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See this centre in its true perfection filled with souls who are here simply to do My will and to walk in My ways.
This is no dream world. This is reality I am speaking about. This is what you are to hold before you and so help manifest in form. Where all your needs are met; where lack is unknown; where seemingly insoluble problems are solved in the twinkling of an eye. Because all any soul wants is to seek My will and obey it instantly without any thought of self. Because all their faith and trust is completely in Me and their only desire is to do all to My honour and glory; Where harmony and peace and deep contentment reign.

Eileen Caddy; Foundations of a Spiritual Community; Page 90

Living in a spiritual community can be both a delight and a source of great stress. Most people find that it is both, particularly, but not exclusively in their first few years. This section therefore includes some advice about how to respond to and understand some of these pressures.

The first paper by Peter Caddy deals with pioneering new projects. This may on the surface appear to be a potentially enjoyable task, and indeed many community members find great satisfaction in the creation of innovative schemes. However, it should also be remembered that there is an inevitable tension between the visionary, who by definition is interested in what can only be achieved tomorrow, and the administrator who has his or her hands full with the problems of today. Any creative impulse must find a way between these two poles if it is to succeed, and much grief would be avoided if we were all aware of the need for both individual creative expression, and the calls on other people’s time. (The phrase ‘Graveyard of Egos’ was a favourite of Peter’s to describe life in the Community.)

The second and third papers deal more with the internal processes that can emerge in community life. Myrtle Glines’ classic ‘Garden or Jungle?’ is required reading, but if you are choosing to consume these study papers sequentially, you may wish to break with that practice and return to David Spangler’s ‘Pressures Within’ at a slightly later date as it covers much the same ground, although from a different perspective.

Why this apparent repetition? This is in part because Myrtle’s paper is good preparation for any challenges which emerge, whilst David’s is concerned more with the inner dynamics of the situation and can more fully be appreciated during or after a time of difficulty. It is certainly important to note that Myrtle’s paper refers to details of our Community history and is thus more specific, but has a more dated composition. A great deal has changed since it was written circa 1974.

Together they provide a balance to the tendency for spiritual aspiration to deny difficulties. It is certainly true that one of the qualities David and Myrtle brought to the Community was a counterweight to the training Eileen and Peter had of always thinking positively, which whilst appropriate in most circumstances has certainly lead to a denial of painful truth or experience at certain times in our collective history.

But why should these challenges emerge at all? Certainly some individuals seem to be able to live happily without crisis, but in truth they are the lucky few. If the carapace of personality was so easy to dissolve, so allowing the light of the soul to shine through, then perhaps community life would be less necessary and valuable.

Many of these crises seem to involve the soul’s attempts to challenge the attachments the personality has clung to. Joining a spiritual community involves a powerful invocation regarding one’s relationship to the divine, and the consequences can be unexpectedly harsh. Yet you may find you come closer to enlightenment through some challenge in relationship, your health, finances, or from some utterly unexpected quarter.

Should such a happenstance occur, you may find it helpful to remember that:

  • the process is all about learning to internalise qualities you have been attempting to sustain from an external source.
  • if the divine economy is truly at work, then something you might otherwise have experienced must be worse than your current experience.
  • it is not the Community’s fault.
  • enlightenment occurs when you have a relaxed attitude to life; it is not the absence of challenges.

“What the community needs is help to meet its vision. It needs people who can accept its promise and make it work in their own lives where they are. It needs people who can go to the community with the right motives of service and commitment to growth and responsibility, people who understand the growth process, can work creatively with negativity, can strengthen family patterns; people who are balanced and who are not looking for a personal utopia as much as for a place to serve according to the service that is needed, not according to their own glamorous ideas of the kind of service worthy of them. Findhorn is both garden and jungle, but so are we, so is the world. What we all need is a consciousness that can work with both in order to touch the greater life that is the Source.”

Michael Lindfield, ‘Findhorn: A Learning Experience’, page 13.