Eileen Caddy.
By Roland Ashby
The primary lesson to learn in life is to love. This was one of the many profound insights that Eileen Caddy (1917-2006) received in her daily meditations. Through an inner voice, she believed that God was guiding her in her co-founding of the Findhorn Foundation in Scotland in the 1960s, a community whose vision is to “radically transform the world” through teaching and embodying the core principles of deep inner listening, co-creation with nature, and work as love in action.
In her book Opening Doors Within, Eileen offers a meditation for each day of the year, based on the guidance she received from her inner voice. The primary lesson to learn in life is to love is how one entry begins. It goes on to say:
Love is unity and wholeness. Love knows no limitation, no barriers. With love comes freedom. It is fear that binds and limits a soul; it is love that frees and cuts away all bonds. Love opens all doors, changes lives and melts the hardest of hearts. Love is creative; it builds up, creating beauty, harmony and oneness. It works for, not against, anything. Love brings such joy that it cannot be repressed. It dances and sings through life. Is there love in your heart? Love for each other? It starts in you and works out and out.
Eileen’s inner voice, and the Findhorn Foundation she helped to create, invite us to imagine, and strive for, a world where love, not fear, is the basis of all our relationships; a world in which war, greed, inequality, hate, racism and environmental degradation have no place.
Racism has been very much in the news in Australia recently, in the wake of the decision by prominent Indigenous journalist Stan Grant, who is also a Christian, to take extended leave from the ABC, the national broadcaster, over the racist abuse he had received, particularly on social media. In an echo of Martin Luther King, he said “I am down … but I will get back up. And you can come at me again, and I will meet you with the love of my people."
Meeting such hateful abuse with love, and striving for the kind of transformation that Eileen Caddy holds before us, is not something we can undertake on our own. Jesus promised his followers that he would send his Spirit to guide and empower them, something that Christians celebrated last week on Pentecost Sunday (28 May) and continue to celebrate today, Trinity Sunday (4 June). Both days rejoice in the pouring out of the Holy Spirit, the Christ mind or Christ consciousness, into the world, and its power to radically transform us, if only we will open the door of the heart.
St John tells us that when the risen Jesus appeared to the disciples, they had locked the doors of the house “for fear of the Jews” (John 20:19). What fears might be keeping the door of your heart locked? “Perfect love”, John says later, “casts out all fear”. (1 John 4:18)
In the liberty of the Spirit lies our true freedom, peace and fulfilment. In her poem ‘Inside each of us’ American author and poet Sister Joyce Rupp writes:
Inside each of us
there awaits
a wonder
full
spirit of freedom
she waits
to dance
in the rooms
of our heart
that are closed
dark and cluttered
she waits
to dance
in the spaces
where negative feelings
have built barricades
and stock-piled weapons
she waits
to dance
in the corners
where we still
do not believe
in our goodness
inside each of us
there awaits
a wonder
full
spirit of freedom
she will lift light feet
and make glad songs
within us
on the day
we open the door of the ego
and let the enemies
stomp out[1]
For more information about Eileen Caddy and the Findhorn Foundation see: https://www.findhorn.org/
References:
[1] As cited in Celebrating the Seasons - Daily Spiritual Readings for the Christian Year (Canterbury Press), Kindle version, Loc 5985