Bronte,

You're really struggling with this one, aren't you? The way I hear it, you desperately want someone to validate the pain you're in with Subud, but you don't want to undermine the experiences you've had which truly do come from God.

I think that everyone who joined or truly believed in ANY kind of teaching did so because we were truly, truly, truly looking for the TRUTH - that perfect God who would solve all problems and make everything right.

Unfortunately Subud is, at least round here, very much a Gurdjieff-inspired group. Most of my helpers were ageing Coombe-Springers and indeed it's that aspect of Subud I was most exposed to. As I've said before, I was 3rd generation, my grandfather was a "Searcher" who was in and out of pretty much all of the groups mentioned above. He ended his life as a Sufi. He was very much looking for "the truth." But in fifty years, the world has changed a LOT, and the techniques in "keeping" recruits to a group has changed. It's harder to leave things now than it used to be. I bet we've all, in our respective groups, been to workshops and long weekends away in creepy old mansions in the middle of nowhere (or whatever the equivalent in your own group is), devising answers to questions such as "how do we (as a group) prevent people from leaving?" Though the reason for asking the question may appear to be altruistic - our personal group will undoubtedly "save" those who wish to leave - the fact is, we're devoting a hell of a lot of time asking very non-spiritual questions, and spending very little time looking for the "truth" we believed we'd find in the first place.

You ask "Are the escapees from their various crazy teachers finding God? Or are you/they finding -nothing?"

Here you're WRONG. I HAVE found God, my spirit, my guidance, since leaving S. And it's stronger and clearer to me than it ever was in the diluted and confused tangle of weird beliefs in Subud. Do you really believe that if you eat too much rice your soul will become waterlogged? Or that if you starve yourself on Mondays and Thursdays, you'll become a better person? Where the heck is God in that???? Suicides, abuse and nightmares, unfortunately ARE a fact of life. They're certainly a fact of mine. Last week was the one-year anniversary of my friend's death, whose suicide set in motion all of this. That pain was very real. Her gravestone is very real. The tears of her parents, her sister, her friends - every teardrop is a real drop of water that falls and cuts like glass. Is she in a better place? Undoubtedly. Was it her "time" to die - had God ordained that she must take her life in order to proceed to the next level? F*!%$£! no way. Absolutely no way. That's absolute B^!!$&!! and we all know it.

I can believe in God's guidance and still be angry at the lies of man. Including "our great leader," the great "Father" Bapak. Bennett still saw him as a "replacement" to Gurdjieff, a new guru. It was the follows of Gurdjieff that GAVE Bapak the opportunity to spread his lies across the globe. So he brought a new way of worshipping God too, and I know that. I can despise suffering and love God. All in one breath. Can't handle the contradiction? Why? Ask yourself WHY - why do you need reality to be perfect, to be perfectly justified, in order to believe in God? Why do you need to defend Subud in order to believe in God?

Corboy, what you said about Gurdjieff possibly being a spy was absolutely fascinating. I'm definitely going to have to look more into that!! Thanks to everyone for bringing intellectual as well as emotional arguments to the discussion.

Jupiter.

OK Jupiter, so your people were Gurdjieffians. I know it was so for many early on there.
That's one more reason why things did not work out for so many people. Thinking too much! I was trained, as a child, in the basic Christian beliefs.
So I "tried" to find them all fulfilled in my "next step".
That does not make a connection between the two belief systems, just their practitioners.
And I stress that my own Inner Guidance is as much a result of my personal, solitary, communcaton with God, through prayer, meditation, surrender, call it what you will, as it was a shared thing. Keeping others "In" the "movement" is not my care, or job.
I can not entirely dismiss the founder of Subud as a liar.
I do not need his guidance and advice to relate to the God I believe in, though i find some inpiration there. Idid meet him after all. He was just another human being, like you and me, with a different task to do in life from ours, and different tools to do them with.
And I think that fasting on Monday and Thursday is mostly rubbish, not to mention any other stange ideas about how to make ones self more spiritual, lent, ramadan etc not withstanding. I don't believe in them either. Not part of my Christian beliefs.
I think being spiritual is both a gift from God and a surrender of one's own selfishness and desires and life itself to that higher power, which I prefer to call God.
All the controlling mumbo jumbo tha goes on in the name of Subud, and "other Spirituality", is not getting anyone anywhere.
I have many grievances with the people who run the Spirituality dogmas in Subud, because they are often just so horrible in how they deal with people and their feelings. You say you were controlled and misled. I was simply hurt. You are welcome to say I was also misled, if you must.
My belief that each person must obtain a personal contact with the Power and Life and Love of God is untouched by anything anyone in Subud or out of it says.
Like I wrote before, it's a matter of not throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
I started my first experience of the thing I came to call Subud entirely alone, with just God as my witness.
And that is how it lives still, knowing more than ever that I am so much less than perfect but, like you, one of God's creations, and in His care, once I have accepted that, forever.
Some of the wierd things you experienced seem never have happened to me.
But your life itself seems to me to have a lot of blessings, and help, which you seem to be starting to develop. Hence my earlier humble statements of admiration bordering on jealousy.
Peace.
Bronte

Haskellbob,

I loved what you had to say about Gurdjieffans being MORE asleep than the "general population"...thinking all along that they are awake, awakening, and/or somehow better than others. It seems that this is more often than not the case.

One thing though, the "robotic" dances are anything but robotic, they only look that way. You actually can't perform them in a robotic fashion. Your comment looks ignorant to anyone who has actually practiced the dances.

Suzy

I believe there are a number of Sufis that are now saying Gurdjiefs teachings are not related to authentic sufi teachings.

[www.dar-al-masnavi.org]

[www.arcane-archive.org]


[members.aol.com]
"Oct 30, 1998

Re Mouravieff: Some Sufis claims that Gurdjieff's Work is a bastardization of Sufism. Some Buddhists claim that Gurdjieff borrowed many of his ideas from the Buddhist tradition, including Vajrayana. And Mouravieff claims that Gurdjieff's Work derives from esoteric Christianity. Isn't it likely, rather, that Gurdjieff's teaching derives from the heart of esotericism, which beats nearly identically in all the major traditions? That is, from a genuine Fourth Way? Yes, Gurdjieff was a practicing Christian, but without doubt he also studied directly with masters of other ways--perhaps even with, as some say, the Dalai Lama (not the present one). --Another Seeker "



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/30/2008 10:44AM by Keir.