I have recently received the inspiration to do two 5-day Sufi retreats annually , one in Canada during the late summer/ early autumn and one in Tobago during the winter.To my way of thinking , this represents the natural complement to the weekly Wisal(dhikr) meetings and the elaboration of a daily spiritual practice routine( see articles on this blog re this subject). With all three in place one should have the spiritual infrastructure to make serious progress on our path to Allah.
So “What is a Sufi Retreat/ Happening”, you may ask. It is a period of time we hang-out together in a peaceful and preferably beautiful natural environment, doing our daily spiritual practices together and trying as best we can to connect with our Creator. It should be neither stressful with over-exertion nor slacking-off like a day at the beach( more on this later). Hopefully with the Generosity of God, something happens which shifts our consciousness and moves us to the next level spiritually. Let us all make dua( prayer) that this adventure brings us to satisfaction regardless of the nature of our experience.(In this light,even so-called negative experience or non-experience can lead us to progress to the next level).
Many questions come up as we try to organize these retreats ,which is no simple matter, but one of the first is the issue of money. Unfortunately , we live in a society which is more than ever before obsessed with financial issues. We are inundated everyday with slogans like ” the lowest price is the law”(Wrong!) and “financial planning is the key to happiness and peace of mind” and endless ads telling us that they can save us money. Our society has developed pseudo-sciences like Business Administration, Marketing and Human Resources( what a disgusting term,-used to be called ‘Personnel ‘ but now they have taken the person out of the equation and left us with humans only as resources! Obviously resources to generate more money. So the MBAs have encouraged cost- cutting, “rationnalizing” serviices and productivity quotients all to maximize the”bottom line” . Yup, it lines up well with the rest of the junk in the bottom.All of this ends up generating more stress and misery for human beings.
Given this obsesion with money, the first thing people want to know about an activity is the price.Sad, really. The real question should be”What is the price of missing this opportunity?” lol in fact, this could have important consequences for peoples after- life so it is priceless, Now I could have designed this seminar for a lower price.(Please note that I am making no money on this initiative. In fact if it is anything like any of my other spiritual initiatives, I will lose money once again.)
Now,most authentic spiritual teachers don’t like talking about money as they find it base and vulgar. Outside of teaching people not to be tight- fisted(‘bughul’ in Arabic) but rather to give in charity.As well we are taught not to be extravagant . However ,money issues are considerably more complicated than that in the modern world.
Ok.Back to the issue at hand. This spiritual retreat is designed to provide the most favorable conditions possible to arrive at mystical experience(‘hal’) and to have openings( ‘futuhat’). Admittedly,any results one obtains come from the Rahmat( Mercy) and Generosity of Allah.However, it is incumbent on us to make every effort possible to make these experiences possible.One of the ingredients of these ideal conditions is to be in a beautiful,natural environment with as few distractions as possible. I believe the Gaia Wellness Retreat Center fulfills those criteria more than amply. The other condition is to eliminate stress as much as possible. This will be adressed shortly.
So we come back to the money issue. If I had wished we could have perhaps held the seminar for half the cost! But then the participants would have been obliged to do all the work of organizing the space,making the food,collecting the fees, etc.,etc.Instead,the way it is now organized we will have a partner in the Gaia Wellness Retreat Center who will be helping us with the work. That is their mission,by the way.The seminars I have attended where the students themselves did all the work, I have found to be very stressful!And stress kills the serenity needed for spiritual experience as “fire burns wood” to quote a well- known hadith about envy.
Another concern in this retreat format is the best length of time. I, myself, have done 3-day retreats( one memorable one with Sheikh Nuh) , 7-day retreats, 21 – day and even fourty days a long time ago. Sheikh Nazim did 6- month retreats with his Sheikh and the Mindfulness movement favours a 10-day formula. At this point I pam going on intuition but the length of time may have to be altered in the light of experience.
The other issue is intensity . Now we hear of retreats like that of Grandsheikh Abdullah Daghestani where the formula of ‘laillaha ilala’ was recited 99,000 times er day with fasting being broken by a glass of tea and seven olives and restarted again. We could call that hard-core lol.The opposite format could be the five prayers and lying on the beach the rest of the time lol.Somewhere in between we need to find the right intensity. Personally I have found that exaggerating the intensity does not work well.During the fourty – day retreat I pushed myself to the verge of psychosis and have no desire to revisit that place. Nor is slacking- off an option. So the true middle way is our goal.
By now the concrete amongst you is probably asking:”So what is the price”?It will be $300 plus tax for the seminar and between $225-$425 plus tax for the accomodations.I hope you can see your way to putting aside that amount for your spiritual upliftment. I don’t think you will regret it but if you do ,you will have to refer it back to your Lord as their will be no refunds for unsatisfied customers lol.
- Salaams and Looking forward to seeing you there,IbrahimKreps
