Varindra

To write about Varindra would take volumes and be a futile attempt, as there is much written about this Subud  brother and master story teller who also had a great sense of humor. He was destined to play a major role in the Subud world. It is said that his first encounter with Subud was almost an accident, but the story has it that Bapak, during his very first visit abroad - while in Coombe Spring England - was looking for a man from Ceylon. Looking back we have to wonder if there are accidents in our Subud life and how we came to Subud. Each person has their own story - Strange, mysterious and unique!

There was another side of this Subud brother and these are memoirs of brief encounters I had with him in Sri Lanka and abroad. Some of the stories were ones we heard for the first time, and may have value for all. Later in life they had great value for me personally. Varindra had an uncanny ability and the vision to be able to look at life and its problems and come up with almost perfect solutions. Much time has gone by and as I write these stories there can be omissions but the content is accurate. 

My first contact with him was at my neighbors home while I was still a schoolboy. My neighbor worked for the same newspaper group as Varindra and they were instrumental in bringing me to Subud a few years later. Varindra was a well known person even then, the Editor of the oldest Sunday Newspaper in South East Asia. Being a newspaper man - he was at a crossroads with the political system in power most of the time, and on one occasion it so happened that he had to leave his motherland for his own safety. It was Sri Lanka's loss, and the benefactor was the rest of the world, as he was truly a man of the world who felt at home wherever he went. Eventually he worked at the United Nations in New York as deputy Director of UNICEF. In the early years after Ickshan Ahammad's death, Varindra became a regular visitor at  Bapak's home, in Jilandak, Indonesia. When he returned home he always had "Subud Stories", some he had picked, up and some were of his own personal experiences. This story correlates with what Ronald told us about our ancestors. One of the first stories Varindra shared with us was about a passenger who got off an airplane in Jakarta. After taking a flight via Singapore to Jakarta, he was getting off of the plane (in those days a ramp was pushed up to the exit) and passengers got off the plane and walked to the airport building. For some unknown reason this man looked back and he observed a stream of passengers getting off the plane who looked very much like Sri Lankans. He could have sworn that there were no Sri Lankans in the plane on that flight. Alarmed, he hurried through immigration formalities and took a taxi straight to Jilandak. Without delay he went to see Bapak and told Bapak about the strange passengers who got off the plane. Bapak's amused comment, "Varindra - they are your ancestors".

In those early years an amazing thing happened wherever Bapak went, it almost seems that people came out of the woodwork looking for something when they heard about Subud and the latihan - this happened in Europe, Sri Lanka, and in many other places. This story emerged from San Francisco during Bapak's first visit there, Varindra had observed the same phenomenon happening in San Francisco. Hundreds of people turned up - and most of them mysteriously. Curious about so many people turning up, Varindra had asked, "Where are these people coming from, Bapak?" Bapak's reply was, "These people had been there during the time of Prophets Ibrahim, Moses, Jesus, and Mohammad, and now they are here again." This had a deeper meaning for us in Sri Lanka when we first heard it, as the population were mostly Buddhist, and the next largest group were the Hindu. In the sacred literature of both religions, a feature was the possibility of reincarnation. On our island (of SL) even though you were a Muslim or a Christian, the Buddhist and Hindu cultures touched us all as our close friends and neighbors were Buddhist or Hindu by religion. Inter-marriage was a reality. Many years later we heard this story from Varindra. It was during a visit to France by Bapak, he was addressing the time of conception of a human being and Bapak had told Varindra that for every human being alive on the planet earth there were another seven who were waiting in line, for their turn to return to earth - to complete their spiritual journey! The numbers were simply staggering and I always felt how fortunate we were to receive the latihan this time around.  

During his exile Varindra used to sneak into the country to see his parents. On such occasions he sometimes came for latihan at the center. We were happy to see him but he had little time for stories. On one such occasion I ask permission to ask him a question that was affecting the entire men's group. If your question came from the right place he always had time for you. In Subud there are guidelines and rarely any hard core rules. However, there were these few rules that we all were expected to follow for our own good. You do not come for group latihans when under the influence of liquor or hard drugs. And men and women do not practice the latihan together. These were the two heavy ones. This would be easy for most sincere Subud members.

There was this Subud helper who was almost alcoholic and used to come for latihan when quite over the limit. We spoke to him many times and it had only short term effects each time. Varindra too knew him well, when I told Varindra about our dilemma, he took his time and passed on this advice, "As a fellow Helper you have every right to ask this Helper to leave the hall. But can you do it and live with the consequences? He will go away if you ask him and he may never come for Latihan again. The question is, 'Can you live with it for the rest of your life?'" I let it go, and many times in my life I remembered this answer - which has helped me to face far greater issues. We cannot judge anyone in the true sense because we do not see the whole picture, including the past and the future. 

A few years later, there was another helper in our Subud group whose actions and behavior had the whole group in turmoil. A few members even stopped coming for latihan and this really bothered me, and I was outspoken on this issue. Yet none was willing to do anything about it. Then we heard that Bapak was going to visit us and we all felt relieved as now we could present the problem to Bapak. We made Bapak aware of the situation but he left it to the helper's group to take action. However a very strange thing happened to me before Bapak left us. All the ill feeling and anger I had had for this Subud brother left me, even though I was aware that he would never mend his ways. As it happened, a few years later Bapak took away his status as a Helper in Subud. I have heard of only one other instance of this (someone losing their Helper's Card) in Bapak's lifetime. Bapak's compassion in the case for my countrymen was obvious as he gave this Subud brother many chances to mend his ways. I have heard from more than one source that when the name of a Candidate Helper was sent to Bapak, and he was ready to sign the Helpers card, his hand moved away if the person was unsuitable! Varindra also shared this bit of information, that Bapak - when he was with the members - could tell who was a Helper and who was not. Thus we must not assume that a Helper is special or in a higher state. Bapak has pointed out that a member (non-helper) could be at higher state of development at any given time.

I then moved to the west coast of America, and at that time Varindra was living in New York. If I traveled via New York I made it a point to drop in and see him. In the late seventies I stopped there for a few days, so I got in touch with Varindra and made an appointment to see him one morning. I arrived at his office, but he was already caught up in his work. He asked me to enjoy NY and to meet him at lunch time. I met him at lunch time and he said, "I will surprise you." We walked to an Indian restaurant that was not too far away, and I had the best Biriyani I had ever had. This was then in the heart of Manhattan, not Bombay or New Delhi. I am a country boy at heart, and feel comfortable in the country or in small towns. The constant beeping of horns and whines of sirens and blast of firetrucks, the NY hustle, was foreign to me and uncomfortable. On our way to lunch, I asked Varindra, "How do you handle this constant barrage?" He stopped in the middle of everything on the sidewalk and closed his eyes for a moment, and received, and said "Ya, its still there." I got the message! There is a valuable lesson here, even if 'Rome is burning', we can take a moment to surrender and then just keep going. I have cultivated this habit since then. To take a moment amidst the confusion going on around us - no matter where - and receive the Latihan, and just keep going. Not long after, I did this while playing in a soccer game - with remarkable results.

This also reminds me of Bapak's advice to us while in Sri Lanka. Our Subud house is by the ocean, and the Southern Railway line runs in between by the ocean. Often Bapak had to stop talking because of the loud noise from the passing trains, and a member commented that this was a real disturbance when doing the latihan. Bapak then pointed out that we really do not know where will die. It could be the market place or roadside, and this was good training for such an eventuality! From the late seventies to the late eighties Varindra had a commitment to be a guest speaker at the University of Berkeley, California. He often came to the Santa Cruz group for Latihan, and even visited us at home. Seeing me building a house, he asked me many questions, observing that I was going about it in an unusual way. I had lots of energy and a beautiful piece of land in what is known as Redwood country, I had few funds and so carried on little by little, but had already archived much. Observing this, he said that this is real enterprise (in the Subud sense). In the eighties he spent a few days at UC Santa Cruz, as a guest speaker during a Symposium. Many Subud members from neighboring groups had a chance to listen to Subud stories that night from this master story teller.

I met Varindra for the last time at the Subud world congress in Sydney, Australia, and I had a burning question to ask him. With the passing of Pak Subuh in 1987 many of us felt an empty space. When I ran into Varindra in Sydney, I asked for a few minutes of audience, and he waved me on and said, "Later." He was very busy, and was shouldering the operation of the whole Subud Congress, and doing it without Bapak, for the first time. Who would want to be in his shoes? Towards the end of the congress I ran into him on a pathway and we were going in opposite directions - He said, "Come with me," and I followed him to his apartment cum office which had been set up as the central hub for the World Congress. He pointed to the Kitchen and asked me to help myself, and also asked that I make a cup of tea for him, then he started dealing with all of the messages that had been left for him. When he got a break, he asked me, "What is it?" To save time I came directly to the point, "Varindra, will Subud survive without Bapak?" was my million dollar question. And I had a feeling that he knew why I was asking this question, which was not out of idle curiosity. Varindra had this knack of giving a humorous answers right away, if he felt that your question was coming from the wrong place, or just from idle curiosity. My question obviously got his attention, and he stopped everything and relaxed, then asked me this question in return, "How is your Latihan?" "No change," I replied, "And it seems to have picked up since Bapak passed away." This was a sincere and honest answer. He took his time, and then gave me this reply, "You know, Robert, there are nearly two thousand Subud members who are present at this congress, and If I ask the same question from each one of them, only a small number will give such an answer. You are so fortunate, and you should be thankful. Whether Subud will survive or not is not our business. That is God's business. However there is something that every Subud member can do because each one of us has a role to play in Subud. It's up to us to find out what this role is, and carry it out to the best of our ability."

At this time, we did not realize that this would be our last meeting, and what he passed on to me sank in slowly. It was the most valuable advice he had ever given me, and I pass it on to you. What Varindra said was the simple truth