May 17, 1996
Dear Pak Harno,
I am writing both to ask "Apa kabar?" and
to express my deepest respect for you after all
these years. You remain a dear presence to me and
I honor your name. I also ask that you witness
some work and experience that I have had. I am
sorry that it is all in English but I am hoping
that your understanding of the written language
will be sufficient for the purpose.
I remember you once told me I needed to go off to
Sumarah or some other kebatinan group and
get some experience. As you probably recall, I
became a leader in Sumarah while I was in
Surakarta. I then tried to bring it to Brazil when
I ended up here but was frustrated by the local
situation in doing more than establishing its
presence in a critical fashion through the
expression of what we in Sumarah call jinem
which is a form of full surrender that is
separated from divine being or suhul only by a
lack of personal awareness of the mechanisms being
used to define the sense and rasa experienced. I
established a Sumarah group here but found little
real interest in anything but escapism among the
people that came. I let the group die and it
honestly took me almost five years to establish
proper relations with some of the participants.
One in particular was awfully hard to pry off.
But anyway, after some ten years of pounding on
the Brazilian being to be less irresponsible I got
involved with the former wife of a former (Arab)
student, who became my student, my friend, my
patient as a pamong, then my lover and finally
rather ambushed me in her attempt to lay claim to
my being and separate it from me. You wouldn't
believe the inner oaths she rendered to get the
seduction going. I certainly couldn't deny her the
right to such an apparently eternal love or deny
the right I have to more than one wife if the
circumstances afford the opportunity with
propriety.
In Sumarah I have seen similar little events so I
just went through it hoping she had some good
intentions towards me at the same time, but she
was in fact just killing the fatted calf. Not much
interest in my situation on her side of things. I
have spent the last four years cleaning up the
mess on this in as much as she has been unwilling
to accept the commitments and oaths she presented
as anything but a means to an end, thus defining
what we in Sumarah call a "full betrayal" where
the intent and oaths expressed have no connection
with any proper purpose.
So I have finally gotten to the stage of directly
pounding her being into compliance with its own
pretensions. The experience forced me to work
through the junun being from December 1991
when she sprang the trap (and said that all the
oaths were empty) until October 1995 when I
finally entered the suhul being in
expressing and understanding the issues and
relationships and mechanisms involved personally.
I've had a few rocky years but the main concerns
seem to be under control now. She continues
practicing "sense deprivation" in a stultifying
challenge to my competence in my own presence but
is mostly finding the being she makes off with to
be unworkable now in that it is fully expressed
relative to her already and certainly not
interested in her crypto-tyrannical designs. I've
been doing some purification fasting that is well
inspired. In part, I have been working with
various natural substances (like tea from various
places, various kinds of honey and propolis, some
spices, etc.) in conjunction through the brewing
of a complicated kind of tea.
Maria and I remain together though somewhat shaken
by events. We have a dear and slightly rebellious
daughter who is now 15 with all the attendant
problems associated with the age. I am well, in as
much as I can be anywhere but in the Java I love
so dearly. I miss you all deeply. Maybe someday I
will make it back to the other side of the world
and see how Indonesia has turned out. I must admit
the news is not always good but I continue to hope
that Suharto has not done too much beyond giving
the firm hand that is necessary in troubled times
like these. At least some of the invested money
does get to the people, unlike what so frequently
happens here in Brazil. I also hope that the
forests of Kalimantan and Irian Jaya have not been
excessively devastated. The tendency here in
Brazil is to set the forest on fire, feel the pain
and confusion and watch the smoke climb for
entertainment. There are cities in the Amazon
region where the smoke gets so heavy that airports
miles away have to be closed for lack of
visibility. Ho hum. Time will tell what's what.
In any case, I humbly ask that you witness the
enclosed documents and letters if you have the
time and if your English gives you a sufficiently
open window on their contents. I certainly hope
that this letter will find you well in as much as
years have passed and Lord knows the flesh does
weaken after all.
My love to you and your loving wife and family. My
best in particular to Aceh and Iman. I'm
embarrassed to say that I don't recall Iman's
mother's name but please be sure to give her my
love as well. I remember being deeply moved by
Yanti Moerdono's death some thirteen years ago
now. I mourned her as deeply as the love I have
for her so it took me about three or four years to
properly bear the pain. That's one of the reasons
I stopped writing. I'm sorry. She was my student
and I loved her very much as a dear friend I would
never lose track of for all my heart. Brazil is a
poor place if you love because the people here
don't really respond to their true feelings
responsibly and love (tresna) itself is
deemed a weakness, not a precious gift.
With humble
respect,
David Gordon Howe, Ph.D.