Strikingly, Subud is an international spiritual movement without leaders. It has no rules and just one spiritual practice. Absent any authority, Subud’s “members” have no single, authoritative conception of god among them. Some members choose to “submit themselves to the will of almighty god” (who one just knows is a man), while others choose to surrender to the goddess, or the trinity, mixed pantheons, the earth, the universe, a value, an idea or the void.
But strikingly, Subud’s members choose to do so together, in mixed communitarian worship. Which sounds strangely utopian. Absent any official doctrine, it is a challenge to describe their worship—which happens behind closed doors. It has a promisingly esoteric name, the “Latihan Kejiwaan,” but that is only a common Indonesian phrase meaning, “spiritual exercise.”
When asked, each Subud member had a profoundly different description of their worship, freely improvising purely personal descriptions from the pure phenomenology of the spiritual experience.
One member described Latihan to me like this: “Imagine shopping at Safeway among random strangers, when suddenly, the archangel Michael of burning brand rips the whole roof off the building. How would people react to the sudden proof and immediate presence of god? They would lose their sh**, right? Some would sing, while others danced; some would cry, others knelt, while still others rolled around on the ground speaking in tongues.” Kind of sounds like an old school art jam to me.
A second practitioner, describing the exact same practice, put it to me like this: “The Latihan is like coming in from the garden, where you were doing dirty work, and washing your boots—it’s a spiritual cleanse.”
I’m guessing here, but perhaps those two wildly different descriptions of the same exercise fit together as form and function where a refreshing and spiritual cleanse is the effect of spontaneous ecstatic worship.
A third attempt at clarifying what Subud is was provided by Meldan Heaslip—a long-standing member and “helper” at the Marin chapter of Subud (there are chapters all over the world). As we spoke, Heaslip was at pains to emphasize that he is not an official representative and has no special authority within the movement. He also spoke in a gentle Irish brogue.
Cincinnatus Hibbard: How do you do the Latihan? What is the instruction?
Meldan Heaslip: The only instruction that goes with the exercise is that we “let go.”
I understand what “results” is a spontaneous worshipful expression. So apart from the form, perhaps go through the stages?
Well, before beginning the exercise, we start with 10-15 minutes of quiet, sitting meditation. Then, everyone stands up, and for the next half hour, people are following whatever comes to them, which usually manifests in the form of movement, maybe singing—chanting, or being very quiet and still. The goal is that this is totally authentic and completely unique—no one copying anyone else.
Across that half hour, there is a period in which one is energetically throwing off what’s happening in their life right now—which is cleansing. Then I find there is a period of prayer or being filled with grace. And then, sometimes, if I am lucky, there is also an element of receiving guidance.
Interesting. It seems like the Latihan is zazen sitting meditation, primal scream therapy, ecstatic dance and prayer rolled into one.
Subud is not for everyone. But for those that like meditation and movement and yoga, want to be a part of something without leaders or dogma and are searching for something that is both deeply spiritual and incredibly practical, then just maybe there is something here for you.
Learn more.: subudcalifornia.org/subud-california-at-marin/
