The Second Coming.

“There is shortly a time coming when Subud will be locked away in a shell; this shell shall form
over the next five years and will harden until finally the real Subud will be
locked away. It will be replaced by a False Subud...”
January, 1987

Here is what remains clear in my recollection.
(some names have been changed to protect the privacy of individuals)

On a weekend of late January, in 1987, some five months before Bapak’s death, an
Asian zone helper’s gathering was held in St. John’s College, Sydney. There
were about 60 participants from around the region. I was one.
The three day event, an attempt to calm a sea of issues that Subud apparently
faced, was a dawn to midnight almost frenetic working session of testing,
latihan and discussion. The sixty participants were divided into three working
groups of twenty, men and women. ‘Result orientated’ I guess you would call it
nowadays.
By late afternoon Sunday, the final day, we were truly exhausted by our efforts and likely not much wiser for them. However we were enjoined to summarize our results and recommendations as best we could for the record.
Sometime about 3 o’clock in the afternoon my group sat in a circle at the far end of the
upstairs hall of St. Johns, while the other two groups, also consisting of twenty
helpers, met elsewhere. Raymond Van Sommers was our group leader.
Once we were seated Raymond took out a small note pad, and a pen, and poising it above the pad, said, “Is there anything to report?”
We sat reflectively.
It
was then that I noticed a blue light appear over the shoulder of someone about
3 or 4 seats away from me, and no sooner noticed but it sped around the entire
circle uniting us all in a flash of pale, electric blue.
The change was instantaneous; a
total alteration of state in which much of the territories of personal self
were lost. I merged in a total sympathetic ‘one-ness’ with the inner feelings
of all of those men and women with whom I was sitting. There was no longer me
and them. There was only ‘we’, as one. This I will insist was a mutual
condition enjoyed by all.
The
very first thought which moved through my mind as this unexpected grace settled
on us was: “our struggle this weekend was vain and pointless, for this, now
given effortlessly, is what we sought, this, coming unbidden, beyond
expectation, the truth: that we are one, one family, one life. This is the
essence. This is Subud.”
Not
one of us spoke for there was nothing to say, and most interesting, no reason
to speak for we were all in perfect communion; our inner borders had vanished,
as had our desires to be smart, cute, or anything else.
Raymond’s
question, however, still hovered in the air and someone answered from within
this blue mist,
“I
think something new has been born”.
As
a chorus we hummed our approval and Raymond dutifully jotted it upon his
notepad. And that was the end of it. No more could be said. No more words would
be jotted upon that pad. It was the best we could do. We sat still, simply
resting in the delicious and utterly peaceful warmth of this remarkable
feeling.
Despite any claims to the contrary that might arise from anyone else present at this
‘occurrence’ I will here insist that we all did experience what I described
above. I say this because I was ‘them’ and ‘they’ I. Any difference of opinion
on this I will insist are cases of stolen memories. It is that understanding I
require of readers in continuing to apply ‘benefit of doubt’ to this story as I
continue.
It was then, as we luxuriated in this state, that someone appeared at the far
doorway, holding up a tape recorder.
”Do you need one of these?” they said. We were as one body turned, and a little
confused by the question having, as one body, no idea what they could possibly
mean.
“What for?” we asked, innocently fascinated.
“Well, some of us are finding we have so much to report that is it quicker to record
our comments and recommendations.”
We all, simultaneously, found this thought comical, and as one, could not restrain
a smile at the thought of putting ‘this’ on tape. It could not be put into
words. It was everything, finished, the goal of ‘Subud’ made life, realised.
What could we say?
“Thankyou, that’s all right," one of our mouths responded politely, and they left.
We now knew that we were alone in this experience, or so it would seem. Only the
mad creatures that we had been 4 minutes ago would be trying to solve the
mystery with tape recorders.
We floated, now the new born of a future world, downstairs, many still shoeless in
that lovely summer heat.
It was time for the finally assembly of all the groups together and soon we composed
a circle of about 60 persons. Each group gave a mercifully truncated version of
their recommendations. Raymond dutifully read, “Something new has been born”
and sat down again, no one questioning his extreme brevity.
Then came the next ‘event’.
The chairlady, sitting a few seats away from me, thanked everyone, and pointed out
that many would shortly have to be leaving for their homes elsewhere in
Australia and overseas. We were all seated.
She said, “Would anyone like to do this again?”
In my understanding, and perhaps in the brains of the others smitten with the
utter grace that had happened upstairs, she was speaking of that blue magic we
were feeling… and indeed upon those words she stood up. As she stood, as if by
prior agreement, all of us were drawn up like 60 puppets on strings, standing
spontaneously as one, and as we did I saw fly, once again the blue vaporous
flash that had licked over our smaller group in the hall only a while earlier,
now linking everyone in this much larger circle; now one family, one feeling,
one inner, inseparable.
The feeling was not to be described when I was feeling it, so it is pointless to
try and give it words now- when I am not. We might as well have all been turned
into apple trees. But I trust somewhere in our experience of the Great Life we
all know what I am trying to describe here.
As we then made to part from one another it became clear that the usual social
graces of hugs and goodbyes had no tangible context anymore. We could not
separate, no matter if we left the room or even the planet we were still one,
uniquely close, inseparable within.
There were, I now saw, lights in the faces of many. For example I will mention Harold
Temple: a regimented bastion of the working helper, a fount of fortitude and strong
belief, and a man whose face was usually somewhat dark and touched with
concern. One eye was afflicted with a tick that almost permanently fluttered
from some deep inner tension. That ‘Harold’, in this moment, was gone. The man
who turned to me had a face shining in a clear yellow light that literally
bloomed and streamed from his cheeks and brow. His usually dark in-turned
expression was now utterly open, transformed by this wondrous, palpable love
that poured off him like water. The tick had vanished and his eyes were deep,
quiet and clear, his look into me instantly conveying a beautiful grace that
struck me so as to nearly burst tears from my eyes. I could actually hear his
inner calling out to God in gratitude.
Transformations of this kind were on the faces of many as I looked about. And there were no
words for it. We could not have said what was happening to us.
As many left I waited outside for my lift. I sat on a bench next to a tree outside
the entrance. Someone sat next to me I recall. I have forgotten whom and would
like to know. We had our shoes off. It was then that the first ‘miracle’
occurred.
Several of us had habitually used this bench to sit and smoke between the sessions.
There were always tiny ants coming from the trees. Thousands of them. They had
always been annoying and would have to be constantly brushed off ones feet
while sitting here. This time, as we sat, bare footed, and in the ‘newborn’
world, we noticed something. The ants ‘refused’ to come closer than 2 inches
from our feet and would divert as if they had met with a force field. Like a
couple idiots we were fascinated by this and moved our feet right into the
streaming path of the ants. Again, they diverted, forming a path as if hitting
this force field around our feet. Like a couple of nitwits we now fully
employed ourselves at playing with this ‘forcefield’, watching them hit the
invisible barriers. Such was the ‘miracle’ of the ants.
I was to stay on the next 2 days in Sydney before returning by train to Adelaide. My first night would be with my dear friends Karen and Daniel. Daniel was a painter moved by wonderful dark
shadows he brought into a compelling reality upon the canvas. The helpers in
their wisdom had recently suggested he choose between hash and Subud membership.
Karen, a woman of remarkable passion and a truly gifted singer, had continued
in the group.
She and Daniel had made spaghetti for dinner. This spaghetti was like no spaghetti I had ever tasted. I could not believe anything could be so delicious or that my friends had been able to
steal this formula from the angels. It was rapturous. Later I was to realise
that I was actually ‘stoned’. Not that I had smoked anything. But Daniel had,
and that was enough, for I was ‘with’ him.
I delighted at their disparaging comments about Subud that night, a voice saying “nothing of this matters, for all is done of God, and of nothing else is anything done”. I said that all
would soon change utterly in Subud and a new reality of the latihan was soon to
come to us. They laughed playfully at my evangelical confidence. I was
certainly charismatic if nothing else and spent the evening enjoying their
playful warmth.
I could not sleep. There was no tiredness in me. Not a speck. About 11, after Daniel retired, Karen came out and sat with me, taking a glass of good Australian red. As she drank I became
drunk. It was delightful. I was clearly uniting with the conditions of those
around me. And no hangover.
She went to bed, the ‘drunkenness’ leaving the room with her, and I sat. No sleep would come, nor bordom. Just sitting and breathing was interesting. Till morning.
The next day I was to spend the night with my other old Sydney friends, Robin and Ruth. Robin and I had discovered and joined Subud together, and had been opened together. Something
bonded us within although we had little worldly traffic with one another,
living a thousand kilometres apart.
I spent that day observing; watching, and beginning to realise that instead of my thinking and feelings returning to the normal chaos and buzz that would have characterised them,
somehow they were deepening in their quiet. I was now able to see and
understand things in a way I had never experienced before, truly ‘see’ the
conditions of those about me. But unable to speak, unable to help, yet indeed,
I saw.
I was somewhat experienced in ‘crisis’ and my expectation was that this state would deteriorate and I would return to normal. However, this was not happening. If anything I sensed it seem
to go deeper or penetrate other parts of my self.
1987 was a time when the struggles and confusions of Darling Harbour still festered, particularly among those Sydney members who were necessarily close to its fomentations. Robin was,
like many, annoyed with the goings on. That evening after dinner, sitting on
the couch, me opposite him on the lounge chair, he began to assail me with his
concerns. This went on for an extraordinarily long time and was not really
characteristic of him. I just listened, unable to speak, and in a way, not really
understanding. After a while the youngest of his two boys, Mathew,(maybe he was
8 or nine months old), began to cry. Or it might seem a cry. I heard no cry but
the clear and perfectly pronounced word “Ayah”, meaning, I knew, ‘father’. It
was repeated over and over, stridently, evenly, loudly, and demandingly by this
baby boy. He was upstairs with his mother, Ruth.
Robin continued to talk as if oblivious to the crying. Finally Ruth brought Mathew down, planning to calm him, and sat next to Robin on the couch. Mathew kept up his calling relentlessly
with no change in tone or pace.
What happened next was an experience that will never leave me. Mathew, sitting on Ruth’s lap was looking at his father intently, and, from my perspective, calling out to him, indeed
saying “Ayah”, “Father”. This might not be remarkable. But then the child
suddenly turned to me full face. I found myself looking into the eyes of a vast
being of tremendous maturity and depth who then spoke to me saying “Wake up my
father! He is asleep! Wake him up!”
I was naturally utterly shocked that a baby was talking to me and forced to realise that I was not in the world as I had always known it. I had become conscious at a level I did not know
existed for these human creatures we are. Mathew and I were talking.
Impossible. But as I turned and looked at his father I now saw that what the child was saying was true. Robin was talking in his sleep, with his eyes open! He was not with us, a zombie! Asleep!
And now that I saw what the child saw my heart thumped in fear at this new view
of things. I cannot now begin to explain this fear we held for Robin , knowing
that this is not such an uncommon condition for most of us, and knowing further
that only those who have experienced what i am describing will have any sense
of it's 'significance'.
Robin reached over and took Mathew up, as any of us would, and held and played with him, raising him in the air, chuckling him and so forth, but to no avail. The calling continued, seemingly even more desperate and fearful for his father’s state.
Giving up, Robin returned Mathew to his mother and she took him upstairs, the baby still calling out steadily and leaving me with the job of fulfilling his request.
I spoke for the first time that evening. “Does Mathew usually do this?”
Robin seemed shaken. “No. Never.
He is never like this.”
“Well”, I said. “perhaps we should do what Bapak suggests, when a boy child is upset the father can do latihan nearby till his normal state is restored”
Robin agreed enthusiastically to the idea and suggested we could do latihan in the front room. It was near midnight.
We began latihan. It was with that innocent beginning that all would end for me.
We could still hear Mathew calling, but within minutes of starting the latihan, if not within seconds, he abruptly stopped. And not another word from him.
We continued our latihan and starting from this position of extreme inner quiet that had developed, I was ripe, I suppose, for what then happened.
It began with a powerful tingling of the kundalini, in the base of my spine, a coarse electrical like vibration. Suddenly I felt a rushing sensation as this vibration moved upwards into the
next ‘chakra’ (that will have to be the word) and I was taken along with it,
feeling my ‘head’ burst through some kind of ‘ceiling’ and the vibration
becoming now refined, sweet, zinging. This then happened again, and again, each
time finer and more exquisite, and accompanied by a feeling now of unthinkable
movement through vast space at speeds that would have to be cited as finally
reaching light years per second, and very real as such. Much more real than
flying or any type of movement on this earth, or that I had experienced as a
pilot.
This happened five times; the breaking through ceilings and the refining on this ‘trip’. It shot me off into a to a very distant part of the universe. As I sped away I was ‘informed’ about
what was going on.
I was terrified for I knew very well that I had died and was returning to the ‘origin’. I saw the distance back to ‘earth’, to my family, to my children. It was so utterly vast that there
would be no hope of return. I cannot now explain this except to say this
‘seeing’ was with my inner eyes. I also ‘knew’ as I was ‘travelling’ that I was
taking my body and the earth ‘with me’ to this distant place. I felt an
anguished snap in my heart, thinking I would never see my children again.
On the ‘fifth floor’ and at a distance I fully experienced as literally light years from the earth this
incredible elevator came to a slamming halt. I still had my eyes closed. And
this ‘I’ who now writes this story was but a tiny squeaking mass of terror and
awe crumpled up pathetically somewhere near my left ear hole. There was a vast
presence, a sense of consciousness and ‘being’ previously unimaginable to me. I
asked, again with my eyes still closed, “Where am I?”
Said a voice very clearly, “Your head is beneath the footstool of the Lord” and as I stood in this space I knew this was true, I knew then that I had awakened from a dream, from the dream of
life; knew that I had been asleep all this ‘life’ and all that had transpired
back there on earth, had been nothing more than a dream. This was reality, this
was Awake. The dream was over. No other description gives meaning to this, I
had awoken.
The august perfection of this
place; this realisation of self, of absolute location, of who and where,
standing in the center of a vibration that reached out to and was the power in
the sun and stars streaming back into this center, this Heart, a vibration and
a force that has no equivalent here in this earthly dream, a completeness, a desire-less
perfect resolution of all questions, a compounding of all desires at once met,
realised, the end and beginning of this 'mankind'. the thunderous vast pounding
wonder of it, a consuming, boundless, unbound.. i cannot begin to reach what i
would want to say for language cannot climb the first step and i fall back,
again wordless, feeling myself nothing but a confounded apple tree, knowing
only the vagaries of the wind and rain. forgetful...
Then came a sensation, growing in force, not unlike standing straddling a railway line, your back turned, when you know the 600 ton Super Chief is barrelling down on you at a hundred miles an hour. My back rippled in expectation. It hit.
I must say, having no other choice, that I disappeared with shock of that collision; ‘I’, that whimpering clot huddled near the left ear hole, although something remained to be a
witness to what then transpired.
In what followed occurred the understandings and spoken things that were later to be taken away from me. I will call myself here ‘Him’ and ‘He’ as there is no other way to do it. It
would not be right to say ‘I’. So let it be understood that what ‘I’ had become, what I was experiencing as ‘me’ was utterly alien to my whole life’s experience of ‘me’.
His eyes burst open with the shock. He did not know this place. He did not know what the ‘latihan’ was or ‘Subud’. Everything was made out of a living force, and this living force was
the flesh of all appearance. Standing directly and only inches in front of Him
was another man, with his eyes closed. He did not know the man, who was quite
asleep, asleep standing up. He thought it curious that this man should be
asleep like this, standing up, and He placed His hands on the man’s shoulders
and gently shook him to wake him up. Slowly, very drowsily, the man’s eyes
opened. It was then, looking into the man’s eyes that a terrific shock took Him
and He cried out in surprise “My Brother! My Brother! Not since the Days of
Adam have we met and now I have found you!”
I must stop and describe this.
In front of Him / me, was my/His brother. This was as confounding and real a meeting as if here in this life we
were to be introduced to someone as the long lost brother whom we had not seen
since a child, or a brother we never knew we had; a lost and forgotten brother.
He in fact called him His ‘long lost brother’. He did not know this was ‘Robin
of Sydney’, or even that there was a 'Sydney' or a ‘Robin’. He (and I) were in
the realm of Adam, under the footstool of the Lord of Heaven. This man in front
of Him was His REAL, true, and original brother, the feeling and the force of
that relationship making pale anything previously portending to be “brother”.
The ‘brotherness’ of this being
before Him shattered home; a transforming delight like some reconciliation
after a thousand lifetimes; a millennia of search ended.
Although at this stage ‘I/Him was
to speak things about the ‘Days of Adam” these words have been lost to me, these
secrets. Not to be taken from the place I presume. For that is where I was,
that Place. That I utterly knew, little blood clot though ‘i’ was.
All of this was still taking
place in an aura of consciousness being easily a 100 times more ‘aware’ than
this awareness we think we have in this dream in which we swim now, dwarfing
the awareness produced, say, by LSD.
This was a Real world, and the
place of returning. That I knew.
He, that spirit now occupying me,
spoke in a thundering voice. Ruth would later remark that she was worried that
the neighbours would call the police. It was truly loud. And this blast was
mostly into the ‘sleeping’ face of the man standing in front of me, and upon
his awakening. He spoke not in modern English but in the thee and thou’s of the
King James version of the Bible. A stilted, inspired, and, truly thundering
prophet like voice that was certainly not mine.
But this was not the end of
things. After the awakening of ‘my’ brother. And those thunderings of the
things of Adam, we were now standing peacefully in the front room, in silence.
For 'me' it was the ‘front room’ that I had dragged 100’s of light years
through space to this distant and gigantic ‘world of Adam’. For the 'Him'
occupying me, it was a place He was visiting. I don’t want to even begin to try
to explain this.
Now, suddenly, I knew ‘who’ I
was. And where; and that this included that far far place, Sydney, and that
vacuous dream I had lived and called my life. Further, I knew that standing
within my being now was another.
Robin moved to the hallway and
then turned to me and spoke his first and only words. “I am so glad you have
come again.” An odd choice of words without pretext.
I was standing as he spoke, not
as I ever would, but my hands (His hands) were folded in a gentle X over my
heart, rather suggestive of something. I said nothing but moved closer to him
and bowed my head, my hands still crossed upon me. As I looked down at my bare
feet I saw, not my feet, but His. Tears fled silently from my eyes at this sight,
the most beautiful feet I have ever seen. His feet.
I realized He had come again and
was with us.
My experience, as I would later
confirm, was the coming of the Lord, (for me Christ Jesus) into my body. That
is what had blasted the smithereens out of me.
Bapak had said once. “The ‘Second
Coming’ of Jesus Christ is when he comes to into you personally (or maybe ‘to
you’).”
The Lord said nothing, my tears
falling on to his utterly beautiful feet.
We walked silently back into the sitting room. But
it was not I who walked.
Now I knew the meaning of what Jesus said, in
full:
In my Father's house are many
mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for
you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive
you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also. And whither I go ye
know, and the way ye know.
We sat quietly for a while in the
still house. Finally Robin got up and took out the trash. (Well, it was trash
night!) Then he said good night. I was left alone. But certainly not alone.
An angel flashed through the
corner of the room. The One spoke and I learned many things of the Christ. He
explained what I was feeling, an utterly indescribable sadness:
“That which I suffered, they know
not of, and what they think I suffered, that I suffered not.”
I learned too, of The One; the
nature of the True Human being. I learned that there is only one. And it is
this within us all that binds us as one family, the child of the father. Only
one.
Within a half hour the ‘Christ
state’, which was definitely too much for my old wine-skins, had mercifully
begun to drop off but I was still enjoying abilities I did not know we could
have. I was able to turn my awareness inwards and see the interior of my body
and keep going till I could see at the cellular level, down to the very shining
single cells of my flesh. With His eyes I now saw all things. And there was
opened to me every secret and everything spoke. But not only did every little
thing in that room speak, and speak of secrets, of my friends, and of the
handling and creation of those things and their authors, but also, in the
corner of the room was a suit case, belonging to ‘Luke’. To me. And it was
enough to look at it and its contents to know more about myself than I could
bear to know. I had to leave the house, which was now becoming a cacophony of
horrors calling out to me, the horror of our lives, the dark curling livery of
the unforgiven to which we were usually oblivious. That He had to suffer.
I left the house and left the
door ajar, not having a key of my own to get back in and not wishing to disturb
my friends. I would spend the rest of the night roaming, sleepless, and knowing
the real meaning of “the birds have their nests, and the foxes their holes, but
the son of man has no where to lay his head, and to rest”.
Sleep, in the sense of ‘losing
consciousness’ simply could not occur.
At dawn I was made to pray in the
nearby park, near a tree I had been talking to earlier.
I had ‘come down’ a lot since the
condition of that ‘Second Coming’ and in fact longed to be ‘normal’ again and
just me. But it was not to be. Not yet. And there was something else in store
for me, that which gives me the purpose for this writing.
The next morning Ruth made a lovely
breakfast and Mathew seemed returned to being a normal Baby. Robin then took me
to the train station. I had not slept now for perhaps 72 hours and would not
sleep on this 24 hour journey home to Adelaide either. Many things occurred on
that train journey, a catelog of ‘crisis’ manifestations.
On the Sydney to Melbourne leg I
had to sit next to someone with a supply of that day’s newspapers. Curiously, I
was to notice that several of the articles my travel-mate was reading were
producing an extremely fine brown dust which misted off them like steam from
fresh coffee. I peeked a bit and found that they were ‘gossip’ or ‘character
assassinating’ articles.
From departure on the Melbourne
leg till arrival in Adelaide two Chinese children glued them selves to me and
insisted I must be educated in the joys of Chinese Poker. Hundreds of giggling
hands were passed in this simple pastime. It was a relief to be protected by
children from the adults on the train who were giving off dark masses of
unpleasant information about themselves.
Early into this section of the
journey I had noticed a young man rather intensely watching me. I knew why.
While I was having a smoke break
between the cars (those were the days!) he approached me, mentioned that he had
to get off at the next station, and that he had noticed the attentions of the
young children to me. We then passed a few remarks about the children as one
would about a turn of pleasant weather. Then he said “I have to get off at
Bordertown.” And looked into my eyes, imploring. Asking.
Brothers and Sisters, I have been
reluctant to include this part of the story when telling it for it involves a
terrible shame that I, to this day have not shaken off. I tell it as a lesson,
as much to myself as to anyone who would wish to understand more of ‘who’ we
are.
I saw his question, as clearly as
if it were written on a neon signboard. Words rose in my throat, and would be
spoken. “It is alright, You will find what you are looking for. Have faith in
your inner voice. It will guide you, within the next two months, to a path.
Listen to that voice.”
I did not let such drivel come
out, rather I bit my tongue and said sensibly and with an offhand disinterest,
“well, Bordertown heh? Right then, see ya.”, striding away to avoid further communication.
I assure you I did not get more
than ten meters before I was accosted with a massive attack of shame that sent
me running to the toilet like someone suffering from severe dysentery. There I
burst into tears of disgrace, even of grief, spending the next 15 minutes
asking for forgiveness for such behaviour.
In brief I returned home in full blown crisis, not knowing whether my ‘true self’ or my ‘ordinary’ self would
move my body or my speech at any moment as they struggled for position. This
condition was something that I was more familiar with as I was the professional
‘crisis’ case in our group, having, lets say, 'had a few'.
My wife, Fidelia, picked me up at Adelaide station, and was immediately aware that I was not my usual self. On arriving home I was feeling extremely vulnerable, like someone without a passport caught in an airport security check. These were lovely children I thought, but they weren’t ‘mine’.
I immediately sat in the living room of this family’s home, on their sofa
chair, fixing myself in it’s secure comfort. There then occurred something that
remains a puzzle to me to this day. As I sat my five children came into the
room and sat down cross-legged at my feet in a perfect semi-circle in front of
me, formal, silent, and with veneration, a quality of feeling I cannot recall
normally receiving from them. I must presume it was not I to whom they were
drawn but another.
I was not able to speak immediately of what had happened to me. An early attempt was stifled by a powerful clutching of my throat by a force that literally took my voice away,
physically preventing me from speaking. But Fidelia, who knew there was
something going on, wanted an explanation. Nothing clenched at my throat during
this attempt. I proceeded.
We were sitting up in bed. I had told her of the events I have described here, but this first recounting of these events caused, I can only say, something new to occur.
Suddenly, as I spoke to Fidelia, my forearms- my hands to my elbows- began to buzz and burn in etheric flames, and as they ‘burned’ I began to speak, not of the things that had happened, but
of things that had not yet happened. Bapak’s picture, which was in the room,
spun faces, not his face, but the faces of thousands of people, taking the
shape of what I believed to be every member, every child of his.
The voice spoke of many things.
Among those things was something pretty close to this:
“There is shortly a time coming
when Subud will be locked away in a shell; this shell shall form over the next
five years and this will harden until finally the real Subud will be locked
away. It will be replaced by a False Subud, and this False Subud (that was the
term used) will reign for seventeen years. Only then, after this time, shall
the True Subud break out from its shell and come out again, reborn.”
The voice also said that the
experience I had in Sydney was not unique to me and that fourteen other people
had also been given this experience, and that by the late nineties a total of
45 Subud members would have had this kind of experience. And it spoke of new
souls, real human souls, coming into the world.
For prophecy and channelling
buffs you can calculate that the year of ‘rebirth’ of the ‘true Subud’ should
be 5 plus 17 years after 1987 or 2009 or
immediately ‘after’- that is 2010.
Five months after I had this experience,
Bapak died.
The flaming arms thing was to
happen to me on a couple more occasions. The second time was when I was working
ad hoc to the organising committee of the Kalimantan Congress. I was visiting
Bachtiar Larot at Wisma Subud in Jakarta. He innocently asked me how the
congress plans and so forth were going in Palangka Raya, where I lived at the
time. This was November, some three months before the Dayak-Madura War, and 7
months before the planned World Congress.
Suddenly I felt a change come
over me and my arms lit up, burning, as in 1987, in those gaseous electrical
flames. In a changed voice, my vocal chords no longer mine, I uttered: “There
shall be no congress as they plan.” Then this ‘voice of prophecy’ continued,
getting darker, adding that every enterprise of Subud in Kalimantan would
sooner or later come to naught.
I here can’t prevent myself from
also adding that as the voice spoke I seemed to see Michelangelo’s Hand of God, in a kind of mixture of Divine
Glee and Anger, smashing all our work up there. And I should mention that one
of the enterprises was my own.
The flames died away from my
arms, the voice left, and you might say I was left feeling a little awkward.
We finished our cups of tea.
.
Postscript: I wrote the above
back in 2007. I have often thought about what it might be that is missing or
changed about Subud after Bapak’s death. The latihan is certainly still with us
and its potential seems unchanged. What many agree has changed is that which we
might call ‘The Family Feeling”; that unique sense of real relationship that
bonded us to one another so intimately in the days when our father, Bapak, was still
with us. Many feel that it was just this that has been lost or taken away.
The awareness of this and an
emerging focus on finding a way to return to it seems to have become very
important in the last couple years. It was never a policy or a practice when we
felt it in the old days, rather it was a condition of being that came naturally.
I suspect that it is unlikely that
policy or practice can return it, but rather that it will be returned to us
within the fold of changes already occuring,
or those shortly to come. These changes I explore in a small book entitled 2012:
The Generosity Factor which the interested reader can find on Lulu or
Amazon.com
Imron Comey

Note: I am certain that a number
of people had experiences similar to my own at the very same time as I. Daniel
Jansse I believe was one. He was to tell his wife Rosanna and friends that some
shatteringly powerful event had happened to him around the time of the Sydney
gathering, seemingly well beyond anything he could have expected to exist
within the Latihan. Through the remainder of his life he remained unsure that
he could ever share this story.
Finally,
not long before he passed away, Daniel told Rosanna that if God did not take
him through his illness, that he would share the story with her. Daniel was to
pass away feeling the experience must have been for himself only, and he and
God know best.