interviews

A Conversation with Michael Lindfield on:

Life, Meaning, Findhorn, and Transformation

cont. p. 4

Tammie: Well, it's certainly limiting.

Michael Lindfield: It's limiting. It has its limits and then those limits have to be broken through.

Tammie:Okay.

Michael Lindfield: What I'm talking about in regard to the new tools, is first asking the question, "What is the new stance, where do I stand in my conceptual thinking, in my behavior, in my acting out, that has life move through me as freely and as effectively and as creatively as possible?" That's what it's about.

Tammie: That's an important question.

Michael Lindfield: Rather than asking the ultimate question, "who am I?" as we struggle along on this search for identity, we may discover that the answer emerges over time as a result of the search. Maybe our identity is realized as we express who we are. It is in the act of creation and expression, rather than in the act of selfish search, that we truly find ourselves. Live the question and the answer will show up through the experience of living the question.

Tammie: Right.

Michael Lindfield: One of the things I learned in Sweden with this old farmer is that it is impossible to get an answer to life by being removed from life. He told us in no uncertain terms, "We're not going to send our soil off to the labs to be tested. What a dumb thing. They can't measure the livingness of the soil. They can tell you some of the ingredients, but the livingness you tell by looking at it, smelling it and seeing what's growing in it. You don't need to send it anywhere because the answer is here." My interpretation of his message is that you don't pick a flower to tell how well it's growing. You observe it in place, in action. I guess that's really the message.

Tammie: It's certainly not a message that I would forget had it been delivered to me. This farmer I think was a very important gift in your life.

Michael Lindfield: Absolutely. He was a free spirit. He wasn’t appreciated by anybody else in the valley. They all thought he was nuts but he knew what was really going on.

Tammie: He did. You've also suggested that we need a new mythos, a new creation story to inspire and guide us through the coming birth. I just wondered from your perspective, what that new mythos might be.

Michael Lindfield: A mythos is like a cultural seed-image which contains all the possibilities for a particular civilization. I think a new mythos is one that says that there is a great truth that wishes to be born in the world and that the emergence of this truth can only be the result of a collective birth. That truth lives within each of us equally, but how it is able to be expressed individually in this moment may be unequal.

Another important aspect to the new mythos is that we are moving away from the Judeo-Christian concept of "we are born sinners". That belief creates such a heavy millstone to wear around our necks that it can dampen the joy of the human spirit. The root meaning of sin is "separation" and so if there is any sin, it's a temporary separation of our understanding and of our connection with life.

For me, the new mythos - the new seed idea or image - would be that there is a great truth, there is a great beauty, and there is a great wisdom that seeks birth through all of us. It is the great mystery that seeks revelation. And it's only to the degree that we can join together in this common work and form a collective body of expression, that this mystery has any chance of fulfilling its destiny. The Being who embodies this mystery is too magnificent just to express through one particular human or one human particulate. It really is a collective birth.

This gives an added emphasis on the need to come together as a species. Not just because we need to be nice to each other, but that there is a deeper reason. There is a divine purpose. It is a divine fact of life that we are connected. Now, I always say that we are not here to prove if we are related. We are related. What we're here to do is to find ways of honoring that relationship. These relationships are there to bring through something greater than the sum of their parts. So it isn't just a self-serving relationship because when we come together as human family, we give birth to something that is of value to the larger planet, to the larger life.

I believe it's that sense of wonder - the joy, beauty and truth which lives inside each of us - that is seeking to be born. Hopefully, the realization of this can rekindle the fire of meaning and passion in our lives instead of the burdensome feeling that life is just a struggle and a passageway ending in emptiness. It really is an invitation to be part of something so grand that we are absolutely overawed and overjoyed to be part of the opportunity. Something that is more uplifting. To be told that I'm born a sinner is not uplifting. Yes, I do have shadow aspects of myself to work through, but I don't believe we were born with the stamp of sinner seared into our souls. I don't buy that one.

Tammie: Part of what you're talking about makes me think of Matthew Fox and some of his work, where he talks about original blessings rather than original sins. That really resonates with me.

Michael Lindfield: I haven't met Matthew Fox but I know that he and I resonate. Someone who studied with him mentioned that he had included my book in the bibliography for his course. I am very flattered that he would do that and all this says, is that we're probably picking up on a similar outpouring. We are attempting to articulate and give shape to a common inner truth and this is how it's showing up in our writing and speaking.

Tammie: There certainly seems to be some significant common ground between the two of you.

Michael Lindfield: I've been told that and I look forward to meeting him.

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