An easy way to God? The Subud Story

Nearly half a century ago, Mohammad Subud, a little known humble book-keeper of Java founded the spiritual movement he named SUBUD. AN acronym for the Sanskrit words Susila Buddhi Dharma, it grew fast and steadily till today it has a following in over 70 countries across the globe. Subud is neither a religion nor a cult, and identifies itself with the goal of all great doctrines: the realisation of the search for God. Its claim to being unique is the seemingly easy way it offers for the realisation of that goal.

Mohammad Subuh’s birth centenary was commemorated by his followers on the 22nd of June, by his following in Sri Lanka as well.

This account is based on conversations with Robert Goonetilleke, an ardent member of the movement ever since Mohammad Subuh visited Sri Lanka in 1957. “The only fault with time, all men become good creatures, but so slow!” (Robert Browning (1812-1889) All great religions teach us that there is in our being, a part, however, small, that can sense and respond to the will of the Supreme Life Force - God.

All it needs is patient nurturing.

To the followers of the Subud movement responding to this faculty and winning direct ‘contact’ with the Almighty is not necessarily as slow as we have been taught. The contact can be miraculously fast - an experience of a moment.

Reaching this goal the Subud way is also unique, because it seems so easy.

To my friend Robert Goonetilleke, then just out of his teens, the experience was the most unforgettable moment of his life. It happened 40 years ago, and when I met him decades later the first question I asked after the preliminary greetings was in a light hearted, perhaps too frivolous vein,

“Are you still in that cult? Remember?” For that was how many of us on the outside of Subud saw the movement in those long ago days, when it first came to Sri Lanka.

Robert was an outsider to journalism but we used to meet him because quite a few newsmen on the staff of the “Ceylon Observer” had taken the movement seriously.

What was most striking at the time, was that these people who had not been over serious about life till then, seemed to have undergone a surprising change of attitude and behaviour. They seemed to have come under a new and profound influence, a condition that the rest of us put down to a freak-out that would pass with time. So we thought. Many of these good people are today not with us, and Robert who had been one of the youngest of that crowd was still available for the questions I liked to ask.

Even if he thought I was maiming a joke of it, his answer to my first question was so polite, I knew he’d tell me more. “Cult? Oh no you’ve got it wrong. Subud is neither a religion nor a cult. I am still a member, very much so.” It was a strange story made all the more enticing in these days with time as a cure for all ills, as a great healer, seems to have taken a back seat.

It had been my friend Aubrey Walpola (now dead) who had been the medium through whom Robert had made his first Subud ‘contact’ with what he calls the Great Life Force. To most of us, Aubrey had been a good man with a lovely barytone, fine company with a drink in our hands. But Aubrey as an ardent member of Subud? No one would have believed it. But there it was, as true as Robert was there and talking.

A shared affinity classical music, drew Robert to Aubrey in the late fifties. They were close neighbours and these happened to be the dark days of Emergency ‘58 with its long drawn out curfews. As their relationship grew Aubrey had made many a suggestion that Robert too join the Subud Movement. The young man had been evading the moment but as his friend persisted he had thought, well why not?

The Subud movement has a name for what happened next. It is called the ‘Latihan Kejiwaan’ - the heart and essence of the Subud experience. If you are sincere about your desire to make ‘contact’ with the Great Life Force this induction will succeed then and there. If you are not and still sincere you must keep trying.

The first time an aspirant receives the ‘contact’, (it is called the opening) it’s no ordinary event. In short it is so out of this world that there are no words to explain what took place. I thought what he meant he could not find the correct words and said so. “Well, you try and explain the taste of chocolate to someone who has never tested anything sweet … That’s what I mean”. The closest he’d get in trying to describe what happened were words like ‘like a breeze … like the wind.”

There have been many accounts documented about SUBUD in the short course of its history. The experience of ‘contact’ with the Almighty might have been similar but very much more intense in the case of what the movement’s founder experienced when he was just 24 years old.

Mohammad Subuh Sumohadiwidjojo’s first contact was witnessed by others. His experience lasted as long as a thousand days and nights, during which through Divine revelation he understood that he had indeed been favoured by an extraordinary gift which was for all mankind. It was that he could pass the gift of ‘contact’ with the Great Life Force to anyone who sought it with sincerity.

This was to become his mission in life until his death in 1987, by which time Subud had reached many nations of the world.

Doubters would ask how it was that Mohammad Subuh was chosen for this experience, and such questions pertaining to his spiritual identity. But the evidence is that his wisdom and understanding of spiritual matters was supreme, and considered in relation to his educational background and humble beginnings, it was quite ‘out of this world’ and miraculous.

Subuh himself, who came to be called Bapak (it means father in Indonesian) has never revealed his spiritual identity. Any subud follower will tell you that to speculate on who Bapak was, would be out of place because ’such understanding, to have any reality, must come from our inner selves and our own experiences.

Now, would all this mean that those who make ‘contact’ with the Great Life Force become godlike and move among the ungodly with a visible aura of saintliness and somehow visibly different from the rest? God like yes, but in one’s inner being, no different from any man or woman of any faith or religion who has reached the same state through his or her own efforts. The movement has no gurus, no leaders, and no hierarchy. “There are several thousands of us who have had the experience of direct contact with the Almighty and they belong in all walks of life and faiths. You will not be able to tell the difference should you meet one of them.”

From time immemorial, humankind has always believed in some form of divine power that guides our destinies, and paid homage to some benevolent deity.

This has run like a golden thread regardless of race, colour or religion. Now, running even deeper is the awareness that keeps growing that we all came from the same source, that we are all brothers and sisters under the skin.

There is also the evidence of the ancient writings that of a far greater awareness then of the power of the Great Life Force and greater contact with it.

Subud explains that this form of nearness to the Almighty which has as many names as there are religions has been lost as mankind developed more and more in the material sense. It is the Power that can not only guide us in this world, but also in the world that we must enter at the end of our lives. SUBUD is the way we can get in contact once again.

It must not be assumed that SUBUD is the only way. If SUBUD is unique its claim lies in the ease of this achievement. But it sounds easy - only too easy. Any member of the movement, says Robert, will tell you that surrender to the power of god is not that simple, that the nature of true surrender is by itself a divine gift that has not changed with the passing of time.

The answers to man’s eternal search for truth and the essence of true reality have always been at hand as it were, except that you were never at home when the call came. “It’s your lucky day if you were at home to open the door. And if you were sincere in your quest for truth at the ‘Latihan Kejiwaan’, you will be at home.”

Like to try it or know more about the Movement? You could, just knock at the door of the Susila Buddhi Dharma Society of Sri Lanka, ‘SUBUD HOUSE, 38, Frankfort Place, Colombo 4. There will be someone there always, to talk to you.

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