A short story expressing initial impressions of Subud

When you join Subud, you must wait for three months between the time of announcing your wish to join and when you are opened. During that time you can visit the Subud group, get to know the people, ask questions, read books and generally find out about Subud. This three month "probation" period enables you to make a sincere and considered decision to join Subud.

I remember the first time I went to the latihan on Los Altos. The room was divided by a thick curtain against which had been placed a few chairs. I sat in one of the chairs with some other applicants. Over the next ten minutes or so, some thirty men came into the room and went behind the curtain. All was quiet for about fifteen minutes and then a terrific din broke out. There was howling and shouting, screaming and laughing, grunting and weeping, moaning and groaning. There was clapping and stamping and the sound of bodies thumping about. Mingled with this, were snatches of singing of great beauty. Most of the sound was inarticulate, but amongst it were fragments of prayers and invocations.

It seemed completely unorchestrated, pure cacophony, though over the next half hour, I did detect a kind of shape or rhythm to it. There was a build up of intensity which seemed to reach a crescendo after twenty minutes or so, and then it gradually died away until there were just a few isolated moans and groans and the odd sob. The men emerged from behind the curtain, looking none the worse for wear. On the contrary, they were relaxed, bright-eyed and smiling.

I learned that what went on behind the curtain was called the latihan, or more accurately the latihan kejiwaan. It is a completely spontaneous experience. Nobody organizes or directs it. There is no set form, no prayers or ritual movements. Everyone follows their own feelings and whatever sounds and movements might arise from inside.

A couple of months later I was opened. ("Opening" is the word used for when someone does the latihan for the first time and experiences the contact with the Power of God.) At the moment of my opening, I felt as of there was a bowl of molten gold in my solar plexus and this warm fluid ran out through my veins to touch every particle of my body. I could hear acutely every sound of the night. It was as if "the doors of perception had been cleansed". I remember going into a restaurant and I could read the life story of every person in their faces. I knew everything about them.

Much of my early experience in Subud had to do with Catholicism. I'd been brought up a Catholic, but my faith crumbled when I was in my teens, and my Catholic education left me with a residue of bitterness and fear. In latihan I began to say the Catholic prayers over and over again. The "Our Father", "Hail Mary" and "Glory Be".

One night I was lying in bed when an inner voice said: "Get up and walk." I ignored it, but it kept on. "Get up and walk." Finally, feeling ridiculous, I got up and put on my clothes and walked out of the house. Where was I supposed to walk to? But it seemed that my feet were guided. I walked down the drive and came to the street. Which way should I turn? My feet turned to the left. I walked down the street until I came to a cross road. Left or right? My feet took me to the right.

I walked for a mile or two in this fashion. Every time I had to make a decision about which way to go, it seemed as if my feet were guided. I was moving through a part of town now where I'd never been before. I wondered where it was all going to end. Would there be a destination, or would I walk on forever like this?

I was walking down a street and I looked across and saw a Catholic church and I knew this was what I was supposed to see. I walked across, but the church was locked up and in darkness and I walked home. I came back the next day and sat in the church. All the bitterness and anger I felt about the church dissolved away. I didn't want to go back to it, but I didn't hate it anymore. I was free and at peace.