Journey of a Subud Jew

Chapter 1 - In the Beginning

I started to write a book once, called This Lonely Journey. It was to be what I would call autobiographical fiction and I will quote here part of what I wrote, as a way of introducing myself. The name is fictitious. The book began:

Beads of perspiration formed on her face, as Ann Barratt walked back across the dry streambed. It wasn't 8 A.M. yet, but already the morning sun had raised the temperature on the desert floor to nearly 90 degrees. Summer was just over, officially at least, and Ann had recently brought her mare down from summer pasture in the mountains that rose from the southern edge of her desert valley. She felt vaguely guilty about the financial strain keeping a horse put on her mother, but that was lost for the moment in the exhilaration of her early morning walk. The crusty sand of the wash gave way to the soft powdery dust but firmer footing of a dirt roadbed. The road divided an abandoned date grove, and ended at the dike that guided rare flash flood waters around the town until they eventually dissipated into air and sand. A part of Ann was always conscious of and in love with the contrasts of dune and rock, harsh light and deep shadow, parched dryness and tiny springs - oases of life - that characterized her desert. And yes, it was her desert, she knew, because she felt herself mixed inextricably with the grains of sand. She was not thinking of these things either, however, here among the aged but stately giant palms, still bearing fruit and now granting her intermittent moments of cool shade. She sometimes wondered to whom this grove belonged, where she walked every day. No one ever tended it, almost no one ever ventured here. The palms alone, it seemed, possessed this small forgotten acre; the palms and her dead parakeet, anonymously buried in a far corner. But today Ann was completely caught in her moment, as only a 16 year old can be. She was dressed for school and aware now of sweat running little rivers down her sides, and dust coating her feet and ankles. These were nothing more than badges of her responsibility and she was a bit heady with it, high on self image; walking the half mile through empty grove and open desert to care for her mare, before school, like an admirable character in a novel. It was a small seed of self-discovery, one of those early steps into the valuable person she might be; steps that, it always seemed to her, she took later than most, a fact for which she would often berate herself in later life. Ann's attention drifted to the long fallen fronds underfoot. Tall weeds had grown up in places, with dry flowers which, she observed, someone more artistic could make into a lovely arrangement. "Size nine feet" she spoke aloud to no one.

That is who I was and, to a very great extent, who I still am. Ann was lucky, in always knowing who she was and what was important to her. She bequeathed her passions for desert rock, sand, wind and stars and all creatures to the Subud Freidl who continues the journey that she began. And I have found that these passions are keepers, are consistent with my inner nature and are a continuing source of strength and will to live.

I should tell you that I was born to a Methodist mother from Indiana, and a Southern Baptist father from Arkansas (who divorced rather un-amicably when I was eight). My parents liked to tell the story of how they took me, at the tender age of three, to each of the popular Protestant Church varieties, including their own, and then asked me to choose for myself where I wanted to go. I chose the Episcopal Church, the American version of the Anglican Church. They asked me why, with some curiosity as I suppose that it would not have appealed to either of them. The three year old is purported to have put her hands on her hips and told them, "You have to go where the preachin' suits you!" So I grew up, was baptized, confirmed and became a lay reader and chalice bearer in the Episcopal Church.

It has occurred to me to wonder what choice I might have made had I been taken then to Temple or Synagogue, but, oddly, I am not aware of there having been any Jews in the community where I grew up. I think now that surely there must have been, but I completed all of my schooling there and never knew of any. From that early age, God was very important to me, and I remember relating particularly to the stories of the Patriarchs, their wives and lives and their desert wanderings. In later years I was to call myself an Old Testament Christian.

My heart broke when my beloved mare became sick and died, but it was shortly before I left my desert valley to make my way at university. There was a lot of life waiting ahead to be experienced. From that time I have returned to my desert only as a visitor, but it will always be my home.

Chapter 2 - High and Low

Highs and lows, ups and downs describe most of the rest of my life till now. It is the downs I remember the most, as I have struggled for long periods with depression and "suicidal ideation". I am sure there is a psychologist somewhere whom we have to thank for this sanitized intellectual term for being in so much emotional pain and anguish that you want to die. They want you to acknowledge your feelings and then refer to your condition in intellectual terms devoid of all feeling - suicidal ideation.

But there were also many highs, blessings and wonders, and growth along the way. These have included finally completing my university degree at age 35, raising two sons and the gift of a grandson, years spent following my various passions, wonderful books written by my favorite authors, enchanting music from my favorite composers, conversion to Judaism and my opening in Subud (which occurred one week apart in May of 1985), and the joy and companionship of a few very dear friends throughout my life.

Perhaps there is a close relationship between the "ups" and the "downs". I have found my experience of living sometimes to be very much akin to my experience of body surfing. One moment I am high, propelled above the sea on the surging crest of a wave and the next moment my head is buried in the sand while I struggle to remain conscious until I can find air, and a chiropractor is required to put my neck right. And I seem frequently to have to suffer the latter in order to be gifted with the former.

There is a minimum of information that you require about me to fully appreciate this journey and where it has led. Most can probably be conveyed in three strands or themes, and I hope to provide you a view into each of them. The first you have already encountered, the joys of my life, which additionally include photography, math, space and science fiction. I already had begun to develop a passion for most of these things when you met me in the first chapter.

The second major theme is depression and a crippling self-deprecation. Thank you, God, that I can mostly take the position of retrospect with regard to this aspect of my life. I know that it is finished unless I lose my way again.

The third and final theme is my pursuit of an ever-closer relationship with God, The Force, Great Spirit, Universal Mind … It was this, of course, that brought me to Subud; this and my next-door neighbors in La Mesa.

Only through the application of language can I separate my life's passions and pursuits from my path to draw closer to God. In truth, they are inextricably bound. And, from my newly arrived at perspective (you will get there, it is in the last chapters) I have to admit that probably it has all been one unified journey. But at the time, the depressions, the periods of self-loathing seem like a time-out from life. Actually, while that is my first take on writing it, it could not be farther from the truth because during the lows, it is the highs that seem like a fantasy break from true reality. We have, unfortunately, to travel a bit into the depression and the resentment I cultivated in order to set the stage for the final chapter. Since it is uncomfortable I will try to keep it brief.

The depression and the seeking are both integral to the whole of my life and I have devoted a chapter to each of them. So the next two chapters must be seen as occurring concurrently, parallel to each other.

Chapter 3 - The Scourge

dedicated to my Father and Mother who, each in his and her own way, suffered from the Scourge

My mother never actually fitted my image of an old woman, even though I did not know her until after she had passed through menopause (immediately after giving birth to me). So I don't know what kind of joys she may have had as a younger woman. She struggled with what she called feeling Blue, and when I think back on our life together, I feel that there was often a sadness lurking beneath whatever happiness she found. I think I can see it in early photographs of her as well. She died many years ago so I cannot ask her.

My father's life had many unhappy times and he did move, in the end, from suicidal ideation to suicide, when he found himself back in the grip of alcoholism after many sober years. I grieve for him since I believe that I have felt at least some degree of the pain of self-disappointment that brought him to that very final act.

Wanting to die because of feeling worthless has been a recurring theme in my life. The first incident I remember is when I was 17 years old and received a letter of rejection from Stanford University. I can remember being on my hands and knees on the little oval braided rug before the kitchen sink, rag rugs I think they are called, with a butcher knife which I can see as clearly in my mind today as I could with my tear-filled eyes on that day. I believed my life was over as I had failed and was therefore worthless. I also learned that day, and have believed ever since, that as much as I might want to, I am not physically able to commit the violence required to take my own life.

As life's big and little failures occurred over time I found that the overall effect was cumulative, until in recent years all it would take was for me to burn one more pot of rice, or to forget again to set the correct channel on the VCR so that I failed to tape what I wanted. My repeated stupidities were more than anyone could accept, surely. The current incident would link up with all past demonstrations of my uselessness, major and trivial. I was once again proven to be worthless and wanted to die, in fact, begged God to let me die, since I was not capable of seeing to it myself. I think that this may sound pathetic to anyone who has not experienced it, but the deep wrenching grief of feeling utterly worthless, that the world, and most especially your loved ones, would be so much better off had you never lived is oh so real and profoundly sad. And it compounds itself. I am this pathetic depressed scourge on humanity and on my family. I do not deserve to be loved. This serves to carry one down another few levels into an almost comforting darkness because you cannot bear to face another living soul.

When I started into menopause I was in for the roller coaster ride of my life. In retrospect perhaps I should have been drugged and locked away, for my own protection and the peace of mind of others, for the duration.

But I was not. I survived by making extensive journal entries on the state of my mind and emotions, and on my latest solution to talk myself back to a state of coping, returning myself with some new mind-set to some semblance of normalcy. A lot of what I wrote was simply coming to terms with the fact that life is not what I thought it was and that I was a failure at living it; that the world I thought I lived in was just so much fantasy constructed by religion, warm fuzzies served up by television programming managers and movie producers, and all bought into with devotion and gusto by yours truly.

One of my more firmly held beliefs, one which had long sustained me, was that I would eventually find "the right man" with whom to share my life, my dreams and my passions. When I finally understood that the relationship I had sought all of my life could not exist and that I would therefore be alone for the rest of my life, I did not take it very well. When I finally realised that the idealism with which I fully identified myself was not at all suited to a world which, as it appeared to me, was going to hell in a hurry, I was disconsolate. And I was very angry with God for allowing, nay even encouraging, me to be so ill-fitted to the world. I was not coping.

It was during this time - I was living in Israel - that an Israeli Subud friend gave me a huge clue and an Israeli psychologist told me his solution. These together enabled me to begin to change direction and move toward my answer. It did not happen all at once, has in fact taken a few years, and, of course, many conveniently discovered hints along the way, to finally put it all together.

What the psychologist shared with me when I, rather eloquently if I say so myself, expressed the opinion that therapy was never ever going to help me with my depression, nor perhaps any other depressed person either, was that the only real way out for me was to find true humility - a spiritual solution from my Buddhist psychologist. I realized, in a moment of shocked silence, that I did not even know the meaning of true humility.

The apparent contradiction that my Subud friend dropped on me when I was suffering from a bout of particularly low self-image was that it was because of my Ego. I pondered this for a few days, along with another apparently related contradiction that had often plagued my logical mind, which was that I had always felt quite superior to most other people, that is when I wasn't feeling completely worthless as a human being. The penny finally dropped when I realized that what always brought me down was my own failure and the fact that I could not accept it. And why was that? Because I am special, I am supposed to be perfect, I am supposed to be better than everyone else. If I am not, then I have failed and have no value at all. Well, where in 7 heavens and 9 levels of hell did that come from?

This latter piece was enlightening to say the least. I knew the truth of it and was too excited about it even to take much time to berate myself for having been such a pompous ass all of my life. It did not signal the end of my depressions. Knowing a truth with my mind did not prevent my slide down into the darkness every time I made a mistake. But it was a start. I did not at that time, for some strange reason, see the now rather obvious connection between this and my newfound search for true humility.

Chapter 4 - The Path

Maybe it began when I was 13 or 14 and read and was forever changed by the book, Ben Hur, by Lew Wallace. My mother believed the author to be a distant relative of our family. My link to the Middle East has been a recurring and growing, if not constant, theme in my life; that and being a teenager in Southern California in the 60s.

At university I had the opportunity to spend a semester abroad and elected to abandon mathematics and to go to Israel to study archeology and Hebrew. This was in 1967, just a few days after The Six Days War. I could probably write a book just about those experiences and their continuation during my more recent five-year sojourn there. But that story is for another day.

After my return from Israel I moved out of state, married a young man whom I had met at university and we had two sons. Mirna, a friend and neighbor, was a Jewish woman who was in the final years of Type 1 diabetes. She was no longer able to drive because of her failing vision, and it came about that I would drive and accompany her to Temple services on Friday nights and Saturday mornings. In the 6 months I had spent in Israel I had never been to a synagogue. This was a new experience for me. My friend belonged to a Reform Temple and I learned there that it was possible to convert to Judaism, a thing which I had previously understood to be impossible. I thought that if your mother and her mother ad infinitum were not Jews, then you were not a Jew, end of story.

Some years later, and divorced (to make a very long story very short), my sons and I were back in Southern California. I was active in my church but found that I missed the Jewish connection so found a Conservative Synagogue and began to attend regularly. After a year or more of attending Synagogue on Saturdays and performing my duties as lay reader at church on Sundays (which included writing and giving the occasional sermon) I decided that something probably had to give. My Rabbi was happy to undertake a conversion program with me if it was what I desired. I was unsure and wanted to do what was right, assuming that there was a right thing to do.

So I did what I would have to call a test. I had heard of Christians who, having a question or dilemma to resolve, would close their eyes and open the Bible randomly, putting down their finger and then accepting what was written there as the will of God for them in their dilemma. I needed a clear answer and decided that this was as good a test as any, and probably more appropriate to the task than a Ouija board, so I prayed to God please to help me to open my Bible to the right page where I could find what path I was intended to follow. I told him that this was very important because I might change the whole course of my life based on what I found, so if he cared at all he had better be there for me. I closed my eyes, opened my Bible, and placed my finger on the page. I opened my eyes and saw that I was in the final chapter of the book of Joshua, as he addressed all the tribes of Israel gathered in Shechem, chapter 24, verses 14 - 16. Joshua said:

Now therefore fear the Lord, and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness; put away the gods which your fathers served beyond the River, and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. And if you be unwilling to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell; but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.

It still takes my breath away when I read it. I was as astonished as I have ever been. Trembling and crying, I read the words again and again, as if they might go away or change. Eventually I mustered the courage to begin the requisite year of study with my Rabbi. Around this same time an unusual family moved next door to me. They did something called the latihan (latihan kejiwaan - literally the "spiritual exercise" of Subud) and had lots of friends who did the latihan, including a family who were active members of my synagogue. They were a very sociable group and my kids and I spent a lot of time with them doing barbeques and camping trips etc. Eventually I asked, "Ok, what is this latihan thing you do?" and I became a probationer. I had nothing to lose, right? If it was what they said it was then I wanted it. If it wasn't, well, I would just leave.

As things worked out, I underwent my formal conversion to Judaism one week before my opening in Subud. At my conversion I felt a totally unexpected and wonderful sense of what I can only describe as "relief upon returning home". Some years later I learned from a cousin that my great grandmother on my father's side had been Jewish. Perhaps …

My friend from Synagogue was the Subud helper who opened me. It soon became clear to me that there are many things about being Jewish that you just can't learn from books and lectures. While I found it intellectually compatible I clearly did not have the feel of it; the way they move when they pray, the way a house feels when Mother lights the candles on Shabbat (the Hebrew word for the Sabbath), how it feels to live in a Jewish home. But, not to despair, I found that in the latihan I swayed and rocked in prayer, and I felt it in my very cells, as if I had grown from a youngster standing with my parent in synagogue every week of my life. And lighting Shabbat candles was a latihan.

There were, however, some things about Judaism that just didn't make any sense to me. Having converted in a Conservative, not an Orthodox shul (Yiddish term for a synagogue), I was not required to keep the laws of Kashrut (the dietary laws) or the laws of Shabbat, although I was encouraged to learn more about them and to try. But I could make no sense at all out of not eating chicken and cheese together because God had commanded not to eat a kid boiled in its mother's milk. And so I was quite content to forego this aspect of Judaism. It was a couple of years later, after I had moved to Boston, that I had my "kosher latihan". In Boston there are many Jews and Jewish areas, including many shops. There was a small kosher grocery store that I liked to visit regularly, and, while I did not keep a kosher home, I had given up eating pork. I loved the feeling of being in the shop, in that neighborhood, and of having and using some of the kosher products.

One day I drove there on a lunch break, as I often did. I was wandering about, feeling very comfortably at home, and thought to ask the butcher whether the meats had to undergo salting at home to get out any remaining blood, or were already completely kosher. He said "Everything that comes into the store is kosher, or it goes right back out again." I immediately wondered about myself, since I had always eaten non-kosher foods. Could I be considered not kosher? I went directly into the grip of a strong latihan. I wept and wept and went over into the dairy section to be alone with it and said, "Finish". It didn't. I said it again, and again it didn't. I didn't know what to do. I checked out with my few groceries, sobbing all the while, and went to my car to drive back to work. I did get the point - I was sobbing because I was not kosher. Finish, finish, finish. It just didn't. At the first traffic light I promised God that I would go home and kosher my kitchen and throw out everything that was not kosher. Finish. It didn't. I said "FINE ! I promise I will not tell myself tomorrow that maybe I imagined the whole thing and that I should wait a while before taking such a drastic step and test about it with helpers in a few weeks." It finished. He knows me so well. At the next traffic light, the big intersection with Commonwealth Ave, I suddenly thought, but what about me. I can 'kosher' my kitchen, but how can I 'kosher' myself. I have eaten all the wrong things all of my life. Surely my body is treif (literally - unfit for ritual use), the word used to describe any food or combination of foods that, according to Jewish law, is not to be eaten. Well, don't ask if you don't want to know. I began to wretch, very strong dry heaves. I thought my lunch would end up in my lap. I went back to work at the Harvard Observatory, immediately got diarrhea and suffered with it for three full days. I was physically and symbolically about as clean as I could get on such short notice.

I called a Rabbi the same day and was advised exactly how to go about making my kitchen kosher. I shopped that very night and bought everything I needed. And what did I find about keeping the laws of Kashrut? That washing dishes became a holy labor of love. Eating meat was partaking of a sacred life and I was humbled by it. That the daily mundanities involved in shopping, preparing food, eating and cleaning up became sacred tasks which drew me closer to God. It apparently did not have to be logical to be the correct thing for me to do.

My Jewish journey has had its ups and downs, like the rest of my life, but it has always been supported, filled out, completed even, through the latihan. The latihan has supplied much of the spiritual content of my life as a Jew.

Chapter 5 - A Three Year Turning Point

In 1988 I moved with my teenaged sons to New Zealand. We stayed with a wonderful Subud family near Wellington, before moving to a small beach community up the coast. It was here that I converted a second time to Judaism, this time as an Orthodox Jew, a conversion that is recognized everywhere, including the state of Israel where I moved after almost ten years in New Zealand. By this time my sons were grown and had lives of their own. I had always wanted to return to the desert south of Israel and my path was leading me quite clearly in this direction.

I made Aliyah, (literally ascent, this is the modern Hebrew term for immigration to Israel) and became an Israeli citizen. There were many wonders to re-awaken for me in Israel, in the Negev desert and in the old Arab sector of Jerusalem. I moved to a small town near Be'er Sheva and lived and worked there for 5 years. There was a small but growing Subud ladies' group there. I would not trade this time for anything and when I left, I left behind some very dear friends, including a Bedouin family whose daughters used to accompany me on desert walks in the evenings after work. Leaving this desert land and all that it held for me was heart breaking, but, in the end, I simply had to go.

There were many reasons, not the least of which was financial, why it was not good for me to remain. It was there I was overcome with the great disappointments of my life, especially in the last year. I know that I must not judge others, not individuals, not nations. So let me simply say that I found it difficult to live with a number of fundamental attitudes that prevailed in Israel. It was a special privilege for me to have several Russian immigrants as friends and workmates and it was interesting to find that we had so much in common, having grown up as staunch cold war enemies. Most of us found it a serious challenge to adjust to the way that people, and indeed all living things, were commonly held in such low esteem. This was a tremendous burden. I found toward the end that all I did in my latihan was cry and cry and cry. I don't think it is too strong to say that my religion and my faith were being slowly ripped away from me. These changes undermined the entire foundation of my life. I had to leave and start over again, and not just a new material beginning - I was becoming an expert in those and my thirst for adventure usually stood me in good stead - rather almost a complete makeover.

The task before me was to try and salvage what I could, what was good, from my past, from Ann Barrett, and what remained of Freidl, and integrate them into some new being; a realist; and not just any realist - a realist who was going to live alone for the rest of her life in a world that fell far short of expectation and to learn to be happy and contented with it. I needed to find, preserve and nurture what was good from the old direction of my life and to find new fulfilling directions as well. But for a time it looked a lot like giving up and settling for whatever life wanted to toss my way. It often looked like dying might be the better solution. This was a path of bitterness, that much I could see, and I knew I had to pull myself out of it.

For economic reasons I went back to the US for a year before returning to New Zealand to be close to family and old friends. I have been back in New Zealand for a little over a year now. The woman writing this tonight is a Jewess who has not lit Shabbat candles since the day she left Israel. I attended one Shabbat service and a few special events at a shul in St. Louis. Testing together with members of the St. Louis Subud group was very clear that I was to continue in my Jewish path. I still felt many good things about it, but in spite of several attempts, I simply could not bring myself to fit back into the mould. I had felt too much in Israel to be able to do that.

Just a few weeks ago we celebrated Bapak's birthday with a day of latihan, testing, shared food and discussion during which I briefly confessed to the group the sorry state of affairs at which I had arrived; my disaffection with my religion, my disillusionment with people, life and the world, and also my desire to find a way back. I felt the answer was near at hand. What I did not also express, but could have, was my fear that the latihan was no longer a daily-life reality for me. It had become confined primarily to group latihan. As we were preparing to leave, a friend asked me whether I still considered myself to be Jewish. I'm afraid it took me several seconds to respond. Eventually I said, "Yes, but I am conflicted." I love that word, conflicted. Our group chairperson overheard on her way out the door, turned around and said, "That's very Jewish isn't it?" I had to laugh. It was a light and insightful comment which put things into a bit of perspective.

These last three years - the last year in Israel, the year back in the States, and this past year back again in New Zealand - were punctuated with those uncomfortable squitchy moments when you feel that big important things are happening for you, but mostly you are only aware of the stress and confusion. When they happen, I feel squirmy like I would like to get out of my skin. Something revolutionary must be just around the corner. It is not a simple crossroads, as that implies you make a choice and move on. It is as though many strands have come together in this one point in time and space, and have become densely entangled. You are ensnared in the tangle, but there is this sense of impending resolution; a knowing that things will be sorted and your way out to the next stage will become clear. These usually last no more than a few hours or days, and often go away without my ever being aware of any resolution or big change. This three-year entangled node of disillusionment, anger, hope, and fear is a record for me. I am not, however, disappointed at the ending.

Chapter 6 - Dinner with Old Friends

Last Saturday I dropped in unannounced on the Subud family with whom I had stayed when I first came to New Zealand. We live at opposite sides of the greater Wellington region and, apart from latihan, we don't see each other very often now. But I was in the area and thought just to stop in for a cup of tea.

Of course we had a lot to talk about and the early afternoon cup of tea eventually turned into the great idea of going shopping and making dinner, which eventually turned into driving home around midnight, after a wonderful stimulating day. I miss those conversations with close Subud friends and really must do it more often.

One of the topics of conversation was a thought-provoking book I have just finished reading, Manifest Your Destiny, by Dr. Wayne Dyer. It was given to me by a special dear friend during that last year I spent in the states. I had started to read it a number of times, but could not seem to get through more than a few pages. I guess I had to work all the way through this full three-year trial before I would be ready for it. When I visited my friends last weekend I already recognized the book as having the potential to change my life and had taken several pages of notes from it to review regularly to keep me focused on the changes that I must keep working to bring about. I found it amazingly consistent with many of the things that Bapak told us, and with many things which I have come to believe through my life, about God and the universe; stuff like that.

{note - A small sample of quotations from the book which I found to be particularly in line with my Subud experience: "… develop an inner knowing …" (Pg 23) "Let your innermost feelings become the guides in your life." (Pg 147) "When I speak of love emanating from your soul and from the divine consciousness of God, I speak of something that the lower self or the ego cannot grasp." (Pg 93) "The universal law … exists in a dimension vaster than the mind. This is why the mind cannot even comprehend the universal source of energy." (Pg 145) }

Dr Dyer, if I may paraphrase, proposes a particular view of the world, a way of life, and a simple meditation to bring oneself into close communion with God: God which is the life force that is in everything and everyone, and which is the source of everything and everyone. Having achieved this state of communion with God, one can attract to oneself all that one desires. One can use the energy of the universe to manifest change in one's life, such as improved health. I do not, of course, require the meditation to connect with that energy as this connection is the latihan, but the worldview and way of life were of great interest to me.

Unless I overlooked it, Dr. Dyer managed to write his whole book without once resorting to the use of any word even remotely related to the Latin root humilis, so that I was able to complete it with only a suspicion that he was, in fact, defining true humility for me. As well, about a year or so ago I had a spontaneous receiving about this humility, but did not see it for all that it was. I saw a sea of humanity, looking for all the world like a vast bowl of lumpy vanilla custard. And out there somewhere near the middle was a chocolate arm and hand, waving around reaching above all the lumps. I knew that was me, trying to be special and separate, and I saw that the answer was for me to sink down into the sea of custard and blend into the mix. This seemed very hard.

But this is exactly what the book helped me to do; to understand how it is that everything in the universe shares the same source, the way individual drops, tide pools and waves of seawater share the ocean as their nature and their source. So many things that I have 'known' since childhood make sense now, like what is the meaning of the phrases "We are all God's children" and "Love your neighbor as yourself". So many things that I have found impossible to do fall into place now; how to be one with all the world, not just with sand and lizards and clouds, but with the multitudes of irritating (and worse) people one encounters daily; how not to judge, neither them nor myself.

It was wonderful to discuss these ideas and feelings with my friends. I returned home that night feeling very connected and alive, opened and prepared for the spontaneous latihan that I would receive the next day.

Chapter 7 - Calling Me Back

It is the 13^th of July 2003, a bright sunny warm Sunday morning which cannot be fully appreciated without suffering this past week of southerly Wellington winter weather which included what was heralded as the worst storm in 30 years, a storm which lasted for 2 full days.

I woke up late, having decided not to attend group latihan this morning since I was suffering from vertigo (left over from the flu), especially when I closed my eyes and moved. Eventually I made my way to the shower, was washing my hair, gripping the top of the shower wall to keep my balance, and I stopped and stood quietly in order to try Dr. Dyer's advice and manifest the banishment of my vertigo by tapping into the life force and healing myself. What actually happened was that a latihan began, very strong, flowing over me and rippling through me. My calling out to "Father, God" began to take on a popular tune and I found myself singing, "Falling, yes I'm falling, and You keep calling, me back again. Ai ai ai ai yai yai."; over and over again (with apologies to The Beatles, both living and dead, for the misquote, but that is how it came in my latihan).

Well, this clearly was huge; recognition of the fact that I had moved so far away from God and that I was now being called, pulled firmly and lovingly through this latihan, back to Him. It is worth emphasizing here that I certainly had never left completely, nor even seriously considered leaving. I just was waiting, with not inconsiderable doubt and anger, for the explanation (which was owed me! - see my spiritual foot tapping impatiently on the floor) of why things are the less-than-satisfactory way they are.

Huge as it was, it was only the beginning. I may not recall the latihan's detail all in perfect order, but at some point my renewed "Father, God" is replaced by the chanting of a native American Indian medicine man, someone, perhaps a direct ancestor, who I have met at least once before in my latihan. He chants and dances, alone (except for me chanting with him and drumming on the shower wall with a haunting beat), grieving for the end of his people, the end of the wisdom and glory that are contained in their civilization. Together we chant and grieve and cry, so hard that I feel my chest will burst, and when I think I can stand it no longer it subsides and leaves me gasping and panting, sobs slowly ebbing away. I am at once grateful for the sharing of the experience and for the relief from the unbearable sadness.

And then my voice becomes high pitched, nasal, and I am singing in what I have come to think of as my 'oriental latihan' voice.

After a few minutes, this dwindles, changes and I suddenly find that I am almost chanting again, but not at all the same, something I do not recognize at first since I have never done it before, shouting in a husky, deep and masculine voice which makes me in the back of my mind very glad that my house is alone up on a hill so that no one will hear me. I am now pounding on myself instead of the shower wall and realize that it is a Haka, a war dance of the Maori, the Polynesian people who are native to New Zealand. I am with a lone Maori man, high on a bluff overlooking the sea. It is so real that were I to fly the coastline of New Zealand in a helicopter I have no doubt that I could find the exact spot. The Haka too, quickly takes on the character of a grieving wailing lament for all that has been lost, and in the end takes on a very feminine quality as well. And again, when I feel that I cannot bear much more, it subsides, exactly as the first lament had done, into panting and sobbing. I return to my shower and wonder at the amount of hot water that I am using and what will happen if I leave the dandruff shampoo in my hair too long.

The latihan continues and as the water flows over my body I simultaneously can see and feel the flowing over rocks, of water in the Waikanai River, the source of the water for my shower. I take a moment to express gratitude that it has been heated along the way to my tap.

Suddenly it happens. I am aware of how the latihan is transcending space and time, how it is that I can join with these people in other places, even other times, how it is that I can experience the River, perhaps five miles from where I stand. It all becomes clear, like a great light shining into my being, that I can experience all these things because I am connected to them, directly, by this ocean of Life Force, Universal Intelligence, Allah, God, Aba (Father in Hebrew), whatever you choose to call it. It is in me, and it is in all times and all places, in all that exists or ever has existed. In a very real sense, I am all of these things and so I can have this direct experience of them, whatever whoever whenever they may be.

I remembered someone telling me of being tested by Bapak with a group of members, "Show me what it is like to be a German housewife" and I had wondered at this marvel, this mysterious magic of the latihan that one could feel like a German housewife, cleaning her home, cooking for her family. And I remembered reading what Bapak said, that he knew all the martial arts, but never had studied any of them. They were just a knowledge that he had through the latihan. And suddenly it all made sense; how one could know and understand and feel these things, any thing. It is because it is all connected, all - from quanta to quasars, rock, water, fire, amoeba and men, all woven of the same fabric.

The brightness and awareness of it shattered everything which has gone before in my life. I could only pray, over and over again, "please keep this before me forever", "please never let me forget even for a moment", "keep this before my eyes, keep this before my eyes". And then it came to me in a small jolt, ketotefote beyn eynayim "like totefote between the eyes". The phrase as it came to me is modern Hebrew and I believe that the word totefote has never really been properly translated or understood. But now the instruction of God to the Jews known as the Shema took on a much fuller meaning for me. We are to say it twice every day. It begins "Shema Yisrael":

Hear, O Israel: The lord our God the Lord is One. You will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these things, which I command you this day, will be in your heart. You will impress them upon your children, and you will speak of them, when you sit at home and when you journey, when you lie down and when you rise up. And you will bind them for a sign on your hand, and they will be as totefote between your eyes. And you will write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

I wouldn't try to speak for other Jews, but for me, I guess I need the reminders, the dozens of little prayers that are to be uttered each day, the mezuzah attached to the doorway to every room. I need them to keep me focused on what is important, the source of my life. I realized that this is at least one reason why I needed to become a Jew and why I must continue on this path; because that is how I can remember, how I can keep this great truth before me all the time. My Judaism will help to keep it before my eyes.

After this, the latihan submerged into my inner place, but I remain, hours later, full of its wonder. I cannot begin to express the quality of the fullness and life I feel from these revelations. And, for me, they are nothing short of that, revelation. I believe that this has been one of those life-changing experiences. The experience is not just the final chapter, the latihan. It is all that has built up to it, things said and felt at dinner last night with my dear Subud friends, things expressed and received and done over the last many weeks, perhaps over all the years of my life. Can one say that one's life has been a life-changing experience? If so, then I guess that mine has been.

Postlude

This story began as one of many journal entries, as an aid to memory, for me to see where I have been. The journal entry, the final chapter, was made on the day of the latihan. Only after I began to write did I understand that it was to be a realization of my long held desire to write of some of the things that I have experienced in my life. You see, my fear of trying to write has always been in not knowing at the inception how the story would end. I hate lame endings tacked onto the end of a great story, but can so relate to the predicament of authors, some of my favorite authors, who on occasion have been left with this sticky problem and taken a cheap way out. So I can see that, once again, I have been guided, in very Subud fashion, to understand that this was not just a journal entry, but was actually the ending of a story, which I would then continue to write from the beginning.

It is now complete, having written itself at night after work over the course of the week following the latihan. Shortly I will light Shabbat candles, for the first time in over two years. It is a new beginning for me - writing this story and returning to my path. A prayer, to "Keep this vision of the unity of the universe and my humble place within it before my eyes during every moment of every day" will be my constant companion. Please may I be forgiven if my words offend any of my brothers or sisters and also for any shortcomings in the telling of the story.

Afterward

September 2003

A message to my fellow Travelers,

The first weeks following the latihan were gradually fraught with more and more difficulty as I so easily slid back into my old ways of thinking about people, back into my old way-of-being in every moment - separate and critical. I flirted with depression and began to despair that I was a hopeless case, unsalvageable, unredeemable. Why could I not hold onto this revelation? Why could it not become my center from which all of my actions would spring? I fervently asked for help with this.

One day, maybe three weeks after the latihan, I was regarding the other few passengers on the bus on the way to work; realizing that most, perhaps all, of them most certainly did not share the understanding that they are one with me. It came to me that people cannot 'live the vision', as it were, unless they have the vision, and that it is not something that can be explained into people, or disciplined or forced into them. It felt as though time stopped for just a moment when I saw that they will receive it through contact with it; through contact with people who have and live at least some measure of it.

This knowledge was like a pillar of stillness, planted inside of me, anchored down in the earth itself. I thought how it might be for the bus driver if Jesus, dressed as a Kiwi businessman, were to climb onto the bus and hand him his ticket to be punched and say, 'Thanks'. What might the driver receive, in addition to the fare, from that momentary contact?

With this new understanding came a change in me and, I suppose, a purpose. I have a long, long way to go, but now when I interact with others I find that the latihan is almost always there, filling me with a peace and sense of harmony and good will. Even in my mind, it has replaced my not infrequently critical train of thought when observing people going about their lives. It takes a moment to kick in sometimes, like when I take exception to and start to react to some perceived negative activity. But it is there, getting me back on track.

Whenever I start to lose my way again, I am finding that inconvenient, niggling or coincidental things will happen to pull me back; like little messages in a bottle from the world that surrounds me, reminding me of who I am and my place in creation. Clearly it is an ongoing journey. Thankfully, it is one in which I no longer feel so alone.

Freidl Hale