Spiritual retreats - a break from worldly clutters
Day to day activities like office workloads, domestic tensions and materialistic wants take a toll on a person and he might feel restless and depressed. The want of running away from all this is high and retreats provide the need to break free a direction.
Spiritual retreats and its types
Religious trips or vacations taken in order to search inner peace, mental stability and to be closer to God are called a retreat. This kind of vacation is taken in places like Mission San Luis retreat Center http://www.sanluisrey.org/retreats/ - far away from the noises and workings of a city. And can be taken alone or in a group and thus can be divided into two types: personal retreat and group retreat.
In a personal retreat, a person goes into the retreat alone or with his immediate family. This is more flexible in nature as the person can practice meditation and exercise and pray at his own time and space. There is no fixed routine or procedure to be followed in his quest of inner peace.
In group retreat, the religious groups organize camps. People can enroll themselves in these camps and follow a simple and balanced life in order to attain peace. They run on routines and the time for different activities like exercise, meditation, talks and prayers are fixed.
Needs and components
In the fast paced life, people work like automatons and have forgot to live life on their own terms. They have become like robots without emotions and are not at all in peace with themselves. In order to break this monotony and machine like effect, one should take upon the path of retreat. The basic need of retreats is to find inner voice back and to get in touch with one’s God again.
The basic components of religious retreats are: choice of place: places nearer to nature and away from the congested cities are preferred. Prayers and meditations: a person has to meditate and pray in order to settle down his mind. Meditations helps in self introspection and prayers helps to feel the closeness to God. Exercises help in relaxing and stretching the tired body. Reading and talks motivates and encourages the people in take upon these journeys. They help in clearing our doubts that we may have before taking on these trips.
How are they helpful?
As repeated time and again, retreats help one to cleanse his mind and get closer to God. The other ways in which they are helpful are:
• Relaxes and calms the mind
• Helps in introspection
• De-stresses the mind and body
• Helps in understanding one’s religion and God
• Attainment of inner peace helps a person to be happy and do his work with a new interest.
• Health conditions of a person becomes better
Planning and internet research
A clear cut plan is required to take on Spiritual retreats, one has to be mentally convinced and a well detailed research regarding the places, camps and budget involved too is needed. Internets help in this planning as there are a number of websites like http://www.sanluisrey.org/ which helps people with their queries.
Contact :
Contact Person: Maureen Sullivan
E-mail: [email protected]
Old Mission San Luis Rey de Francia
Address: 4050 Mission Avenue, Oceanside, CA 92057-6402
Tel/Fax: (760) 757-3651
Website: http://www.sanluisrey.org/