How I Received the Latihan and Found Subud

I was lying in bed late one night, while still living with my parents in Brooklyn, New York. Everyone was asleep, but I was having trouble falling asleep because my life was very miserable and I couldn't stop thinking about it. In fact I was so miserable I was thinking about possibly killing myself, although I'm sure I would never have done that, but still I couldn't stop thinking about it.

Suddenly I heard a loud voice inside of my head saying "well you've tried everything in your life, but you've never tried praying to God". I was astonished and jokingly thought to myself, "I could kill myself next week, but this week I will try praying to God". But then I realised that I didn't know how to pray to God, so I just started calling to God inside of myself.

Almost immediately a force completely enveloped my whole being and began to shake me on the bed. I was being made to shake. My whole body shook rather strongly and I was also made to cry and call to God. This went on for at least 30 or 40 minutes and when it was over I felt very peaceful and fell asleep, like a baby.

During this experience I was very surprised that no one woke up, because I was making quite a lot of noise. The next evening I stayed awake until everyone was asleep, because I wanted to see if it would happen again. I felt embarrassed that I might cry again and I didn't want anyone to hear me.

Once again I started calling to God inside of myself and immediately this experience happened again. I was enveloped by this force and did a full blown latihan on my bed. Of course at that time I had never heard about Subud or the latihan, so I didn't know what I was experiencing. All I knew was that it made me feel very peaceful and quiet inside.

I did this every night for about a week and then I stopped doing it. My life seemed to get better and I didn't feel the need to do it any more. About a week after that, this voice came back to me and gave me a whole list of instructions. It told me where to go and what I should do and told me that if nothing happened, I should just go home and go to sleep. The voice was so loud I felt I had to follow it. In following these instructions I met a Subud member who I became quite close to and who felt very strongly that I should go to Subud, although this person did not attend very regularly and had many problems. Naturally I did not pay much attention to this persons rambling on about Subud and thought this person was in fact crazy.

But finally, after much persistence on the part of my friend, I decided to go to a candidate meeting for people who were interested in Subud in New York City. There were many helpers and many applicants at this meeting as Subud New York was a large group at that time.

The helpers spoke and I listened and came to the conclusion that they were all crazy, as I was a person who was never interested in spiritual matters. But I did notice while I was looking into their eyes, that these helpers seemed to have an inner peace. I thought to myself that I didn't care what they called this, Subud or Shmubud, I wanted that inner peace.

All of a sudden this voice came back to me and told me " not to listen to anyone, but just to follow Bapak's advice".

I was not a person who liked to read, but I found myself reading everything that was in print by Bapak and to my amazement I found that I would remember almost everything I read. I became a walking Bapak dictionary. When someone had a question, I would remember what Bapak had to say about it, which was also beneficial for my life.

This experience took place in 1964 when I was 26 years old. When I was officially opened on Jan. 31st, 1965, I received the same kind of latihan I had received previously and that's when I knew what I had received that night was the latihan. The voice stayed with me for about two years and continued to give me advice, when finally I was told in a latihan, "that's all I can do for you, now it's between you and God". That's the last time I heard the voice and my receiving indicates that the voice I heard was Bapak’s voice. May the One Almighty God continue to guide and protect all Subud members. Amen