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(Extracts from ‘Findhorn: A Learning Experience’, Foundation document, 1984/5.)

If you were curious about what exactly the Findhorn Foundation is and you decided to write a letter asking for details I would most likely reply in the following way:

“The Findhorn Foundation is an international spiritual community in the north of Scotland committed to the improvement of human relationships and understandings. Registered as a Religious and Educational Charitable Trust under Scottish law, we offer people of all backgrounds and beliefs an opportunity to discover their own unique inner nature and strengths so that they can be in a position to freely choose to make a positive difference in the world.

The Foundation began in 1962 and was first heard of through its experiments in new ways of working with nature. Despite poor soil and adverse conditions the results achieved in the cultivation of flowers and vegetables offered impressive evidence of the power of working in harmony and co-operation with the realms of nature. The founders soon realised that these self-same principles were at the heart of all healthy relationships: be it a village project, a family enterprise or a new cultural impulse, all birth needed the same depth of nourishment and attention to motivation if it were to thrive.

The garden became a deep source of inspiration and hope to many and around it a small community formed that sought to live out and demonstrate that ideals can be realised. We have no formal creed or doctrine but are based on a firm belief that humanity approaches an evolutionary expansion of consciousness which will help create new patterns of civilisation for our society. We are concerned with developing the necessary tools and skills with which to educate ourselves and during the past few years we have come into contact with a wide circle of international, political, religious, environmental and academic bodies who share this same desire.

Our educational programmes aim to help participants find their own inner spirit and wisdom and we feel that creating a caring and harmonious environment is the best classroom in which we can learn. In fact, living in the Community is our main educational experience because it provides a supportive setting for putting the so-called ‘spiritual values’ into daily use. We are not a spiritual retreat nor a place where one can ‘drop out’ from the challenges facing society. We find that issues which the world is facing on a larger scale are reflected here in our patterns of government and decision-making, in our aim towards right livelihood and harmonious individual and family relationships.

Our next step, after the recent purchase of the caravan park where the experiment began, is to develop an ecological village in which new approaches to the issues of society can be developed and tested. This is our living classroom and we are open to all who wish to work and live in this spirit.

Education at the Foundation has been described as that process which leads a person into a greater understanding and realisation of the truth that lives within them and the world around. The physical, emotional, mental and spiritual aspects of our being need their own particular disciplines and structures that allow for growth to take place and we find that a person will attract to themselves their own living situation or ‘daily classroom’ in which the lessons can be learned.

We do have a more structured learning programme at the Foundation and we possess a wealth of educational material: both lectures and talks from visiting seminar leaders are recorded on tape or exist in written form as well as a documented history of our own ‘home-grown’ wisdom as a community. With the purchase of the Cluny Hill Hotel in 1976 we began our outward-looking phase of education and since then have offered weekly seminars and conferences and also two and three month programmes as a way of allowing more people to touch in with us and experience the nature of our educational process first-hand.

We have always had the idea of co-operating with other groups and in November 1979 we hosted a meeting to look at the development of an educational network. There were representatives from other communities including William Irwin Thompson from Lindisfarne, David Spangler, Milenko and others from the Lorians, a group from the Chinook Learning Community and a representative from the Auroville community in southern India. We sensed at that time the future need to work together in creating a ‘university without walls’ network that could inter-face with the already existing educational structures and in the past few years we have been exploring just how this wishes to happen.

The Merriam Hill Centre in New England is just one of the groups with whom we are developing educational links. The Learning Exchange programme that we conduct twice a year with them offers a structure for a small group of people to participate in the life of the Community not only providing mental input and stimulation, but more an atmosphere that will allow the individual to find his/her own inner learning centre and thus gain insights and understanding into the nature of personal development. Private space and group process are part of the digestive system that allows this-awareness of Self to be born.

The reason we work in groups is not only to provide a supportive or therapeutic environment but that we need to learn to work together and humans are the best ‘mirrors’ for each other.

The emphasis we place on serving the planet here must start with a personal stance in response to our understanding of the world. Whenever we focus on a global issue such as nuclear dis-armament in a seminar session we find it absolutely vital to see how the patterns and principles involved in the drama on the world screen are being played out in our own personal lives. In the case of the dis-armament theme we would ask each person to look at the roots of insecurity and the need to erect personal defence systems in their own lives and then explore how global disarmament can possibly begin with a personal peace treaty and a willingness to dismantle personal defences.

This approach makes learning a very real event as it affirms the living link between the larger global situation and the personal process of searching and learning. It became very clear to us a number of years ago that our gift was not to tell a person where to go or what to be but rather to offer them the learning environment (like a spiritual greenhouse) where they could make contact with their own gifts, vocations and direction and then freely choose how to develop these.

Another image we use is that of the ‘seed atom’ concept which says that all the potential for growth is locked within the seed and it is simply a process of accessing that place of identity and of then providing an environment that will truly draw forth the particular expression of life that is at present dormant.

The physical seed is life in its most concentrated form and it represents a living promise for the future. It is a statement of the essential perfection of life, for within each seed is contained the perfect flower. We know that nothing, however, will be revealed and expressed by the seed until it is planted in good soil and in suitable climatic conditions.

Likewise we believe that within each of us there lives the promise of fulfilment, a seed that contains within it the perfect flowering of our humanity. Each individual is unique in his or her expression of the One Life, for there are many different flowers in this Earth garden. This seed of human perfection needs to be planted in the soil of earthly experience in order to grow and to experience itself. Therefore growth can be said to be the process of unfolding that already is. If this fact is truly understood then it will radically alter our approach to education for we are now dealing with the process of letting it happen rather than making it happen…

Education in its original sense derives for the Latin ‘educere’ [1] which means to ‘draw out from within’, that which we essentially are. What we seek to evoke or draw forth from our residents is their innate spirit and wisdom, neither of which may be taught in any conventional sense They may only be inspired and nurtured within a supportive, loving environment. It is for this reason that the life of the Community is the primary aspect of education in the Foundation…

This process of unfoldment also includes looking at that which is stopping us form expressing our uniqueness, that which leads us from our true selves into the cul-de-sac of wrong identification.

If we continue with our exploration of the seed image we find that to produce a flower the plant must first build up a system of roots, and produce a stalk with foliage to support the flower. Carrying on with the analogy we see that this process can be likened to the adolescent stage of our development in which the subtle bodies of experience are developed. The personality is gradually built up until it forms a living link that allows us to enter into and intimacy with life and through this divine love affair makes possible the flowering of who we are. Can you imagine what it would be like if the promise of the flower was not contained within the seed? What would then be the purpose of planting the seed if there was nothing there to be revealed?”

Receiving an answer like that in the mail with all its fine ideals and lofty intentions may be an impressive sight on paper but really the only way to find out about the Foundation is to experience it first hand. Failing that the next best thing is to listen to those who have lived within the Community expressing their feelings and sharing their understandings of the living organism that is the life of the Findhorn Community.

The essential conviction which lies at the heart of our life and our educational philosophy at Findhorn is that true spirituality consists less of what we believe than of the qualities we exemplify in the course of our life and work, qualities of aspiration, commitment, courage, discipline, joy, peace, love, creativity, clarity and co-operation that we associate with our inherent, if potential divinity.

[1] Or possibly from ‘educare’, to train.