Yoga Retreats Awaken Your Inner Nature

Without retreat, without being alone, the mind is like muddy water. But the mind in retreat, being alone and free from outside distractions, is like a calm, crystal-clear lake. There is the clarity to help see oneself more clearly and to see one’s own pure nature more easily.

It is a happy feeling when we have the opportunity to go on a yoga retreat. It is a time to be cherished for it helps awaken the compassion within ourselves that will be of benefit so many countless other beings. We also give ourselves the time to be nourished and revived, so that we may once again experience love of our inner Self.

Benefits Of Retreat

Affectionate Loving Kindness

Retreat gives us the environment to develop the basic human qualities of affection and loving kindness. If we do not generate these qualities and express them towards others, we shall not receive the affection upon which our own happiness depends.

Practice What You Have Received

Retreat is important as it gives us the time for putting the teachings we have received from our teachers into practice.

Switch Off

We are generally so caught up in sense enjoyments and our various obligations to others that retreat time is the only time we have to relax. In retreat we are free to think and have some quiet, peaceful time for ourselves, without distractions. In such a retreat situation you are forced to come face to face with yourself in depth, to meet yourself.

See Things As They Truly Are

Retreat helps draw your consciousness away from a false view and into reality. It helps you discover your inner Self. Only by recognising our false views that have been catching the mind and learning to distinguish between what is true and what is false is it possible to change our lives for the better.

Develop The Mind

We start to break free from ignorance, from the dissatisfied mind of attachment, and from the self-cherishing thought.

Why do people need to do a yoga retreat?

One simple reason is happiness. The peace and happiness of parents, for example, depend upon their children’s having affection and compassion towards them. And the children’s peace and happiness depend upon their parent’s affection and compassion. The same is true for couples or partners: each member’s peace, happiness and success depend upon the compassion and kindness of the other person. For teachers and students as well, their peace and happiness depend upon one another.

On a larger scale, the relationship between the leader of a country and its population also depends upon their cultivation of a proper attitude, a good heart, and compassion. And is one person is avoiding bringing problems such as violence to a country or even to the whole world, that too depends upon his or her development of compassion, loving kindness and a good heart.

If all people were to take care of their mind and develop a loving, compassionate attitude towards one another, they would naturally act with loving compassion. People would automatically stop harming each other and there would no longer be any need for rules and regulations to be set down and enforced. But today there are so many criminals that there is no place to put them all!

Even a stranger in the street can show affection, a warm heart, loving kindness and respect for another stranger, giving him or her much happiness. With such loving, compassionate thoughts combined with one’s own kindness, one’s own respectful actions, it is possible to bring happiness and peace to many people every day, even to non-human beings.

But even if the message were already widespread that compassion and tolerance are greatly needed nowadays, for both individuals and the peace of the world, this alone would not be sufficient. One has to know how to develop such qualities. The solution is found by entering into retreat, into a situation where it is possible to fulfill our basic human potential and develop all the positive qualities within us. Retreat gives us the time and space to allow for the growth of this basic human quality. This is crucial and most urgent, a true emergency. Why? Because others lives are in danger, and so is our own.

There will always be problems and dissatisfaction as long as we think that the causes of happiness and the causes of suffering lie outside ourselves. But the experiences of our life – and what the omniscient mind says – tell us that the source of happiness is within one’s own mind. You can find satisfaction, peace and happiness only within your own mind. Therefore, retreat and meditation practice become the ultimate solution for any and all of our problems.