When people hear the term ‘spiritual retreat,’ they often have a romantic vision of some picturesque location, perhaps a tropical island with palm trees and soft sand beaches, or a remote, sun-blessed alpine meadow carpeted with flowers, but in any case somewhere devoid of people and ethereally silent, where we can at last find perfect peace and discover our true ‘spiritual’ nature.  No doubt beauty plays a part in a retreat, but there must also be some difficulty, for without hardships to confront, it is not a retreat but a vacation, and that has a different purpose.

Recently we completed a retreat in New Delhi, at the Dargah of Hazrat Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan, where there was both beauty and difficulty.  The beauty of course was in the atmosphere: even those who have no particular connection with this stream often feel something special at the dargah. Visitors arrive, not sure where they are nor why they have come, and after some time leave with a different, more thoughtful expression.  And for those who have felt a call to this path, the atmosphere communicates much more. There is a special fragrance there that is only partly from the rose petals devotees spread on the tomb each day.  Mureeds have their own experiences, of course, corresponding to their own nature, character and understanding–some speak of a sense of completeness, some of peace, some of inspiration, and some don’t say anything at all. For many, though, a visit to the dargah awakens a seed in their heart that grows for the rest of their life.

As for difficulties, those who have been there know well  that the dargah is in a special location, embedded in the Basti Hazrat Nizamuddin, a medieval village of narrow alleys now completely surrounded by the vast, sleepless urban enormity of New Delhi.  The basti is even more congested than the rest of the city, deafeningly noisy, and in addition to the racket of traffic, street vendors, random firecrackers and frequent wedding celebrations, is blessed with numerous mosques, each of which offers a heavily amplified call to prayer five times a day.  At the moment there is also a large population of wild dogs in the neighbourhood, who hold vigorous discussions about canine politics in the middle of the night, when the human sources of noise have mostly fallen silent. But perhaps the biggest difficulty this year was the pollution.  While we were there news reports around the world carried photos of bleary-eyed buses trying to find their way through the dense smog, and by the end of the retreat most of the participants were suffering from coughs, sore throats  and relentlessly running noses.

Does it sound spiritual?

A retreat means ‘to withdraw,’ in this case to withdraw from our usual habits and patterns, so that we can catch a glimpse of the Truth that has never left us.  If we are too comfortable, it is easy to fly on ‘auto-pilot’, and then we overlook the gift that is held before us.  In such a case when we return to our daily lives any insights gained from the retreat will quickly fade, and we will find ourselves again puzzling over the same questions that drove us to the retreat in the first place.  So, the best attitude for a pilgrim going on a retreat is: take whatever comes with equanimity, for there is blessing in the good and the bad, both. We do not need to actively seek difficulties, for life will always provide a sufficient portion, but perhaps we could say that learning to profit from the difficulties is what makes a retreat ‘spiritual.’