(Author's Note. This chapter should not be considered to represent the actual state of things in regard to membership of the Findhorn Community today. Experiments with the form of what membership means, and how it is achieved have continued to go on since this book was written, and many of the forms described have changed. The general principles are still relevant. CR..)
Perfect being is God. All else that is, is only half. It is imperfect and forever becoming, is mixed, and composed of possibilities. But God is whole. He is One, has no possibilities, but is all completion and reality. Men are transitory, we become, we are possibilities, and for us there is no perfection, no final being. But in all by which we pass on, from potentiality into action, from possibility to fulfilment, we have our share in this true being of God. That is what I mean when I say, 'to fulfil oneself'.
— Herman Hesse, Narziss and Goldmund
It is this wider community that is now developing fastest. From it will emerge a way of living that embodies the Foundation's guiding principles, without the fairly intense commitment and dedication that being a member of the Foundation requires. As the wider community evolves, there will be more possibility of employment in the small businesses that are slowly developing. At present, though, it is necessary to have some means of support if you are not a member of the Foundation and are non-British, i.e. not covered by the British welfare support system.
To join the Findhorn Foundation itself is a rather different matter. The Foundation was set up with a spiritual purpose. In the Community, it should have an exemplary role. Foundation membership also requires dedication both to the guests who come here and to personal transformation. It doesn't matter to us if a person is intellectual or not. Their profession of religious belief is not important. Nor is their social class, nationality or skin colour. What is important is that they are prepared to go through the experiences which the 'Angel of Findhorn' will provide, to strip away the egocentric identity and begin to replace it with a God-centred one. Members must also be prepared to do this in a community in which work is seen as service, not something done for remuneration. They must be able to live with other people, and work out the problems they have with them. Furthermore, they need to be able to do this in the context of a modest standard of living, which takes into consideration the environmental consequences of one's material possessions. Beyond all these things, it must be spiritually appropriate for each person to be here. To be a member of the Findhorn Foundation is not quite so easy.
In 1988 the system for becoming a member was changed. One of the features of the Foundation is the frequent change of form of organisation, but the new system worked well for a time. After the Experience week, you go on to the Departmental Guest week. In rare cases, the focalisers of the Experience week might have some objection to this; if so, an attunement with them would take place — all such attunements involve a meditation. To go on into the LCG programme you have an attunement with the focaliser of that programme. After three months you have another attunement with the LCG focaliser, who will recommend you to the Orientation focalisers for an in-depth interview centred on a guided meditation.
This particular Orientation programme lasted three calendar months, after which there was an interview with the Personnel Department (since renamed), with an Orientation focaliser present, again centred on a meditation. This complete, you became a student member for 18 months. As a student member you were asked to pay a sum roughly covering the costs of your food and lodging and the use of Foundation facilities. We attune in the Personnel interview to how much that should be. After a year, there would be an interview with Personnel to review how things are going and after 18 months, if you wish to stay on as a staff member, there is a further interview. In the Findhorn Foundation there is normally only modest payment for work done. Work is love in action. Its reward is spiritual and personal development.
As a staff member you would receive, at the end of the 1980s, an allowance of £75 a month. Since many people, like myself, used all their resources during their student membership, this allowance is the 'pocket money' that enables one to have a holiday, a night out, some new clothes and so on. One or two wealthier members don't take it, as they don't need it. We do not pool financial resources at the Foundation, although we live an egalitarian lifestyle. One of the spiritual lessons to be learned here is how to get on with people of different class and financial backgrounds, for all of us are seeking our connection with the Divine within. An externally imposed uniformity has no relevance to this.
Being a member of the Findhorn Foundation requires sufficient maturity to enjoy the challenges it provides. We want, as far as possible, to be sure that everyone who becomes a member is ready for it — which does mean that the Personnel Department has to take the responsibility for saying no, sometimes. We are a laboratory for a human identity in development. What will one day become commonplace for all may at present be too much of a challenge for some. In the same way the spiritual disciplines of the mystics of the past would be too great a challenge for most members now. God is operating through humanity in appropriate ways to make and change our world.
Every now and again, a member loses their inspiration for living here and seeks merely to depend on the meagre living standard that we provide. Then the Personnel Department enters into a gentle process of negotiation, to see if the Foundation is really the place for that person to stay. Signs of inappropriateness might be an inability to find and enjoy one of the available work areas; a lack of vibrancy in day-to-day life; a lack of interest in further spiritual development; or a long-term withdrawal from community affairs. It is much easier to say 'yes' than to say 'no'; often members in such states are expressing that they want to leave but that they are afraid. It may mean that they have something more important to do in the outside world, which they are resisting for fear of change. It would be counterproductive just to say to them "Leave!" because resentment would be added to their confusion. We try to work with sensitivity and attunement so that members involved can come to sell-awareness and leave in harmony. It is like trying to catch a large fish, except that we are trying to get one off the hook!
In one sense it is sad that no members are from the Third World. It reduces our cultural diversity and our international complexity. The problem is partly financial. But our civilisation is largely responsible for the world situation. Change has to come from inside the juggernaut; one title I thought of for this book was 'Mission in the West'. We also form part of an international network of communities with similar aims. Seen in this context, the imbalance is not as significant as the statistics suggest. Links with Japan, another rich, materialistic society have slowly built up, a challenge to a major cultural divide.
My definition of a 'model' member would be one whose heart is open to God, who dwells in it, and who derives their joy and inspiration for action from this reality. This opened, or opening, heart is sought in our members, for it is the inner connection that is required in the world today. A loving heart may be masked by personality, but the preparation period and the several attunement meditations reveal if a person is ready for further sell-discovery as a member.
We have always had a dilemma about adults with children. On the one hand, we welcome children in the Foundation. On the other, with the kind of guest programme we run and the kind of transformation process that occurs, demands on time are large. This can be unfair to parents, children and the Foundation. So it is preferable that parents come to the wider community, perhaps sending their children to the Steiner school, whose education develops them more effectively for the changed human values we need. Of course, partners who are in the Foundation sometimes become parents and their children grow up in the Foundation itself.
One of our staff members recently became pregnant. After a meditation in a meeting of staff members, we agreed to continue to support her as a single mother through her pregnancy and when her child was born. Elisabeth became a delight to the community. But we have the means to give this support only on an exceptional basis.
There are, so far, no reliable statistics about the members of the wider community. From observation, their backgrounds and nationalities are similar to those of the Foundation, though less people come from non-EEC countries. There are also more families with children, as is appropriate for a developing spiritual community.
Personnel is a very responsible job here. Decisions that are made affect people's lives, sometimes in major ways, so meditation is always the basis of the work. In these meditations there is a clear form. Everyone closes their eyes, and quietens down, releasing any previous discussion. They attune to the highest interests of the Foundation and of the individual. Then they visualise a column of light or similar symbol representing the Foundation, or a particular job if it is a job interview. The aim is to see if the person concerned can enter and comfortably be in the column of light. If they cannot enter or have difficulty in staying in the column, this is an indication that membership, or a particular job, is not right for them, or that the timing is not appropriate. The person guiding the meditation asks for information relevant to the image that has been received. At the end of the meditation the results are shared. If one can let go of 'performance pictures', a sense of wanting to succeed, and 'ego-involvement', thinking of the results in terms of status, it is remarkable how effective this process is. It provides not merely 'yes' or 'no' decisions, but also much information on problems that arise, helping members to be aware of their challenges. Through such meditation techniques we have access to much more knowledge than 'reasonable discussion' provides.
Personnel is not only concerned with who comes and who goes. Members change jobs here frequently and Personnel supports them in finding a new place to work. If there is a problem among members of a department, to do with work or personal relations, Personnel may send in a mediator.
Housing is also an important concern of Personnel; there is something of a pecking order for available space. In the Park it is often about moving from a shared to an individual caravan. In Cluny it is about getting a sunny, south-facing mom. Living conditions for members have improved, even in the six years I have been here. This is important, as it results in a tendency for members to stay longer and nothing is gained by having inadequate living space. The latest statistics show that nearly half the membership have been here for five years or more, and after such a time it is nice to have a reasonable, if modest, place to live.
It is a Wednesday morning in August, 1988. The Personnel department meets in the sanctuary at the Park for our Wednesday morning attunement. Michael and Margrit have already arrived, but Cally is a little late. She has taken her dog, Sheba, for a morning walk. It is tempting to stay out for extra moments, especially when it's fine. When she comes, Margrit leads us in a meditation. Margrit is small, Swiss and a perfectionist. She had to be persuaded to come into Personnel. She used to grumble a lot about the way things were done; her challenge now is to be the one who gets the grumbles! Margrit has since left the community. It was hard to see her go. She married Jack, another ex-member, and they moved to Arkansas to send out light....
Margrit says a few words to calm us down. She invokes the 'Angel of Findhorn' to be with us in our meditation. Hall an hour later, she brings our focus back from the stillness to the outer world. This time the meditation is calm and quiet; sometimes someone will receive information relevant to the department or the community as a whole. We slowly get up and go up to the office in the Park building where the rest of the meeting will take place.
Our group celebrates the fact that we have all actually managed to meet together. We are such busy people. Michael and I both do a lot of workshops, and Cally has been doing some as well. It's two months since we were last all present. Cally enjoys some tea at this time in the morning. While she's making it, Michael lights a candle. He is as tall as Margrit is short, a soft-spoken, laid-back Englishman with an inner fire that never seems to get out of control. His detachment helps Cally and me cool down when we are excited about something.
Once Cally has made the tea, we start on the agenda. Margrit takes notes today. Management Group have accepted the idea that we have a few members whose full-time job is giving workshops. This is an innovation for the Foundation. We have been scared of creating a two-tier system of professional educators and 'servers'; but there are already one or two people who spend most of their time doing workshops. It seems sensible to recognise the fact, since their workshop commitments stop them from doing other jobs properly. Education Branch will work out the details of the new jobs. Michael is going to be in one of them. Who will replace him in Personnel in Cluny? Maybe Dianne? But she seems to want to stay in the Guest Department. At least Christa will take over as LCG focaliser there.. . . But the problem of Michael's replacement we have to leave without solution.
Next month, as usual, we won't be a full team any more. Michael is leaving the department, I go on a five-week workshop tour in Europe and Margrit is thinking of taking her holiday from mid-September. That leaves Cally. She groans, but she will do it. Anyway, Margrit may not go. She is preparing a file of all the guidelines the community has developed over the years for regulating our communal life. We call them 'guidelines', because there are so many exceptions in practice that it would be pretentious to call them rules. Margrit will code and index them all — a magnum opus. Margrit's departure from the community is looming. She really wants to finish the job before she goes and it won't be done by mid-September. Cally is safe. When Margrit's work is distributed, no one will have any excuse not to know community policy. But will anybody read it?
A former member is returning to the community. I am enthusiastic — I used to work with him in the garden at Drumduan. What will he do? He could go to Cullerne garden, but the Park garden needs a focaliser and so does Park Homecare. Cally, who does accommodation, will have to find him somewhere to live from Sunday. We'll need to have an attunement with him next week. Who's going to do that, and when?
So the business goes on — 12 more items. We take a break for biscuits and more tea. We used to buy biscuits from our budget, but Finance Committee has stopped it. One of us runs down the road to the Phoenix shop to get the biscuits .... We haven't had a personal sharing again this week. It's been too long since we had one. If we don't know how the others are feeling, how can we work with real rapport? Also, we haven't shared our vision for the development of the community. If we don't have a common vision, how can we be sure we're working together? We agree to have a two-day meeting at Mansewood, a house in the country owned by a member. It is quiet there, away from the bustle and distraction of the community. We make plans to stay overnight, have a real personal sharing the first day and invite some members of Management Group to discuss vision on the second day. I agree to draft a vision statement so we will have something to discuss.
It is already noon — time to end our meeting before the 12.15 meditation in sanctuary. We hold hands together. In the quiet, with our eyes closed, we feel loving and loved. It is good to be alive. Later, at lunch, people descend on Cally and me like wasps on jam — business, business.. . buzz, buzz. No wonder my stomach plays up.
As I write, I can hear laughter from the group at the Maintenance shed, across the way from my caravan. They have stopped work to share a joke. Is the way we work efficient enough to be a model? As I look back over the minutes of the meeting I have just described, I can see that we covered 16 items of business in three hours, including a half-hour meditation and a 15-minute tea break. There was much warmth in the meeting, little sense of pressure, and above all a feeling that we knew each other very well. It is not only an outer knowing, but an inner knowing. No ambition is involved in the work; no concern about financial return; we do not have to demonstrate our abilities. We are God-centred people — imperfect, of course, but being together and doing our work together joyfully. Energy and enthusiasm for our community bubble up inside me.