A MEMBER REDISCOVERED - Subud World News

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.”