You’ve seen it promoted by all the great teachers – the spiritual retreat.
‘Join me for a 3 day mindfulness workshop in Thailand’
‘Book a place on our meditation weekend workshop in Maui’
‘Learn the art of stillness on a paradise island’
Here’s my issue with it. I’d probably be self sufficient with mindfulness in paradise. My stillness on a beautiful spiritual retreat would likely take care of itself!
Wouldn’t deep spiritual training be better embedded within our crazy lives? Usually when we need spiritual practice the most is when life is beating us down and our surroundings aren’t particularly inspiring. Spiritual growth is hard when all the forces of our lives are bearing down on us, we naturally want to retreat, but it’s in these moments where we need techniques and teaching the most.
The main problem with the spiritual retreat is contained in the title…
Why do we have to retreat from life to be spiritual?
It’s a systemic problem in all enlightenment searching, you must retreat from life in order to fully connect to it.
