(Author's Note. The chapters in this section refer to the situation at Findhorn at the end of the 1980s. Findhorn is never static, and many details of organization and management have changed since that time. But the general principles laid out have not, so the reader can still get a good impression by reading these pages. C.R.)

       The really helpful things will not be done from the centre; they cannot be done by big organisations; but they can be done by the people themselves. If we can recover the sense that it is the most natural thing for every person born into this world to use their hands in a productive way and that it is not beyond the wit of man to make this possible, then I think the problem of unemployment will disappear and we shall soon be asking ourselves how we can get all the work done that needs to be done.

— Ernst Schumacher, Small is Beautiful, p. 184

Spiritual Management

       Although the community is small, the way people relate to each other is complex. Yet there is a basic assumption: daily tasks are organised to express inner wisdom. In our outer structures and practices we are trying to manifest an inner purpose, meaningful for each member as an individual, and also for the future development of humanity on the planet. The community does not, therefore, merely attempt to come to simple, rational decisions, based on the perceived interests of the parties involved. It seeks to find 'what wants to happen', by inner attunement. This practice we call spiritual management.

       There are two grounds for the belief in spiritual management. In the first place, the history of the community shows that divine guidance founded it and was responsible for the manner of its development. We maintain the contact originally demonstrated to us. Who would wish to substitute a lesser for a greater source of inspiration? Secondly, we are here to practise love in action — a manifestation of inner reality in the sense-observable world — so that each individual can find security and confidence in their journey towards truth. Following Eileen's guidance, we want to look within for our decisions. It is very tempting to avoid this process, in order to 'speed things up', but we always come back to it. We feel its lack when we neglect inner consultation and, without fail, things start going wrong when we omit it. Of course, almost every member or guest who comes to us is learning this process anew, so rather than rapidly getting better and better at managing our daily life, the community as a whole changes very slowly.

       Individual self-confidence in inner guidance and support varies widely. This is only to be expected in a school of transformation. There is a wariness of 'glamour channelling' by individuals who claim to be in touch with complete knowledge, particularly when their ordinary day-to-day behaviour belies it. Our job is to make available the practice of inner guidance to ordinary people, so that they can live their lives in wiser, more inspired and more harmonious ways. The Findhorn Foundation consists not of realised beings but of stimulating people who have found something of the truth and are demonstrating what follows when they live what they have found. Immediate changes are available for ordinary people now, changes which could help to transform the quality of life and interaction in the wider world.

       Visitors who come to the Findhorn Foundation full of notions of business efficiency and 'modern management methods' are often taken aback by the slowness, complexity and apparent vagueness of the decision-making processes. If they stay for a while, however, and try to find an inner understanding of what is going on, they 'mellow'. The pace of life here raises questions about the wider civilisation of which management techniques are a part. Does a society organised for the maximisation of production create relaxed, harmonious and holistically developed human beings? All the evidence says no. On the contrary, stress levels in such societies run high and stress-related disease is endemic. Individuals are alienated from their jobs, working rather for their pay packets than because what they do satisfies them. There is widespread disillusion and purposelessness.

       Many of the Findhorn Foundation's guests have already taken steps — whether in the form of individual therapy or spiritual discipline — to mitigate these features in their personal lives; but they still feel dependent on the 'system' for their income, and the pace of that system itself is much too stressful for balanced human development.

       Although we do not confront or fight the lifestyles prevalent in wider society, our living practice itself is a recommendation for a new way of living. It puts in question the presuppositions of both capitalism and socialism about social priorities. If we didn't need so many material things, we wouldn't have to produce so many of them. If we tune in to the divine order, we are more leisurely in our activities, take longer over them, and put more love and care into them. People who can find joy in life without the purchase of material objects will not need so much money, and will therefore be able to work less to provide what they need. Economic life can become moderate and self-sustaining, allowing people to develop holistic and varied lifestyles. It sounds rather utopian, but the community actually lives in this way. I find it a preferable way of being.

       A friend of mine, a director of a large research institute for nuclear physics, who also practises spiritual healing, spent a month here as a guest. He worked in one of our kitchens. At first he told me: "How inefficient it all is! I like X because he's really in charge, but when Y and Z are there, they don't really seem to have authority." He was still relating to the models he knew in the outside world. At the end of a month, he was relaxed and gentler. "I don't know about my work any more," he said. "I don't want to go on working like that, but I'm not confident enough to change." He had begun to question the unspoken values that ruled his life outside.

       In the community he worked about 15 hours a week in the kitchen, his main department, and another 15 hours in one of the gardens. He spent three of these hours in a sharing with his work group and three hours in a sharing with the other guests who were living in the community. He had time to do some spiritual healing with guests and for a workshop, and participated in a group preparing our 'Beauty of Surprise' conference, which aimed to explore the relationship between science and mystery. During his stay there were films, plays and events like a Solstice celebration for him to enjoy, as well as contact with nature and lots of interesting conversation. With a reorientation of human values, I believe a comparable lifestyle could be available to every inhabitant of this planet. This man and others who visit us start to question the quality of their lives, reassessing the standards by which they make judgements about such things as efficiency and effectiveness.

       Meetings within the Findhorn Foundation are also personal learning situations. We are interested in such questions as:

— How do we improve our inner attunement?

— What is the quality of our interaction?

— How do different individuals blend and conflict in a group context?

       Such meetings are complex processes. It is as if we were in a dance in which action, inner learning and mutual understanding take the floor together. They all need to be in balance.

In the year I served on our Finance Committee I hoped to sort out our relations with the British income tax system, which has a hard time with communities such as ours, where most people earn less than the tax thresholds. I never succeeded, but I began to appreciate our Finance Officer, to whose personality I had previously had a great deal of resistance. As we got to know each other in the long meetings, where many of us were often out of our depth amongst the issues we had to solve, I realised his spiritual integrity and learned to love him — not in any sexual way or even as an intimate friend, but just for who he is. Such a gem of comprehension is worth a lot of meeting time. We also managed, more or less, to get through the business, laughing a lot in the process. It made a pleasant contrast to university faculty boards!

       Wherever you go in the Findhorn Foundation, you will start your meeting, your work or your leisure with an 'attunement'. Usually this means holding hands in a circle, closing your eyes and becoming calm. Maybe a focaliser will say a few words; sometimes it is just silent time together. The hands holding yours feel supportive. After several attunements, you start letting go to them, forgetting that someone else is feeling the same about your grip. Once this mutual inner moment is over there is a time for sharing what you are feeling. There is little point in trying to express love in your work if you feel so preoccupied with other things that you are not really able to be present.

       If you happen to be in one of the many committee meetings that proliferate in the Foundation like mushrooms after rain, you will start with a meditation lasting up to half an hour. This might provide inspiration. At the least it calms the mind and harmonises the energy of the group, a good basis for the meeting to follow. Then you will talk about last week's unsolved problems, who has forgotten to do what they were supposed to do, and all the new things that have come up for solution. If a significant decision is to be made, the group will meditate in order to make the decision from a place of inner focus.

       I remember a Finance Committee decision about our staff allowances (which members begin receiving after two years in the Foundation). We had been paying ourselves £50 a month, and there appeared to be money for a little more. Various sums were suggested. I thought £55 would be a sensible, modest increase. We meditated. As I asked inwardly what would be right for the members, the staggering sum of £75 a month came insistently through, a 50% increase! I understood that we were to value ourselves materially without becoming materialist, so a significant increase was appropriate. We shared what we had received. To my astonishment, the other cautious members of the group had received the same information. We managed to maintain this allowance for some time!

       At the end of meetings there is another 'attunement', holding hands again, to release the energy and each other inwardly. It usually feels pleasant and complete to leave with this harmony and mutual support.

       All these simple practices change the way we regard things and people. Through them we pause, listen inwardly and remind ourselves that the experience of love and its expression are the truth behind all our seeming significances and momentary excitements. Without the intention to find love, no ritual, however complicated, will have any effect. These practices are not efficient in a business sense. They take time, they make one aware of a much broader picture than the issue at hand, and they tend to take away a sense of immediate urgency. In order really to understand what goes on in the Findhorn Foundation, one has to stop and ask what life is about and why things are done anyway, questions which get forgotten in the stress-filled rush of materialistic living.

 

The 'Focaliser'

       Wherever you go in the Findhorn Foundation, to a department, group or meeting, you will find at least one 'focaliser'. This is not new age jargon. We use the term to indicate that leadership here is different from that of normal managers, directors and bosses. Fundamentally, focalisers have responsibility without authority over others in their working groups. They should be aware of the overall context of whatever is being done, seek to balance different demands for time, energy and finance, make sure people's states and situations are considered, stimulate effective group interaction and act as a link with other groups. Focalisers are also responsible for what we call 'holding the energy'— connecting with, and making sure that others connect with, an inner, spiritual significance of situations, so that things can happen 'from the inside out'.

       When I became focaliser of Drumduan House (before it was taken over by the school), the previous focaliser and I meditated together in the sanctuary, to allow the transfer of the energy of focalisation to take place. I actually felt a kind of movement, as if a featherlight bird had settled on my shoulders. I began to notice all sorts of things I hadn't bothered with before. I encouraged people to attend the Saturday morning sanctuary, during which, using guided meditation, we refilled the building and gardens with light. I became conscious how bare the floors were, and used some of our meagre funds to buy carpets for moms and hallways from the local auction. I made curtains for the windows. It was important to remind the members of our Monday evening meal together, and make sure someone was cooking, or getting the food from Cluny, seven minutes' walk away. At the meal we would share how we were feeling, and discuss any business to do with the house. Nobody obeyed me because I was focaliser, or treated me like a boss, but there was an awareness of the particular responsibility I held. Such is the focaliser's role.

       The focaliser of the whole community has the greatest responsibility. When the community was still very small, Peter Caddy was very much a powerful father figure. He had a great deal of real authority. But gradually, over the years, the role changed. Focalisers of the late 1980s, Jay Jerman and Craig Gibsone, dealt with such a complex organism that they could not hold an external authority over all that went on. Their main focus was to stimulate inner responsibility among the members, moving us towards a fledgling spiritual democracy, and busying themselves with the link with divine inspiration of activities. At this time we moved towards the setting up of a spiritual inner group, a new 'Core Group'. This group did not concern itself with day-to-day management. It attuned through meditation to the expression within the community of the Divine purpose. The new Core Group met weekly for a long meditation, after which images and visions received were shared. Major issues of community policy were meditated upon, but without the long, detailed discussions which still take place in other management bodies. I was supported to write this book after a meditation by the Core Group.

       Setting up the new Core Group involved a number of community meetings in the Universal Hall. The general idea of separating the Management Group (the old Core Group) from a meditation group (new Core Group) was discussed, and eventually agreed upon. The idea had begun to take form two years previously, in vision meetings of the old Core Group. Bringing these ideas, which are often stimulated by collective meditations, into real form usually takes quite a long time. It is as if we are held back until consciousness is sufficiently developed to make a new vision workable; only then can it move ahead. Nothing which polarises the community is acceptable, for the job is to demonstrate a harmonious lifestyle, not to be fighting amongst ourselves.

       Once the decision to accept the new Core Group had been made, we concerned ourselves in community meetings with the method of selecting it. Previous leadership groups had been largely self-selecting, meditating on applicants who felt that they were 'drawn' to join. This excluded the majority of the members from any say in the choice of their leaders. This time we agreed to try to have a 'spiritual election' in which members meditated individually on how large the group should be, and who should be in it. The results of these individual meditations were used to create a list of those who were most widely supported.

       How far inner attunement actually decided the issue is uncertain. Members undoubtedly meditated on the questions, but there was much discussion of the merits of different individuals, which certainly influenced the process. Most people felt that a relatively small group of five or six people would be most appropriate.

       All those who had received a considerable measure of support sat in front of the membership during a series of community meetings. There were several meditations about individuals and the composition of the group. Those who had received support expressed their own views about participating; others shared their hesitations and doubts. One member who had been selected dropped out because of time commitments outside the community. Another, who had not been selected, joined because during a meditation he felt it was appropriate to do so. In the end a final meditation was held, which indicated considerable reservation about three of the candidates. Instead of trying to exclude them — in a small community it is much more difficult to say 'no' to someone than 'yes' — the group was sent off for a week to our retreat house on Iona. There they became used to interacting with each other. At the end of the 1980s, the group of eight remained the same and met weekly to meditate.

       In this way one of the most important steps in our history was taken — the choice of spiritual leadership involving the attunement of the whole membership. The account illustrates the sometimes labyrinthine complexity of decision-making mechanisms. Such a process can work only in a situation where the priority is not immediate action. At the Findhorn Foundation, we allow few situations to demand immediate action because we are seeking to develop a less pressured, less stress-filled lifestyle which gives us time to consider all the ramifications of a situation. We savour our decision-making, taste its flavours, enjoy its composition and relish the eventual denouement. On a decentralised planet, with transformed human priorities, a spiritual basis to life and a new level of consciousness among individuals, such practices could be very wholesome for all. These changes may not be as far off as they seem, but they will involve a global 'rebalancing' of humanity.

 

The Organisational Structure of the Findhorn Community

       The community is constantly changing. Organisational forms are questioned, dissolved, re-formed. A new community outside the Foundation itself is forming, the 'village' spoken of in Eileen's guidance of l968:

I want you to see this centre of light as an ever-growing cell of light. It started as a family group; it is now a community; it will grow into a village, then a town and finally into a vast city of light.

(Foundations of Findhorn, p. 152)

       Attempts to create an organisation for this wider community continually develop, with much trial and error. An interesting newsletter, 'Open Forum', was not well enough supported to continue. At present the Findhorn Foundation is still too dominant for any wider community structure to feel balanced, but this will slowly change as decentralisation proceeds.

       A series of diagrams may help to make the organisational structures of the late 1980s clearer for the reader. What is important about the Findhorn Community is, however, not so much the form of its structures, but how things are done in them.

i. The Findhorn Foundation.

ii. New Findhorn Directions.

(Businesses working to support the Foundation. See Chapter 7)

iii. Independent businesses associated with the Findhorn Foundation.

(See Chapter 7)

iv. Independent caring or charitable organisations associated with the Findhorn Foundation.

(Chapter 7)

v. Associates.

(Individuals spiritually drawn to the area who support the Foundation in some way or other. Chapter 7)

vi. Organisations very closely associated with the Foundation and working in related spiritual education.

(Newbold, Chapter 7; Erraid, Chapter 6)

vii. Independent organizations in other countries with exchange or other relationships with the Findhorn Foundation.

viii. A Development Wing to support projects associated with the community.

(e.g. the wind generator, Chapter 6)

 

       The Findhorn Foundation, though the major body, is now only part of a much larger whole. The size of the Foundation has halved in the last ten years. There were over 300 members in the late 1970s, about 160 in 1989. Everything else is growing. In 1989 two former Foundation departments joined New Findhorn Directions, a trading company owned by the Foundation which runs the commercial caravan park we acquired with the purchase of the land in 1983. They were our mail order business and the Phoenix shop. Other departments may join them in the near future. Some ex-members have started small businesses, and are running them with varying success from the Caravan Park. Other ex-members offer a variety of counselling and therapy services to provide them with enough money to live here. There is a growing interest in opening businesses in the area using spiritual management methods. The Moray Steiner School, which has been strongly supported and subsidised by the Foundation; Meadowlark, a nursing home owned by a Canadian doctor and his wife (since sold); and Minton House, a therapy and retreat centre — all seek to bring spirit into their activities. A growing number of individuals have been attracted to live in the area after making a connection with the Foundation. There are already more of them than members of the Foundation itself. They often support community work activities and other projects.

       Newbold and Erraid are smaller, sister organisations. They maintain their own programmes, are financially independent and recruit their own membership, but there is much interchange between us. The Foundation maintains a costly weekly bus service to the Erraid community, which challenges and has once or twice defeated the skill of our drivers. We also have looser relationships, mainly small-scale exchange programmes, with other communities in several countries. They provide our members with experience of parallel ways of doing things.

i. The Caravan Park

(Findhorn Foundation, New Findhorn Directions,

independent businesses, some associates.)

ii. Cullerne House. North of the Caravan Park.

(Findhorn Foundation gardens, see Chapter 6)

iii. Station House, in Findhorn Village.

(Foundation members' accommodation.)

iv. Drumduan House, Forres. At present owned by the Findhorn Foundation.

(Some members' accommodation. Moray Steiner School— see Chapter 7)

v. Cluny Hill College, Forres.

(Major guest centre)

vi. Newbold House, Forres.

(Closely linked spiritual centre)

vii. Traigh Bhan, Iona.

(Retreat house. Open for guests in summer and members in winter. Mentioned in Chapter 5.)

viii. Erraid, an island south of Iona.

(Small, self-governing spiritual community living in a more self-sufficient way)

ix. Minton House, an independent retreat centre adjacent to Cullerne House. Chapter 7

 

       The physical diversity of the community supports a decentralised structure. In the same way as individuals with different religious and cultural backgrounds are encouraged to learn to live harmoniously together, so I believe we are being asked to work with different kinds of institutions, with different approaches to organisation, developing different, mutually stimulating relationships in harmony together. We are linked by the shared belief in the discovery and expression of love as our common reality. At present there is a trend for more autonomy and self-sufficiency for Cluny Hill College. The significant change in this respect will be when Cluny retains a proportion of the funds it earns for guest programmes, so it can become financially independent.

       Very small communities like Erraid and Newbold can be managed collectively, while at the Park so many different things are going on that a more complex organisation is needed. The Core Group's inner work has underpinned the variety of forms and structures in the different parts of the community.

i Trustees

(The Foundation is a registered charity)

ii. The Core Group (described above)

iii. Community Meetings

iv. Community-wide management:

a) Management Committee. b) Finance Committee. c) Education Branch. d) Personnel

(Chapter 4)

v. Location Meetings:

a) Park Family meetings. b) Cluny Family meetings. (Members' meetings)

vi. Area Management:

Park Department Focalisers' meetings.

Cluny Department Focalisers' meetings.

vii. Park departments:

Kitchen (+ Food Shed), Home Care, Stewardship, Park Garden, Cullerne Garden, Health & Wholeness, Audio Visuals, Accounts, Communications (+ Reception), Universal Hall

(+ Visitors' Centre, Green Room Cafe), One Earth Magazine, Findhorn Press, Game of Transformation. (Chapter 3)

viii. Cluny departments:

Kitchen, Home Care, Maintenance, Garden, Dining Room, Accommodations, Youth Project, Garage.

 

       At present, the Findhorn Foundation is the dominant feature of the Findhorn Community. Because of the immigration laws, it provides the only way that non-EEC citizens can stay here for extended periods of time — we have an agreement with the Home Office that bona fide members can live here and work with us for the duration of their membership up to two years at least. Because of its history, people often identify the Foundation with the Community. They still tend to think that to be here means to be a member of the Foundation. But the trend is to decentralisation, moving towards a community with varied types of association between independent individuals and groups.

       In the Foundation, regular meetings for all members allow attunement to and discussion of the major decisions that have to be made. Political debate or conflict between opposing factions with different philosophies is rare. The attunement process reduces tendencies to outright opposition. The emphasis given to personal development reduces egoism — a dominant feature of most political institutions — in our discussions. A polarisation of view did happen at Newbold recently. Some members felt that the direction of that community should resemble a family style of living. Others felt it should emphasise retreats and inner work. The second approach prevailed, and about half the membership left. One solution suggested by Newbold's Trustees in this situation was to purchase another old house, so that each group could develop its ideas separately, but this has not happened up to now.

       As has been stressed earlier, it would be inappropriate to regard the various management organisations within the Findhorn Community merely as decision-making bodies. In them people learn a new level of responsibility. The way personalities blend and interact is an integral part of collective life. We call this 'group process'. Through it, members become sensitive to others, practise how to listen, and realise how others hear their attempts to communicate. They become aware of what in others or in a situation stimulates an emotional response in themselves, and how to deal with such a reaction. In meetings these aspects of the interaction could be suppressed in order to save time. But when this is done, the 'psychological component' enters the decision-making process itself, leading to factionalism. That would turn us away from inner, spiritual awareness to superficiality. This kind of decision-making takes a long time. Sometimes we complain about the disease of 'meetingitis', which is chronic in the community, but in a reorganised world where time pressure was not the deciding criterion everyone could learn psychological awareness from meeting situations as we do. More humane identities would result.

 

Dedicating Work to God

       Attachment is a very common psychological distortion of responsibility. As a person accepts attunement to a position or function in the community and commits him- or herself to it, they find their own style of performing the job. They come to see 'their' way as the 'right' way. Possessiveness confuses attunement. This is a common problem among personally insecure people. They tend to find validation through what they do. People with such personalities are frequently attracted to the Findhorn Foundation, as they define this orientation to outer performance as service. They are in fact serving their insecurities rather than other people, but learning this is often a hard lesson. Problems come up when it is time to release a job to someone else.

       It is necessary to work with much patience and caring on these issues, for such people will ignore inner indications and outer signs that it is time to release and move on. Then they find themselves in a situation which is painful for all concerned. As is usual in the Findhorn Community, if the lesson is not learned, it comes up again and again. We are expected to work on insecurities until being, not doing, is the source of self-confidence, and actions become an expression of a degree of inner realisation. Then we are no longer attached to the results of work or to the position it gives us. The exercise of responsibility is a teaching situation here, an exercise in spiritual development.

 

Finance and the Material World

       Ever since the late seventies, community financing has been one of the greatest challenges. The big debts incurred through the building of the Hall and the purchase and renovation of other buildings have loomed large. Finance policy up to 1988 was very cautious. The aim was to pay off £50,000 of the debt every year. By the beginning of 1988 we had reached a position where three more years would probably have eliminated it. But in the last two years the debt has risen once more to over £300,000, as we have paid for a new community centre and for the replacement of Cluny central heating. In 1989 there was no provision for debt repayment. The smaller sister community, Newbold, which has based its financing on donations rather than fixed payments, has cleared its debts. Erraid is self-financing. Is this a matter of size and scale? Have we found an appropriate relationship to money? Are attitudes rooted in anxiety and insecurity? How does a community operating from inner attunement relate to financial matters?

       Perhaps the very variety of views on these issues in the Foundation demonstrates that we have not yet found maturity in relation to our finances. Some members favour borrowing up to the limit of our security to improve our material situation. Others are unhappy at any debt at all. It is another aspect of the training process that the Findhorn Community represents. For we are, in microcosm, working with the issues that challenge the wider world as well. In that world, material standards are still the main criteria of prestige and power. Ever-increasing consumption fuels the industrial machine which returns profits to the investors and owners, and taxes to the government. To finance this, indebtedness has become a global pattern. Third world countries live in permanent debt. The majority of consumers in the West are also in debt to pay for material goods and services.

       Materialism has not provided happiness for humanity. Those who don't 'have' are unhappy about that. Those who do either want more or feel frustrated that it hasn't given what was promised — personal fulfilment. So what should we do? In the United States, the Old Order Amish have retreated into an 18th-century civilisation, rejecting almost all modern technology. At the Findhorn Foundation the general position is that we should cautiously accept modern technology, examine its value to us from a spiritual perspective (i.e. we should not be accumulating technology for its own sake) and use it wisely, trying to be good custodians of what we have. Even this view, however, gives no clear guidelines.

       This book, for instance, has been written directly on to a computer. The thought of writing it on a typewriter and manually correcting it, as I did my last book, now seems daunting. But Shakespeare and Goethe did not even have fountain pens, and it did not affect the quality of their genius. If we come to think we cannot exist without material goods, they have taken us over. When we have developed a strong spiritual connection, material things can be used as a means in the expression of love.

       "First seek ye the Kingdom of Heaven," said Jesus, "and all else will be added to you." The more we find that Kingdom, the less we need, for insecurities around self-worth, status and happiness are resolved and material possessions can become means, not ends. The only 'end' that really makes life worthwhile is the discovery of the Divine within and its expression. The tools so easily become the masters.

       I came to the Findhorn Foundation in 1983 without any money, having spent all I had in three fascinating years in California. It felt right for me to be here. My mother's sister had just died and left her a small legacy. This sister had, many years earlier, been the nurse of Sir George Trevelyan, one of the Foundation's trustees when I joined, and a supporter of the community from its early days. Because of this 'coincidence', my mother sent me most of the money for the membership fees; the community waived the rest. My first visit to Sai Baba also cost a lot. An old friend, whom I had helped when I was in work, gave me £500. Members and guests of the Foundation gave me the rest within four weeks, in astonishing gestures of generosity.

       My personal experience is that I am supported to receive what is appropriate for me in material terms. But can this trust be adopted for the financing of a large community? And how should such issues be dealt with? Working with them can be fraught with anxiety; or it can be fun. The community alternates between these feelings, as I did in my year on our Finance Committee. Sometimes we lost ourselves in our financial problems and left meetings frustrated and snappy. Mostly, however, the level of inner trust brought us through. Often the greatest confusion was over the smallest things — whether a member could default on an obligation, or whether someone could exceed their budget to buy an 'essential' computer program. In such cases we found ourselves acting as moral as well as financial arbiters. The Finance Committee gave me some of the most intense training in human relations and in detachment I have had in our community.

       As the 1980s drew to a close, we were caught between the level of the debt and a programme for community expansion. By the end of 1989 a beautiful new extension to our community centre, which was hopelessly cramped had been built; a wonderful nature sanctuary sits like a gem in the heart of the community; the expiring central heating system in Cluny was replaced. and a youth centre had gone up. Was it right for members to live in old caravans, dreadfully wasteful of fuel in the cool climate, while guests in the Park were accommodated in temporary chalets that had become 'permanent'? We rejected a proposal for permanent guest accommodation, on the grounds that the chalets were still habitable. Yet some has since been built. South of Pineridge, the 'Field of Dreams', private housing for supporters is developing. As for members' accommodation, which was an issue ever since the decision to build the large and expensive Universal Hall, an interim solution presented itself. Some members had private funds. Using them, some acceptable bio-housing began to be built in 1990. This freed up some caravans, allowing us to scrap the very worst of them. One or two of the people who could afford larger houses offered to share them with other members. At least there was a beginning. The size of our building department did not allow for a greater initial programme. Several more 'eco-houses' have since been built. But how the community should support private building with all its complications of ownership and future sale remains an issue.

       In comparison with the budget of our neighbour, the air base, these financial problems seem small beer indeed. The base has spent many millions of pounds modernising installations for their reconnaissance planes. The Foundation has not received, so far, large sums in donations. Yet since the first printing of this book, many visions for development have been realised. An organic farm has been developed independently. The land around the Universal Hall has been consolidated, so that the Community can use it as its natural centre. An area of the dunes has been preserved as a nature reserve with members' support financing.

       But there are always more desires. We would like to build permanent office space to accommodate all our administrative activities. We would like modern telephone exchange facilities; and so on. Perhaps the lure of money is still too great and we are always externally constrained to a degree — to demonstrate that our undoubted happiness is not dependent on material well-being, potential desires still need to be curbed!

       So the dilemmas continue. We dance between dreams and restraint, wondering whether we should increase the price of our guest programmes, and by how much, while Eileen's guidance has told us we should switch to donation financing. The purpose of this section is not to provide answers, but to engage the reader in the kinds of questions which emerge in trying to rebalance the relationship between spirit and matter. The paradox is that, in a spiritually oriented world, the more one feels a need to have things, the less one tends to be guided by spirit; hence the less one gets the 'needed' things.

       As soon as the need for something is released and spiritual values are predominant, then material things become available. I would like to see us pay off debts, because I see indebtedness as part of the crisis of the world we have to leave behind. I think it would be nice to set an example of living within our means; but it is also nice to have good dining facilities and warmth for our guests and members. The 'Angel of Findhorn' guides us through!

LINK to Chapter 7. Educating the World

LINK back to Findhorn Community