, and so, when men wish to establish an ideal
society they usually end by shooting people—to make a
better world. Even when there is no shooting, the
promised ideal society turns either into a tyranny of
well-meaning busybodies, or into an instrument for de-
priving men of self-reliance and the capacity for inde-
pendent initiative and judgment and of the desire to
work hard to supply their real needs.

This is not intended as a criticism of the modern world
or a denial of human progress. In every past Epoch it
has been the same. The same evil forces that destroyed
the heroic age—the Hemitheandric Epoch—led the Megal-
anthropic Epoch into useless wars, revolution and spiritual
degeneration. And yet, in many deeply significant ways,
mankind in the twentieth century is more enlightened
and enjoys a better social order than in former times.
Only, as I showed in the introduction, we are seriously
threatened by the growing power of the external material
forces, and if progress is to be maintained and stabilized,
a general spiritual awakening is indispensable. The
outer world forces have grown so powerful that fear,
suspicion, greed and the rest have a greater potency for
destruction than ever before.

The only way out—as indeed is widely recognized by
serious people all over the world—is the purification of
motives. It need hardly be said that this cannot be
achieved by advice, or threats, or good example, or by
any kind of organized activity.* The only test is whether
a proposed means does actually work in practice. When
this is applied to Subud, we find most hopeful indications.
For more than twelve years we have at Coombe Springs
experimented with a loose form of community in which

[* Such as public education, youth movements, religious revivals, welfare
organizations or societies for the promotion of good will and international
brotherhood.]

fifty or more people of diverse interests, ages, education,
social status and even of different races and creeds have
lived and worked together. Thanks to the discipline of
self-observation and personal effort, as well as the spiritual
exercises we had received from Gurdjieff, we were able
to surmount many of the difficulties that arise from 'mixed
motives'. But it could not be said that a real harmony
was ever achieved. Moreover, as always in such com-
munities that are based on 'working from without', the
whole structure was too much dependent upon me person-
ally, as the supposed 'leader' or 'teacher' of the groups.

When Subud came to England, the conflicts and mis-
understanding described in Chapter VII threatened con-
siderable disruption. In the early stages, the latihan, so
far from helping, brought the negative forces to the
surface and made matters outwardly worse. Within six
or seven months, there was an unmistakable transforma-
tion. We can see the early beginnings of a future society
in which each member accepts and takes responsibility
for himself, and at the same time is able to respect the
views of other people and work harmoniously with them.

Subud has been with us for only sixteen months, and it
is too early to expect results that would be obvious to any
casual observer. But to those of us who have watched
the whole process over many years, there can be no doubt
that Subud is a social force that can work the miracle for
which we are all waiting: to make it possible for mankind
to make full use of all the marvellous achievements of
modern science and technology without destroying every-
thing—including mankind itself—through the scourge of
'mixed motives'. The ideal society cannot be based
upon leadership, for this implies dependence of the many
upon the few, St. Paul's analogy of the human organism
still remaining the truest picture. Only when each
member is ready to accept his own place and fill it, can
there be an organic society. But so long as motives
remain attached to earthly interests, the acceptance of
one's place degenerates into slavery. It is hard to
represent to oneself how all human relationships could be

transformed if the effect that we have seen among a few
hundred were to be shared by millions. This is no longer
an abstract ideal, but a practical possibility. It will be
a society in which guidance will take the place of leader-
ship, in which authority will be looked upon as a burden
to be borne rather than an ambition to be attained, and
in which the desire to occupy a place for which one is not
fitted will give way to the realization that everyone can
have what is most precious in human life—contentment
and security and the assurance of eternal welfare. In
such a society all the outer-world achievements of man-
kind can be a blessing, and there will be no need to preach,
like Gandhi, a return to the 'home-spun' life of the past.

5. Subud and Religion

With all its extraordinary power for good, Subud cannot
achieve its object unless it is brought into the established
religious life of mankind. Pak Subuh has repeatedly
insisted that Subud is not a new religion, and that it offers
no new dogma, no new forms of worship, no new church.
If Subud had appeared as a movement of renewal within
the Church—like the Franciscan Order or the Society of
Jesus—it would have presented no special problems. The
complete submission to the authority of the Church that
characterized a St. Francis or a St. Ignatius would have
assured the acceptance of so manifestly sincere a contri-
bution to piety and faith.

Had Pak Subuh himself consented to remain no more
than a pious Moslem, he would undoubtedly have been
accepted by the Ulema of Java as a man through whom
trust in God could have been restored, and religion
given a renewed strength among the Moslems of the
Malayan Archipelago. It is chiefly, perhaps solely, his
Catholicism that has so far impeded the acceptance of
Subud as a movement of Islamic revival among his own
people.

It must be difficult to accept the thesis that there can be
a revival of religious faith, the source of which is outside a

Church, without fear of disturbance of dogma or authority
within the Church. Lay movements of reform, even when
held within the framework of established religion, have
often proved dangerous, and have led to schisms and
heresies. The very notion of a world-wide religious re-
vival suggests eclectism of the kind that reduces religion
to a system of universal morality, and faith to a colourless
theism.

It has been amply demonstrated that true religion
cannot be restored by any form of propaganda or mass
suggestion. The immense and sincere efforts that have
been made by the Christian Churches since the end of the
war have done little to restore faith. The Islamic revival
that is an unmistakable fact for anyone who has travelled
in South West Asia has brought fanaticism in place of
faith, and has utterly failed to come to terms with the
realities of the modern world. I have no first-hand know-
ledge of the revival of Buddhism in the Far East, but
competent observers have told me that little has been
accomplished—chiefly owing to the obscurantism of the
Buddhist monks, except perhaps in Burma, where the
Satipatthana movement has become a real force. Even
so, this system of organized meditation is rather a method
of 'working from without' than a way to the renewal of
religious faith.

All this is the more remarkable in that the need for
religion is deeply felt throughout the world. The material-
ism in which the Megalanthropic Epoch has foundered
is now discredited, even among many of the natural
scientists who were its chief exponents and prophets.
The world is waiting for something, but for the most part
has no idea what to expect or what to hope for.

We have therefore to face the question whether Subud
can fulfil men's hopes and allay their fears. I think the
answer chiefly depends upon whether or not Subud can
be accepted by religious leaders as a means bestowed
upon mankind for the restoration of true worship of God;
a way that can be followed without sacrifice of any of the
specific dogmas of any religious community, and without

diminution of the authority which the Church must main-
tain and preserve if it is to fulfil its function.

It seems to me that if Subud is rightly understood, it
can be accepted by everyone who believes in God and is
ready to put his trust in Him alone. The sacred impulses
of sincerity, trust in God, surrender of one's own self-will
and patience in waiting for God to fulfil His times and
seasons, are the foundation of all religious worship.
Whoever enters the Presence of God with these gifts will
not be deceived. They are all that is asked for in the

latihan.

Only the practical test counts. Those who have fol-
lowed the latihan confirm that so far from being separated
from their own confession, they are brought closer to it,
and find a new depth and significance in their religious
observances. Not only this, but they find that, where
previously they were troubled by doubts and scruples
concerning some article of faith, they now see that these
doubts and scruples were grounded in human thought,
and that they can accept literally the truth of their
confession. Thus one man recently told me that he found
himself in the latihan repeating the Apostles' Creed and
seeing for himself that every word he was uttering was true.
This had astonished him, for he had previously rejected
the Creed as being incompatible with a rational Christi-
anity.

There is, in every great religion, a vast positive content
expressed in the form of dogma or teaching. The mind
of man cannot understand the dogma, for it belongs to the
higher regions of the soul that are inaccessible to thought.
Therefore, people either believe or refuse to believe, in
both cases without understanding what it is that they
accept or reject. When the soul is awakened, it begins to
see what the mind cannot think about, and then it knows
that what the mind could not grasp is true and necessary
for salvation. Tertullian's saying, Credible est, quia ineptum
est, et certum est, quia impossible ceases to be a paradox for
those who follow the latihan.

The positive content of religious dogma is never lost in

the latihan. There is, however, a negative content that
consists in denying and rejecting the truth of other faiths.
This is not religion, but fanaticism or narrow-mindedness.
This disappears with the latihan as the trainee sees that
all positive religious beliefs are compatible, and that all
apparent contradictions spring not from the soul but from
the mind, if not indeed from the lower nature of man. So
long as the denial and rejection of heresy are thought to
be essential to true religious faith, there is certainly a
stumbling block.

It is a sign of the times and foretaste of what is prepared
for man in the next Epoch—if he will accept it—that
religious intolerance is much less prevalent today than
in former times. People do not wish to go by the way of
denial and rejection, and it is a great merit in the priest-
hood that they recognize that intolerance has grown much
weaker during the present century. Men of all religions
are now more ready to accept that Revelations of the
Divine Purpose must have reached others who may be
outside the community to which they happen to belong.

I myself have no doubt that it is literally true—as Pak
Subuh says—that through Subud a Christian will become
a better, more conscious, Christian with his faith more
firmly grounded than ever before. The deadly enemy of
mankind is materialism, which really means belief in this
visible world and rejection of other worlds and other
possibilities. Materialism is an invidious, satanic enemy,
and the mind of man cannot follow all its manoeuvres.
Subud is a most powerful weapon against materialism,
for it enables people to see beyond it. No earthly weapon
can avail, because the material forces do in fact dominate
the earthly life, and those who see with earthly eyes only
are fully justified in asserting that they can find no
evidence of a world that is beyond matter. Materialism
cannot be combated with its own weapons, nor upon its
own terrain. Like earth-born Antaeus, it thrives and is
invincible so long as it can keep its feet upon this earth.
When it is lifted above the earth, it weakens and finally
succumbs.

The way of deliverance from materialism is the first
contribution that Subud has to make to the restoration of
faith. The second is the direct conviction that comes to
those who follow the latihan that the religious experience
is real. This conviction is very rare in the modern world,
and even among those who are called to the priesthood
it is seldom stable and permanent. This is the cause of
acute anguish to many, and in fact several ordained
priests have come to Subud in the despairing hope of
rediscovering their lost faith, and have not gone away
disappointed. The third gift of Subud is trust in God.
When this comes to man, his life is transformed. It is
even rarer than faith in the reality of religious experience,
for many who have the latter continue to suffer from
anxiety and doubt as to the fulfilment of Divine Purpose.
When there is trust in God, religion is restored to its
rightful place as the supreme human concern.

Since these great gifts—liberation from materialism,
conviction of the reality of religious experience and trust
in God—can be received without sacrificing one jot or
tittle of the dogmas of one's own faith, it seems to me that
the leaders of religion throughout the world must eventu-
ally welcome Subud as the answer to the universal prayer,
"O God, make speed to save us!"

I am not foolish enough to suppose that my writings
will carry conviction to those who have not experienced
Subud, nor do I expect that the acceptance of Subud by
the Churches will come quickly. But I believe that it may
come, because I am sure that this is the Will of God.

6. The Expansive Power of Subud

We come now to the kernel of the matter: that which
distinguishes Subud from any other spiritual gift that has
previously been known on the earth. This is the power
of expansion that comes from the mode of transmission of
the contact. Subud is the manifestation of one of the
grand laws of nature that has hitherto been known only
in physics and biology. This is now familiar even to

laymen as the Law of Chain Reaction, or self-accelerating
explosion. It is simply illustrated by the growth of the
rabbit population of Australia, or the spread of bracken
in Britain. In both cases, a few individuals were imported
into a new country where the conditions of existence—
soil and nutrients—were wholly favourable. There were
few carnivorous animals to keep down the rabbits, and as
each mother rabbit can have several litters of half a dozen
or more in a year, a pair of rabbits could produce, say, a
thousand million descendants in ten years. This happens
because each pair born can be the start of a new chain.
Even with immense wastage, the rate of growth is pro-
digious, and, as everyone knows, the whole agriculture of
Australia was threatened by the chain-reacting rabbits.
Similarly bracken, unknown in England in the eighteenth
century, now covers more than half of the common land
of the country.

Another example is the chain reaction in nuclear physics
that now holds the entire population of the world in sus-
pense. The discovery barely twenty years ago that certain
heavy atoms would explode when bombarded with neut-
rons, and in doing so produced more neutrons that could
explode other atoms, has changed the course of human
history. The devastating power of the nuclear chain
reaction comes from the speed with which the chain
renews itself, each generation occupying less than a ten
thousand millionth of a second.

If we compare nuclear fission with the conventional
explosion, we can see that the latter follows a different
law. There is also an exceedingly rapid reaction, but
not self-acceleration. The explosion wave is propagated
from a centre, and as it moves outwards, its energy is
dispersed over a wider and wider radius, and its intensity
is correspondingly diminished. All such processes follow
what is called the Inverse Square Law. This governs all
actions that expand outwards from a centre. It is well
known in physics. A less exact form of the law governs
the spread of new characters in a biological genus. There
is yet another law that operates when the expansive

process actually produces factors that resist its own
development. This is called in economics the Law of
Diminishing Returns, or the principle of saturation.

These laws can be found working—though not in an
exact numerical form—also in the spread of ideas and
spiritual forces. Let us take the case of a reformer with
an immense influence upon his immediate followers.
Communicating his zeal to them, he initiates an explosion
that soon passes beyond the limits of personal contact with
the reformer himself. At second hand, his preaching has
less power, and it is transmitted less exactly. The inten-
sity diminishes with distance from the source. Moreover,
compromises and misunderstandings are inevitable, and
the version of his message that reaches distant places is
very unlike the original. Still greater is the diminution
and distortion that occur as the message passes through
time from generation to generation. Only an initial
impulse of immense power can spread, by expansion,
through many countries and peoples. The loss of inten-
sity and ultimate loss of content are both inherent in the
method of transmission from one man to other men. The
source is limited and the channels are obstructed, the flow
is uncertain, and finally it comes to a stop.

All movements of spiritual regeneration within the last
five thousand years have developed according to these two
laws, and the utmost that might be hoped for is that a
fresh impulse might come, strong enough to spread widely
and affect a sufficiently large number of people to produce
a new force in the world.

With Subud, none of these limitations apply. Not
being transmitted from person to person by an outward
means of communication, but by direct contact with the
Source, it does not suffer diminution or distortion. Since
the contact can be given many times over by everyone in
whom it is fully established, it does not depend upon
proximity to the centre from which it originates. It may
by now have occurred to the reader that Subud could be
described as a 'spiritual chain reaction', and this would
be an accurate observation.

The power of expansion of Subud is unlimited because
it is not transmitted through a limited channel—that is,
through a human being. It can, given suitable conditions,
develop at an ever accelerated pace. For example, in
England after three months, fourteen people, seven men
and seven women, had been authorized to give the contact.
One of these, Bulbul Arnold, gave it in Ceylon to one
hundred and four women in three weeks.

Gurdjieff's Ashiata Shiemash required that each all-the-
rights-possessing brother of his brotherhood should be able
to open the conscience of a hundred others, and each of
these in turn should be able to open a hundred more. I
remember, when I first read this chapter, making the
calculation that even if only four in each hundred acquired
the power of transmission and each required one year to
transmit it to a hundred others, the whole of mankind could
receive it within eighteen years. I was naturally deeply
interested when Pak Subuh told us that, if mankind would
receive it, Subud could reach the whole world within
eighteen years, and that it had been revealed to him that
his missionary journeys would continue for the same
length of time.

The essence of the chain reaction is that the whole force
is transmitted without change or diminution at each step.
The tenth generation of rabbits has the same fecundity as
the first. The ten thousand millionth atom to undergo
nuclear fission produces the same excess of neutrons as
the first. When this happens, distance from the point of
origin no longer has any importance. Each point of
contact becomes a new centre of expansion with exactly
the same power as the first.

If Subud has the property, as we believe, of giving a
direct contact with the Great Life Force by which all
existence is sustained, then it can develop without limit
and without diminution, and it can do so very rapidly.
The only limit to the expansion of a chain reaction is the
exhaustion of suitable 'fissionable' material within reach of
the reaction. With Subud this could include the majority
of all people living on the earth.

In such an idea there is a vast satisfaction. We are
reminded of Milton's description of the war between the
powers of light and darkness, in which each of the satanic
weapons was matched by an equal, but purer, angelic
power. There is a strange fitness in the possibility that
the perils into which the material chain reaction has
plunged mankind should be averted by another chain
reaction—but this time in the spiritual and inner life of
man.

7. The Ordinary Man

Subud does not make its appeal to the intellectuals or
to those who are in search of some esoteric teaching. It
could well be called the 'Path of the Ordinary Man'. It
makes no demand beyond what is expressed in the phrase
'ask and it shall be given you'. Such asking does not
presuppose any special preparation nor even any special
qualities. The scientist or philosopher has no advantage
over the mechanic or the bus conductor, but it is also
true that he is at no disadvantage. When we look at
those who come to the latihan we echo the words "Of a
truth, I perceive that God is no respecter of persons".
Sometimes we are tempted to go further and say "I thank
Thee O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because Thou
hast hid these things from the wise and prudent and hast
revealed them unto babes".

The future of the world depends upon the ordinary
man. He alone can change the course of history; not
the great thinkers nor the powerful rulers of the world.
These have had their day. The ordinary man is helpless
so long as he remains subject to the power of mass
suggestion and depends upon external supports in all that
he does in life. But throughout the world, the ordinary
man is in revolt. His revolt is not political or social.
There is little danger of revolution and indeed there is
not even a great danger of war. The revolt is not directed
against injustice and oppression, but against the stupidity
of life. The ordinary man has asked to be shown the

meaning of his existence and he has been given a tele-
vision set. He knows better than his leaders that no real
problems are being solved and he is not too proud to ask
for help without insisting upon scientific or religious
'orthodoxy' in the source from which it may come.

The help must be simple and effective and these are
two of the greatest merits of Subud. We may, therefore,
expect that as Subud becomes accessible to the ordinary
people of all countries it will appeal to them first.

Here I can report a conversation of Pak Subuh with a
small group of influential people in Germany who argued
that he should, in the initial stages, restrict the trans-
mission of Subud to those who could 'influence the masses'.
They said that such recognized leaders would not wish
to share in the latihan with common people lacking in
education, but that these latter would quickly follow a
lead. They assured Pak Subuh that there was a wide-
spread feeling in Germany that some new spiritual
revival must come; and, providing Subud carried the
seal of approval of well-known names, it might spread all
over Germany like wild-fire.

Pak Subuh replied that he was in any case debarred
from rejecting anyone who might come, but that even if
this were not so, Subud must rise upon the foundation of
the ordinary people. He said that when he was thirty-
six years old he had been invited by one of the Rajas of
Java to become his adviser in the reorganization of his
state. Pak Subuh had refused on the ground that this
might separate him from the ordinary people.

The world today needs above all that the ordinary
people of every race and nation should regain faith in the
Wisdom and Power of God and that trust in Providence
should be restored. In this way alone can the 'inner-
world forces' be brought into equilibrium with the
'outer-world forces'. We should, therefore, welcome above
all else a way and a method that is open to all who ask for
it and which can be followed in all conditions of life.
Subud requires only helpers who are prepared to carry
the burden of transmitting the contact and places in which

the latihan can be practised. Its chain reaction will
enable it to keep pace with any demand.

8. Concluding Remarks

I must end, as I began, with apologies. I have been
too close to the events I have described to be able to
present them with the required objectivity. Reading
through what I have written, I recognize an enthusiasm
that outruns the ascertainable facts. I have tried, in this
second edition, to bring out more explicitly the difficulties
and the hazards of Subud. These have not engendered
doubts in my mind concerning the validity of the main
thesis. Among those who by now have gained consider-
able experience of the latihan are many confirmed sceptics
who have been compelled to admit that we are in the
presence of a real and continuing action. If we are now
more aware of the difficulties than when I first wrote, we
also have a far greater weight of evidence that this is no
mere flash in the pan.

I will therefore summarize my own impressions and
convictions. Firstly, Subud does work. I have not been
writing about some ingenious theory as to how mankind
could be saved, but about a process that I see working
from day to day. Secondly, Subud is supremely easy to
enter. It is only required that one should receive the
necessary explanations, wait three months and then ask.
Everyone that sincerely asks can receive the contact.
Thirdly, Subud gives positive results in every sphere of
human life: in physical health, in family and social
relationships and, most significantly, in the spiritual and
religious experience of man. Fourthly, Subud is open to
all without restrictions of race, creed or condition. It
requires no preparation and no special qualifications.
Fifthly, Subud has an unlimited capacity for expansion,
and its rate of progress will be limited only by the number
of people who ask for the contact.

These are practical points that matter for any earthly
undertaking. Subud is more than an earthly undertaking

—it is the way to Abodes that are far higher than the
earth, and Abodes, moreover, to which we human beings
rightly belong.

Subud will expand just as fast as it is God's Will that it
should do so. If it is to move very rapidly, indications
will be sent that will attract the interests and hopes of
many people. If the process is to go slowly, it will pass
from friend to friend, from parents to children, until its
value is demonstrated by results that cannot be denied.
A philosophy is tested by its consistency and adequacy;
a moral teaching, by its conformity with our intuitions
of right and wrong; a religious dogma by its power to
establish and hold the faith of millions. But a process can
be tested only by results. Subud is a process, and it must
submit to the ultimate test: "By their fruits ye shall know
them—do men gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles?"