A MEMBER REDISCOVERED - Subud World News

A MEMBER REDISCOVERED
Frere Laurent was opened in California
some 40 years ago. He has spent the last
25 years in a Benedictine monastery in
the south of France.
A few months ago he contacted the
WSA, with a desire to be put in touch
with Subud members in France.
He shares some of his feelings with us
all…
~Richard Harvey
Frere Laurent with Richard
“Though it has been many years since I was opened to the practice of latihan, it has
only been a few months now, about a half a year, that I have returned to it. What
could I possibly share with you who have been at it faithfully for some time?
I have been a monk for 25 years and my monastery is in the south of France.
Latihan had been practiced in another French monastery, introduced there by John
Bennett, but, after a few years, it was discontinued without having left a trace upon
the collective memory. The young archivist of this monastery has shown me the
kindness of being willing to study the documents where the memory may still be
hidden.
Latihan fell from the sky upon a young man in the Dutch East Indies in 1932. And
it falls upon us all like that when we are opened. It is like a thief who enters a
perfectly guarded house through a passageway unknown to its owners.
Latihan is an experience, Bapak tells us, that reaches beyond thinking, desire and
imagination. But that excludes all our known machinery! It does indeed. What
happens is that the thief enters not to steal but to touch our selfhood and make it
known to us.
Submission is the most difficult experience because it is not an effort.

Latihan visited me again this time perhaps because I was at a point when I could
listen. In fact, I had joined a little group of monks who meets three evenings a week
to listen to music. On one of these evenings, preparing for bed, I stood still, and in a
moment my arms rose in a gesture of prayer – and then the dance began.
I wrote to Subud International and was put in contact with Richard and Marianne
Harvey. They have visited me twice and Richard and I have done latihan together
in a room in the guesthouse - the guestmaster had been "prepared". I spoke to
Father Abbot about it. I explained it as it is often explained, adding that it was for
me a transparent experience, one that did not block any aspect of my monastic life.
What most pleased him, I said that it was not an "engouement" (a bewitching
fascination). My love for India and its spirituality had been so for me, and having
recognized it as such, I found it necessary to place it for a time in a drawer.
I have found three steps or levels in my experience of latihan. The first is that of the
movements. The second is an awareness of the effects of the experience upon my
life. Most forcefully, it has subdued the power of imagination. The inner cinema
seems to stop, or if it continues, I find that I can simply get up and leave! In this
second step there is for me, as a monk, a reawakening of devotional practices that I
had abandonned some years ago. I listen to the readings during the liturgy with an
ear that captures a new meaning. If there is a term that best describes this second
step, it is that it is a cleansing. The third step I will describe by the use of an image :
the sound of a violin in an inner room. One has to be still to hear it. In making a
gesture of prayer, one finds that the prayer is not in the gesture, and it is not I who
am praying. One finds oneself , if one can be still for a moment, simply in the
presence of prayer.
Being an isolated member I do latihan in my cell about ten minutes each morning,
and the same before retiring. It fits into the structure of my day as snugly as a
window slipped in the place that had been prepared for it. I would hope to invite
another brother monk to join me, but I do not believe that it is yet the time for
that.”