THE LATIHAN COMES TO THE USA: 1958

Harun Taormina

God, there has to be something else!

     By the time I was 35, I had a nightclub in San Francisco, an apartment in one of the city’s great old mansions, a redheaded girlfriend, and a life that was one big roller coaster ride. High one minute, low the next, pain, jealousy, insecurity. Everywhere I looked people were just feeding off each other, using each other for their own gain. There was absolutely no reality. It was 1957. Life was the shits, and getting high was my only refuge.
     But the truth is I’d been turned off by how the world was since childhood. Maybe because I wasn’t wanted in the first place. My parents were Italian immigrants who thought they were finished with children when I came along. My mother had already borne 12 children. So when she discovered she was pregnant, she was very disappointed. Not another child! And there was the language, too. My parents spoke very little English. My older brothers and sisters could understand them, but by the time I came along, there was so much English in the house, I didn’t learn Italian. I could understand it, but not speak it. So from the beginning, things didn’t really fit. I didn’t feel like I belonged anywhere.
     I’d look for places to belong. I used to think there were connections with the kids in my neighborhood, with anything that didn’t have to do with school. Although I do remember going to catechism as a kid — and loving it — because of all the stories the nuns told about Jesus and the saints. I always left my catechism classes with a wonderful feeling. But as soon as I was back out on the streets, those feelings would evaporate and the stories would seem like fairy tales. The people I knew weren’t like that at all. It was if I’d been shown the parts of a clock without being shown how the clock worked.
     So now nothing made sense, nothing connected. That’s why I ended up deciding to follow whatever interested me. Of course, that’s like a man riding shotgun on a stagecoach when no one has hold of the reins. What interested me was tuning out what didn’t make sense, marijuana became my passion, and my habit. Funny thing though, I never got high in the daytime. Only at night.
     Right around this time, Laura, my girl friend and a follower of the Gurdjieff-Ouspensky work, came into the club to show me a card she’d just received from the George Field Book Store in San Francisco. This was a metaphysical bookstore that regularly sent out announcements about anything to do with the Gurdjieff work. This card announced a series of special informational talks by John Bennett, an English teacher and philosopher in charge of the Gurdjieff-Ouspensky work at Coombe Springs in the UK. On this occasion, Bennnet was going to give a talk about this new movement in the world called “Subud.” And he would also be introducing a man from the East who was connected to Subud, someone they all called Pak Subuh, or “Bapak.” Laura commented that she had also heard that Gurdjieff, before he died, predicted the coming of a man from the East who would be able to take inner development to another level. When I heard this, I started to cry. My own life had reached the point where I felt that if this were life, I might as well be dead. I knew I had to meet this Mr. Bennett.
     Bennett had scheduled a talk at the Buddhist Temple on Bush Street in San Francisco. On the night of the talk, he came out on stage with a huge blackboard with the Subud symbol drawn in chalk. Bennett, very thin and very scientific looking, sat on a chair next to the blackboard. He bowed his head and shut his eyes. He stayed this way so long I began to wonder if he had died. But then he stood up and started explaining the meaning of the Subud symbol.

     I knew immediately that this had been what I had been looking for since the day I came out of the womb. I could feel my whole inner open up. Everything he talked about spoke to everything in me, about my whole life. I became totally committed to Subud from that night to the present day. Totally.
     Bennett had announced that those who wanted to receive this contact should meet the next day at a building on Powell Street called "The Elevated Shops." He said that Bapak would be there and that Bapak himself would give us the contact on this particular night.
     On the appointed night, I smoked a little marijuana, as I usually did, and headed for the Powell Street address to receive the contact. Bennett asked about 30 of us to go into this room, to remove our glasses, jewelry and shoes, and to stand relaxed with our hands at our sides, and to close our eyes. Then he said, “Begin.” As I stood there, I could hear someone saying, “Allah, Allah.” I took a peek and saw this brown man moving from one person to another and repeating the words, “Allah, Allah.” When he finally reached me, he said, “Allah” not once but many many times.
     “Oh,” I thought to myself, not realizing that smoking marijuana causes the imagination to be stimulated, “I must be very special.” I was so busy thinking, I was unable to receive or follow any movement that might have occurred. I had no movement at all. It was later that I came to understand that a stimulated imagination actually blocks the latihan.
     My next encounter with Bapak happened two days later at a dance studio on California and Polk Street. Quite a number of us were sitting and waiting in the foyer of the studio by the time Bapak and Bennett arrived. Bapak walked over to a desk near where I was sitting. I remember wondering why none of us offered him a chair, and then thinking that he was probably so well developed spiritually, he didn’t need one. Just as I thought that, I looked up, and Bapak was standing two feet from me. He was smiling at me. But in that moment I knew he unzipped me, took a look at me, and zipped me up again. I knew then that he knew me from the day I’d been born. It took my breath away.
     My next latihan was on a Saturday afternoon. This time we were meeting at a Subud woman’s home in Pacific Heights. This was my first latihan where I was not high at the outset. Someone said, “Begin,” and the latihan started. Slowly I became aware of someone huffing and puffing and making sounds like a gorilla. I opened my eyes to see a man, stark naked, leaping around the room like a hyperactive King Kong. And quite spontaneously I started to laugh. Another brother caught the laughter, and the two of us couldn’t stop. We were laughing so hard I had to bend over. All of a sudden, as I was bent over with laughter, my right arm started to tremble, and then it shot straight up in the air — without my telling it to.
     What was that?
     This was my first real movement in the latihan. Spontaneous. Without being directed by my will or thinking. What a difference from when I was high. Then I understood that for me, marijuana stimulated the mind, and that if my mind were stimulated, I could be manipulated — influenced, used — by outside forces. It’s like a person looking at his reflection in water. If the water is calm, the reflection is clear; but if you drop a pebble in the water, it causes ripples that distort your real image.
     This was my first learning experience. This was the beginning of me becoming myself.

Harlinah Longcroft

HOW AND WHEN DID SUBUD START IN THE U.S.A.?

(The following is a summary of a far longer and more detailed chapter containing many interviews, in the History of Subud, Vol. 1 Book 3. This book has not yet been published. It is currently being compiled and written.)

Husein Rofé 1960
Photo by Michael Rogge

     Subud members were first opened in California at the end of February, 1958 – but the story starts long before that – possibly as early as 1956, when a small group was being started in Hong Kong by Husein Rofé.
     One of those opened in Hong Kong was Michael Rogge, a young man who was working for a Dutch bank. He joined Tape Respondents International, whose members communicated with each other “by spoken letter”. In other words, they recorded a letter on a tape recorder, and then sent the tape to a member elsewhere, who then replied in the same way. Having a tape recorder for your own personal use, was a novel experience in those days. [Editors note: Click here to see Michael Rogge's Subud website.]
     The Tape Respondents issued a catalogue of member’s interests, and Rogge got in touch with those listed as having “spiritual interests”. After starting communication, he introduced the subject of Subud. He continued to do this after he was moved by his bank to Japan. So, as a result of this taped correspondence Vic Torrey and Earl Robinson in California became very interested in Subud, and so did Reynold Osborne in New York.

J. G. Bennett

     By early 1958, Rogge felt they were sufficiently enthusiastic for him to pass their names and addresses to J.G.Bennett, who in turn, told Bapak. However, neither Torrey nor Robinson were wealthy, so although they could, and did, spread the word about Subud, they were not the people to bring Bapak or anyone else to California.
     In 1957, while this tape correspondence was going on, a man from a wealthy family in California was looking for a cure for polio. Medical processes had not worked, so he was looking for alternative methods. As he was also very interested in the paranormal, and ways of inner development, he knew or was already known to J.G.Bennett. And while on his travels in 1957, he also met a Canadian Subud member, Bob Prestie, and Prestie told him about Subud and Bapak’s visit to Coombe Springs. It was this man, John Cooke, and his sister, Alice Cooke Kent, who were mainly responsible for funding the visit of the Bennett’s and then of Bapak and his party, to California in the first half of 1958.
     Of course other people helped too, according to their capacity, and both Torrey and Robinson helped with the organization. Bob Prestie, who had been living at Coombe Springs, made all the arrangements in London for American visas for Bapak, Ibu Siti Sumari, Rahayu and Ismana, (Icksan had returned to Indonesia), and then he left for San Francisco. He arrived on February 28 and opened John Cooke on the day he arrived. Alice wanted to be opened too, but she had wait the arrival of Elizabeth (Howard) Bennett. Elizabeth, J.G.Bennett, and their children, George Bennett and Ben Bennett, arrived on March 8.
     In the mean time, Prestie had given a talk in San Francisco on March 1, and then opened two of the men, so this was the first Subud group in the United States.
     By the time the Bennetts arrived, Prestie, Cooke, and Vic Torrey had made a lot of contacts, and when Bennett gave his first talk in San Francisco – probably either on the day he arrived, or the next day, there were about sixty people at the Academy of Asian Studies (the Zen Centre) who heard about Subud that evening. After the talk, nineteen women and twelve men were opened. This all happened without any press publicity. No one had informed the press, because Bapak had recommended that in the U.S.A. all publicity should be avoided.
     Among those who had been contacted was George Field, of George Field’s Book Store. His book store was very well known because it specialized in philosophy and occult literature. Bennett said that Cooke and Field made most of the arrangements for Bennett’s and Bapak’s visits. George Field kept mailing lists of his clients, and circulated a notice about the talks John Bennett was going to give. Bennett was, of course, well known in Gurdjieff and Ouspensky circles.
     It was not only the Gurdjieff people in San Francisco who were interested. Laura Carol recalls that there had been a major exodus of people from New Orleans who came to San Francisco at about that time, and quite a number of Gurdjieff people from the French Quarter of New Orleans also became interested in Subud. They also herd about Bennett’s talks from George Fields. However, it was not only the Gurdjieff people who attended Bennett’s talks – Harun Taormina was there because the young lady with whom he was keeping company at that time, was into all the “isms”, and she, too, heard about these talks from George Fields, so of course Harun was there too – and also got opened. And of course there were others like him. It was a time when all sorts of gurus and mystical ways were being followed, and although may people were disillusioned, they went on being attracted to just about anything new.
     After a few days in San Francisco, the Bennetts went to Carmel on March 13 -14, and opened people there, and Bob Prestie went to Los Angeles on March 13. He went there because Earl Robinson had already told a number of people about Subud, and while Prestie was there he opened Robinson and others. He gave a talk at which, he says Ron Hubbard who founded Scientology was present, and so was Ida P. Rolfe, who asked him if he could persuade Bapak to come to start a group with in Walteria, a suburb where she had a group of people whom she was training in her methods, which later became famous.
     The Bennett’s went to Los Angeles on March 15 and this provided the opportunity for women to be opened, including Ida P. Rolfe.
     Within two days twenty-one women and sixteen men were opened. When Bennett got back to San Francisco, he says, “The number now opened in California was ninety-nine,” so he decided to defer further openings until after Bapak’s arrival.

BAPAK'S FIRST VISIT TO CALIFORNIA
     Bapak, Ibu Siti Sumari, Rahayu and Ismana arrived in New York on March 21, after a difficult flight from London. Ismana was pregnant, and Rayahu had suffered from airsickness for most of the journey. Coombe Springs had warned Alfathah Kerner that they would be arriving, and hotel accommodation for one night, had been booked.
     Alfathah had been opened when on holiday in Sri Lanka in January, during a visit by Icksan and by Muftiah Arnold who opened the women. She then joined Bapak and his party in Europe, before returning to join her husband in New York. He knew nothing about Subud, however he went to the airport to meet Bapak and his family. As Kerner was a member of the Sri Lankan delegation to the United Nations, he had access inside the customs, and could help them. He then took them back to his apartment – and on arrival Ibu lay down to rest. Ronimund and Sophie von Bissing, who had been opened by Rof in England, were visiting New York at this time, and also came to greet Bapak at the apartment.
     When it was time to go to the hotel for the night, Ibu did not want to move. And so Bapak and Ibu remained in the Kerner’s bedroom, Rahayu and Ismana slept on the floor of the living room, and the Kerner’s moved in with friends. The next morning Ed took Bapak and his party to the airport, for their flight to San Francisco. They arrived on March 22, and Alfathah joined them on March 28. While she was in California, Bapak first told her to prepare for a visit by Bapak to New York, and after she had returned to New York, she received a letter from Bennett saying that Bapak authorised her to start a group in New York as soon as there were twenty men and twenty women interested.

     When Bapak and party arrived at the airport in San Francisco, about twenty or more people from the San Francisco group were there to meet them, including Alice Kent, John Cooke, George Fields and Vic Torrey, as well as Bob Prestie and the Bennetts. Bapak and his party stayed at a five-star hotel used by embassy people when visiting San Francisco, and when they got there, more people were waiting to welcome them. Bapak gave an informal talk, but did not want it to be recorded, and the next morning the latihans started.
     Torrey wrote to Rogge about all this a day or two after Bapak arrived. He said:
     “…Already the group is far too large and starting Monday we plan to run four relays of exercises a day in the Metaphysical Library…Nothing else to say except that it has poured rain and been very damp and yet 77 year old women, etc., have been coming out regularly. Guess I’m still the youngest in the group. I met Robinson. He seems like a wonderful person although a little bit older, greyer, and more wrinkled that I had expected.
     “Our main problem right now is space. Nobody had done anything and the same was true in England and Germany…Last night, Bennett turned away and sent home a number of people who came for the first time. Everything is up in the air and we do not know where we will meet from day to day. Bennett said that it took them ten days in England to get started and three weeks in Germany. And if we can do it in three days, we will be three times faster than England!...This has all been wonderful…”
     Bapak remained in San Francisco for only six days, and during that time Bennett says there were four general latihans and about fifty men and women were opened, including some from Carmel and Sacramento. During this period Bapak gave two talks at the Metaphysical Library. Then Bapak and party went to Carmel, where he stayed from March 28 to March 30.
     Either at this time, or possibly a little later, Mardiwati (Sylvia) Nicolosi-Brown arranged for Bapak, Ibu, Rahayu and Ismana to visit the then Governor of California. Ismana thinks that Mardiwati was a member of his staff. Ismana remembers:
     “…At that time we don’t have the proper dress…oh…[we were] really like girls who come from the village. [We had nothing suitable] for visiting the Governor!” Ismana laughed. “Only Ibu, of course, wore kine and kebaya. And we went there, and, oh! Everybody was so well dressed. Even Mardiwati was really elegant. And she looked at us in our Marks and Spencer dresses.” Ismana laughed again. “The Governor was very kind, and very nice to us. He talked to us and made the time for Bapak, and was very nice. But I could see that other people…[saw us] really like from the jungle sort of thing!” And she laughed again. [Marks and Spencer was an English chain store specializing in inexpensive good quality everyday clothes].
     Bob Prestie and friends collected Bapak and party and the Bennetts and they all went to Los Angeles – Bennett remained there from March 30 to April 3, while Bapak and party stayed on until April 6. There, a Mrs. Thomaset, formerly head of the Los Angeles Conservatoire, had place a house at their disposal, and all the party settled there – some using divans, sofas, and even the floor as beds. Bennett says: “We were ten people in a house with two bedrooms, but very happy to be together.” Rachman de Michele remembers this house as a small stucco building on Normandie and Wilshire. Later he discovered that Aldous Huxley – who was opened later on – lived in a larger house only one block away from were Bapak stayed.
     Bennett gives a description of this period in Los Angeles: “In Los Angeles the latihans were held in magnificient, large, but expensive rooms of the Park Manor Hotel on 6th Street. About forty men and women had already been opened, and there were sixty two new people the first evening. More than a hundred were present to hear Pak Subuh’s first talk, which, unfortunately, was not recorded…
     “It rained nearly all the time we were in Los Angeles, and the floods were a serious menace to traffic in the coastal regions. Nevertheless, Bapak and the family were able to tour the hills above the city and also go to Beverley Hills and see something of the famous “Homes of 200 Famous Film Stars”.
     Earl Robinson had been chiefly responsible for the preparations for Bapak’s visit. He was the leader of a small group who had started to study the Gurdjieff and Ouspensky systems. Bob Prestie took over the preparations when he visited Los Angeles, and also brought some of his friends to Subud. They were not followers of Gurdjieff, or of any other ‘metaphysical’ group, and Bennett noted that there was therefore quite a difference of temperament and preparation. The Bennetts were exhausted by the time they left.
     The Bennetts then remained in San Francisco with a short visit to Carmel, for the next month. Bapak came back on April 6, and stayed there until April 25. On April 12, less than a week after Bapak’s return, Luthfi and Irene James arrived in California. They had been opened in Holland during Bapak’s visit there in 1957, and had then been with Bapak in Germany in January 1958. By the standards of the time, they were “long-time” Subud members, and Bapak asked them to join Bob Prestie in Los Angeles, so that Irene could do the latihan with the women, while Bob and Luthfi looked after the men. So they stayed only two days in San Francisco, and then went to Los Angeles where they stayed in “Bapak’s house”.
     At some point during Bapak’s three weeks in San Francisco, Bapak received an unexpected invitation to visit Australia on his way home. He agreed to do so, but also wanted to stay in California as long as possible. It was arranged therefore that he would visit Australia for just one week, meaning he could remain in California until May 26. As Bennett felt that one week would not be long enough to establish Subud in Sydney, it was decided that he and Elizabeth with the two boys would leave for Australia on May 3. Before the Bennetts left, Icksan Achmad, the husband of Ismana, arrived in San Francisco from Indonesia. It has been suggested that he was brought to California to replace Bennett as translator for Bapak, but in fact his arrival was already expected before it was known that Bennett would be leaving. He arrived in California on April 16. He was needed because there were now Subud groups in Carmel and Sacramento, as well as the two main centres of San Francisco and Los Angeles. So there were a great many very new members, and Bapak’s party, with the Bennetts, Bob Prestie and the James’s were at full stretch to look after them all.
     Bapak returned to Los Angeles on April 25, and stayed there until he left on May 26 while Luthfi and Irene James returned to San Francisco. They remained there after Bapak left California to help the Subud Centre. George Fields became the first “Elder” – shortly afterwards renamed, “Chairman”.
     At this time, there was no waiting period before people could be opened, and apart from Bapak’s talks, and Bennett’s lectures, and the work of Bob Prestie and the James, there was no real source of information about Subud. Bennett’s book, Concerning Subud, was first published in England on May 5, 1958. It was at this time, on May 16, that Bapak issued a document entitled “Bapak’s Statement for Helpers to Read to New People” – or what we now call “The Opening Statement”. The translation from the Indonesian was not particularly good, but at least this statement helped, and it had to be read to every person who wanted to be opened.
     When Bapak left for Australia, the burden on Irene and Luthfi James was enormous. Although Bapak had appointed helpers – they were not yet permitted to open people. So the James were the sole “helpers” as we know them, for San Francisco, and they also opened other groups – Chicago and Portland, Fresno and so on.
     And what about New York? When Bapak left for Australia, Alfathah had already started to draw together people who were interested in Subud – but that comes a little later and is another wonderful story.

Olivia Panopoulos

Irene James–beautiful and full of grace

     Irene James–beautiful and full of grace–was the most influential person in my beginning years in Subud. From Europe, at Bapak’s behest, Irene and her husband Lutfi arrived in San Francisco in 1958 to support the beginnings of Subud there and in the wake of J.G. Bennett’s visit earlier in the year. I cannot talk about Irene without including Lutfi. They have been inseparable.
     But, it was she to whom I made my first tentative phone call, to learn more about this bit of otherworldly excitement, which I was reading of in a book called Concerning Subud that was being passed from hand to hand around my circle of waiting friends. And it was she who met me at the door of their apartment in San Francisco looking far too young to be the woman with whom I’d spoken a few days before. She drew me in to a small room and calmly, firmly, explained the meaning of Subud, to which I replied, I know, I know (as though I did), and pointed to “the book” I was clutching. Patiently, she signed me up for the monthly “probationer” meetings. It was October of 1958.
     These meetings were conducted together with Lutfi, with whom she shared a deep devotion to Subud, as well as to their loving marriage for a span now greater than 50 years. In their Nob Hill apartment, Lutfi, with Irene on one side and an “ex-pat” of the Gurdjieff movement, George Fields, on the other, would speak to a packed room of men and women for about 1/2 an hour and then answer questions. One’s presence was requested only once a month, on the first, second, or third week depending on the current month of one’s candidacy. The fourth week of the month was reserved for openings, at a downtown hall where the general latihan took place. We young people quickly determined to attend every meeting each week of the month and in that way I, among many, became closer in feeling and acquaintance with our mentors. It was she who accompanied me, after my 5th latihan, in “specials”, until I could truly experience the touch of the vibration of the latihan, and before she buckled under the load of continual openings; the attention to so very many newly opened people; daily, sometimes hourly, latihans with those in need; and additionally, the start up of the Chicago group where she and Lutfi opened 77 persons in one week just days before my own in January of ‘59. (Irene, flanked by two young candidate helpers, opened six of us together on that night in San Francisco and it would be some years before one of the six fell away from attendance. The rest of us stayed on, though there are only two of us left alive to tell the tale.) By God’s grace, she knew what it meant to be Bapak’s helper and was profoundly committed to carrying out that incomparable privilege and promise.

     Irene and Lutfi understood that the unity and development of our association extended beyond the 1/2 hour, twice weekly, latihans and opened their home to social gatherings on a weekly basis. It was there we met Sjafruddin Ahmad, who would later become Bapak’s son-in-law, and felt the impact of living, moment-to-moment, in the latihan. Around 1961 the James’ relocated to Los Angeles where we found ourselves also, shortly thereafter. For awhile, before leaving for their first stay in Indonesia, Salamah and Abdullah Pope (who would become one of the architects of the domed latihan hall in Wisma Subud) shared a duplex with the James’ in Hollywood. Saturday evenings became a much-anticipated event, drawing many people in and around the area to their home to hear the latest Subud news, share experiences, laugh and sing and become utterly comfortable together. Varindra Vittachi was a frequent visitor in those years, sharing news and stories in their living room.
     They were among the earliest pioneers in Subud in the west and I had wished to follow their lead. Yet, to her credit, Irene showed me that that is not the way to do. As much as I came to adore her, she would not take the position of leadership in the kejiwaan. She knew too well the meaning and purpose of the latihan and so I was guided, inwardly, to find my own way and yet, in an inexplicable twist, I must thank her for it. In matters concerning the latihan experience, to this day, no long time passes without my recalling some brief sentence, some small voice of wisdom, some quiet indication that issued from her and made my path more visible, more readily understood, more understandably vital, more vitally alive.
     Irene . She was pleased to receive this name from Bapak for it means “Peace”. Well - Peace has been called home. Peace is needed greatly in these times and it would seem that in order for it to be gained, we must first surrender it...
     Irene passed from this world in 2005. It surprised me that it was so easy to do, to release this person who had been so treasured and so loved a presence in my life, until I realized what was shared between us is knitted into my bones, runs in my blood, while yet it frees my spirit. Go, in honor, on wings of angels, most dear, and may you live in God’s Peace forever.

Tony Bright-Paul

Remembering Bob Prestie

     [Editor's note: Bob Priestie was instrumental in arranging for Bapak's first visit to the USA. In 1958, once funds became available to pay for Bapak's travel, Bob arranged all of the travel plans for Bapak and his family. Bob arrived in San Franciso in advance of Bapak, and gave a talk about Subud soon after he arrived. The first person opened in the USA was opened by Bob. Bob was instrumental in continuing to help organize Bapak's visits to California in Subud's early years in the USA.]
     All the young men who lived and worked at Coombe Springs before 1957 will remember Bob Prestie well. At that time when the dormitory block was being built and then later the Djamichoonatra, he was conspicous for his tremendous physical strength and his unending good humour. He was a Canadian who had served with the RCAF in the war making many flights in Lancaster bombers.
     One of his friends went absent without leave and was trying to return somehow to Canada. Bob persuaded him to return to camp. The very next day this friend was blown up on the ground as the bomb load for his plane went off. Though Bob entrusted his book to me, this was one story he could not tell.
     After hearing John Bennett lecture in New York he came to Coombe Springs to live, and he worked in London as a floor producer of shows like "Mr Pastry." At that time we were all studying the Gurdjieff methods and movements with John Bennett. He was especially adept at those movements as he had also trained as a dancer. He was also a fine clarinet player.

     In 1957 he was about to move on from Coombe Springs having a yen to visit the mystic East for himself. Bennett persuaded him to stay on, as Bennett knew that Pak Subuh was about to arrive in England. As a consequence Bob was one of the first people to be opened at Husein Rofe's flat. His opening was sufficiently dramatic that Bennett himself wanted to know exactly what had happened with Bob. In some ways Bob was instrumental in the fact that Bapak, Ibu and the Indonesian party moved to Coombe Springs. Bob, in his usual direct manner had said "Mr B. you must invite Pak Subuh to Coombe Springs." The rest of the story is well-known. When Ibu saw the house she declared that it was the house that she had seen in her dreams.
     Before he left England and returned to the States, he was one of the principal people helping to look after Mrs Bennett, who was not only ill but also extremely difficult to handle. This showed us all an unusual caring side of his character. When back in the States he paved the way for Bapak in California in many areas. Eileen and I met him several times when we were in LA, and quite recently we stayed with him in Las Vegas.
     He certainly had his faults, but I for one cannot think of them. He was an immensely generous man; he had a heart of gold; he was a true and completely reliable friend.
     When my daughter Alex was opened some years ago now, I held a party at my house. It was typical of Bob that he had no hesitation in flying over, as did Peter Norman Kermode from California and Luqman Wynne from Brisbane.
     In latter years he was not active in Subud as in the early days, but it is sure he never left the spiritual Brotherhood of Subud. When I called Bob in September, 2002, to tell him about the amount that was devoted to him in Harlinah Longcroft's History of Subud Part 2, Maria, his wife, answered the phone. She told me that Bob had died suddenly from a heart attack on July 18th in Palm Springs. God rest your soul, my excellent friend Bob Prestie.

Simon Kelly

Subud, and how I found it

     In 1957 I was living in Berkeley as a dropout from the UC@B Graduate student of Music, doing all the activities of a beatnik wannabe: parties, coffee shop philosophical discussions, casual love affairs, drinking cheap red wine, smoking marijuana, etc. etc. Gradually I started to feel a real lack in my comfy life, a dissatisfaction which grew towards despair about being stuck in a kind of Hell. I tried to change my habits and friends but didn’t have the strength of will to be constant in my resolve. I started to have strange experiences with ominous presences. “Ghosts,” I thought. Sometimes the feeling of a palpable presence was so great I would stay over at a friends house rather than sleep in my bed. Once in the middle of the night I awoke with the feeling of something truly threatening, though unseen, getting closer to me. I did something then I had never done before, I fell out of bed onto my knees and from the terror in my heart cried out in agony for help, not to any God or anything in particular, just a general shout out of my need. Something happened then: standing behind me I felt two presences one at left shoulder and another at my right. They were not large, and one was a little shorter than the other. Let it be clear–I didn’t see them, but the reality of their presence was as concrete as any I have experienced I before or since. I then felt gentle hands on each of my shoulders, and feeling of comfort, protection, and reassurance filled me, driving out the terror. I stayed in that position a while longer, lingering in the warm loving blanket. Eventually I returned to bed and had my best rest in ages. Of course I was still in Berkeley Lotus Land, with no clear plan of how to change my condition. It so happened I met a girl (Bernice) who had just moved to Berkeley from New York, and I saw my way out–Escape to New York!! Remove myself from all old connections and flee to the Big Apple! Bernice had a rented place in Manhattan and she needed a place here so we exchanged keys and packing a few things in my old Dodge sedan headed East by way of LA. Didn’t get far before my old car broke down, never to be revived. But nothing would stop me now! My intention was strong... left all my stuff with an LA friend and started to hitchhike. On the Road! A book of Omar Khayyam’s poetry in hand, following in Kerouac’s footsteps!
     After many adventures, 5 days later I hit Manhattan in November, 1957. I found Bernice’s place down in what was then called Hell’s Kitchen, now super-cool Chelsea, and settled in to New York living. Applied for California unemployment. Took my time getting to know the City. Got a job at the 57th street library cataloging music. I was successful in breaking my bad habits, left behind in Berkeley!! Thanks be God.
     But something was missing: I felt by then that I had been brought across the Continent for something, but what??? I remember feeling that if I left the old directionless degrading ways and went to this completely new connectionless City, by throwing myself into the milieu I would either perish or find my Life’s path. (How’s that for a plan?) Either way, it was better than slowly drowning in my mind and Spirit.
     I have always, from the time I was a child, experienced and believed in a Spirit life, believing there are no accidents. But I had a hard time trusting that. Soon after I settled into Bernice’s apartment in Hell’s Kitchen in NY, I got a call from her friend telling me that she had died from a head injury in crash on her Vespa. Not wearing a helmet. I was soon evicted from her old place, since it was in her name.
     Well this finally gets me to the purpose of this account. One day wandering around Greenwich Village (which had become my haunt) I passed a little shop with the name “Rudy’s Oriental Art Goods.” I went in, being curious about such things, and met with Rudy, the proprietor, a large Buddha-like figure. We started chatting about this and that, mostly about Eastern religious and spiritual practices. I bought a small bronze statue of Kwan Yin holding a baby (which sits in a place of honor in my garden even now).

     That was my first, but by no means last, visit with Rudy. One day I noticed on his wall a new portrait next to his usual ones of Meyer Baba and Gurdjieff. It was an oriental man, not Indian or Tibetan. I asked him who it was, and he said his name was Bapak, and that he headed an Indonesian spiritual group called Subud. “OK,” I said, “tell me something about it.” And he did.
     What stuck in my mind was that it was not a religion, that it had no rules or credo, that Bapak considered himself a guide only. And that the essence of Subud was the latihan of surrender and following whatever comes up in your inner feeling, not from one’s own will or wishing. In other words, a direct contact with the power of God, Life Force, or whatever you wanted to call the Living Spirit behind all creation.
     “Well!” I thought, “That sounds like something I could get behind: No Religion! No Hierarchy! No Guru/leader. Simply my direct experience of what I had been searching for without knowing it: a Ground for my Being.”
     “I want to know more,” I told Rudy.
     He told me that it just so happened that J.G.Bennet (a former follower of Gurdjieff and Ouspenky), who was helping to bring Bapak’s message to the West, would be visiting New York soon, and would be giving a series of talks about Subud. He would also be opening “interested” persons. In due course I attended the talks of Mr. Bennet and becoming more than ever convinced that Subud and the latihan was for me.
     Sometime in Dec, 1958, I was opened by Mr. Bennett. I had an immediate physical and spiritual receiving, an opening that convinced me of the real nature of the latihan kejiwaan of Subud. I was moved by a force that did not originate from my usual self, that split me wide open. I became an enthusiastic member of the Subud community in New York, finding myself a part of a brave new brotherhood of similar newly opened. These were exciting and miraculous times full of deep experiences, synchronicities, revelations, and much, much more. Later (I can’t remember the dates), Bapak came to New York and I heard him speak for the first time. Although Dr. Zakir was his translator, it seemed I didn’t need to hear a translation. Bapak’s words went directly to my inner understanding.
     Thus began my journey in Subud and the latihan, lasting now a little short of 50 years, and although I may have detoured a bit now and then, I have always kept the latihan close, although it sometimes feels like it is the latihan that keeps close to me. Rudy dropped out of the latihan after a short time. I called him and he said that he had found something else. I didn’t feel the need to find out what it was, so my contact with him dissipated. However, fairly recently I was reading a biography of Da Free John, remember him? (If not, Google him.) He was a big deal in the world of Gurus in the sixties. He mentioned Rudy from Greenwich Village as being one of his major influences toward him becoming an Avatar or whatever. Rudy, I found out later, had a tree fall on him during a storm in some SE Asian air strip that killed him dead! I don’t know what all this adds to my story except that I pretty well stuck with Subud and the latihan and what it gave me in its own good time, and didn’t go whoring after special powers and knowledge. I have lead the ordinary life of a human being with all the grace and tragedy, etc.
     One last thing: while doing the exercise in Bapak’s presence (it was the time when nearly everyone was getting new names), I decided my old name John just didn’t fit the new Me. So after latihan I approached Bapak where he sat (you could do that in those days) and asked him to give me a new name. He looked at me over his glasses... I felt a surge of power pierce me to the core! I was shaken. He said, “Bring me a list of names beginning with the letter S.”
     That night I had a dream that showed me the essence of the letter/sound “S” and I saw it was much better suited to my nature and to spiritual growth than any other. I brought a list of 4 names and read them out to him he stopped me at the name “Simon.” The name felt like it settled in to me and it’s worked for me all these years.