Support for Long-Term Monastic Retreats

In every serious spiritual tradition, there is a time of long solitary sadhana (retreats). It is a time when you can make a serious spiritual breakthrough, delve into the knowledge of the Atman, your divine essence.

Maintaining the provision of long-term retreats is an opportunity, even while engaged in daily activities, to become involved in the spiritual experience that the monks who practice in the retreats nurture. After all, as you know, if the land of wisdom of one monk has grown, it affects the entire sangha, because we are a single field.

«In the retreat, when you are alone with God, your mind and karma, you will re-evaluate all your views on life and the world, you will know your worth and understand your karma. You will understand who you really are, what this life is. You will learn the value of your words and thoughts, as well as what is behind them. You will understand that a day or even a minute of practice is more valuable than a thousand words and many years of reasoning about it».

For centuries, sadhus have gone away from people, into seclusion or hermitage, where they devote all their energies to the knowledge of God. And today the same thing is happening.

In our tradition, Guru has given a stable system of retreat practices for both monks and lay students. The training program prescribes various options for solitude, ranging from 1-3-5 days and 1-3-5 months, ending with annual, 3- and 5-year retreats.

The longer the retreat is, the more intense it is, the more powerful the transformation it can bring, and the more preparation it requires. Therefore, only experienced monks who have completed a 12-year course of study, those who are ready for serious spiritual work, undergo long retreats in the community.

Retreats are a deep transformation. They are tapas, spiritual combustion, transcendence of oneself. As a result of such austerities, pure spiritual energy is generated, which in the Vedic tradition is called shuddha-sattva (holiness and purity that transcends duality).

Therefore, providing long retreats, where the energy of holiness is born, is a great merit.

This is an opportunity, even while engaged in daily activities, to become involved in the spiritual experience that monks who practice in retreats nurture.

This is an opportunity to create such karmic reasons that in the future will ensure the successful completion of long-term sadhanas, and therefore a serious spiritual transformation.