interviews

A Conversation with Michael Lindfield on:

Life, Meaning, Findhorn, and Transformation

cont. p. 5

Tammie: You indicated that your relationship with the late Roberto Assagioli, the father of psychosynthesis, had significantly influenced your thinking. Would you share a little bit about your contact with him?

Michael Lindfield: Yes, I first met Roberto in 1968, in the south of England and I didn't know at that time of his pioneering work in the field of psychology. I was introduced to him as the nominal head of a meditation group I had recently joined. The group was holding its annual convention in the south of England.

I arrived and I spoke with the person who was organizing the event. We had talked previously and she knew that I was going through some pretty dark times. I was meeting my shadow, as its called, in a variety of unsettling ways. Yes, they were pretty dark inner times. If I were to have told my story to a conventionally trained psychiatrist or doctor, I was afraid that I wouldn’t be allowed to leave their office. Men in white coats might have taken me away because my ramblings would not have made sense to the accepted medical version of life. That scenario seems to lack a vision of who we are on an "essential level" and what happens to us in that magical process we call the "spiritual search".

The conference organizer said, "look, you need to have a session with Roberto, I'll arrange it for you. Just write out your story." And so I wrote out the story of my journey and all the things that were happening to me. I went to see him and all I could feel when I entered the room and shook hands was this wave of love, this wave of wisdom. He had written a study paper called, "Smiling Wisdom" and that title really sums him up for me.

This was a very important session for me and my mind had played out various scenarios. I had indulged in some fantasies of what might take place. I fully expected to be given the esoteric guidelines for aspiring souls – full of hidden hints and words of power. Instead, he just looked at me and said, "you need to be kind to yourself at this time in your life. You need to treat yourself. If you feel like having an ice cream, go and have one. Take yourself for long walks and don't read your Alice Bailey books at night. Read them in the light of day."

He was doing everything he could to help heal me in a way that still affirmed the path that I was on. As I later discovered, he was very lovingly nudging me and telling not to take myself too seriously because the spiritual path is serious stuff. It came across as serious fun when Roberto spoke. So, even though I was having some very heavy experiences, he helped bring out and reveal the light that lived within my shadow. By his words and compassionate listening, I could tell that he was very, very generous in sharing himself.

At the end of the session, he said, "look, this might be useful to you." He handed me his book, "Psychosynthesis: A Manual of Principles and Techniques". I said, "oh, great - thanks!" I finally realized that he was the founder of psychosynthesis. At that time in the sixties, there was "a wall of silence" between his work as a spiritual teacher and his work as a psychologist, because it was felt that this knowledge, if made public, could possibly harm his professional reputation. We didn't want that because he had a mission to fulfill in several worlds, one being that of a spiritual mentor and the other, a pioneer in the field of psychology. Today, these facts about Roberto’s life are fairly well known to students of Psychosynthesis, but at an earlier time, it was kept quiet.

I went down to visit him in Florence, Italy the following year. I felt drawn to go and he very graciously received me even though he was suffering from a bad cold. He was very busy and didn't have long to live. I think he sensed it as he was told to put all his other work aside and focus on completing a book called, "An Act of Will."

I had a number of questions for him about the use of the psychosynthesis materials. I remember saying, " look, normally, I don't belong to schools or go to colleges or go to training courses. I’m enrolled in the "School of Life" and daily situations are my classrooms. I know in psychosynthesis that you have to be certified to use it publicly, but I'd love to take what you have done, and just add to it and translate it into my own form of expression. Is that okay? Do I have your permission?"

He smiled at me and said, "Psychosynthesis is not an institution, it's an intuition. Be in touch with the quality and the energy of synthesis and be guided by it and it will show up in different ways. This isn't a fixed form that has to be copyrighted."

Once again, his wise words helped me from overly focusing on the form-side of life and pointed me to the essential nature of the work. Form is important as it provides a vehicle through which the spiritual identity may express itself, but form is not the identity.

Very gently, in just a few meetings, Roberto had helped with what I would call "course correction" in my life. He helped me get back on course and gave me some navigational aids. I have his photograph above my desk in my office at home and I have it here at my office at Boeing.

Roberto is what I would call a very "dear older brother". Even though he passed away many years ago, his presence still gives me strength. I look at his photograph and his eyes are twinkling. He was, and is, a very special person in my life but I don't want to "deify" him. I just want to say that he was somebody who had the love and the willingness to stretch out a hand, to really give me what I needed at that time. It was a precious gift, and one that I'm still receiving a great deal of sustenance from.

Tammie: It sounds like you've learned to pass it on, just as he took time with you; you're taking time with me. Here was this man whom you held in high regard, and in spite of the fact that he was very busy, particularly during your second visit, he took the time because he knew how genuinely interested you were in hearing what he had to say. What also struck me Michael when I read his book several years ago was that he was the first person that I was aware of in my field who was not pathologizing spiritual emergencies. He was not saying, "this is an illness, there's something wrong here."

Michael Lindfield: That's why I felt that I could speak to him and not to anybody else. He saw my condition as a healthy sign of an inner struggle. He did not use a pathological model to interpret the somewhat disturbing symptoms of my situation.

Tammie: Exactly, you are so fortunate to have met him because I think he was one of the first people in my field to acknowledge that while pain is certainly not a welcomed experience, it can hold promise.

Michael Lindfield: That's why I'm eternally grateful that I met him when I did and that I was able to do some course correction. I think that if I had gone further off course without the benefit of help, it would have taken a much longer time and an even tougher battle to get back.

Tammie: Moving onto the next question, I realize that you've already spoken about your time at Findhorn, but I'm wondering if there's anything you might want to add about your experience there.

Michael Lindfield: Findhorn was really like an encapsulation of the world - even though in the early days it was a world unto itself. It was a spiritual greenhouse. We were living in community and focusing on our intra and inter-personal dynamics in order to be better equipped to serve in the world. In choosing this collective path we had to deal with everything the world faces - power, sex, money, earning a living, building relationships, education and governance. Findhorn contained all aspects of life -- these were the classrooms.

What it did for me was to help round me out as a human being. It helped all of me be present and it gave me some incredibly deep lessons. And that's where I met my wife, Binka, and that's where we raised our two children, Elysia and Coren. It is amazing how things turn out differently from what we have in mind. Never in my wildest moments had I dreamed that one day I would have a family. I always saw myself as this loner strolling around the planet attempting to do good deeds. An image of myself as a knight of the Round Table, who had a more important mission to fulfill than raising children, had been with me in my early 20s. Then I found myself in this relationship and the images crumbled.

Looking back, the path of the family has been the greatest gift. Findhorn gave me many gifts during my 14 years in the community and I was also able to give to Findhorn. The measure I used in order to see if it was still right to be at Findhorn was the degree to which it was giving to me and that I was giving to it.

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