Spiritual Retreatants

Living in Tiruvannamalai offers seekers many opportunities for retreats and satsangs. Here one sees the full spectrum of spiritual aspirants: the newly curious, the monks, the new-agers, etc. The 
diverse paths from which they come are revealed by behaviors ranging from concentrated introspection to flamboyant extroverted expressions of spiritual community and togetherness. Some time ago I immersed myself in solitary retreat at a center in southern Colorado. Many many years later while at the Ramana Maharshi Library in Tiruvannamalai I happened to read an interview with Father William MacNamara, the head of the Spiritual Life Institute whose retreat center I had attended.

He exposes the variety of pre-conceived beliefs people bring with them to retreats in a relevant, uncluttered, matter of fact way. We have all had the occasion to witness these personality types. Some readers may even see themselves being described! I offer this quote to poke fun at the personal baggage many retreatants still carry with them into the inner sanctuary, a place where all needs to be discarded.

During satsangs, I used to have a sign at my door which read: Leave all your concepts at the door, along with your shoes.

The following quote is from that interview transcribed in the book "Speaking of Silence," Christians and Buddhists on the Contemplative Way, edited by Susan Walker. 1987, Paulist Press, New Jersey.

Some people find it difficult: the overly fastidious who aren't rugged enough; the health food "freaks" who fuss over what they eat, the pseudo-pious who like to hold hands and "share" prayer, who wallow in unctuous grooving on Jesus and talk casually and glibly about him; the excessively horizontal people looking for chummy rap sessions, blissful camaraderie and hugs and kisses at the sign of peace; the "psych-idolaters" who turn psychology into religions and tell you "where I'm at" or "where I'm coming from" and try to bulldoze their way into your inner sanctuary; the pseudo-independent who have no appreciation of the centrality of obedience in the spiritual life; those who use contemplation and prayer as a cop-out, an escape from reality, or a painkiller.

When Sadhana Goes Wrong

Making extreme distinctions between what is "sadhana" and worldly life creates an oppositional and unfriendly world - the more extreme the distinctions, the greater the proportion of separateness.

At some point the tension between the two is unbearable, as in the case of a sadhu who was my neighbor at one time, and she began to see the world as hostile to her and "her sadhana."

The irony is that by definition sadhana would imply a seeking of Self, or Oneness, non-duality Consciousness; but, constantly reinforcing distinctions between what is considered "spiritual" and non-spiritual creates an even greater duality field with a stronger ego to see and project itself as good (interpreted as spiritual) opposed to forces bad (interpreted as non-spiritual).

She polarized even to the extent of not living a satvic lifestyle: not taking care of her living space, rationalizing that even maintaining cleanliness, etc. took time away from sadhana.

It took on at last a messianic complex: her spiritual ego. At some point the pretense of acting "spiritual" was not able to be sustained. The fall from Grace was anti-climactic. And it was a hard fall. She had to be taken away to a mental ward. The very obstacle from which sadhana is hoped to set one free from, the mind, became her prison in the end.