Findhorn and Auroville

There is a Kuilapalayam shop with the name ‘Same Same but Different’. Having lived for over ten years in the community of Findhorn in Scotland and now as a Newcomer here in Auroville, I frequently reflect on their similarities and differences.

Findhorn is an eco-village, a spiritual New Age community, and a well known alternative education centre in Britain. Founded by Eileen and Peter Caddy and Dorothy Maclean (who only passed away this January aged 100), the community emerged through a mixture of the spiritual guidance received by Eileen, Dorothy’s connection with the nature spirits and Peter’s physical work in grounding the guidance. Until CORONA hit, more than a hundred folk worked directly for the Foundation and over 500 lived locally, with varying degrees of relationship to the community.

Both Auroville and Findhorn were conceived and birthed in the spiritual and social turbulence of the 1960s, catching the wave of those searching for all that a ‘City of Dawn’ would offer. Findhorn dates its start to 1962 when the founders pulled their caravan into a trailer park, and it became more communal in the late 1960s, around the same time the South Indian experiment was being inaugurated in the amphitheatre. 

Same Same

I can imagine that certain sections of Auroville may view Findhorn with suspicion, given its new age orientation, and emphasis on groups and emotional sharing. Yet there is and has been a connection between the two communal projects. 

The Hexiad project in the early 1980s came from a vision of linking the communities of Arcosanti, Findhorn and Auroville, and there has been a formal exchange programme between the latter communities for many years. In the 1970s a few Aurovilians moved to Findhorn, including Eric Franciscus who would return regularly to Auroville with Findhorn tours some years later. Paulien Zuidervaart who had lived in Findhorn for six years in the late 1970s, moved to Auroville for twenty years till her untimely death a few years ago. Michael and Gail Shaw, long time Findhorn residents since the 1970s, regularly spend half the year here and Monique Gauthier, Dan Greenberg and myself arrived a year ago. 

The informal sharing of inspiration has long mutually enriched each community. For example, ecological projects in Findhorn have been inspired by the greenwork here, and some principles of meeting facilitation were brought to Auroville in the early 1990s from Scotland. 

Both communities share common beginnings, with young volunteers turning up in the early days willing to immerse themselves in a new life, and inspirational Founders who gave directions and core principles. In Findhorn, the first building was the ‘Sanctuary’, which to this day is the main meditation venue. Matrimandir was similarly an early priority for Auroville, the centre point for the new city-to-be. But the main large project for Findhorn was the Universal Hall, a pentagon used for community meetings and gatherings, musical concerts, conferences and plays.

Both centres have inspired many to work with nature, despite being birthed in mundane locations: Findhorn in a trailer park, sometime rubbish dump, next to an RAF base; Auroville on an eroded plateau. Findhorn’s caravan park and the surrounding wild dunes motivated Dorothy Maclean and others to work with nature spirits and the intelligence inherent in nature. Auroville’s reforestation work inspired ‘rewilding’ before the word was even coined. They both promoted organic food production from their earliest days and have influenced many people to live more in balance with nature. They share an emphasis on work offered to the divine. In Findhorn the principle of ‘work is love in action’ is a core value; in Auroville, Mother emphasized the need for karma yoga. The best way to really understand both places is to work there and get your hands dirty. 

They were both conceived into being through higher agencies. Mother’s force and presence is what really carries the community of Auroville. Likewise in Findhorn, there is a palpable connection to what is known as the Angel of Findhorn who overlights the community. Both centres are joined in the wish to create a new humanity based on spiritual values.

Different 

The most immediate difference between the two places is climatic, with the dry heat of Auroville contrasting with Findhorn’s chillier northern location, where at Christmas time, solstice darkness descends by 3.45pm. Auroville is noticeably larger and more spread out: I can bicycle for 30 minutes to get to Kuilapalayam from my home in Kottakarai. In Findhorn you can walk from end to end in about five to ten minutes. 

Another stark difference is in the number of residents, Auroville being about four times larger. One of the visions of Findhorn that Eileen Caddy received was that it would first become a village, then a town and a city of light. But this is not so much spoken of anymore whereas in Auroville the ‘city of 50,000’ is an oft-mentioned goal.

In the early 1990s, when Findhorn was sending groups on annual pilgrimages to India, beginning in Auroville, the late Diane Falasca told me that ‘Findhorn is group and Auroville individual’. This insight into their differing spiritual purposes and ways of connecting with the divine is immediately noticeable. Most people who arrive in Findhorn have signed up for full-time courses and are allocated a room with a set programme and meal times. Until COVID, the Foundation earned 90% of its income from its guest programmes. This contrasts with Auroville’s less structured approach, where you are left to find your own way regarding accommodation and the work that draws you. There is a more overtly communal life in Findhorn, with daily meditations, attunements (connecting before work), and shared dining with two main kitchens cooking for hundreds of people.

The community is well known for its work with group consciousness and a strong emphasis on emotional literacy and working consciously with relational conflicts. This work produced the ‘Common Ground’, a one page document for how to live and work in community, articulating the visions and principles of living together(see accompanying box). Integral Yoga has a much more individualised sadhana. When Ram Das visited Auroville some years ago, he couldn’t detect a collective practice. 

In the early 1990s when I joined the Findhorn community, a seismic change took place, for they embarked on selling off or even giving away buildings and parts of the community to let them find their own identity. The Steiner school, bakery, shop, press, cafe and other enterprises, which were originally community work departments, are now independent entities. In Auroville, all fixed assets and enterprises belong to the community, while the Auroville Foundation is the legal umbrella. This creates quite a different community feel. My perception is that there is a greater ambition and scope of utopian idealism alive in Auroville. There are so many communal offerings; not just infrastructure services, but also video and book libraries, its own educational pedagogy, Auronet, a language lab, cultural performances and more. Auroville has many free facilities and events. This is less common in Findhorn; most, though not all, events are charged for. 

The Findhorn Foundation is based in two locations, surrounded by a wider community. Auroville has many dozens of neighbourhoods, work places, shops, cafes, spread out amongst three villages, like Joseph’s quilt of many colours. This variety and individual freedom allows a high amount of creativity to organically emerge. There seem to be many artists, musicians, architects, writers, entrepreneurs and individuals who have found or are on their way to embodying their inner destiny. Mother’s emphasis on ‘divine anarchy’ provides a seed bed for unique experiments, both personal and collective.

One notable difference is in governance. In Findhorn community meetings are usually well attended, whereas in Auroville you are lucky to get the 10% quorum of the adult community for even a ‘hot’ topic. Big meetings in Findhorn, such as the annual internal conference, will often fill the Universal Hall. The Findhorn Foundation is the charity running most of the educational programmes and owning much of the residential buildings and land. Over the years it has experimented with different governance forms but has always had some kind of centralised executive group and community forum. In the 1990s, as the number of people living outside of the Foundation grew and diversified, the New Findhorn Association (NFA) emerged to represent this wider community of families and small businesses. The NFA is run by two ‘Listener Convenors’ (one male, one female), who are selected every two years. 

Whilst there are a number of nations in Findhorn, predominantly though not exclusively Western, there are only a few Scots. In contrast, Auroville is home to 59 nations, including many people born in the local villages, a melting pot for what is hoped to be a new way of being.

In 1999, a gathering organized for those who had lived in Auroville since the 1970s brought together about 300 people. At that time in Findhorn, there were only about thirty people who had been there in the 1970s. Findhorn has always been a training centre, after which people are meant to go back to the world to offer their skills. A consequence is that children who grew up in Findhorn have only exceptionally returned to live there, though that is beginning to change as the wider community becomes more settled. In Auroville, while many children leave at one point to pursue careers outside, quite a number decide to return later. But, Auroville, like Findhorn, is a ‘greying’ community. 

While the average age of communities worldwide is reputed to be about a year, both Findhorn and Auroville have survived well into their fifties and are two of the largest of their type in the world. With very different locales, cultures and national mixes, they share a commonality of wishing to accelerate our evolution, to be seed beds for experiments that a new culture will need to grow in, and both provide a welcoming ark for that journey into the future so many of us dream of. 

Findhorn Foundation: Common Ground Guiding Principles

1. Spiritual Practice 

I have an active spiritual practice to align with spirit and support me to work for the highest good. 

2. Service 

I bring an attitude of service to others and to our planet, recognising I must also consider my own needs. 

3. Personal Growth 

I am committed to the expansion of human consciousness and my own personal growth. I endeavour to recognise and change personal attitudes and behaviour patterns that are limiting.

4. Integrity

I embody congruence of thought, word and action. I take responsibility for the spiritual, environmental and human effects of my activities.

5. Respecting Others 

I wholeheartedly respect other people – their differences, views, origins, backgrounds and issues. I respect all forms of life and the Community’s and other people’s property.

6. Direct Communication 

I use clear and honest communication with open listening, heart-felt responses, loving acceptance and straightforwardness. I talk to people rather than about them. In public and in private I do not malign or demean others. I may seek helpful advice but do not seek to collude. 

7. Reflection 

I recognise that anything I see outside myself – any criticisms, irritations or appreciations – may also be reflections of what is inside me, and I commit to looking at these before addressing others.

8. Feedback 

I am willing to listen to constructive feedback and work with it. I offer feedback to others in a caring and appropriate way to challenge and support each other to grow.

9. Nonviolence 

I do not inflict my attitudes or desires on others. Where appropriate I step in and stop violence, manipulation or intimidation of myself or others, or at least say that I would like it to stop.

10. Perspective 

For the benefit of the whole Community I may need to put aside my personal issues. I acknowledge that there may be wider perspectives than my own and deeper issues than those I am immediately aware of.

11. Cooperation 

I clearly communicate my decisions to others who may be affected by them, and consider their views respectfully. I recognise that others may make decisions which affect me, and I respect the care and integrity they have put into their decision-making process. 

12. Peacekeeping 

I make every effort to resolve disputes. I may call for an advocate, friend, independent observer or mediator to be present, and will use and follow the Community’s grievance procedures as necessary. 

13. Agreements 

I respect the law of the land, keep agreements I have made, and do not break or try to evade any Community guidelines.

14. Commitment 

I bring the spirit of this statement of Common Ground to all my dealings.