The founder of the Subud association and the first person to receive the Latihan was an Indonesian named Bapak Muhammad Subuh Sumohadiwidjojo (1901 – 1987). The name Subuh is not connected with the name Subud. Subuh means sunrise in Javanese. The word “Subud” is not directly connected with Pak Subuh’s name, but is an abbreviation of three Sanskrit words: Susila, Budhi, and Dharma.
Sejarah Subud mulai di sekitar tahun 1925, ketika almarhum R. M. Muhammad Subuh Sumohadiwijoyo secara tak terduga dijamah dengan hebat oleh kekuasaan Tuhan. Kontak dahsyat ini disusul dengan masa tiga tahun yang ditandai gejolak luar biasa di dalam jiwanya.
Pada akhir masa itu, doanya terkabul dengan diperolehnya petunjuk bahwa karunia yang telah diterima beliau tidak hanya untuk dirinya sendiri dan dapat dibagi-bagikan kepada siapa saja yang berminat. Hanya disyaratkan bahwa anggota tidak boleh dicari-cari. Perlu menunggu kedatangan para peminat atas prakarsa mereka sendiri.
Mula-mula kontak itu hanya disampaikan kepada anggota keluarga dan tetangga dekat, tetapi lama kelamaan ternyata ada peminat yang datang dari lain-lain tempat di Indonesia untuk menerima kontak, dan lambat laun anggota-anggota tertentu pada gilirannya juga diizinkan menyampaikan kontak kepada para peminat.
Nama Subud tidak mempunyai hubungan langsung dengan nama pribadi Bapak Subuh. Subud merupakan singkatan tiga kata Sanskerta, yaitu Susila, Budhi, dan Dharma. Di dalam Subud ketiga kata tersebut ditafsirkan sebagai berikut: Susila berarti budi pekerti manusia yang baik, sejalan dengan kehendak Tuhan Yang Maha Esa.
Budhi berarti daya kekuatan diri pribadi yang ada pada diri manusia. Dharma berarti penyerahan, ketawakalan, dan keikhlasan terhadap kekuasaan Tuhan Yang Maha Esa. Setelah kontak dengan daya atau kekuatan Tuhan (Budhi) diterimanya, pelatih menyerah kepada bimbingan Tuhan (Dharma), dan, dengan demikian, dituntun kepada budi pekerti yang utama (Susila). Bimbingan Tuhan seperti itu dialami baik di dalam latihan kejiwaan maupun di dalam kehidupan sehari-hari.
Nama Subud mulai dipakai pada tahun 1947, dan sejak tahun 1956 latihan kejiwaan Subud mulai menyebar ke hampir seluruh dunia. Karena sama sekali tidak mencari publisitas, Subud semata-mata menjalar melalui pengenalan dan keteladanan pribadi.
Hanya, setelah terbitnya beberapa buku tentang Subud, karangan perseorangan, cukup banyak pembaca menemui di dalamnya sesuatu yang sedang mereka dambakan, secara sadar atau di bawah sadar, sehingga terbangkitlah hasratnya untuk masuk Subud.
Mulai dari tahun 1957 sampai dengan wafatnya pada tahun 1987, Pak Subuh (panggilan akrabnya) banyak bepergian ke luar negeri. Mula sekali–lawatan pertamanya ke luar Indonesia–atas undangan mereka beliau mengunjungi selama beberapa bulan sekelompok kecil anggota Inggris yang telah menerima kontak melalui seorang Eropa yang pernah beberapa lama tinggal di Indonesia. Selama separuh kedua tahun 1957, ratusan orang masuk Subud, banyak di antaranya warga Afrika, Australia, dan Amerika, serta negeri-negeri lain di Eropa, dan mereka pun mengundang Bapak Subuh untuk mengunjungi negerinya masing-masing.
Penyampaian kontak Subud tidak memerlukan kehadiran Bapak Subuh pribadi. Di negeri-negeri tempat didirikan cabang Subud, maka banyak anggota, pria dan wanita, yang diizinkan mewakili Bapak sebagai Pembantu Pelatih. Para Pembantu Pelatih belum tentu orang yang telah mencapai derajat rohani yang tinggi–meskipun, setelah 40 atau 50 tahun melakukan latihan Subud, tentu ada orang yang telah mencapai perkembangan rohani yang cukup memuaskan.
Pembantu Pelatih dipilih dari para anggota yang pengalaman kejiwaannya memadai. Sebelum wafatnya, Bapak Subuh sendiri mengangkat semua Pembantu Pelatih. Sekarang Pembantu Pelatih baru diangkat oleh sekelompok Pembantu Pelatih dengan nama Dewan Pembantu Pelatih Internasional yang mengabdi selama periode tertentu. Yang dibenarkan bertindak sebagai Pembantu Pelatih hanya mereka yang resmi diangkat oleh Bapak Subuh atau Dewan Pembantu Pelatih Internasional.
Di dalam Subud Bapak Subuh tidak berfungsi sebagai guru atau penguasa, melainkan sebagai pemimpin kejiwaan yang hanya membimbing para anggota dan memberi keterangan serta nasihat yang dimintanya. Seluruh ajaran yang dibutuhkan manusia telah tersedia, tuturnya, dalam agama-agama besar. Subud tidak bermaksud memisahkan manusia dari agamanya, malah kebalikannya.
Subud, melalui proses pembersihan diri, memungkinkan para anggotanya mengamalkan ajaran agama masing-masing, karena lambat laun mereka dapat menjadi manusia sejati sesuai dengan kehendak Tuhan.
The founder of the Subud association and the first person to receive the Latihan was an Indonesian named Bapak Muhammad Subuh Sumohadiwidjojo (1901 – 1987).
The name Subuh is not connected with the name Subud. Subuh means sunrise in Javanese. The word “Subud” is not directly connected with Pak Subuh’s name, but is an abbreviation of three Sanskrit words: Susila, Budhi, and Dharma. In Subud, these are approximately translated as follows: Susila means right living in accordance with the Will of God; Budhi means the in ner force residing within the nature of man himself; Dharma means surrender and submission to the Power of God.
Muhammad Subuh is commonly referred to as Pak Subuh or Bapak, which is a respectful form of address of an elderly man in Indonesia. Bapak unexpectedly received the latihan for the first time when he was 24 years old. He explained (in talks to Subud members beginning in the 1940s) that he was taking a late-night walk when he had an unexpected and unusual experience.
He found himself enveloped in a brilliant light, and looked up to see what seemed like the sun falling directly onto his body. He thought that he was having a heart attack, so he went directly home, lay down on his bed, and prepared to die. He had the feeling that maybe it was his time and that he could not fight it, so he surrendered himself to God.
According to his explanation, instead of dying he was moved from within to stand up and perform movements similar to his normal Muslim prayer routine. It seemed that he was not moving through his own volition but was being guided by what he interpreted as the power of God.
This same kind of experience reportedly happened to him for a few hours each night over a period of about 1000 days during which he slept little but was able to continue working full-time. He said he experienced a kind of inner teaching whereby he was given to understand a variety of things spontaneously.
As these experiences proceeded, Pak Subuh explained, he gained spontaneous insight into people and situations that he did not possess before. This experience is now referred to as the latihan. Around 1933, Bapak eventually became aware that he was to pass on the latihan to others. He realized that if other people were physically near him while he was in a state of latihan, then the experience would begin in them also.
While still in his early thirties, Bapak’s reputation as someone with spiritual insight apparently grew, and people went to him to be opened. In time they also were able to pass on the experience, and the latihan spread throughout Indonesia by word of mouth. In 1957 Bapak was invited to visit England and this is when the development of Subud as an international organization really began. But as Bapak himself put it: “[the latihan] is not foreign. It did not originate in the East and it did not come to the West … it comes from the Spirit of God, which is nowhere a stranger.”
Because the transmission of the Subud latihan does not depend on the presence of Pak Subuh, Bapak authorized many men and women from countries all over the world to act as his helpers and representatives to transmit the latihan. These helpers are not necessarily of any high spiritual development, although some, after forty or fifty or more years in Subud, may indeed have attained this to some extent.
Pak Subuh was not a teacher or a leader but a spiritual guide. He gave guidance, explanation and advice; but as he explained, all the teaching necessary for mankind has already been given to us in the great religions of the world.
Subud does not separate anyone from their religion, but rather brings to us the possibility of living in accordance with those teachings. There are no geographical barriers or cultural limitations to Subud – which has groups in about 54 countries around the world and approximately 10,000 members of all nationalities.