The Real Self

The Real Self

One of the funniest of sketches that that great and outrageous comedian Billy Connolly did was the one where he was taking off those who were looking for their Real Selves. He looked over his shoulder, he looked behind him, and he looked all about and around, searching for his Real Self, to the huge mirth of his assembled audience.

Actually he hit the spot right on. While he was making mock of those who were seeking for their Real Selves, he was illustrating very clearly that the Real Self was not at home, was not in his own body.

Anyone who was in The Work would remember the constant references to ‘being present’; for the simple reason that we are mostly absent. Not just mostly – almost entirely. And I say ‘almost’ for the very good reason that occasionally, in very rare circumstances, of death or grief, or great danger, or in a moment of sublime insight the Real Self might be present, perhaps for an instant or two.

Now for those who are in the Brotherhood Subud, and for those who have perhaps exercised on their own at home, they might have started their exercises with the question: “Where is Tony?” of where is whatever their name is. Now I have done this not once but many, many times, and just like Billy Connolly I have looked over my shoulder, I have peered round my garage, I have crouched low, I have looked high and low, as if I was searching very hard to find something, before collapsing in a heap of laughter.

Now I am totally against interpreting, and having said that, if I should hazard a little interpreting on this occasion, please don’t hold that against me. For I am still against ‘interpreting’ and in this case my interpretation might be quite wrong. Certainly the laughter is inexplicable, or is it?

As I see it, my Self is somewhere out there, my Self that should be in me.

In my last article “Worshipping God”, I quoted a short piece from Bapak. The second Paragraph is also of great interest, and just shows how condensed is everything that Bapak said: -

In carrying out your obligation to worship the One God, and to act in harmony with your inner being, it is necessary for you to know and be aware of the awakening of the inner feeling that is within your real self.

Now Billy Connolly may have made mock of those who were looking for their real selves as people who are slightly cranky, with a bit of screw loose, but there are many in the Subud Brotherhood who have had direct experience of their real selves.

Perhaps the most remarkable is the experience of Raymond van Sommers, as recounted in his book “A Life in Subud”. This is followed by a similar experience of Dr Rachman Mitchell.

Excerpt from “A Life in Subud” by Raymond van Sommers:

As I prepared to leave Indonesia, I had a dramatic spiritual experience, which was to strengthen my move to independence.
One day I was moved to lie down and to do the latihan. With it came clear consciousness and a blissful feeling. I was inwardly separated - an observer. As the feeling and the separation intensified, my Self was suddenly beside me.

He was a very large figure, several times life size, towering over me to the left and above. He looked down on me, knowingly, as apparently my self had always done. I looked up at him in awe. No recognition was necessary, as it was me, but I was amazed. It was wonderful to meet him. There was so much more to him than I. He was more real than I. Being me, he knew all about me and was constantly aware of what I was doing.
When moments later he was gone I was left thrilled with the wonder of the experience. My reaction was to want to find his plane of consciousness but gradually I had to accept that I could not. The important thing was that I was changed by the experience.
I was reassured of a substantial and eternal dimension to my existence, even if I was usually cut off from it.


This truly remarkable experience elicited anothere remarkable reply from my friend of more than 50 years, Abdurrachman Mitchell, at one time Doctor to Pak Subuh.

I had decided to work in Saudi Arabia to get the funds to finish the children’s education after I was thrown out of Indonesia and was working in a place in the northern desert of Arabia called King Khalid city. One Friday I was sitting on my bed in a Porto cabin reflecting that everything that I had valued in my life had been taken away from me – the closeness of my family around me, my whole Indonesian life but above all the closeness to Bapak and his family. I was getting kind of sorry for myself.
At that moment I became aware of a sensation in the pit of my stomach, a vibration. It became stronger as the silence and the quietness and peace went deeper into me until my whole being was quiet. At that point I became aware of another Being that was enormous that surrounded me. It knew everything about faults, all my failings and me, it understood me, its love for me was all embracing. It seemed at that moment that all my experiences at Cilandak were nothing compared to what I felt and understood then, all the talks, all the testing. So it was not I who surrendered it was It which made me surrender. The closeness to family, to Bapak and my friends was all returned to me. It arose by itself. It was not a conscious act of surrender which I know I need to do before my latihan with the group or on my own, but this is the lesser surrender the other is the greater. But this has been your view all along. I am just confirming it.
I continued to suffer the loss of my initiative in work and creating my own work environment but that experience gave me the patience and courage to get through until the children were able to stand on their own feet.With love to you my brother.Abdurrachman

No wonder that Bapak had concluded the sentences above that I have quoted, with another which illustrates so clearly why we and All Mankind need to be ‘opened’.

Before you received the awakening of your self, everything in you was closed up.


Anthony Bright-Paul Sunday May 21st 2006