Preparing for Congress by Harris Smart…

I am not going to World Congress, but I have had this belief that it will be possible to experience Congress at a distance. I believe that many of us are becoming better at feeling things at a distance. We don’t actually have to be there in order to experience what is happening in another place.

I’m not saying that I will experience the Congress in the vivid colourful detail that others who go there will experience it, but I am hoping I can experience the essence of it. Because like many people, I have great hopes for this Congress.

I am hoping that this Congress will be like the 1971 Congress which initiated a great new movement in the development of Subud. I am hoping that this Congress in Kalimantan, once again held on Bapak’s land, will initiate a great step forward for Subud collectively, and I also hope for all of us individually. Especially me. I really need it.

So, this is rather a cheeky idea, but since I don’t yet have any reports from the actual Congress itself, I thought it might be fun to write what is happening with my Congress, my experience of Congress at a distance.

Well, of course, Congress began some time ago…

Maybe a year ago we first started to focus on it. And then in recent months the focus has become more intense, and now this week, I feel the process really has begun. Because I know that for me, and perhaps for many others this Congress will involve a process.

It is to some extent like a call to order. If you take me as an example, my approach to my life in Subud is sloppy. Yes, I go to latihan, yes I do Subud, Voice but in many ways my interests and inclinations are outside Subud and in some cases blatantly opposite to Subud.

So, I am hearing this call. Congress provides us with a focus, a lens, something to aim for, something to measure ourselves against, an occasion for us to rise to, an opportunity for self-improvement.

I am sure most of us have some petty little vices that we hold on to even though we know we shouldn’t, but with Congress coming we know we must clean up our act, we must purify ourselves.

As we all know, a congress can be quite a furnace, a trial by fire. It can burn us, burn all the dross away, and so it is good to have removed from oneself as much as possible of what is flammable. All this rubbish we carry around with us, or at least I do.

So, I knew I must purify myself, and I knew that the closer we come to Congress, the more intense this process would become and certainly in the last week it has become much more intense. I am starting to go through the fire.

Perhaps all around the world, other brothers and sisters have felt the first stirrings of this intense process of preparation for Congress.

One thing, I have thought of recently…

Is applying the metaphor used by Jesus. You know, Jesus said, it is easier for a camel to get through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to get into heaven. Well, we can have lots of debate about the meaning of that utterance, but like so much of what Jesus said it is a brilliant figure of speech.

So, I was seeing this Congress like the eye of a needle, it is something I wish to pass through, but in order for me to pass through it, I must make myself very small so that I can pass through the eye of the needle. I must try to be humble. I must see myself as small. I must give up the arrogant and grandiose notions that I so often have about myself. I must prepare myself. I must purify myself.

So, what I am hoping is that for the next issue of Subud Voice if I don’t have any reports from any of the reporters who have been dispatched to cover this event, then at least there will be something from me, at a distance.

Of course, I could tell you a few tales about the things that I have to give up, to pass through the eye of the needle, but perhaps we should leave that for another time.