Dying and Forgetting

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A small intermezzo

Now, when Bapak said "S.E.S.", Bapak made a sort of small explanation or small intermezzo because Bapak forgot what S.E.S. stood for. Bapak explained that this indeed happens to you when you are old. It is part of the pattern of man's life as willed by God that you become forgetful when you grow old. Every so often you forget something or can no longer recall something. The nature of getting old is like that.

But what is lucky for us and for Bapak though we become forgetful as we get old just like other people, yet there is something within us that does not forget and that is our consciousness of life. This is very lucky for all of us. Bapak may become forgetful as he gets old but there is a consciousness within him that doesn't forget anything.

And that is why Bapak often finds that even at his age it is just precisely when he forgets that he is reminded. And Bapak said that this actually is the meaning of iman. The word iman in Islam is sometimes loosely translated as faith.

But Bapak describes iman as that consciousness, or that remembering that is reminded in the midst of forgetfulness. It is when at the moment of forgetfulness we are reminded. That is the meaning of iman. And that is actually the most important thing in our life because it is that which will be present at the moment when we are facing our death.

At the moment when we face our death we are usually in a state of forgetfulness. We forget everything, even our children, our families, our life in this world. But at that moment we will have the consciousness of life still there within us. And this is why, if this is really present within someone, then at the moment when he is about to die, and he has forgotten everything, at that moment he is able to say the name of Almighty God.

There have been many Subud members that have already experienced this. And Bapak wants to tell you one. Bapak specifically chooses someone who is not an Indonesian but, an experience of a Subud member which happened outside of Indonesia so that you feel it is not so far away from you.

Our brother Edward

So they didn't pay any attention. He went into his room and locked his door. And it seems (because, of course, nobody witnessed it) that he then lay down on his bed and at that moment he died. In other words, he left this world. And Bapak can tell you that he went up, upwards at that moment.

After a long time his wife and his daughter who were sitting downstairs began to wonder what Edward was doing, why he hadn't come down again.

So they finally went upstairs and tried to open the door and found it was locked, and they couldn't get an answer. Finally they opened the door by force and found Edward lying on his bed with his hands folded on his chest.

They quickly called the doctor and raised the alarm, as it were. And, of course, the doctor, being an ordinary human doctor, who is only aware of this world, became suspicious. How come he wasn't called for when Edward was sick? How come he's only called when Edward is lying on his bed all neatly laid out? Naturally a suspicion arose in his mind. Has he been poisoned by his family? Or has this or that happened?

So he ordered an autopsy. But, of course, when they performed the autopsy it showed that he didn't die of anything in particular.

This is a real experience, Bapak said. It shows a way of dying that can take place if it is already truly guided by the Power of Almighty God. There are many instances of this.

Bapak's own uncle who had received and followed the latihan had exactly the same experience. Before he died he called his family and his children and he got everything organised and then he just died without any particular disease.

And also Pak Salamat who was also a helper in Semarang, Indonesia. So there are many, many stories like this. Maybe you have also some here.

The point is that what this shows in the case of Edward is that he had really received the latihan, that he had really made progress in his latihan, and that he had really received the Grace of Almighty God. It is rather funny that with this way of dying, in fact, people are often more upset than by the normal way people die.

You know, when someone is already sick for six months, and is always lying in bed, and all his relatives say, "Oh, I wish he would die because he is suffering so much."

And so on. This is the normal way that people like people to die (because then it's not such a shock) instead of having them leave when the moment is right.

Bapak says this is an example, an illustration of what Bapak means by being reminded in forgetfulness.