Report Translators Workshop - Zone 4 meeting - Budapest - 29 th April 2015 *Attendees *Introduction * Q & A session * Recommendations * Conclusions Attendees: Sharif and Tuti Horthy, English translators Raymond and Muti Lee, English translators (via Skype) Vera from Ucraine, Russian translators team Rebekka and Marsiya from Ukraine, Russian translation team (via Skype) Varda from Israel, Hebrew translator Valentina from Germany, German translator Paloma from Spain, Spanish translator Farah, zone 4 coordinator Dahliani, IH Area 2 Osanna from Austria, observer Robiyan from Greece, observer Valentin from Germany, observer Ashadi and Audry, Ibu s office (via Skype) Elisa, WSA translators coordinator And the very special gift of having Ibu Rahayu s presence via Skype to wish us all a good meeting and her love to everybody in the zone. Introduction: Following the very fruitful workshops some of the translators had in Indonesia last March we took the opportunity to organize another translator's meeting in Budapest during the zone 4 meeting.
As a start we followed one of the recommendations Sharif and Tuti made in the "Notes for a Translator s Manual for Translating Bapak s talks into English". That is: to listen to Bapak s talk. We listen the first part of the recording: 69 BUE 2. (Volume 24) in which Bapak sings a receiving. Apart from the inner advantage of doing this we found that sometimes the podium interpreter will give extra information. In the example Bapak tests the men after the women but there is no way of discovering this as in the Indonesian and final English translation says: Bapak will continue the talk, but also with some testing, so that you will understand this better. Now, can more come forward? As many as can fit. In the recording you can hear the interpreter saying something like "please men come to the front". Some languages may need to know the gender in order to make a good translation. Q & A session - Q Valentine : About the use of saudara-saudara that it is usually translated as "brothers and sisters" or "you". A Sharif: When Bapak says brothers and sisters he is meaning you, because that is the way they use to say you, and of course you can say you in English. Bapak's talking is conversational, not formal. In terms of style of translating do not think that because it is Bapak receiving from God you need to make it formal or pretentious. On the contrary, it should be very relaxed and natural. Try to be very clear and natural. So I tend to choose simple words not complicated words. If I have to choose between formal English or good literature and a more conversational I would probably go for the simplest word. And specifically on brothers and sisters when Bapak is starting on a new subject like he is talking about the nafsu and then he is talking about helpers responsibilities. When he starts a new subject he nearly always says brothers and sisters. So we try to screen out the brothers and sisters except when he is starting a new subject. So it is like bringing the audience back to focus on something that he is saying, then we try to leave it in so there is some logic. We tend to do the same and sometimes when it is for emphasis or refocus the audience we use brothers and sisters. Q Paloma: How to translate nafsu, that it is usually translated as desires, passions, drives, etc.? A Sharif: Last month when we were in Indonesia with Raymond, Muti and Tuti we were doing a talk that was a long explanation about the meaning of nafsu. At the beginning of the talk Bapak says he was going to explain about the nafsu. The 4 levels of the nafsu,
and how they operate and how they link to the low forces and so on. And as we were working on this, it became clear that we could not translate this talk without putting the word nafsu. Because Bapak is explaining his own word, what he means by nafsu. So we cannot start saying well Bapak will now explain you about drives. So we came to the conclusion that if we were forced to use nafsu in this talk, how can we go back and use drives and passion and desires in the next talk? May be for English speaking, especially British, it is difficult to read some foreign words, and it was decided not to use any foreign word except latihan. But this concern only to English speaking not the other languages such as Spanish, Russian, etc., as I do not think other nationalities have this problem in incorporating foreign words. Tuti: Nafsu is Bapak s word and there is not such a word in English and if in Indonesia you say nafsu they think of lust. So they immediately think of sexuality and Bapak idea about nafsu is much broader. Raymond: Another example of the use of the word nafsu in Indonesia is for example if you are hungry you say nafsu makan" (makan is to eat). Or if people are not motivated to do something they might say "I have not nafsu" meaning I am not attracted to do that. Sharif: So we may have to make a decision in English if we are going to use nafsu but this should not affect the other languages. Q Paloma How to translate jiwa? A Sharif: I feel quite comfortable translating jiwa as soul. Soul is a reasonable approximation. People in Indonesia have a very vague idea of what jiwa is and Bapak has a specific meaning of jiwa, but the vague idea of what Indonesian people have about the word jiwa is not that different from the vague idea of what soul is. Which is also very fussy. Q Audrey: If you do not use the word jiwa in the talks how the translators from different languages will know that it is not only soul but jiwa? A Sharif: To be clear there is an end note about nafsu and jiwa in all volumes in which you can read that when we say soul, it is a translation of jiwa and Bapak explains that jiwa is this and that. And in the volumes you will also find an explanation about the word nafsu. Actually in the volumes we put an extract of a talk in which Bapak explains the meaning of nafsu which is much less detailed that the talk we just translate. The principle meaning of nafsu is "self interest" and the main quality of the nafsu is that it is trying to look good. If we want our latihan to be perfect then that is nafsu. Or if we get annoyed because someone call us stupid that is nafsu. This is what Bapak explains. So people that are translating into third languages would know that when we are using desires or passions or ego we are referring to nafsu. Tuti: Nafsu comes from an Arab word that means "ego", but in Indonesia nafsu becomes more than ego and is the same with the word jiwa. The jiwa for Bapak is more deep and broad than the word soul in English.
Q Robiyan: English-English is not the most speaking language we also have American- English, Australian-English, Indian-English, maybe new generations are not so allergic to foreign words. A Sharif / Tuti: You can raise this point to SPI. Q Marsiya: Sometimes Bapak seems to look for a more accurate words, so the question is if it is really necessary to preserve all this oral speech, for example when he says or or or. Or when you use three dots in the middle of a sentence. A Sharif: There is a whole kind of spectrum of possibilities because sometimes it is very clear that Bapak says a word and then correct himself and in those cases we tend to cut it out. When Bapak is clearly changing or correcting something he just said we leave it out. There is also a less clear cut situation, for example when he says 2 or 3 words when he is clearly looking for the right meaning, then we tend to leave it in, precisely to give the chance to other translators to decide what to do. So I do not think you need to follow the English. You need to feel what you think Bapak is saying and then say it in your own language. So if you feel that it would be clearer to use one word then I would say do it. We tend to be more careful because we know that our translation is going to be used by other people and we tend to leave more ambiguity than we might otherwise do. And there are other situations in which Bapak is using different words because he wants to convey a totality of meaning that needs all those words, in that case it is better to leave it in. But I think that each translator has to make that decision. Q Marsiya: Of course we need to feel what Bapak is trying to say. For example if Bapak says "gift or revelation" he is not trying to say either or. This ambiguity is what I want to have more clarification. A Sharif: In Indonesia it is very common to use "atau" that means "or" which is not appropriate in English. Because if in English you say this or this, the English person will ask: which? So we usually put "and" instead of "or". So you have to be aware that we sometimes change this. Raymond: We do the same as Sharif explain. Sometimes I will leave the 3 dots interruption because sometimes it gives something about the atmosphere of the occasion and helps us to relate Bapak as a human being. Sometimes Bapak says some minor comments to Usman and we leave this as we think this add to the flavor of the talk, instead of taking all that out and put it in a more formal or clearer way. That is life and that is how Bapak gives the talks. There are not absolutes in translation and sometimes one can think why Bapak repeats the words or why he repeats what he says many times and I came across one talk (69 LIM 3 - Volume 24) in which Bapak is talking about the word God, Allah or Tuhan -that is God in Indonesian- and there Bapak explains that he uses words that makes the audience feel comfortable and something they can relate to. And not use terms that will feel alien to us all. Bapak was trying to find ways to describe things that explain a reality
but we do not have the exact terms or words so we can only approach to that reality. Language is a product of our heart and mind. The reality of what Bapak is talking about cannot be described in those terms. It would be like as if five hundred years ago we wanted to describe to an Arab living in the desert what an iceberg is. There is no term to describe it. So you might say well, it is a cold mountain or is liquid turned to rock and people will look at you in disbelieve. Of course you cannot use the term ice because they had never experienced that. It would be very difficult to explain something if you do not have the experience of that. This is an analogy as we are trying to describe things in our native languages things that even if we did already experience we still do not have the vocabulary in our languages, there are not words. So everything is an approximation. Sometimes if I cannot find the English meaning I relate or use two words. So instead of taking out a word I will add another one. Q Valentine: In several talks in volume 17 where Bapak speaks about the speed the light travels from the Earth to the Sun, and in each talk Bapak says something different. A Sharif: This is something cultural specific. I can imagine that it will offend German people if Bapak uses different times, but English people will care less and Spanish people would care even less. For English people I would include all different times because they will click immediately and think "It doesn t matter". Q Robiyan: In my experience of living in Greece for the last 32 years I am very aware that people that have no access to translations, they have a different experience of Subud. What about the languages that has no translations yet? The WSA policy seems to be: Do we have any volunteers, do they have any time? A Raymond: Translating the volumes could be intimidating because of the format. There is a language the translators choose some representative talks and made like a mini volume with that selection of talks to start with. The people that were translating into Mandarin they use that selection to start with their translation. So maybe it is something to be considered for countries that have no translation to produce a book with a selected talks to be translated first. We had the IH here and they been to India and they say they have a problem there because a very large proportion of the population does not speak English. So for Subud to grow there, it will be a real need to have the translation. Q Robiyan: May be another possibility to start with translation is to use the subtitle talks as they may be more incentive for new languages. A Sharif: Are you aware that there is a project of subtitling all Bapak s talks? A long term project. A Raymond: There is a difference when we translate for the subtitled video talks, as the phrasing needs to match Bapak words and sometimes this makes the English translation a bit clumsy. So this is something that we need to be aware of.
Q Valentine: About one talk in which Bapak speaks about a story where the angels are sent to check the behavior of a group of men. In the talk the angels say, that if men do not correct their behavior they will not go to heaven but to hell. I feel I need to soften this in the translation. (Recording: 67 PAR 3 - Volume 17) A Paloma: In Spanish we always translate what Bapak says. People may like it or not, may accept it or not, but we translate what Bapak says without adding or modifying any concept. It is the same with the opening words. Ibu Rahayu just said that we cannot remove the word God from the opening words. Subud is worship of God. We cannot change that, nobody is obliged to join Subud. A Sharif: Is the problem in Germany because Bapak talks about heaven and hell or is it because of gay's rights? Valentine: It is because of gay's rights. If Germany publishes this and the talk reaches people outside Subud we can have problems. We could take out the talk, meaning not to publish but if we publish I feel I need to soften it. We need to be careful of what we officially publish. Sharif: We had this confrontation recently in Lewes but of course people did not attack Subud as a result that we are anti-gay or whatever they think we are. It was for a political reason. They just try to find something to attack, but once the city council says we already made a decision and Subud will take this project, then everything stops. However it raised the question in the Subud group. My own point of view is that Subud has no teaching, this is what Bapak says all the time, Subud has no culture. The culture comes from our individual selves and Bapak s talks take account of his own experiences. So he always said, you do not have to believe everything I said, this is not a teaching. I tell you this in case you have the experience in your latihan. So when I talked about this in Lewes I said, Subud has no teaching on anything and what it is in Bapak s talks is Bapak s experience which we do not have to follow. Most of us think, it is valuable because we have something similar but we do not have to. And that usually calms people down. But we do not have Subud Germany's problem who have to decide legally whether it is going to be a problem or not and my answer in this case will be that this has to be their decision. Bapak always says that the reason National committees are autonomous is because they have to obey the law of the land and if it is illegal to say those things about gays then you probably cannot say it. On the other hand I am sure there are books that say nasty things about gays and they are still available. But it is difficult to decide. Of course you are quoting Bapak who was quoting the angels who cannot be put into prison. A Tuti: What I am going to say it is just a joke. You may put "inaudible" in the written translation so if people want to know they have to find out.
Q Valentine: Maybe it will be helpful in the back of the volumes to explain and add that Bapak was a Muslim and belongs to a certain culture it may help to understand Bapak s background. A Sharif: The problem for me with that is, that then people especially in America will say well Bapak is no longer relevant. Because if you say Bapak has this and that background and lived 100 years ago, basically the next sentence is, 'well Bapak is no longer relevant', and that is what some people in Subud are saying. I am not someone who needs to defend Bapak or not, it is not my job but from my own receiving the day before I first met Bapak I had this dream in which I was told that I was going to hear something which you will not understand and it is not for you but it is for humankind for the next hundreds of years. So for me just because today we are having a huge reaction for the fact that we have horrible treated homosexuals for the last x hundreds of years and we are trying to compensate now by saying, 'oh everybody should be homosexual'. And then in 100 years people would get over that and will think that to be homosexual is not the best thing of the world. So, I do not believe that we should change Bapak s talks just to fit in the current fashion or to sound political correct. Because in the end we will lose the essence of what it is. Which is that Bapak shows us a complete different way of seeing things that have many levels and have nothing to do with today's understanding and I do not want to lose that. Because I know we can understand things that most of the people cannot understand at all. And to lose that would be very sad. And the fact that you can test if someone is gay what level this is or from where this force comes from or what it feels like, what influence that has, for me is incredible valuable. And just to satisfy somebody's political attitude would be a pity. So if you can not publish it just skip that talk but translate it. Q Valentine: The explanation you gave, is the one that should appear in the volumes. With that explanation people will understand and may have another attitude towards the talks. A Sharif: All of us know, I mean all translators know that what Bapak is saying it is not from the Islamic point of view because half of the things that Bapak says for Muslims is an anathema. And it is not from a Javanese mystical point of view because Bapak is constantly saying that this kind of mysticism drives you anywhere. So people who imagine that Bapak is being influenced of any of these things are getting it wrong. It is precise, because what Bapak brings is completely new that it is not influenced of any of these things. And of course Islam nowadays is not anymore what Muhammad received. A Raymond: I want to share an experience I had. For many years I had the impression that Bapak was heavily coloured by Javanese traditions and culture and Islamic culture. And I used to think that if Bapak had been born in England, things would be much simpler. And sometime after Bapak s death I had an experience that I am eternally grateful. And that was to meet Arifin Konrad after his crisis. He sat here in the garden in Pamulang and he talked about his experience for about an hour. And it was a life changing experience for me because it was so real and vivid but the biggest shock for me was that what he was describing was exactly what Bapak had described. Suddenly I
realized that Bapak was not talking about Javanese mythology but he was talking about the trip he had made. And when he talks about these things, they are from his own experience. But when we talk about experiences we tend to think about dreams or visions or I felt this or I felt that. No, he is talking about going to the planets, going through the sun, leaving the whole universe, going to all the different levels. And in the process of that he understands the reality of life and that was never revealed before. Or it was revealed only to the prophets but they do not talk about it. And that gave me a different attitude to Bapak s talks. So when I am translating I am very much aware of the responsibility that if I start changing what Bapak says I will be responsible if that misleads people later on. So the translators carry a serious responsibility. I do not know the situation in Germany but I know people are focused on the gay issue and when I read Bapak s talks not only the gay issue but almost everything is controversial. Not only the gay issue but human behavior, the relation between man and woman, that we should marry and have children. For me, as Sharif explains, it is to tell people that these are Bapak s experiences and you are not asked to believe them - you are simply asked to be aware of. Maybe someday you have the same experience. I am not in favour of pretending that Bapak did not say some things. And if someone asks me what you do if you have a gay member my answer is, 'do nothing', unless somebody asks me a question. I cannot approach someone and say read what Bapak says about this. I cannot do that because people did not approach people like that. Bapak gave explanations, he spoke the truth and then it is up to people to deal with that. And that applies not just to gay people as we may probably have different kinds of behaviours that are probably also devastating from the spiritual perspective which we need to become aware of. And unless we are giving the information through Bapak s talks and then getting the experience through the latihan then I may be slowly become aware that I should speak to my wife in a kinder voice, simple things like that. Unless we start to become aware of those things how are we going to progress? I would really hesitate to change things. There are two aspects because you can have legal advice whether to publish or not. That is a legal question. But then there are the opinions of people in Subud pursuing particular agendas depending on their understanding and particular level in Subud and then you have to be careful because if there is a particular group that dominates the country they may be pushing certain things. And maybe their understanding is not correct. And if you silence out some parts of Bapaks talks, you are depriving someone who might have an experience in the latihan and may have an explanation in reading Bapak s talks. Ibu just met Ihs. And IH helpers have been in Chennai were some members follow the Sufi movement and they think the latihan is the same thing. And then they say we will stop doing latihan because it goes against Sufism. The IH got very confused and came to ask Ibu Rahayu how they should explain the differences to them. How do we explain Sufism, if it is this and the latihan is that? And Ibu s answer was very simple. She says, 'well, you do not because you are trying to explain it to the mind and you won't be able
to change their views. And if they are afraid that the latihan goes against Islam then just say do not do latihan.' Sometimes we take responsibility for things we are not responsible for. I said to people if you are going to the North Pole dont you want to read about it first? Specially if you read it from someone who was already been there and can tell you that there is an animal called polar bear that looks horrible and could eat you. Q Robyian: About the explanations in the notes at the end of the volumes. Some notes try to paraphrase Bapak and people can get scary with what it is said there. There is no need to do that. A You can send an email to SPI with this concern. Q Paloma: About the use of the extracts. If things are out of context then something is lacking, some part of the explanation is lacking, this is very dangerous. We should stop using extracts. Look what happened with Bapak s Guidance and Advice for helpers. Also 'On the Subud Way' there is an extract in which Bapak says something like because you are a woman you have to do everything of what your husband says. Then I read the whole talk and of course with the context it sounded completely different. Recommendations Raymond: If you have any comments on any talk please do ask. We have the recent experience of the Mandarin translator asking if he could use the term gods when referring to Almighty God as it seems that they do not have the concept of One God. And of course we answer that he needs to find the way to explain the One God concept. Anything that you cannot understand in English or is unclear please do not hesitate to send us an email. We would respond as soon as possible. May be in 2 hours or may be the next day. Sharif: As times goes on we are becoming more and more aware that Subud may well spread more in others countries rather than in English speaking countries. When Subud started outside Indonesia it started in England and then in the USA, Australia and so on so we thought English was the most important language at that time, but it is becoming more evident now that it may turn out that in the future Chinese or Mandarin translation will be far more important than the English one. That is the reason why we always insisted of having the Indonesian in the volumes so people do not hang up on the English as "the" basic translation. So, my message to translators is, please do not stop learning Indonesian. To be honest, to be a good third language translator you should be able to understand although not necessarily to speak some Indonesian so at least you can figure out more or less what Bapak is saying and what it is that we have to change to express it better in English. So the more you can follow - the better.
Raymond: You may also notice that the structure in English is different from the Indonesian structure and may be other languages have similar structure as Indonesian, in those cases you will benefit by following the Indonesian structure. Raymond/ Sharif: It is incredibly important to listen to the Indonesian. Even if you do not yet understand it yet, it is very useful to listen to Bapak talks before you start translating. Conclusions Ask, ask and ask. Please if something is unclear in the English translation do write to Sharif and Raymond. Listen to Bapak s talk before translating. Continue your studies of Indonesian language. Create a team of translators in your language so that it will be easier to find translators for the future. Do not change Bapak words. Bapak spoke the truth. Use familiar and simple words and terms. Thank you to everybody and we hope this report will be useful for others translators that could not attend the meeting. Elisa Sanchez Caballero -WSA coordinator for translators and translations of Bapak s and Ibu s talks.