The Way of Spiritual Training

I have been frustrated of late by the lack of growth in Subud. Subud's "latihan kejiwaan" (Indonesian for 'spiritual training') is a beautiful gift to humanity that is underappreciated and underutilized.

It is, in one sense, a quite simple phenomenon involving no prior or lead-up training or discipline. On the other hand, it is a profound phenomenon that requires patience and insight to fully appreciate and utilize. It is the subtle profundity of the latihan kejiwaan, devoid of flash and show, devoid of pomp and ceremony, that leads to its underappreciation and underutilization even among those who have at one time or another tried to enter into the training.

The latihan kejiwaan is similar to other spiritual practices. Like Tai Chi and Qi Gong, the latihan kejiwaan involves an experience of the life force flowing through one's body. Like yoga, too, the latihan kejiwaan involves a mind-body discipline that liberates the body and the ego from restraints that have held it back from development. Like Zen, the latihan kejiwaan is a way that emphasizes knocking the reasoning mind out of the driver's seat in order to receive the flow of the universe from its divine sources. Like the mystical forms of the Judeo-Christian-Islamic heritage, the latihan kejiwaan is a way of achieving the unity the self with the divine so that one's worship of God and one's self-development spring from the same source and the same activity.

The advantage of practicing the latihan for me is that it is completely spontaneous. It is completely a matter of experiencing the flow of the chi, or the power of God as we think of it in the Judeo-Christian-Islamic heritage, and learning to flow with, i.e. be guided by, it. The fact that the latihan is so spontaneous has positive and negative aspects, however. For someone who is ready for it, we experience it as a great advantage of systems that teach you physical and mental techniques to get into a state where you can receive this purification and guidance. The other side of that, however, in my experience, is that for the person who is not ready for it, there is little or no spontaneous receiving and the new practitioner becomes frustrated with the whole process.

Subud is not a religion, but is open to all people, including people of all philosophies and faiths.

In my personal life, I was raised as a Christian, but have come to appreciate all spirituality, and all of the world's religions. My approach to religion is rather like Gandhi's when he said that "I AM a Muslim... and a Hindu... and a Jew... and a Christian." He believed as I do that all religions focus on the worship of, and coming into harmony with, the divine, and its truths. Fundamentalist followers of all of these religions would reject me as not a true follower of their faiths, because I am a philosopher and seek the truth not through any particular set of stories or holy texts, but through a combination of prayerful seeking, experience and reason.

The roots of the latihan kejiwaan lie closer to Sufism, I believe, than any other religion, though the gift-bearer who initially taught us about the latihan, Muhammad Subuh Sumohadiwijojo, always emphasized that his association, Subud, was meant to be open to people of all faiths.

But the religious labels don't matter.

What matters is the sincerity of surrender (sacrifice of the ego) to the guiding powers of the divine. We all have the divine spark within us. Jesus taught as much himself. The whole purpose of life is to try to come into harmony with the divine power that flows through the universe. And as a student and teacher of the world's religions, I have found this to be a universal theme.

The Plutonomy

George Will has an interesting editorial this morning that focuses on the work of an economist from Citigroup named Ajay Kapur. Will entitles it "A Lexus in Every Garage," which hearkens back to the campaign theme of Hoover in the 1920s ("A chicken in every pot and a car in every garage!"). Kapur is arguing that statistics about the average consumer are misleading: he says there isn't an average consumer. And some of the statistics he cites are shocking... at least to me.

The nation's wealthiest 1% own more than 1/2 of the nation's stocks.

This same wealthiest 1% controls more wealth ($16 trillion) than 90% of the population does.

The wealthiest 20% are responsible for 60% of the consumption in the U.S.

There are 9.5 millionaires worldwide.

There's such a thing as a "bling index," which has risen more than 300% since 2002. Citigroup has a similar group of stocks that it invests in called the 'Plutonomy Basket' which features the ritziest of shops where people with money shop.

Kapur's point, reflected in the decisions of investors like Citigroup, is that most of us don't really count when it comes to the modern economy. It's the rich who count. And the super rich that count the most.

If you're amongst the wealthy, I suppose you think that the world is just the way it should be. The rest of us are thinking 'something's wrong with this scenario.'

The Presidential Race

I've been busy teaching. Haven't blogged in a while.

It seems to me that the media is busy anointing Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani as the next nominees of their respective parties before we've even had a chance to vote. Both of them are from New York. I wonder if there's a connection? Hmmm.

I had the opportunity to sign a petition asking Al Gore to run. I decided that if he can't decide that for himself, then maybe he's not the right person for this time. So, I'm back in the Obama camp. In his public appearances, he shows his inexperience. But he has good ideas and a good heart, and I like him.