July 20, 1997
 

Dear Michael,
    I have been through a little crisis (harddisk failure) on this end and lost the letter I had written to you. In any case here is the gist of it.
    First, I would like to congratulate you on your effective description of Javanese mysticism which in a wonderfully brief form succeeds in giving a meaningful picture of our practice’s character and purpose as well as the social context that frames it.
    However, just a few comments for you to think about. You might consider examining the presentation of  “self-control” in and of itself as being a primary purpose of Javanese kebatinan. It is somewhat misleading in that we work to become openly receptive and spontaneous.

We study to meper hawa nepsu (“diminish the desires by getting them into perspective”) or, in other words, ngruntutake hawa napsu (“conform to real nature of the desires”). You do this day in, day out, and try not to forget that although you cannot control the desires, you can try to keep track of them so that they do not overwhelm you. (Howe, D.G., Serve the Harmony: Worldview and Psychology in Java, p. 66)

Also, you might consider the fact that our emphasis on open reception is connected with an open reaction to circumstances that is expressed in the ferocity, the fierce intensity of Java. A couple of examples of this character are the culture-bound disorder of “running amuk” which was first identified among the Javanese and constitutes the occasional explosion of rage and hatred that necessarily builds up in a group studying and practicing such intensity in social relations.
    Another little indication of this element is to be found in the language. Javanese is a magnificent language to the point of being unworldly. Obviously it has many words that do not really exist in any other language coming out of kebatinan practice over the ages. However, another area where it is uniquely rich is in words and concepts connected with the formation and maintenance of profoundly deep and loving relationships. There is a wealth of words for the various forms and depths of love in our being (asih, tresna, asih tresna, tresna asih, sayang, resmi, cinta, kasih just for starters) because this is what we study and as a result we have an opportunity to form such relationships while in a less sensitive and responsible environment this would be impossible. We also have an incredible number of words for God (Sang Hyang Tunggal, Ingsun, Gusti Allah, Tuhan Yang Maha Esa, Tuhan Yang Maha Adil, Maha Kuasa, Maha Pendidik, Maha Tahu, Maha Bendu among many many others) because the divine being is at the same time what we study, what we serve and what we seek to express with our lives. In addition we have more than a dozen words for “king” (sunan, susuhunan, ratu, paku, hamengku, mangku, prabu, raja, nata, sultan, sang binatara, sang pinandita, among many many others in this connection) and in fact it is the job of a king to effectively articulate his people to God. The word that a king uses for “I” is not something on the order of the royal “we” but rather “Ingsun”, one of our words for God. The king is responsible for referencing to and from the Divine Totality in defining his being and thus guiding his people. Along these same lines, a kebatinan adept is participating in these same functions of helping to orient us all towards accepting our true needs and helping us to recognize ourselves accurately so that we can serve them. In Sumarah we term this the mirror function as we openly reveal the character of others to them on various levels stretching from what is "unconscious" in them but openly expressed in us to direct personal contact involving subtle or not so subtle confrontation so that they can see themselves more clearly in this feedback and correspondence.

When I say that you become like a mirror I mean that then you do become aware of your total identity. A mirror takes shape within which we can see our own reflection. . .The mirror I mean is within the self, recognizing the self as a whole. . .If we cannot recognize the whole composite of categories that comprise the self, then we will not be able to surrender totally. . .Once the mirror within us has begun to clear enough so that we can see ourself, then when it is turned towards others they can see themselves reflected to whatever extent their own mirror has not cleared. . .A pamong is only truly one when we see ourselves more clearly in his purity of consciousness. . .It  is the spirit rather than the body of the pamong that provides the mirror. . .On this path the mirror in each of us can become gradually clearer through the mirror of the pamong. . .So a pamong is in the first instance a person who can see himself clearly within the mirror in his own sanubari, he knows his own behavior in both inner and outer worlds. Aside from that he is given the task of supporting and aiding so that other people can gradually awaken the functioning of their own inner mirror. ( Arimurthy, "Arimurthy on Guidance in Sumarah" in Selected Sumarah Teachings, trans. Paul Stange, Department of Asian Studies, Western Australia Institute of Technology, 1977, pp. 21-23)

Another, more physical and obvious example of the Java’s ferocity was the response to the Chinese takeover attempt in 1964 (500,000 Chinese eliminated in a few days when the people of Java ran more or less amuk em masse as a result of the pain we had absorbed from our long association with the often haughty Chinese). Our ferocity is not necessarily sopan santun (associated with good manners, proper attitudes and behavior), and in fact, another area where the Javanese language is outstanding rich is in words for anger and rage and wrath. We have a lot of tresna (love), so we have a lot to get excited about and to defend.
    Now some comments about the Isma’ili. The Assasins were one of the profoundly important tyrannical presences in Islam at that time. The despots then were not notably different from Saddam Hussein or any other Middle Eastern potentate now except in being able to claim even more legitimacy as a result of their successful scramble to the top of the heap. In any case, the Assasins pretended divine authority coming out of ‘Ali as the Imam (“vicar” more or less) of Islam who rested above all accountability in absolute infallibility and inaccessability like the pope.

And the Prophets are the people of revelation (tanzil) and the Imams the people of interpretation (ta’vil). . . The world, they said, had never been without an Imam and never would be. If a man was Imam his father had been Imam before him, and his father’s father before him, and so on back to Adam (on whom be peace!). They say too that an Imam is not always visible. Sometimes he is visible and sometimes hidden like day and night following each other. Before the rise of Islam there was a period of occultation (satr) but in the lifetime of ‘Ali (May God be pleased with him!) the Imam, that is ‘Ali himself, became visible, and from thence onward until the time of Isma’il and his son Muhammad, who was the seventh Imam, all the Imams were visible. he became invisible and after him all the Imams will be invisible until they become visible. . . Everything he thought he had read from the inscriptions on the “Preserved Tablet,” that everything he said he said through divine inspiration and that any mistake or error in his thought or speech was not possible. (‘Ala-ad-Din ‘Ata Malik Juvaini, The History of the World Conqueror)

This was convenient ideology for running an absolute tyranny and the Old Man of the Mountain in Alamut had a web of power that to some extent oppressed the whole of the Middle East: If he didn’t like you, he was apt to have you murdered by his happy little band of overexcited assasins. As Bosworth aptly points out:

In mediaeval Islamic times, the extremist Shi’i Isma’ilis were regarded with fear by orthodox Sunnis. Since the Isma’ilis appealed to a wide range of intellects and interests, there hand was suspected in many of the outbreaks of social and political discontent. The Nizari branches in Persia and Syria used the weapon of religious assasination (a practice familiar from ancient times in the East), and launched raids from their mountain fortresses; by these means, an atmosphere of terror was created, so that the numerousness and apparent ubiquity of the assasins were unduly magnified in popular imagination. (The Islamic Dynasties, p. 127)

Happily for the Javanese, when Islam was entering into contact with Java, the Mongols appeared in the Middle East and shook these tyrannical associations to the ground. Under Great Khan Ogedey the Mongols toppled the Khwarazm-Shahs and then under Great Khan Mengu, Il-Khan Hulegu’s forces did a very thorough job of eliminating the Isma’ilis in 1256.
    Earlier on, Chingiz Khan had accounted for his role in the world by saying that he was inspired to his conquests by a divine being he called “blue heaven” (known as Wis or Dewi Bendu in kebatinan) and he claimed a relationship with these tyrants much like what we observed in Java in the outpouring of hate and wrath against the Chinese: the despots were a source of pain and oppression in our common experience that called up this natural and divinely inspired response and he was acting as the Wrath of God.

O people, know that you have committed great sins, and that the great ones among you have committed these sins. If you ask me what proof I have for these words, I say it is because I am the punishment of God. If you had not committed great sins, God would not have sent a punishment like me upon you. (Juvaini, op. cit., p. 105)

In part as a result of the downturn in the fortunes of the Middle Eastern tyrants of that time, Islam reached Java in a somewhat less aggressive state and there was less of the pretense of scornful superiority which was established most obviously in the Isma’ili pretense.
    Then in Java, one of our holy men and true heroes, Seh Siti Jenar, one of the Wali Sanga, the nine disciples that spread Islam in Java effectively "Javanized" Islam for us by asserting our vision of the divine in saying that:

Know, you two, that Siti Jenar does not exist, now it is Allah who appears; report this. . .There is no Friday; there is no mosque, only Allah indeed exists. There is nothing other which now has existence. (Ricklefs, M.C., Jogjakarta under Sultan Mangkubumi 1749-1792: A History of the Division of Java. London: Oxford University Press, 1974, p. 7.)

Evidently the Arabs were not pleased to hear it and put him to death but his posture remains our faith. We found that the presence of "Allah" basically corresponded to a megalomaniac who was interested in having people call his name and supplicate inordinately and in having them go out and kill and conquer their neighbors to make them exhibit the same curious behavior. Strange God. We could only accept Islam when Allah became identified with the deity we worship, who we call by various names including Tuhan Yang Maha Ésa, Sang Hyang Tunggal and Ingsun, and is simply the Totality of Being. Gods of love and power and control obviously exist but we do not consider them even remotely interested in really solving anyone's problems: they are just crypto-tyrants demonstrating their power to cause pain and get away with it for a time. In addition we know that anyone can participate in Divine Being if they are willing to suffer themselves clean and relate to and from the Totality that is the essence of true divinity.
    Now just a comment about eling for you to think about. Eling is the principle of discipline in Java. A child is dielingake, “reminded of his responsibilities”, “brought to his senses”, in another use of the term. However, its use within kebatinan goes much farther. We go through levels of awareness starting in eling ing pikir (awareness of thought) and opening through eling ing rasa (awareness of feeling) to sejatining eling (true awareness), eling ing jiwa (awareness of the spirit) adiling eling (just awareness), tentrem ing manah (peace in the center of experience (ati sanubari) arising out of existence itself and defended thereby) and eling ing ingsun (awareness of God). These are more and more accurate, participatory and cumulative openings to the Totality but they all fall into the category of developing greater awareness of what is “good” for you. For example, in eling ing pikir you become aware of the limited utility of thought as a source of experience and as a purpose. You start the long job of stopping the habit of amusing yourself with thought and start the process of opening to Reality and feeling what is here to be felt rather than what you manipulate and can control yourself. But that is just the beginning. It is useful to look at these expanding awarenesses as a series of concentric circles that grow larger as your awareness opens and grows until you finally reach the Suhul or divine level of being and are stated properly in tentrem ing manah and eling ing ingsun. The path to Suhul basically involves opening, serving and suffering and confronting the problems of existence.
    I guess that’s about it for now. I still have the letter to Harner that I will soon try to send off to you as well which gives a description of my experience in going into Suhul in Brazil’s curious (and outstandingly painful) environment in that many of the characteristics of the experience here would probably have been notably different in Java. Ho hum. We have added to our experience, as we say.

Dengan hurmat,
 

David Howe