My First Helper Experience

by Benedict Herrman

Quite a number of years ago when I had just become a newly minted helper in Los Angeles (still waiting for the card to arrive, as I recall) a brother pulled me aside after latihan and with a troubled look on his face, said he wanted to talk privately. We found a quiet spot in an empty office and closed the door. He took a deep breath and spoke:

“I’m questioning if Subud is the right thing for me,” he said earnestly, his eyes unfocussed on the outside world, looking instead within. “I just… I don’t know. I’m just not…” His unfinished sentence hung in the air as he then looked at me hoping for an answer of some kind — an assurance, positive reinforcement, something to help guide him through the difficult, murky waters of spiritual search. It was a powerful moment. This wasn’t the usual question I watched the helpers get — should I do so and so, move to this city, take this job, etc. This was a brother honestly questioning his path, and it was also the first time I had been called into service as a helper for advice and guidance.

I felt that he was expecting to hear why he should stay and continue doing his latihan faithfully, trust in God and ignore the devious nafsu so obviously intent on diverting him from the gift we’ve received from God through Bapak’s tireless efforts. What I felt to say, however, was completely different:

“You should quit Subud, then,” I said, not quite believing that I was saying these words — but somehow, it felt right. “In the end, there’s nothing but you and God. Only you are responsible for your relationship with God, so if Subud isn’t the path for you, go find the one that works for you.”

The young man was a bit taken aback. We talked a bit more, then he thanked me for my time, got up and left the room. I reflected upon what had just happened, still feeling that my response was the right one, regardless of the choice he would eventually make.

Each time we do our latihan, we surrender to God voluntarily because the latihan is our chosen path to worship God, or Allah, or whatever name feels best. (Bapak actually preferred Great Life Force.) Many of us church-shopped in our youth looking for God in the conventional places and found nothing to our liking, others happened upon the latihan by ‘chance,’ and still others came in because of the influence of someone we knew and respected. That doesn’t matter. At the end of time itself, long after our planet is consumed by the dying sun, after the galaxies stop their slow, majestic spinning through endless space, after there is nothing anywhere anymore but the deepest of silence, we will stand before God, alone… for in the end, there is only God, who loves us more than we can possibly imagine, let alone understand.

Oh, yes, the brother I advised to quit Subud? Thirty-eight years later, he is still practicing his latihan and has been both a local and Regional Helper. Seems like he made the right choice.