Recent Posts

Topics

Search




You may also be interested in the NTWP Travel Blog

Links

« Myanmar Tours - Is United Culture A Failed Establishment? | Home | Buying Considerations of a Camp Stove »

Spiritual Travel Is Not A New Concept

By Howie Holben | March 1, 2010

Traveling is a great way to find something to take your mind off everyday routines though sometimes you may come away feeling dissatisfied when you return home from your travels which is the main reason to consider the benefits of spiritual travel. Cathedrals and Madonna portraits can only provide a certain level of satisfaction and often you won’t feel spiritually awake and so it pays to consider traveling to be spiritually awake.

Gay spirituality travel is not just a catch phrase that you hear from the lips of a travel agent because in fact people have from the very earliest times been making pilgrimages. Religious travel is therefore not something that has just become popular. In fact, in the sixteenth century Jesuits from Spain made their way to far away Paraguay and to Brazil as well as to Argentina for the purpose of establishing missions to convert the native peoples of those regions.

In these modern times, traveling for spiritual reasons has become more popular and there are numerous options to choose from that include going to places other than Yucatan, the Vatican and also Egypt. The best way to lift up your spirits is to travel to places where the surroundings are idyllic and a good example is a Buddhist monastery which is mainly found in Asia though some are also located in Europe and in the United States.

For the real Buddhist spiritual travel experience you ought to consider making Bodhgaya (located in Bihar in India). This is the very place where the revered Lord Buddha sat and obtained enlightenment beneath a huge Bodhi tree. Today, this place has seen a huge Mahabodi Temple complex being constructed here and which is inhabited by Buddhist monks from every part of the world.

This place is exceptional as it provides utmost serenity and it is truly very peaceful. You will come across monks from every corner of the world who too sits beneath a gigantic carved statue of Lord Buddha and who read from the Holy Scriptures and indulge in serious contemplation.

Bodhgaya is really the true home of different Buddhist monasteries that in turn are maintained by some Buddhist monks that have come here from their respective countries. For those people that wish to fly to Bodhgaya there is the close-by airport of Gaya that is just seven miles from here. However, flights arrive here infrequently and whatever flights that do land here are those that are coming from Kolkata.

If you are traveling from other parts of India then there is the main airport at Patna the state capital of Bihar and this airport is about eighty-seven miles distant from Bodhgaya. Of course, if you don’t mind a train journey then it is certainly more convenient to use this mode of transportation that is cheap and which will help you reach Gaya very easily.

There are few better places to find gay retreats than Bodhgaya that has kept itself pure and untouched by the ravages of modern civilization. So, a visit to Bodhgaya will not only be very pleasant and productive; it will also be a very different and unique experience as well.

Column created by Howie Holben. Spirit Journeys has great gay retreats and gay travel packages.

Topics: Travel |

Comments

You must be logged in to post a comment.