This article written by Judith Hampson was first published in Network News Issue 10, January 1997.

The bottom line is love Network News 10The Swedish word for business is Narings-Liv, which, literally translated, means “to nourish life”. Our word implies “busyness”, rushing around, our time consumed by our jobs, a lack of space for the rest of our lives. But what would it be like, asked one participant at this year’s October Conference, if our business truly did nourish our lives? What sort of a world would we then inhabit?

This Conference, Business for Life – Reconsecrating Our Work, was the realisation of one man’s dream, eight years in the making. The idea initially met with some resistance at the Findhorn Foundation. Questions were asked as to whether it was appropriate for a spiritual community to host a week- long conference about business.

But Johnny Brierley, coming as he did from a business background, knew in his heart that a spiritual community is an entirely appropriate place to debate the reconsecration of our work. He’d tasted the success of business and found it wanting, known that however successful he became, the yacht would never be long enough. And then there was this yawning hole inside him and the more successful he became, the wider it yawned. From the vantage point of his personal crisis, Johnny had clearly seen that the crisis of the western world would not be solved merely by greater social responsibility or sustainable options. It was much deeper than that, it was truly a crisis of the human spirit.

And so they came to share in Johnny’s dream, some two hundred participants from around the globe, committed to dialogue on the relationship between business and spirituality. They came from as far afield as Hungary and Japan, from Africa and Iceland: consultants and employees from the world of business and finance, individuals whose declared interests encompassed personal development.

They said that they wanted to connect with the deeper purpose of their lives, to bring a sense of the divine into their work, to form win/win relationships with colleagues, to make both work and personal life more meaningful, to develop a sense of right livelihood. Many of them spoke about leaving behind their emotions and their true selves, along with their hats and coats, at the office door. Some were deeply frustrated in their working lives, others had already begun to make the transition, leaving empty  jobs to form consultancy companies engaged in bringing spirituality and creativity into the workplace. Many participants had already undergone such deep inner crises in their working lives that they had radically changed the nature of their work or their approach to it, or both.

Others were still struggling with all this, facing the dilemma between work which cramped and stifled the soul on the one hand, and the scary and insecure world of self- employment on the other. For them, there were sharp and practical questions. How to find work which truly made the heart sing? How to follow that impulse and still provide for the material needs of families? Downshifting and the adoption of more simple lifestyles had become a popular choice. Many had joined communities both small and large, others were engaged in setting them up.

In his keynote speech on the first night, Jonathon Porritt talked about the doubling of the gap between the world’s richest and poorest people over the last thirty years. Today a third of the world’s work force is un- or under-employed, and those in this group who manage to find work, do so under the worst labour conditions since the 1930s. If we are conscientious about such things we can no longer feel comfortable going about our daily business as usual.

Yet it isn’t a question of lack of resources. Many speakers referred to the ten trillion dollars which circulates around the world markets every day, literally following the sun, most of it inaccessible to any elected government. In Porritt’s view the plethora of economic alternatives now available in the domains of food, energy, pollution control and finance were an inevitable and radical response to the overarching phenomenon of life in the developed world – Universal Consumerism. The Moray LETS System and the Earthshare Food Co-operative are two of the local responses created by the wider community associated with the Findhorn Foundation. Such unsubsidised and unsupported community-based initiatives are now springing up everywhere. They are new forms of creating economy and wealth. shifting the energy from disempowerment into win/win situations. According to Porritt “we’re in the middle of a huge paradigm shift to a community-based empowered economy that creates and defines wealth differently”.

So-called “ethical banking” is another such response. Glen Saunders, Managing Director of the Triodos Bank (formerly Mercury Provident) talked about offering people a place to put their money outside of the ten trillion dollar a day circulation. His anthroposophical bank aims at transparency; people know what is being done with their money. Investments are used to fund socially and environmentally positive community projects, from Steiner Schools to organic farms, as well as lending micro credit to the world’s very poor. It isn’t difficult to measure the value and accountability of such a banking system, it operates on the good biblical tenet of “by their fruits shall ye know them”.

It would be somewhat difficult to apply such a principle of assessment to the World Bank. Yet one of the most uplifting and encouraging presentations at this conference came from a World Bank employee. Three years ago, responding to an inner call, Richard Barrett put out an e-mail around the bank offering to dialogue with colleagues about the deeper meaning of work. The result was the birth of the World Bank Spiritual Unfoldment Society. What began as tentative and fearful discussions among a tiny group in the cafe has now blossomed into a thriving lunchtime venue, each attended by about fifty employees from all and hosting top guest lecturers from all over Washington.

In 1995 the Bank supported Barrett’s initiative for a World Bank Conference on Ethics and Values, attended by 350 delegates from 20 countries. A central objective was to bridge that discontinuity between personal and institutional values. Barrett was walking his talk and acquiring something of a reputation. When asked in the elevator how he felt today, he’d simply beam out, “Bordering on the fantastic. How are you?”. Soon he became known as “Mr Values”. For the first time in its history, World Bank employees were using the word “love” in their conversations with colleagues.

It wasn’t an easy road to travel. Like Johnny Brierley, Barrett had to live into a dream which seemed hardly possible, with very little support at first. Now he’s at the forefront of transformation of work and business in the world. All the presenters had similar stories: ordinary people who’d found the courage to live extraordinary lives, and who were committed to making a difference. Their presentations were uniformly excellent. They spoke from their hearts, and it was the quality of their speaking. as much as the rich abundance of information they imparted, which carried us along on our personal journeys throughout this week.

These speakers led by example. In their own lives they had found ways of entering that deep personal stillness from which a truly new and creative approach to life and work can emerge. It wasn’t superficial, their lives were dedicated to nurturing that space. Professor Chakraborty, from the University of Calcutta told us that we didn’t need brainstorming to solve our management problems, what we needed was “heartstorming”. He spoke of the Eastern seers (literally, those who are able to see) who came not from the city universities but from the ashrams of the forest. At tea, his wife informed me that he joins them every year for a retreat and that he dedicates each Sunday to silent reflection.

Such dedication to truth doesn’t come merely from the mind. As Ellen Hayakawa, a tiny lady whose courage and inspiration moved many of us to tears, told us: “If you want to hear God laugh – tell God your plans!” It was emerging for many of us who’d brought our sharp and practical questions to the party, that the answers were to be found on the inside. Every now and then someone would strike a Tibetan Bowl and signal a minute’s silence to remind us of this. As we entered the Conference’s Open Space, one answer to all our questions seemed slowly to be emerging. That answer was Love.

In many different ways we had been shown how it was indeed possible to live out of love and to transform work and business from that centre, in the most unlikely workplaces. And was that so surprising? Perhaps not to this audience, but the message is also out there, in that murky world around which the ten trillion circulates daily. Jack Hawley told us that a recent survey of the richest readers of Fortune Magazine concluded that the public figure they most admired was Mother Teresa. Another ordinary person living an extraordinary commitment.

It is surely this, and this alone, which will transform our lives and the world of business and work. Indeed, it is the only thing which can. And the idea is empowering. The speaker who most stole the show at this conference was just an ordinary shopkeeper.[1] David Hoyle , who runs the Phoenix Community Stores here on the site of the Findhorn Foundation, told us how he hadn’t grown up imagining that his mission in life was to become a grocer. And yet, as he’d travelled his personal road, he’d realised that there was no better way to express right livelihood in this world of “Universal Consumerism” than through conscientious shopping. A recent UK poll indicated that 80% of the population believe in God and 70% consider shopping to be their favourite activity!

Hoyle’s approach is to offer people a choice to exercise responsibility, to buy goods that are local, organic, fairly traded. The consequences of what we buy, he reminded us, can be profound. What we buy can determine whether local businesses flourish or go under, whether growers in the third world live or die. He offered us all a commitment sheet in which we were invited to fill in one change in our shopping activity that we would implement when we went home. Spirit in action, something demonstrably practical.

What touched us all so deeply about David’s presentation was the depth from which he shared his heart with us. It seemed to be the bottom line. It was what participants from all walks of business and work had been saying all week. They just wanted an opportunity to share their hearts in their daily work.

I talked to a freelance business coach who said that what he’d heard would encourage him to come out of the closet with his clients, to be more open about what we’re all really talking about – loving each other. He already knew from experience that the lowering of barriers in his clients was a direct response to his own courage to be totally open hearted, as well as open minded. What then transpires comes out of a place of deep value and is always of direct benefit. Results he gets for his clients include promotions, changed job descriptions, more efficiently run departments, more honesty and greater willingness to share personal problems with colleagues.

A recent study of corporate culture and performance compared companies which make explicit values of care and concern for employees and customers, as well as for their shareholders. The performance of over two hundred major companies was analysed over eleven years. Those with explicit value statements consistently out-performed the others by very high margins.

It seems then that balance and harmony in our personal and corporate lives also equates with success. As Richard Barrett asked, “Now, is this or is it not a spiritual message?”.

Judith Hampson
Judith is a freelance researcher, writer and editor. Having burnt out in a career at the forefront of international legislation to control the use of animals in medical research, she underwent a period of unemployment in 1993. She is now part of the Findhorn Foundation Community, resident in Forres.

[1] David Hoyle’s presentation during the conference.