THE FOURTHWAY MANHO E-JOURNAL Volume 41 November 2, 2018 |
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J.G BENNETT’S SUBUD: THE SEARCH FOR A FRAGMENT IN
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Pak Subuh |
Symbol Subuh |
Pak Subuh and J. G. Bennett |
Pak Subuh and Fourth Way seekers |
1
"Subud”
which originated from “Susila Budhi Dharma” is a misspelled word for
“subuh”
which means ‘growth and fresh’ as an
integrated concept. The outcome must be self-perfection
through Subud Latihan
which means ‘exercise to growing fresh and perfect’.
Man is a most
complex being who exists on several levels, each of which is
governed by its own laws. These laws though quite distinct in
their operation, are connected with one another. A simple
example will show what is meant by the “laws of different levels.”
The activity of the human body is governed by mechanical laws
(levers, heat engines, hydro-dynamic apparatus), by physico-chemical
laws (digestion of food, oxygenation of blood, synthesis of special
proteins and amino-acids, etc.), by biological laws (development,
regeneration, reproduction) and by psycho-nervous laws (thought,
feeling, instinct, etc.). These laws belong to different
levels yet they are interdependent and we cannot understand the
activity of the organism unless we recognize both their distinctness
and their interaction. Besides these, there are also higher
laws connected with the attention, with the power of choice and its
exercise, with the will and the understanding, and the still higher
realms of the soul and its powers. Each and all of these laws
is involved in the process of
self-perfecting, and if a man seek
to direct this process by his own will and understanding, he needs
to know ‑ if not the laws themselves ‑ at
least the critical phases of their operation.”
This
is the most striking discovery of the dialectical qualitative
content of organism in general. Self-perfecting!
If we confine
our attention to all ways of
self-perfecting that are either
wholly or predominantly working from without, we must conclude that:
1. A school and a teacher are always
necessary.
2.
Persistent austerities, physical,
mental and emotional, are needed over long period in order to purify
the lower nature. (Most
remarkable statement ‑ holds true with me in 1971 –
1975)
3. It is at the present time hard to find
conditions that make such work possible.
It can be successful only with comparatively rare people specially gifted for such a undertaking.” (J.G Bennett, Subud, p.88-89)
The Gurdjieff’s system has gone further than Marxism – it reaffirms dialectical materialism or rather extended dialectics of nature or of everything by reinforcing the importance of trialectics (Law of Three) and the inclusion of the octave law (Law of Seven).
2
The reduction of man to material
beings is not in contradiction to the ethics of man; the reduction
of man to supernatural beings or god-protected beings is a lie to
humanity and therefore cannot be genuinely ethical.
On the decay of religion we have this:
“One of the
chief causes of the decay of religion lies precisely in the general
rigidity of religious discipline.” (J.G Bennett,
Subud,
p.87)
3
“I myself have no doubt that
it is literally true ‑ as Pak Subuh says that through
Subud
a Christian will become a better more conscious, Christian with his
faith more firmly grounded than ever before. The deadly enemy
of mankind is materialism, which really means belief in his visible
world and rejection of other worlds and other possibilities.
Materialism is an invidious, satanic enemy, and the mind of man
cannot follow all its maneuvers.
Subud
is a most powerful weapon against materialism, for it enables people
to see beyond it. No earthly weapon can avail because the
material forces do in fact dominate the earthly life, and those who
see with earthly eyes only are fully justified in asserting that
they can find no evidence of a world that is beyond matter.
Materialism cannot be combated, with its own weapons, nor upon its
own terrain. Like earth-born Antaeus, it thrives and is
invincible so long as it can keep its feet upon this earth. When it
is lifted above the earth, it weakens and finally succumbs.”
(J.G Bennett, Subud,
p.183)
Very great indeed. We should oppose
such materialism which is based solely on perception as the only
basis of truth. The materialism described by Bennett is
definitely different from the philosophical treatise of dialectical
materialism.
Dialectical Materialism should clean itself
from religious materialism. Atoms are material beings; they
are also spirited beings. Forms of matter and forms of spirit
are fundamentally the same. If all the “matter” in dialectical
materialism is replaced by spirit, everything will be fine.
There is no violation of anything at all, except the manipulation of
words.
4
“I have removed several
paragraphs from the foreword. As often happens, in trying to
avoid offence I have tended to create confusion.” (J. G
Bennett, Subud,
p.7)
“At another
time, in 1949, he (Gurdjieff) gave a clear indication that his
pupils should seek for links with the islands of the Malay
Archipelago.” (J.G Bennett,Subud,
p.37)
“Is the
complete man Subud?
Is it the end? Does it arrest perpetual change and
development? Are there really miracles in
Subud
or miracles in mental activities? Why does J.G Bennett
constantly talk of Subud?
Has Subud
acted as an eye-opener for religion?
5 Science has undisputedly discovered the creative progress of sensuous perception, but we cannot go into fantasies of venturing into a non-sensuous affirmation. This is adventurism. It is necessary no doubt, so long as I can be conscious that you can see higher spirit ‑ and so long as I am conscious that you can see and feel higher phantoms. Surely I can see it so long as you do not talk, do not move, etc., because there are the sensuous indications which I will deduce.
How do these
gentlemen know that sensuousness is alterable without nesting on
their perception? If the organic world of man evolves to a
higher level of consciousness and even possesses a higher sensuous
apparatus, can his religion be the same as the old ones? By no
means!
6
The last trace to be abolished in
J.G Bennett’s thinking is this unintelligible “puzzling” over the
abstract term “God”.
It is absurd
to regard everything as having soul. The stone cannot have a
psyche. There is absolutely no guarantee that
Subud,
the higher worship of God, can dominate the minds of humanity.
I do not share this confidence that the religious man is in the
highest level of all consciousness. Such pride I do not share
here. Atheism has every right to be higher than religion.
There are atheists with very high moral values.
7
The continuation of matter in its highest level is consciousness.
To destroy matter and to stress consciousness, spirit and holy power
is to turn things upside down.
8
J.G. Bennett is by no means a
materialist. The subject matter of
Subud
is what the materialist calls it the
conscious
or
psyche in the organism. It
can also be called the
essence-personality. Now
this kind of “life force” prevails in the universe, but not in all
portion of the universe being. The organic world is one of the
so-far known examples. Its presence is reflected in the
self-motion of the material world. The living Earth is another
example.
Now this has been J.G. Bennett’s intention.
But when he philosophized he immediately took to the side of
religion, thus exposing himself as a supporter. “Life force”
can be understood from a materialistic standpoint, it has nothing to
do with gods and divine spirits.
To revive relation is totally futile.
But religion is a conscious being that uses guns and money as it
institutionalized. J.G Bennett is one such victim, who has now
and again give courage to religion, to subudize religion.
Indeed life force is so great in man that
he, with the aid of this spirit, creates God. This is the
really “paper-tigering” of the Almighty of God. Can the idea
of God, arise without man or higher organism?
9
In order to understand J.G
Bennett’s philosophical ideas (said the being sitting on “social
approaches”), it is also important to study his relation to the
productive forces, and to what extent he has favored various social
classes. Can Subud
really help a beggar, a worker who works 12-16 hours a day?
For anarchist, revolution not
Subud is the solution to human
institutional misbehavior. To a non-working class, where
leisure prevails, Subud
has some popularity indeed. For the individual, (and
therefore, the beggar), it enables his inner liberation through
Subud.
When the
greedy bourgeoisie enforces longer and more intensive working hours
that could drain all your “life force”, and create a favorable
demand by the workers for the
Subudian Latihan.
Subud
will be a good “religion” to offer a temporary spiritual release for
the proletariat.
Have some
Subud,
gentleman? If
Subud
is no urgent then inner revolution is even more urgent, because in
order to have it, to have more time to restore your health, to
restore your life force and to prevent it from being over-deposited
into private property.
10
In Subud,
Bennettism is idealism; in the
Dramatic Universe, it is
materialism. He is offering the two in balance.
This is
the Materialist-Idealist Positioning for
Bennett’s philosophy.
Why must J.G Bennetts constantly spoke
of, and quoted from the Bible?
Subudism’s
various beings, spiritual beings and levels are only the various
species of spirit of his own projection. It is an ideal system
that cannot be a subject matter in the mind for a long time because
of is limitation.
From the
standpoint of strategy and tactics,
Subudism
is useful. But from the standpoint of truth, it has been
magnified. Subudism
even helps revolutionary dialectics in the human soul. Does it
require religious purification of the souls if the capitalist
Subudist enjoys the fruits of one’s labor?
A head is less religious when the body takes
on productive activity for someone else benefits. It will have
no time for contemplation in the abstract. When the body is
deprived of contact with external nature, the spirit becomes
debased; religion attacks the victim “mercilessly”.
11
The ghost, the conscious energy
does not disappear into the highest sphere of existence, but has
transformed into the lower mechanical motion of a dead body.
Consciousness is a form of existence of energy and transformable
into other forms of motion. This energy is due to a
functioning brain; conscious energy disappears, therefore, the brain
is no more working. J.G. Bennett’s ideas on the ghost and
conscious motion are reflected in this utterance about the ghost
after dead:
“Far
more rarely I have been aware that the ghost itself has dissolved
and that a human soul had been set free to a higher sphere of
existence.”
“What we know
is that the ghost has gone to the higher sphere of existence in
sexual reproduction. Sexual reproduction (I meant for man) is
the positing of souls into higher conscious levels. Death
annihilates the whole bodily system, the old system. The
reproduction of life is the path where conscious motion takes, and
the higher conscious level does not emerge until the new organism
has attained adulthood. The negation of conscious levels lies
in the process of production and reproduction of life. It is
not just man that perishes in death that conscious motion performs a
dialectical leap to higher sphere
of existence. (J.G Bennett,
Subud,
p.156-157, My commentary)
“I can say for
myself that not only has my Christian faith been strengthened, but I
have found it possible to achieve much of what I had for many years
striven for through Gurdjieff’s method.” (J.G Bennett,
Subud,
p.51, My Commentary: Gurdjieffism is esoteric Christianity)
12
“The Primal Essence is also
called the Great life Force that flows through everything from the
highest to the lowest and from the lowest to the highest. It
is called by Gurdjieff the “common-cosmic ‑ Ansanbaluiazar,” which
he defines by the formula “Everything issuing from everything and
again returning into everything.” (J.G Bennett,
Subud,
p.120)
The only way
conscious motion, spiritual motion or psychic motion can be useful
for us is in its transformation
for greater consciousness for us.
Conscious motion is lost into the lower motion. There is no
flow of something; there is no flow of heat because in this movement
there are no water flowing, no spirit flowing. The law of
conservation of the energy in the mind is true. The idea of
the indestructibility of conscious spirit is justified ‑ the
non-transformability of conscious energy into lower motion cannot be
accepted at all!
The connection of our consciousness and our
physical body is that of the transformation of the energies of one
into the other. There is no such thing as a spirit that rise
from the physical body into higher existence without lost of part of
the physical into the higher realm. What in fact is the case
is the total disappearance of one form of energy into another during
dead. Conscious energy is the name given to an aspect of brain
in function. We say that other forms of energy have manifested
in this spirited form as the brain works in such and such a manner.
The
psyche-less objects ‑ radio, pen, cups etc. or hypodermic entities
to use J.G Bennett’s own terms ‑ already reflects that the
Common-Cosmic-Ansanbaluiazar
is not at work there. And why? Because the condition for
its existence is not there, and the conscious motion is therefore
also conditioned by the dead objects. The dead is equally
powerful. So far we know that conscious motion pertains only
to the organic world ‑ that the dead hypodermic entities
may become living not by the flow of life force into it but rather
when these entities have developed a high level of material motion,
to creative motion of protein, that the leap into life force is
really the next water-to-steam event. And such a leap is not
possible if the external temperature is a couple of hundred degrees
Fahrenheit because by then all the motion of protein will descend
(its motion) rather than elevating it. This great spirit
Common-Cosmic-Ansanbaluiazar
is also conditioned by definite
laws of lower natures.
It is totally
absurd not to conceive consciousness in terms of levels of motion of
matter. These gentlemen are no better than Engels. (See
Engels, The Dialectics of Nature)
13
One of the causes of the
slowing down and often disrupted octavizating of “Communism” is the
censorship of the existing oppressing state, the different
“teachings” from various groups and organizations both ideological
and religious. All kinds of
Subud
travel fast and some are pets of other social entities. But in
the realm of real problem solving, these people keep silence over as
to how to solve human problems. The original Subud goes for
inner psychological and releases through its well-known
latihan.
These people
think that by awakening the interior of man through
Subud,
the belief in divine and god’s power will increase. But there
is actually no guarantee to this. Man may become more curious
and thus more politically awaken and more dangerous to one another.
Subud
assists the development of higher dimensions of the spirit.
14
Concerning
Subud,
(p.114), J.G. Bennett wrote, “We cannot have a right attitude
towards Subud
unless we grasp one very simple truth. The human mind cannot
honour anything except what reaches it through the human senses:
sight, touch, hearing and the rest.”
15
It does not, however, follow
that there is no reality that our senses cannot perceive.”
Thus ants do indeed see differently from man. The world of
appearance to the ants is different from the world of appearance to
man. Thus Subudism, in a certain respect, studies and reaches
conclusion very similar to Engels’
Dialectics of nature.
Subud
reflects the dialectics of consciousness in man specifically, in the
organic world and universe generally. The dialectics of life
and the dialectics consciousness are not easily distinguishable.
The dialectics of life reflects the motion of proteins, genic
process, creation of species, where the dialectic of consciousness
reflects the higher movement of life, of brain function, of
consciousness, of “soul”, of thinking, etc.
16
The non-presence of
idea-products, by relaxation, by transforming the idea-products into
mere consciousness and a perpetual flow of it is a negation of
idea-product, of imaging (thinking) and the mind elements and is an
intention in the latihan.
"Latihan”
is a Malay and also Indonesian word
meaning “exercise” physical, mental and emotional.
Now this flow of conscious to consciousness needs not at all have to meet with God. For religious man, it is true. For materialists, it is not true. And why? Because he is conscious of matter, the only God.
17
The terminologies used in
Subud
as developed by Bennett include:
1.
Power of the Supreme Lord (p.115)
2.
Power of God (p.115)
3.
Highest level of perfection (p.115)
4.
Lower powers (p.115)
5.
Grace of God (p.115)
6.
Will of God (p. 115)
7.
Satanic power (p.116)
8.
Force of desire (p.117)
9.
Power of material objects (p.116)
10.
Grace from the Almighty (p.111)
11.
Primal Essence, Holy Essence, Holy Spirit
(p.120)
12.
Great life Force (p.121)
13.
Cosmic Impulses (p.124)
14.
Life-giving energy (p.125)
15.
The hidden forces in man (p.130)
16.
Voice of conscience (p.135)
17.
The completion of man (p.139)
18.
The sacred impulse (p.139)
19.
In the hands of God (p.139)
20.
Hope in God (p.142)
21.
His purposes (p.143)
22.
Divine soul (p.144)
23.
Spirit of God (p.148)
24.
Human soul (p.157)
25.
The soul to the reality (p.176)
26.
Evil forces in human life (p.177)
27.
“The revolt is not directed against
injustice and oppression, but against the stupidity.” (p.188)
28.
Power of God (p.189)
29.
The resurrection of the body… (p.127)
30.
Subud Emblem. (p. 119
31.
i. The power of the Supreme Lord
ii. The
power of compassion
iii.
The power of the complete man
iv. The
human power
v. The
animal power
vi. The vegetative power
vii.
The material power *
(a) Animal power
(b) Human power
(c) The power of complete man
(d) The power of compassion
(e) The power of the Supreme Lord
32.
What type of head thinks in this way?
“The
satanic power also dominates the earth itself ‑ that is the material
planet with its earth, water and air.” (p.117)
The question is to what extent this is true?
33.
… to find the way to the true worship of
God (p.103)
34. ....
moment of baptism (p.103)
35. He called these facts (p.38):
i.
That the reappearance of Christ is
imminent
ii.
That the Christ, immanent in every human
heart, can be evoked in recognition of His appearance
iii.
That the circumstances of His return are
only symbolically related in the world. Scriptures; this may
produce vital change in the preconceived ideas of humanity
18
J.G Bennett’s approach to
Subud
is religion. Subud
does not have a rich content of its own and thus it is only a
fragment of the Great Knowledge. By our time, Subud bases can
be traced from Indonesian to
Now this idea
of eternal life or eternal consciousness is fantastic. Here,
it is thought that as your physical body perishes in death, your
soul will leave this physical body and with an ‘I’ that will “cling”
to another body to continue the long journey of the soul except that
nothing has been mentioned about the soul having taken the
menghepuo drink
to remove any possibility of this soul to remember its past or
previous life. Thus Subud
is a result of previous work related ‘I’s that could have prop out
in the
We have no such confidence. When we
die, perishing of our own physical body, ‘I’ also disappears.
This ‘I’ does not prop out of the body into higher existence but
rather perishes as the brain perishes or the functions of the body
stop. When the brain re-emerges in my children.
Certainly ‘I’ is no more the same ‘I’. ‘I am’ only when there
is a brain to produce ‘I am’.
When a man
perishes, “nature” goes dark and then everything will be “nothing”.
For an ordinary human being, there can be no sliding of the ‘I’ into
a higher plane shred off from the old physical bodies. Such is
absolutely false and has been disconfirmed by science. The
sliding of ‘I’ only occurs in the
sublated-conception
of the production and reproduction process of life into the future
generation, and even this ‘I’ and ‘I Am’ will never be the same.
And it is precisely this point which J.G Bennett has not considered
(refer to Subud)
19
The motion of a uniformly
moving spirit, peculiar to Subud
and others, that flows itself from one region of space into another,
from one organic life into another by the pure freedom of smooth
jumping over without transformation, as of the movement of an ‘I’ in
translation motion is a faulty view. This will mean the
vanishing of the reciprocal determination of forms, structures,
functions and discontinuities.
20
The Gurdjieff-Ouspensky teaching
is mysteriously diverted or perhaps intentionally distorted by
J.G Bennett, but not Kenneth Walker. Why?
21
Many has thousands of ‘I’s
and the accompanying ‘its’. These ‘I’s are not yet ‘I AM’.
When it is ‘I AM’ it is real life. The last hour to death is
the important part of this ‘I AM’, ‘I’s and ‘it’s life. The plural
holistic being is about to disintegrate and delivers all its being
psyche hydrogens to become the ‘I’ and ‘it’ of a new born being.
A portion of your ‘I’s become the ‘I’s of another type of being and
another yet another type. Your one group of ‘I’ life can become the
‘I’ lives of a few beings but all have drunk the
menghepuo drink!
There is a law of conservation of life ‘I’s
that holds true for ‘I AM’s, ‘I’s and the accompanying ‘it’s in the
universe. The forms of lives are conserved in the universe as
the life of the Great Universe, and our lives is a form to it.
The physical forms of the body is one thing, the life form of ‘I
AM’s, ‘I’s and ‘it’s is another! This life form is a psychic
matter in the psymattergy!
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