This is a transcript from a discussion held in the Community in the early 1970s.

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Tonight I want to begin what will be actually a joint series of discussions with you. And I do emphasize the word discussion rather than lecture or talk. I am starting out this evening, but from time to time it will be Myrtle who will be leading you in discussing and presenting the concepts which may be useful to all of us as a community. The series doesn’t actually have a name, but I suppose one could call it “Wholeness in Community Living.”

Findhorn has reached a point in terms of size and in terms of the stabilization of all the activities here and the beginning of new activities, where it is important for us to begin to consider together some of the principles involved in wholeness.

Probably we will be hearing quite a bit of talk over this spring and summer about coming together into wholeness, both individually, collectively, and unless we have some ground, some common basis of definition, we may find ourselves actually moving further apart rather than coming together, simply through non-communication.

This is especially true as the numbers of people increase, and the number of activities increase. It could become quite easy for different areas of talent and specialization to become involved enough with their own responsibilities that instead of being a cohesive, unifying force within the community as a whole, it actually becomes a separating force.

I remember last year having a discussion with Roc which led out of an experience he had in the Sanctuary one morning. I forget just when. I believe this must have been during the peak of the visiting season, because the Sanctuary was really packed with people. And Roc came out and said to Peter, and later to myself, that the energies that day had been particularly low; that apparently when a certain number of people got into the Sanctuary for the sending out of energy, there was actually a diminishing of energy. You would think that the more people, the more light and love and so forth could be produced, but it seemed to work just the other way around.

It is a strange principle that given a certain amount of complexity, and you begin to experience not cohesiveness but isolation. Of course this community is nowhere near that point. But it is one of the factors of community life which we will need to consider and take into account.

Some of the areas which we will want to share – and realize I am only going to be sharing my ideas on these subjects, and will welcome discussion and ideas from the floor, and any of you too that might want to contribute – some of these things will be like, obedience to God, the different levels of obedience.

I bring up this subject because it is that area which has created Findhorn to this point; it has been the absolute obedience to the will of God, to the guidance given. But obedience functions on many levels: on one level it is indeed the key to the New Age; on another level it is bondage to the past, and we need to understand this, and to see how this works.

We will want to discuss wholeness in terms of love and the increase of the love-flow within the community; also in terms of our ability to come together into a oneness. Sometimes the routes towards oneness are not exactly what we would think they would be, but may involve forms of creative separation and even moving apart so that new perspectives, new balance and new vision can be gained, and the oneness made that much more solid. I won’t venture to say what Myrtle will share with you, because that will come from her consciousness in her timing.

Tonight, I want to talk about a very basic law of the universe. It is the law of economy. In its way it is an absolute foundation for any creative or spiritual activity. As this community is growing, and is beginning to manifest greater and greater abundance, you want to understand this abundance in terms of the laws of economy.

Now what is actually meant by the laws of economy, in a spiritual sense, is simply right use of energy, whatever form energy may take, whether it is time, or space, or physical material-like tables and chairs and tape recorders and whatever, or whether it is our own consciousness, our own love, light, giving and receiving together. One of the challenges of this centre is, and is going consistently to be, its success, and its growth. And if it grows as much this year as it has in the past couple of years; and if indeed as Elixir has received, and as St. Germain mentioned last night, the expansion of this community is beyond what we are presently conceiving; then we are going to find such an acceleration of abundance that unless we are firmly grounded in the law of economy, this centre may have difficulty functioning properly. And not wholeness will result, but conflict and separation.

The key sentence, for me, for this evening, is that abundance without wisdom is waste and chaos. But abundance with wisdom, utilized with wisdom, manifests infinite and divine power.

We are told spiritually that we are here to recognize and be able to express our infinite capabilities. But long before we will ever be entrusted with infinite capabilities, or their release, we must be able to manifest wisdom with finite capabilities. Really that is what each of us is here for. We are infinity learning about itself through the experience of finiteness, or the experience of limitation, and definition.

I will give you an example. Last year as a community we all went to see the movie “Fantasia” when it was playing at Elgin. Many of you who were not here then may have seen it anyway. You will recall the story of the Sorcerer’s Apprentice. For those of you who don’t recall it, I will repeat it for you. The sorcerer’s apprentice was a chap who greatly envied his master’s powers, and realized that given time and study he, too, would be able to wield the elemental forces of creation. However he was a bit impatient. So one night as his master went to sleep, he donned the sorcerer’s hat and in order to ease his labours which at that point happened to be carrying water from the neighbouring well, he bewitched a broom and set the broom to work carrying in the water. At which point he went to sleep.

And when he awakened it was because water was lapping at his feet. The broom obviously just didn’t stop; it just kept bringing in the water. And he didn’t know how to make it stop…he knew how to enchant, but not how to disenchant. So he grabbed an ax and chopped the broom up, making an abundance of many little splinters, all of which were magically transformed into brooms, and each of which began going about its single-minded task of carrying water in from the well. Well, as we all know, it flooded the place out and eventually the sorcerer had to come out and rectify things.

Now actually all that the apprentice did was to set into motion the laws of abundance. He utilized positive thinking to get his job done. The only thing was that he didn’t know how to turn it off, and to say, “that is enough, that job is finished.” And as a consequence the water kept piling up. Supposedly given a magical well, the water could have kept coming into unlimited capacity. The sorcerer’s apprentice had tapped a source of infinite supply, and yet did not have the wisdom, or the controls to express it in a finite area, or under a finite condition. So waste was created and destruction.

It is very important that the lines of communication, of love, of understanding and respect between the members of the community be kept as uncluttered as possible, as open as possible. That is really our primary function. This community is God inspired, but it is actually not a God community – yet. The God is within us waiting to express, but actually at the moment we are a very human community; people with normal everyday challenges and problems and so forth. It is on this level that balance, understanding, and the channels of communication need to be established and kept open the very finite level. And as that happens we increasingly pave the way for the infinite divinity within us to make itself manifest.

Is it love that we wish? An abundance of love would destroy this community, until all the members herein would be able to both receive and express that love in wisdom and in balance in ways which do not place stress upon the finiteness of man, but instead give nurturing energy to it, to expand it into his infinite capacity.

If some millionaire were to give Findhorn unlimited supplies of money, that too could run the risk of destroying this centre. If it knew that all it had to do was to sign a cheque and everything that it wanted was supplied, that kind of abundance would be very dangerous until this centre was so completely anchored and unified within itself that it realized that no matter what it had or did not have, no matter what its gains or its lacks, its true treasure, its true richness was in the consciousness and the oneness of its people — not its buildings or future buildings, but its people, the people inside the buildings, people doing the work. By not being able to do that, or by having to work to manifest it and by having things come step-by-step, it gives us time to grow with it. It gives us time to adjust. Sometimes the adjustments have to be made very quickly, but nonetheless it is very important that we keep pace with the abundance which is projected for this community.

It is probably a very good thing that at some point man left the garden of Eden and went out and began experiencing finiteness, because it gives to him potentially a depth of understanding and wisdom which is not always present when all you do is reach up and pluck an apple off a tree when you are hungry — Oops, not an apple: That is what got him out in the first place. Pineapple: Man has laboured under such a consciousness of limitation, self-imposed for so long, that absolute freedom is absolute destruction for him, unless he is incredibly mature within his consciousness.

I know when I went to college, and lived in a dormitory, and a number of us were on this one floor; we were all freshmen, we were all fresh out of high school. Now high schools in America are very regimented. You are given a schedule by a computer, and if the computer is functioning properly, you get a number of classes. If it isn’t, you get all lunch periods. So in some schools you get either very smart children, or very fat ones. But there is this sense of regimentation. You do as you are told right down the line.

But in college that doesn’t exist – at least not in the college I went to. There was no one to monitor your time, no one to see you got your homework done. And most of the professors didn’t take attendance so you could go to class if you wanted or not. And Wow: That is incredible freedom. But about three-quarters of your way through the semester you suddenly realize that final exams are coming up, and you are really back at square one. And there were a number of fellows that found themselves in quite a bind toward the end, because the freedom of time, the abundance of time simply got away from them. And they found themselves at the end with no time to accomplish what they had to accomplish.

There is no question about the abundance pouring into this centre, just in material terms. As has been promised and has been demonstrated over and over again, all that is needed by this centre will be perfectly, adequately supplied and in proper timing. And it will reach a point, indeed, where the amount of work that is actually required to make it manifest will become less and less.

There is already a chap teaching in India, who, when he wants something, simply reaches his hand out and pulls it out of the air. There are a number of people, actually, who are doing this. In a way you are doing that here at Findhorn, in terms of the rapidity of manifestation. But man is so used to working for things that when he gets something that is apparently for nothing, even though actually a great deal has gone into it in terms of love and consciousness and prayer and faith and trust, and all the hard work of consciousness that is necessary to make the laws work; but when it seems as though not much has been done, then it doesn’t get evaluated properly and abundance becomes a curse, and the laws of manifestation become a curse.

Everything that is given to us is the manifestation of the Beloved, whether it is a person who comes, or ten new chairs, or a new typewriter, or whatever it may be. It is not God’s gift to us, it is God himself answering our need. And as such, because this centre is so richly blessed, these things come to us out of a consciousness of joy and of giving and of the spirit of the Beloved.
The laws of economy simply ask that we take none of this for granted. It is probably the basic rule in community life. It is as things begin to move into a smooth momentum, and as things begin to build, as Findhorn is now really moving into an accelerated state, the tendency is to begin taking it all for granted. If the laws of manifestation keep working, everyone stands up in the Sanctuary and says, “I need this,” and they walk outside the door and there it is. Pretty soon we forget what is actually going into it, and the value of the thing, when really it should have more value.

A gift that comes out of a love really carries with it a value quite different from the value of something we have had to go out and work for, because potentially it is a bearer of that love. It is only because, I feel, man has not fully realized the significance of giving and receiving, because he has had to work for everything, so that he has established a pattern of value.

Everything in this centre is here because love has drawn it – not need, but love. We say, “I need this,” but many people throughout the world are needing many things, and would like many things, but their consciousness is not moving toward wholeness, either within themselves, or in a social way. The reception, or the answer to their need might indeed prohibit or in some way inhibit that motion toward wholeness. But here the motion is different. We are consciously working towards functioning together as people and as agents of divinity. And it is this motion of love in its highest sense that allows the floodgates of abundance to come in.

But the things that are received then must be utilized in proper fashion. Right use. If a person is skilled in the use of a particular thing like Victor is skilled in the use of the printing-machine, he is the one most capable of exacting right use. It may be God’s gift to the whole, but for that particular pattern he is the agent for the whole. He is the wholeness that is receiving it. Whatever it is, whether it’s a printing-machine, a typewriter, all the material patterns, all of the gifts of time and consciousness as well, are each manifestation of the presence of the Beloved. That is so true in this centre.

Again, they are not gifts from God, they are God. His presence seeking wholeness with us in answer to a need which is apparently restricting that wholeness.

In ancient times, man had a very mystical relationship with the instruments of his work. In fact that is true now for those who go into ceremonial magic. They have to build and make their own instruments so that they are forged and are part of their very being. Man at one time used to relate to his instruments as though they were living beings. And of course we have vestiges of this today. We talk about musical instruments as if they were people. But actually we are discussing a great truth, because they are living presences. These are manifestations of life. And they too are part of the wholeness of this community, and in a way form a very special and magical link to our greater wholeness. Children have a deep sense of this: the magic in a chair or a table, or piano, or vase. But we see them as things and treat them as things.

In its highest sense the law of economy simply asks that we recognize that everything that comes, and everything that is, is a manifestation of God, is alive and must be related to as part of the divine wholeness and used accordingly or worked with accordingly.

When we grow up as children our needs are supplied by our parents, at least it is true in most cases. And in most cases we may never know actually what our parents went through to supply these things for us, until we try to go out and try to start supplying them for ourselves. This centre is demonstrating, and is increasingly demonstrating the presence of God as something actually more than a parent, truly a beloved who gives and gives and gives without ending.

But before that abundance can come in every little thing, we have to absolutely demonstrate our ability to utilize that thing, that person, that even, that time with wisdom, with balance, with love, with understanding. And of course that is simply a discipline that puts us into incredibly close harmony with all of life. That is really all that is being asked by the law of economy. You recognize the wholeness of life in all things, and respond accordingly.

In America a number of communes have developed, are developing where everything is shared by everyone. Findhorn is actually not a commune. It is not set up as such. Its communal aspects really are in consciousness. When that is built strong and sure and lovingly, then indeed we do share everything.

At the same time, however, the particular experiment in Findhorn is that being communal in consciousness, we yet each express a certain uniqueness in the community which has its own requirements. And we draw to ourselves from the community what will meet our requirements. And those particular devices or instruments or that particular time become related to us for the time that we need them. Sort of a true love bond. And when we are finished with them they return either to the Trust as a whole or wherever they came from.

But while that bond exists then it must be recognized by the community as a whole that this time, that device, that instrument is linked with so-and-so. And without the knowledge and indeed permission of that being, I cannot intrude, take, borrow, beg, steal or whatever, because it is not really free flow we are after; it is flow that is moving in wisdom and in a recognition of certain finite limitations on this dimension, which when we understand and we work with them, gives us the control and the balance to truly liberate our infinite capabilities.

As more and more and more is given, it should in every way enhance the effectiveness, the efficiency, the love, the joy and the expansion of this community, and will do so as the principles of right use, of both communal and private ownership of stewardship in terms of time and need and responsibility and authority are recognized, and all manifesting balance. And abundance will not be a problem for this community; either abundance of people, or things or whatever.

This certainly is the vision that is projected, and I know it is the reality that will be made manifest. Now that is all that I wish to say tonight on that. I simply want to get started with a motion of sharing with you. I might ask though if Myrtle has anything she might like to add.

Myrtle: Not tonight.

Lecture on Economy Further Discussion
(Question & Answer Session)

When Myrtle and I started out in 1965, in the winter of ’65 and ’66 we were in Los Angeles. We were guided there, and we were told to stay and work with a group who needed our help. They didn’t think so, but that was what we were told from ‘upstairs’ and that we were receiving valuable training.

We were living in a little house which belonged to the woman who was one of the leaders of this group. It belonged to her mother. A very funny little house on the side of a hill in Los Angeles. It had only one electrical circuit which meant one fuse. You couldn’t have very much on in the way of electricity at any one time. And you couldn’t turn on an electric stove. It got very cold but if we did turn on the electric stove, it would blow the fuse. So we put on electric blankets and would walk around wrapped up in electric blankets with long extension cords. We found that worked very well.

But all work stopped for us. Myrtle, up to that point, had been incredibly successful as a counselor and as a head of a school for the State of Utah. She was a very successful business woman as a human-relations counselor. I’d never been out in the world very much. So there we were in Los Angeles; no work and no money coming in. Our resources kept going down and down. Finally, I decided I should go out and get a job. I couldn’t find one. And sometimes when it looked like I might, I would get blocked. It was very strange! And so after hours of that, actually after about a week of trying, going through all the want-ads, and going all around, I kept getting this strong guidance that I shouldn’t. So I thought, “Well, you know, that is fine, fellows.” I certainly wasn’t going to argue with that.

Well, we got down to a dollar between us, and no money coming in and no knowledge of how it would. We were then offered work in Salt Lake City. But Salt Lake City was 600 miles away. I did have a car but no money for gasolene. So we might as well have been on the moon. I remember our discussion that morning, wondering what we would do with our last dollar. Maybe we would go to an afternoon matinee. We were going to do something with that last dollar. Frame it? Boil it, and eat it for dinner?
Well, we got a message somehow from a friend whom we had been helping. He said, “Would you mind coming out to dinner with me?” Well, we didn’t mind. Halfway through the dinner he wrote us a cheque. It was exactly the amount needed to get to Salt Lake City. Well, we got there; we had been there about a week when a woman wrote me out a cheque for one-thousand dollars. And from that point onward there has been steady manifestation. We went from one dollar to two-thousand dollars within a two-week period. It is true that for awhile it was quite a challenge for us, for me, to handle what was becoming a great deal of abundance. It happened just the way it is here. We would have no money at the beginning of the month, but all our bills would be paid by the end of the month.

Eventually, just through experience, we learned something very similar to what Peter was saying: that there is absolutely no limit to what you will receive as an individual or as a community — as long as it is known that you will treat it well.

Now by treating it well is not miserliness – like the famous biblical story of the talent; one fellow went out and buried his, and he got criticized for it – but it is utilizing what one is given in a way that creates and advances the cause of one’s consciousness, whether it is through joy and fun, through work or through saving, whatever it happens to be in the moment.

Myrtle: I think for David and me it was the same as for you here at Findhorn. We had to get to a point where we realized that things would manifest for us, rather than through learning, because it was time for me, especially, to change my consciousness to manifestation rather than earning a living. The reason this was so is because if I had tried to think in terms of earning the money that we now needed for traveling, I think we would have decided we shouldn’t travel. We had to manifest much more than we could earn to do things that God expected us to do. So we had to learn to rely entirely on God supplying whatever we needed, for that which he wanted us to do.

But as David has been telling this evening, you don’t receive this unless you appreciate it to the extent that you value it. I think my having had to work for a living helped me to understand the value of what was being given. But I think seeing David as young as he was and not having had to come through the hard way that I did was a tremendous training for me — to see one so young, value the things that were given him, and that he did accept them as being a gift from God that must be utilized in the right way.

I think that the young people here at Findhorn should certainly value everything that is given; to the point, that they will take care of it. Anything that you use, anything that you are given, for any task that you have to do, is very important. The fact that it has come without your having to earn it may not seem to you that it is important to take care of it. But the smallest thing that you care for will teach you to manifest more, and to learn as well to receive the things that to you as individuals are important.

This is one reason why in being a part of the whole, in sharing whatever the whole has as a unit here, and as a community, will teach you to evaluate, and you won’t have to move through the hard earning time that most of the older ones here have experienced. This is very important. It is not only the things that you use, but it is the time also. And when you have fun, it is just as important as your work time. And I’m sure you are all learning that. And so it isn’t a matter of working all the time, but it is a matter of utilizing that time in the very best way you can.

I seem a little more preachy than David does because his consciousness has realized many of the things that it took me years to train for. And I think the consciousness now of the young people coming in is tremendous, because you have a freedom that we didn’t understand at your age. But we as older people have learned to evaluate in a different way and this is why here in this community you have a tremendous opportunity of helping each other, and of sharing, and of feeling that everything that is here belongs to each one of you.

David: I want to add one thing to that. This is not a commune except in consciousness. But if there is a communion of consciousness then everything will belong to everyone else. But it is important to realize in this centre that because we are part of the community does not give us access to all aspects of the community, nor use of all instruments within the community, because many things come under the particular responsibilities and therefore the authority of certain individuals in the community.

And that is where again we do have a form of private ownership. It is ownership through need and use, and right use. And this is important to make manifest as well, because then truly harmony will result; and since more can be created, the community actually becomes richer in consciousness and in what we mean to each other. There is a lot more value in being able to exchange a comfortableness than both of us being able to use the same table or the same desk or typewriter or something. That can become a conflict. That respect for the proper functioning of the whole is one of the great keys to the manifestation of wholeness.

Man has a very limited concept of what earning involves. He thinks in terms of very limited cause and effect. I will do that ’cause it will earn me that effect. But Jesus said that there is no limit to what God gives. He is not a banker who gives exactly a certain amount in accord with what an individual has invested in terms of time and energy. He just gives and gives and gives and gives — if the individual is able to accept that.

Now I feel that is one of the basic consciousnesses that has to be gotten into for the New Age. Yes, you are right. Everything that comes to you is earned in a classical sense, because of our consciousness that draws it to us. And indeed the only real thing that we are asked is to appreciate and enfold the thing, and love it, and make it part of the wholeness, because of right action, right use, right relationship.

And of course there are those who have this concept that life owes them everything; they don’t have to earn anything. That isn’t it either. Life doesn’t owe us a darn thing! If we are not open to give to life what we are, then we don’t have any room for life to give to us what we could receive.

But the concept of earning has to be taken out of the level of cause and effect, out of the concrete terminology and into a truly spiritual perspective in which we see that a being manifests what he is. If we are infinite in our being then we must give infinitely; we will receive infinitely. If we try to split our being, and, say, receive infinitely and give nothing, then that very split negates the whole action.

This community – and I know this very well, because I went through this in my own consciousness; I had to come to terms with this; and this has been so fundamentally a part of my consciousness for so long, since I was a little youngster, that it probably was easier for me. But both Myrtle and I had to deal with this, of being able to accept and open all channels to acceptance, even though outwardly we have done nothing to actually earn what is coming. But projected onto a higher level we see that, as Myrtle said, if God wants certain things done then they get done, and the patterns of consciousness necessary, the channels, the people, and so forth, are all moved into proper position. I think everything that Myrtle and I own can be put into the trunk of a car, quite literally. Yet, on the other hand, we own a great deal. But there is no attachment except during a period of use. If we have to use a thing, and it is necessary to the work, then, by golly, I own it; but when it is no longer necessary for the work, I don’t. It returns to God. He can do with it as he wishes.

The things that come to this centre are not gifts to the centre. Therefore you are not receiving charity here. None of you are receiving charity here. You are simply receiving the presence of God that is flowing to you to enable you to accomplish the things which you need to accomplish in the best way possible. When you have accomplished them, then they flow out.

Yes, I recognize that that can be a problem. But it is not a problem in anyone’s consciousness here, if we all accept the responsibility of being stewards to all the things that are here, and establishing a right relationship with them. Then those objections can be dealt with, and we will have the sense within ourselves that, “Yes, I have a right to this, because I am doing God’s work, and I have earned it by being what I am.” This centre earns it by being what it is, and that is simply the law of manifestation and the law of being.

There is so much waiting to come to man, but he feels that he has to pay for every step of the way. And we get so involved with this in terms of teachings. I cannot achieve Christ consciousness and illumination without paying for it every step of the way: through exercises, through meditation, through all these things. But the abundance of life, the abundance of illumination can pour into that individual as rapidly as he can expand his consciousness and his understanding of himself to accept it.

The day of the vast systems to prepare man for illumination and initiation are rapidly drawing to an end, simply because man is learning that he lives in the abundance of life, in the eternality of his consciousness which is limitless in its scope; therefore it does not require a teacher or a system to take him along these little steps of consciousness to get him to the point where he already is. But what he does require is the initiative within himself to take what he is where he is without asking for more, putting it to use, putting it to work, putting it into a valued relationship with life, and knowing that as he does that, he expands automatically and receives abundantly.

Myrtle: We want to get to that state of consciousness where we give and receive without any feeling of obligation. We then will be manifesting God’s way. But we tend to feel we have to earn to actually be worthy. Or if we give, we expect something in return for what we give.

I believe that consciousness has to change. I think that is what is wrong with the world, and why we have gotten to a point where we do not manifest God’s way in our giving and receiving. If we call it charity, we have labeled it, and we have no right to do that.