Living Religion in Subud - Softcover

Sullivan, Matthew Barry

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0907728057 ISBN 13: 9780907728054

Publisher: Humanus, 1991

Synopsis

Language Notes\nText: English (translation)

About this title

About the Author

Matthew Barry Sullivan was born in Toronto, Canada. He was brought up in England and educated at Rugby and New College, Oxford, where he read History and in Germany. He has worked in education and in publishing, and for twenty-two years was with the European Service of the BBC. He has been a member of Subud since 1957, and is both a Quaker and a communicant in the Church of England. Matthew Sullivan compiled the compendium Subud and Human Welfare for the Eighth Subud World Congress in 1983 and in the same year published Groundwork for Caring (Humanus), a treatment of the first psychological seminar in Subud. His main work, Thresholds of Peace (Hamish Hamilton, 1979), which was translated into German, is a study of the 400,000 German prisoners-of-war in British hands as, out of the trauma of defeat, they took the first steps towards the democratic renewal of their country. For his contribution to Anglo-German reconciliation Matthew Sullivan was decorated in 1983 with the Bundeskreuz, the Cross of Merit, by the President of the Federal German Republic.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

From Part 1: Surely not! How can this be? A few of us had been waiting in the hall at Coombe Springs for a first glimpse of the unknown spiritual master from Indonesia, Pak Subuh. For a year I'd been going once a fortnight to this institute at Kingston-on-Thames which was devoted to the 'harmonious development of man', according to the system of Georges Gurdjieff. It was enticingly known as 'The Work', meaning psychological 'work on oneself'. While carrying out tasks in the garden or the house we had to observe ourselves as continually as possible in order to discover how mechanical our thoughts, feelings and behaviour were. We did exercises to give us a different perception of ourselves, like putting on a different walk from one's own. Once, having done this for several minutes, I became extremely frightened it seemed that my usual self had ceased to exist. We learned dances in which our limbs moved in a counter rhythm to each other to music which I recall whenever I hear Satie's 'Gymnopedies'. In order to live more in the moment we had to practise 'self-remembering'. By these and other methods, which were essentially steady efforts of the attention and will, we would become 'conscious' human beings. But now, we understood, because of the unexpected foreign visitor, we were to be given something beyond this. There he was, slowly and solidly walking down the stairs, an ordinary looking oriental in a light gabardine suit and stylish tie, with short hair under a black peczi. He might have been a prosperous businessman or senior government official. I felt let down. Admittedly, the brown man had a certain dignity and a pleasant smile, but that hulking figure at his shoulder, a real bruiser type ... his assistant? It couldn't be! An hour later every misgiving was washed away. Some ten of us, men only, stood in a half-darkened room with the two men from Java and John Bennett, director of the Coombe Springs institute. We were told to close our eyes, some simple words were spoken, telling us to open our feelings to the greatness of God and to disregard our thoughts and everyone else. Then I heard a sort of chanting and other noises. After a while I felt a slight tingling through my body. My arms started to move upwards and outwards without my willing it. Somehow I trusted what was going on, but didn't understand it. After half an hour it seemed much shorter the word 'finish' was spoken. I opened my eyes. Two of us were lying on the floor. There was a strange, tangible peacefulness in the room. Pak Subuh was smoking a cigarette. I had been 'opened' in Subud. Something in me had been quickened. During the following twenty-four hours I felt a quiet inner glow, akin to but deeper than the sense of wonder on the day after I had ceased to be a virgin. Together with being born and meeting my wife, my opening was the most important event in my life. It was also a new confirmation in my own religion. Two of those who had opened me were Muslims, yet part of the quickening process was to tell me at once to commit myself fully as a Christian. Having been an 'attender' at Quaker Meeting for some years, I at once applied to become a full member of the Society of Friends. During that summer of 1957, with much less preparation and formality than soon became necessary, the first flush of 'openings' took place. The atmosphere at Coombe Springs was transformed dramatically. The former self-conscious wariness fell away, earnest faces relaxed. Seekers on other paths turned up. A light, joyous and optimistic feeling pervaded the place, spreading from Bapak, his wife Ibu and his party who resided for many months in a wing of the big house. The 'bruiser' who opened me turned out to be Icksan Ahmed, once a famous guerrilla leader. He became known among us as the 'laughing saint'. One day Bapak was giving a talk to some hundreds of us in a big temporary wooden hut when he suddenly cut it short. He would not go on, he explained, because we were thinking too much. It was true. From our Gurdjieff training we were centred in our heads, observing or trying to remember ourselves, and so blocking what was addressed to our quiet inner feelings. It was a simple lesson on the difference between what was happening now and what had gone on before. But for me the main contrast was bigger than this, something that had been missing until then at Coombe Springs. I can still see Pak Subuh during a talk leaning towards us as he waits for the interpreter to finish. He seems to be absorbing, as he gazes around from the dais, the kind of people we are. What did he see in us westerners, I wondered? What I briefly glimpsed in him, and sensed from him, was love. Who was Pak Subuh? His full name was Muhammad Subuh Sumohadiwidjojo for short, Pak Subuh. ('Pak' or 'Bapak', meaning 'father', is the normal address for a respected older man in Indonesia.) He was born, the eldest of four children, at dawn Subuh means 'dawn'- on 22 June 1901 in the village of Kedungjati, a railway junction and depot in central Java. He died in 1987, outside Jakarta, immediately after his eighty-sixth birthday. On both sides of Pak Subuh's family there were high-born and saintly ancestors, but under paternalistic colonial rule there was little chance of personal advancement. Subuh's father, Chasidi, like other relatives, worked for the railway, fretting under the exploitation of his country's wealth and manpower. His deeply pious mother, Kursinah, the stronger character, had visions prophesying that her son would be someone remarkable

Edition details

• Publisher: Humanus
• Publication date: 1991
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0907728057
• ISBN 13: 9780907728054
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 152