The child's foot still doesn't know it's a foot,

it wants to be a butterfly or apple.

 

Later, the stones, bits and pieces of glass,

streets, stairways

the packed earth of the road,

go on teaching the foot it can't fly

can't be round as a fruit on a branch.

The child's foot,

defeated, went down

in battle

a casualty

condemned to live in a shoe.

 

Little by little in the dark it began

to interpret the world after its fashion

never knowing its other foot, still enclosed

groping for life like a blind man.

                                                                      — Pablo Neruda

 

Individual Frustration in a Materialist Society

A social value system in which success is defined in terms of ability to get to the top is built on an obvious paradox. There are only a certain number of positions of wealth, power and influence. No matter how clever, ambitious or able people are, they cannot all be political leaders or captains of industry. As the old saying goes, 'you can't put a quart into a pint pot', and the fact that most people won't reach the 'top' has nothing to do with their own individual abilities, but simply reflects the reality of social organisation itself. To accept an ideology based on such a contradiction is bound to create frustration. Some have a measure of success and consider themselves superior. Others bemoan their fate as less adequate human beings. Some try to opt out into an escapist dream of drugs, or into an endless, meaningless observation of the activities of those (usually fantasy people) provided for them by television. Yet others try to satisfy their frustrated ambitions in non-legitimate ways, turning to the criminal world to seek fame and fortune.

In societies which called themselves socialist, the vision of 'true communism' was unable to mobilise enough of the idealism needed for collective action, except during short periods when material frustrations with the old order boiled over. A world of propagandistic make-believe was created in which people became cynical about everything. At the end, the leaders of the Soviet Union called for spiritual regeneration. Mikhail Gorbachov compared his vision of socialism to a 'temple on a green bill'; just as the entire façade of 'socialist' Eastern Europe collapsed like a house of cards. Neither socialist nor capitalist materialism has provided real human satisfaction.

It cannot be said that even those who derive the greatest material benefit from our current social structures have found much fulfilment. A new car is a joy, but not forever. The pleasure of a second new car palls more rapidly. So it is with material wealth in general; the pleasures it provides are of diminishing value. Of course, it is pleasant not to have to worry about material needs. The unhappiness of the wealthy, however, provides a hunting ground for therapists. The dream of material wealth has been an effective stimulus, working on the most primitive levels of desire, but its realisation does not live up to its promise.

As the scale of modern society grows and it becomes increasingly transnational in scope, more and more people feel powerless and frustrated. Mass housing developments provide unbelievably unstimulating environments to live in. People may undergo bouts of mental or psychosomatic illness and withdraw, by opting out, or project their bitterness onto those nearby who seem different. Racism, religious and nationalist fanaticism, football violence and hooliganism are all symptomatic of a sense of disempowerment that, in appropriate circumstances, erupts into extremist political movements. Democratic choice is often confined to the occasional right to vote in increasingly huge constituencies for representatives who themselves are not necessarily close to any real decision-making. Modern therapeutic movements have developed many techniques for encouraging personal development, but all too often these methods are used in vain attempts to help people adjust to ways of living with fundamentally unsatisfying values.

It is unlikely that this kind of alienated lifestyle, reflecting an increasingly common, crisis-ridden social situation, can be modified to provide human satisfaction. People can best begin to transcend such a state through the discovery and development of connection with the source of all, the 'indweller', the divine reality underlying all forms and present in each of us. Then life becomes meaningful, empowerment develops and effective action can be taken within any social situation. Our job in the Findhorn community is to explore this change. In this way we can assist people in their transition from a world view which has become inadequate to cope with the situation on the planet, to one which gives both individual satisfaction and the personal resources for the wider social changes our civilisation needs.

Changing 'Human Nature'

As we transform ourselves, learning to work from within, traditional, external morality ceases to be a rule by which we ought to act, but becomes a guide as to whether our inward listening is effective. For as we start the process of working from 'the inside out', we immediately come up against all the old ways of thinking and behaving with which we have lived for years and which are very familiar to us. They can be described as the personality as we know it, or, our everyday sense of self.

It is the transformation of this everyday self into the 'Self within' which provides the challenge of the new spirituality The transformation needs to be dealt with delicately and lovingly, but it needs to be dealt with. Some seekers may undergo an overwhelming experience of what it means to be real, but even such glimpses, while intensely motivating, are usually brief. The task is still to embody the experience, to create an identity and a lifestyle that express it. For this inner work, support and guidance is needed. In the Findhorn community we support each other and use all sorts of techniques, including therapy and self-development workshops, to move along this path. Our aim is not to adjust to the old, but to facilitate the discovery of the truth behind appearances, and to live from that.

One of the conditions of human development is that we must use survival strategies. We are born innocent and unconditionally loving, but helpless, without the ability either to look after ourselves or to communicate anything other than the most basic needs. The love that we receive in return, however, is by no means totally unconditional. It is mixed up with our parents' conception of how we ought to be. In turn the child's unconditional love is modified. The result of this ongoing interaction provides the dynamic of personality formation. If demands are too difficult for a child to accommodate, he or she may in the most extreme cases be battered in frustration by a parent and die. A child who is expected never to cry or to be nothing other than a sweet living doll, may develop a mutilated personality and emerge as an adult suffering from deep frustration and inner rage. But, extremes apart, each person as a little child has had to evolve a strategy for coping with not-well understood demands from the parental world.

Many of these strategies, dating from the earliest pre-verbal levels, become adopted unconsciously and structure a developing identity. It is not merely, for instance, that we may feel unloved. Little children may, in their innocence, define non-love as if it were love, and spend their lives seeking the rejection they experienced from their parents. It is, for them, the only real satisfaction, although as adults they are merely aware that their relationships 'go wrong'. Some, seeking to please, come to feel that they are real only when they do what others want. As they begin to try to discover who they really are, they may experience a deep angst, as if there is actually nothing to them at all.

As we progress from being babies to children, what we want — basic love and nutrition — becomes differentiated and defined in our developing consciousness: we want sweet foods, we cling to Mummy, and so on. We take into ourselves, through our parents and other significant figures, the ideas of satisfaction prevalent in our culture. They do not seem to belong to others; they are 'ours — what we like or don't like, what gives us pleasure, what gives us pain. Much of our self-evaluation — our judgement of ourselves, our levels of self-confidence, aggressiveness, insecurity — is actually an internalization of other people's views, accepted before we had the ability to evaluate them. Adults may find comfort in the belief in God's forgiveness of us as sinners; we may use a strict moral code to hold all our deep frustrations and violent impulses in check; we may use our reason to try to provide explanations for why we behave as we do, and to ameliorate the judgements that crowd in on us; but we are all reacting against an essentially imported concept of self which we have unconsciously adopted as our own. So we get by, adapting with more or less success to the immense changes going on around us, living a life of pleasure and pain, satisfaction and frustration as our survival patterns are constantly activated and reactivated.

There is, however, a deep yearning built into our identity — psychologists tend to call it a 'curiosity drive' — which lies at the root of all the strategies described above. Such yearning can underlie, for example, compulsive acquisitive behaviour, though it is never satisfied by it. I want: women; men; cars; a yacht; everything to be in order; freedom; pleasure; excitement; to be noticed; and so on. The 'I want' is their root. It underlies them all. In fact, what I want is to know who I am. Finally, nothing else will do. Either I die frustrated and the search goes on; or fulfilled, merged with the divine source. Eileen's inner voice says:

As you raise your consciousness and realise your Oneness with Me, there is no duality. Love flows through you in ever-increasing power, and you see only the perfect and good in all. How necessary it is for you to do this. Really understand that mankind is made in My image and is therefore perfect. If I am your Father, I am the Father, Mother, God of all mankind. Accept this realisation. (God Spoke to Me, p. 77)

To acknowledge this deep yearning, a personal shift in identity from the sense of ourselves that we learned in our psychological process of development, towards our essence — who we really are — is necessary. It is the reason why the Findhorn community is here, and why it is so successful. For anybody can make such a change, whether they be rich or poor, intellectual or practical, complicated or simple, believer or agnostic; whatever their nationality or religion. And, as they change, the great 'I want', father of all the other 'I wants', begins to be satisfied, and life becomes exciting, fulfilling. As the change is made, the problems of alienation and disempowerment diminish. We become calmer, stronger, clearer. We begin to release our frustrations, we grow less needy, less compulsive. A calmer, more loving, aware and considerate identity begins to emerge. It is a simple and effective process.

This process is the social 'paradigm shift' that humanity has to make to overcome the problems which beset us. Furthermore, it is not only the successful completion of this task which is fulfilling. The attempt to change, itself, provides a full agenda for life. Far from attempting to escape from a dispiriting reality, we engage with life because it is so interesting. There is so much to be done; doing it is so exciting!

In the Findhorn community people live without major stress in a beautiful environment but we are very busy. The days are always too short. Developing a relationship with the Real involves a new relationship with all that one has known, seeing it with new eyes, ones that become increasingly more loving and compassionate and less judgmental. On the journey to the Self, we are assisted by two kinds of techniques:

The first relate to inner development, and many of them are meditative in quality. "Be still," said the Voice to Eileen, "and know that I am God." Such techniques, which can be adapted for simple group work, take one on the journey inwards, to the 'higher' self. Contrary to common belief, they are not difficult or demanding, and do not have to be undertaken for hours at a time. Their purpose is the discovery of Love within. To go deeper into meditation techniques is a personal decision which may be made as one becomes aware of the benefits they bring. If it is undertaken as a result of other people's opinions there will be an inner conflict which presents itself when one becomes still. Inner discipline develops as a means, not as an end in itself, but it does require application. In this, it is no different from the discipline required to acquire a skill. You cannot be a musician, a doctor or a carpenter without training. Why should the ultimate skill require none?

The second set of techniques is for when we get stuck; for when we are afraid to let go of the old. They make use of a variety of therapeutic practices. At the Findhorn community we are happy to use anything that works, and there are usually qualified practitioners available. But the use of these techniques is also a means, not an end in itself. The community is not a therapy centre, and therapy is not the solution to the human predicament. The aim is to release anything that blocks us from becoming Self-identified (rather than selfish), as quickly and as economically as possible. We are concerned with finding the Love that lives in us, and with freeing ourselves to embody it in an ever-increasing quantity. The challenge is to practise what is found. To pretend to be loving when one does not feel it is the utmost hypocrisy. When we find that we are not feeling loving, it is sensible to investigate what is blocking the love, and to use an appropriate technique to release the block. In this way, step by step, the psychological structure of the identity can be reformed.

Reason as Servant, not Master

Another aspect of the process of restructuring the identity to come 'from the inside out' involves reconsidering attitudes to reason. Reason is the mechanism by which we learn to give order to the incomprehensibility of the world. It is the basic working tool for the understanding of phenomenal experience. By learning to predict what will happen when we act, we acquire some measure of control over our environment. But reason soon becomes a tyrant instead of a servant. For, as well as enabling some control over the world we experience, our developing reason begins to limit what 'can' happen in terms of the actual perceptions it organises. "What is not seen can't be real," it says. "What we know with our senses is the only truth." We have already challenged the objectivity of the view of the world that our senses give us. And we have talked of guidance, channelling, 'going within' to help discover a wider reality. None of these are available if we adhere strictly to a definition of the world propounded by reason. Neither Eileen's guidance, nor the founding of the Findhorn Foundation are easily explained by reason.

To find who we are, we have to learn to put our critical faculty on hold. It is too dependent on inadequate definitions of what is real. Many people are rather fearful of this. Reason, for them, seems to keep their unresolved unconscious desires at bay and guards against possible craziness. One is not trying to deny our existence in the phenomenal world. But, rather than being the determinant of truth, that world provides the framework in which incarnated beings operate. As such, it is an excellent 'reality check'. The behaviour of deluded people will not spread love and wisdom, but unhappiness for themselves and others. Such people have not found the frequency of truth, but have lost themselves in another level of illusion.

In spirituality, reason has its place, not to limit reality, but as a checking mechanism which enables a relationship to be made between claims and results. Divine Grace as well as intuitive modes of seeking knowledge operate through the physically-experienced world, where the consequences of their application can be checked. But without the extra qualities of grace and intuition, the door to self-discovery is locked.

The innumerable 'coincidences' which happen at the Findhorn community also quickly undermine the overweening rule of reason. One, or even two, coincidences can be accepted as such, but when they come in a stream, we must, if we are 'reasonable', begin to allow for the possibility that 'reality' is much more flexible than our reason can envisage.

A small model illustrates this way of describing human identity:

 

DIVINE SELF

(Who I really am)

Ý

A HIGHER SELF

(Getting there!)

Ý

                                                         ------------------------------------------(Spiritual development techniques)

|                                                              |

PAST EXPERIENCE                     |                   PERSONALITY               |                                          FUTURE

(May need releasing)               |    My current sense of myself          |          (May make me anxious)

(Regression work)                         |       — who I think I am)                     |    __________________(Time)

|                                                               |

                                    ----- -------------------------------------------(Therapy techniques)

 

UNCONSCIOUS

(Keeps tripping me up)

 

Our perceived self — who we think we are — is in centre position.

Below it are our unconscious wishes, or impulses, which we may uncover with therapeutic techniques.

On the left side is our past, not just that of our current life, but an immense area of experience in other lives. It may occasionally be useful to become aware of this through past-life regression techniques.

On the right is our future. Time is the best agent for discovering this aspect of ourselves, though we may get some indication as to general trends and problems from astrologers and clairvoyants. Above is our Higher Self — and above that the Divine Self.

By contacting the Higher Self we can understand the world of our perceptions, and look at our problems in a new way. Moving in this 'upward' direction constitutes the spiritual path. None of the areas that lie outside the self experienced personality, the ego-self, are immediately apparent, but they are very real.The search for an inclusive identity gives humanity its true raison d'être. We will just have to get down to it, in order to cope with the monstrous problems of our materialist, externally directed civilisation.

 

The Energy of Transformation

If we look at a candle burning in a darkened room, we can see its flame. But the candle also lights the room. If we look at a computer screen, we can see what is written there. But the computer screen also gives out energy (the 'tempest' effect) and it can be read at a distance with the appropriate equipment. Firms worry that people can steal their secrets that way! In both cases, an energy is being given out. In the first case we can see the flame; we also see by the light emitted. In the second case we can see what's on the screen, but not the emitted energy. When we have an X-ray, we cannot see anything, still, the energy may have an effect on us.

By extension, it is not too difficult to imagine that everything we are and do gives off energy. When someone is angry, for instance, our senses observe the way they behave; from that we infer that they are angry We cannot see the energy they give off, but we may feel uncomfortable and want to keep out of the way; or our own angry feelings may be triggered; we respond in kind. Sometimes we may feel angry for no apparent reason, triggered by the energy of the anger of someone else, whom we can't see. Psychologists have spent much effort trying to prove that these effects are solely the results of observable stimuli. It is a bit like saying that there isn't anything but the flame of the candle — that it doesn't give off any light. Of course, we can see by the light, so we can't deny that an energy is radiated that affects us. Because we can't see the energy of an angry person, it doesn't mean that it isn't there, or that it doesn't affect us.

If there is a nuclear accident, such as that at Chernobyl, we do not at the time see or feel anything, but irradiated particles from material released are carried by the wind and their energy is received by our bodies. In a shorter or longer time, depending on the dose, physical effects will result: depression, sickness, hair loss, long-term cancer. We cannot usually feel the energies that human beings give out, but they also have effects on us, for good or ill. As soon as we grasp this, we can move beyond two delusions.

The first delusion is that what we do involves merely the physical acts that we perform, the words that we utter, the expressions we put on. Actually, whatever we do gives off energy vibrations, which are picked up by others and affect them, quite apart from our ordinary means of communication.

In the second delusion we think that what is not expressed is not communicated. But thoughts, feelings and states of being also give off energies. They are received by others in just the same way as radioactivity although, as with radioactivity, we have not developed sense receptors that allow us to be immediately aware of them. Spiritual teachers have constantly advised us to keep good company and to 'clean up' our mental state, because they know that negative energies are received and do have an effect. If our life strategies have left us with unresolved inner conflicts, that energy will slowly undermine our physical and mental health. It will also tend to make others uncomfortable around us, or perhaps draw to us those who have similar problems, or who need people to heal to feel real or worthwhile. A materialistically oriented civilisation generates many people with such conflicts. They are inwardly frustrated individuals who radiate that energy outwards.

A group of unhappy people radiates a more powerful energy of unhappiness than an unhappy individual. A group of angry people does the same; a group of loving people likewise. Human energy waves spread themselves out from their source, as light spreads from a candle flame. A group of people who are living in the attempt to discover and express inner truth will give off a different energy than a group of people who are striving to fulfil themselves by acquiring possessions. The energies given off by people who are pretending to be fulfilled when they are not are different than their observed behaviour indicates. The energies radiated by a group of fundamentally happy people may be attractive to a group of unhappy ones, although they may never actually meet.

All this is rather important in understanding the working of the major transformation of which our community is a part. We can describe what has been done physically here, who has come and gone, how people live together, and how endless groups of people who come experience a change of consciousness. But all these interactions involve small numbers in comparison with, say, a football crowd. A major significance of the Findhorn community is in the energies it generates, and in the energies that those who visit us generate. Fulfilled people have an influence on unfulfilled people, even if the latter do not visit us or meet someone who has. Such people will not know anything about the community, but gradually a feeling that there is something better, that there is another way, that there is hope, may surface. People are drawn inwards; ideas suddenly become current that were previously 'cultist' — such as that for life to become meaningful, the divine is to be sought within.

A candle light may be too dim for us to see by; an arc light may be so bright that it dazzles us. To be able to see well and comfortably, we need a light of just the right brightness. Some people have eyes that can stand strong light; other people's eyes are weak, so they need a gentler light. In a similar way, the quality of energy given off by supreme spiritual teacers may be too powerful for many people. The reaction can be, "They are wonderful, but they are not like me. I couldn't be like that." The energies given off by a group of people like the Findhorn Community are not so powerful; they come from fulfilled people, but not perfect ones. The effect is like a soft, pleasant light. We have to make sure that our energy emanations are not too weak for people to feel them, nor too strong for people to relate personally to them.

The Findhorn community generates energy at a particular vibrational frequency. We work in conjunction with other centres and individuals, some of which are 'brighter' than us, others less bright. We are drawn towards the brighter ones, and the others are drawn towards us. In this way we are part of a network of energy transformation on the planet which is spreading more widely and steadily increasing in power. Using the symbolism of light, which is common to all religions, we call it a 'Network of Light'.

The community is not just an ordinary place in which our personal energies alone are generating a transformative urge. There is an energy source here which amplifies the energy we generate so that we resemble a transmitter. One proof of this is the way the community came into being. We often call this source the 'Angel of Findhorn', and it is one of a number of special energy sources which appear to be operating for the transformation of the planet. The energy present in the community tends to stimulate us to change ourselves, so that most of us are often challenged here. We like this and we have chosen it. We tend to attract people for whom our energy level is 'right', but the community as a whole is also in change, so that the energies working through us becoming more diverse.

We believe that the development of humanity will not come about by the slow multiplication of people seeking a new lifestyle. There is reason to posit a 'threshold level', beyond which new consciousness will simply 'be there' for everyone. When enough people have 'found the way', everybody will 'know' that the meaning of life is to be found in the search for the Divine within. It will become the new orthodoxy! Humanity will be able to solve its problems and live with a degree of mutual love, harmony and acceptance, caring for the planet as a whole. Of course, it is hoped that this happens before humanity destroys itself under the pressure of the problems that its disoriented civilisation has created.

In the Findhorn community our general view is that there is indeed time to reach a positive critical mass. This is because of the awareness that it is not 'just us'. Divine grace is stimulating the change. We, among many others, are playing our part in reaching the transformation point, not only by personal transformation but by learning to support the energy that is available here to flow out through us to the world.

LINK to chapter 4.