The Subud Archives Team, above: Howard Moneta, Daniela Moneta, Julie Ann Morrill

Subud Archives Update (#4 in a series)
By Daniela Moneta, WSA Archivist, USA

This article appeared in the April 2021 issue of Subud Voice.  

Welcome to the fourth installment of Archives Update. This month we are highlighting the Month of the Ancestors, the time period before the start of Ramadan when we remember and pray for our ancestors. As mentioned last month, Subud members can request access to the Subud Archives website by sending an email to admin@wsaarchives.org.

If you have archival material on any subject that has to do with the history, growth, and development of Subud that you feel is important to preserve for future generations – please send a description of what you have to the archivist at admin@wsaarchives.org and we will get back to you with instructions on how to send it.

HIGHLIGHTED THIS MONTH:
Documents, personal accounts, stories, and videos about the Month of the Ancestors. The Month of the Ancestors starts this year on March 12, a month before the beginning of Ramadan.
Here is just one of the many quotes from Bapak’s recorded talks about our ancestors. This quote was recorded on 8 September 1969 in San Francisco, California (69 SFO 1):

“And the purpose and the result of such good works [the latihan] will be to reduce all the mistakes that are woven into your inner feeling; mistakes that you have inherited. These are the mistakes and the actions that were made by your ancestors, plus your own. They need to be reduced, so that your inner feeling – that is contaminated with mistakes, that is no longer a clean inner feeling – will be a place to be occupied or inhabited by the life force of human beings. That is why the Subud latihan you now receive is an immeasurable help.”

The book Subud Survival Guide by Harry Armytage (can be read online on the Subud Archives website), says this about ancestors:

“Like it or not, we all have them. Some of your ancestors may have led good lives, and some not so good. Unless you are on a very lucky break, it is likely that you have some real work ahead of you to repair the mistakes of your ancestors. Your inherited baggage, going back many generations, is a very heavy burden on all of you.”

From Bapak talk in Coombe Springs on 30 June 1957, (57 CSP3), in Bapak’s Talks, Vol 1, p26. And also:

“. . . if there has been some impurity in an ancestor, it will be carried on and will even increase. If your grandfather had some fault, it will be handed on to his son, your father, and the existing fault will become greater. So, a fault grows even bigger and is multiplied. The fault that comes down to you is doubled . . . (when) taken back to your grandfather, whereas these faults may have descended through many generations.” From Bapak talk, Proof in Subud, in Leicester on 8 July 1970, (70 LCT 1), published also in the early Subud magazine Pewarta Kejawaan Subud, Vol IX, No. 4, p. 109.

Besides explanations in talks by Bapak and Ibu Rahayu about our ancestors and their effect on our lives, some Subud members have written about their experiences. See the paper written by Harold Mason called “Ancestor Problems,” on the secure Subud Archives website and as a separate article in this issue of Subud Voice. Harold Mason was a long-time Subud member and helper, he was the founders of the Subud Portland, USA. In the book by Harris Smart, Sixteen Steps, he has an explanation in the introduction about the Month of the Ancestors.

See also, “The Month of the Ancestors” by Maria (Vivienne) Blake in the Our Subud Stories on the Subud Archives website, and also some advice in The Experiences of Mas Sudarto Martohudojo edited by Solihin Garrard and published by Harris Smart in 2011, which has a lot of information about ancestors.

DOCUMENTS AND REPORTS:
Besides the documents mentioned above, there are others on the Archives website that have been added recently. When on the website, enter in the Search box the words “ancestors,” “purification,” and or “prayer” to see hundreds of entries on these subjects.

DIGITAL BOOKS AND NEWSLETTERS:
ISC Reports from the Wolfsburg administration from 1971 to 1974 (48 issues online and searchable) with many beautiful photographs and lithographs. This was during the time of Richard Engels administration. Richard was an artist and one of the founders of SICA, our cultural and arts wing of Subud. He and his administration produced informative and beautiful newsletters.

MOVIES AND VIDEOTAPED INTERVIEWS:
(including 150+ interviews made for the Memories of Bapak Project, 1995-2000)
Interviews with: Halimah Bellows Rochfort, Lucien Hinkle, Oscar and Elisa Vanderveer, Mardi Arquette, Simone Feldman, Pilar Walsh, Halim Quakenbush, Nduka Akasha, Melinda Wallis, Elna Cooke, Lora Dowson-Collins, Kenneth and Fatijah Clark, Rosalind Bellows, Rusland Reynold Feldman, Emmanual Aronie, Mardiyah Tarantino, Sylvia des Tombe, Harlinah Lyons, to name a few.

PHOTOGRAPHS:
These are historical photographs that you can use (with permission) in your national or local newsletters. Added recently: Bapak’s house in Indonesia, 1970; Bapak in South Africa in 1967; Menucha Kejiwaan Gatherings (over many years); Bapak’s trip to Paris in 1964; Bapak and John Bennett and others in Athens Greece, 1960; and many others. Many people in these photos have been identified, perhaps you can identify more people or want to add your photographs to the collection – write an email to admin@wsaarchives.org.

For those of you who don’t know about the Subud Archives website, here is a video tutorial about what types of material are on the Archives’ website: https://youtube.com/embed/ZelCFWwpnSI, and another tutorial about how to find things on the Archive’s website: https://youtu.be/9OLOV66uryI.

Be sure to support Subud Archives to ensure that our beautiful Subud history will be preserved now and for future generations. Go to this website: https://donatenow.networkforgood.org/1438251?code=wsa0777_thank_you and don’t forget to earmark your donation for the archives.

Tune in next month for what’s new on the Archives’ website. If you missed reading “Archives Update” 1, 2 and 3, see the former issues of Subud Voice to catch up. The Archives website is restricted for Subud members only. The website gives access to historical material that tells the history and development of Subud – today as it is being made and back to the mid-1950s when Subud started to spread around the world.

View this column each month for new material added and see the popular things that members are viewing.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]